Exactly my sentiments when I joined Boddunan. Anyways I was a bit misled by the statement 'revenue sharing' which in true sense of the term is not as it pays it's author upfront and no revenue is share thereafter on the article submitted.

And when I look at the payment scale, I was shocked to see 100 rupees is what a well written and formatted article gets. I dropped the idea of writing any article here then, though I am in love with boddunan community and thats what keeps me at the forum active a bit.

I still believe writers should be getting more than this. But writers here seem to be happy with the payment so I have stop cribbing about the issue now.

Also, I am undertaking a mentorship program, which hopefully will make the members aware of the earning potential of their writing.

And as far as your original question about moderators and cash credits go, I honestly can't comment on that as I have hardly read articles here but yea, I have spotted a few spun articles and had even notified the admin.

I would like to think that they are doing a decent job.

Dear Kimberly

First I want to welcome you on boddunan. I am editor on this site .article edited by be and other editors and cash credit decided by moderator.

If you send link then we could answer better way.

Kimberley, I am sorry that you feel that way. But several articles with errors have been published in the earlier days when there were no set guidelines. But now we really try to publish articles that are free of any kind of errors, but like Santosh pointed out, if you post links to some with very many obvious errors, we will try to correct them. But please post links here as early as possible.

To my mind what Kimberley has expressed - which is so candid and constructive- should be given due consideration. In fact in the initial days I made a few posts highlighting some of the issues.

I also feel that the standard of many articles is not good enough. apart from grammatical mistakes, many are even shorter than forum posts and have very little content. These also do not carry cash of more than Rs. 10/-.

The editors are not full time professional but they are part time and chosen from members. But there is criteria for selection of editors and generally they have reasonable proficiency. Editorial standard may not be as high as expected But we are all learners. Let us continuously improve and raise our standard.

Welcome to Kimberly to this wonderful family.What you told is right.As a new member every one feel so.Hence site owners are to be careful.

I think she has articulated her views in an extremely pragmatic light! Hope these are not dismmissed negatively!

Arun - I think why people are happy with what they get is "something's better than nothing". After, we all know that even the best writers can have difficulty actually getting published. So, this provides a great outlet for both - getting published and getting paid! And, i guess there's nothing wrong about that.
Maybe i just have "great expectations!" :)

Santosh - It was just a general observation. I would not like to pin-point articles. I guess when I joined In I got the impression that this was a site run by professionals who have a set of formal "editors" who would be reviewing our work. Thus, the disappointment. Also, it is a site for/by Indians - that makes it a sentimental issue too - the expectations are more :)

I was shocked to find some articles with grammatical errors to the extent that I couldn't even understand some of them. Ideally, these articles should not even be approved for publishing. But, some of them are given cash credits of 5-10.
Then, how can we justify a very well-informed, well edited, well presented article also getting the same amount?! That is not only discouraging, it will also give writers the idea that they can write ANYthing (as long as it is not copied) and get away with it!

What is worse, this is the internet - there are people/writers from all over who will be seeing our work (isn't it?) and what kind of an impression does this give them?

I am sorry if I am being too blunt. Maybe my expectations were too high. But, I know we Indians can do soooo much better and I just cannot fathom putting up a poor picture about us out here.

I still have hope that things can improve if the issue is taken seriously. And maybe, like Kalyani said, we can point out those posts, not with the intent of maligning the author, but helping each other improve.
But, is there a separate forum for that?

Arun - I think why people are happy with what they get is "something's better than nothing". After, we all know that even the best writers can have difficulty actually getting published. So, this provides a great outlet for both - getting published and getting paid! And, i guess there's nothing wrong about that.
Maybe i just have "great expectations!" :)

Santosh - It was just a general observation. I would not like to pin-point articles. I guess when I joined In I got the impression that this was a site run by professionals who have a set of formal "editors" who would be reviewing our work. Thus, the disappointment. Also, it is a site for/by Indians - that makes it a sentimental issue too - the expectations are more :)

I was shocked to find some articles with grammatical errors to the extent that I couldn't even understand some of them. Ideally, these articles should not even be approved for publishing. But, some of them are given cash credits of 5-10.
Then, how can we justify a very well-informed, well edited, well presented article also getting the same amount?! That is not only discouraging, it will also give writers the idea that they can write ANYthing (as long as it is not copied) and get away with it!

What is worse, this is the internet - there are people/writers from all over who will be seeing our work (isn't it?) and what kind of an impression does this give them?

I am sorry if I am being too blunt. Maybe my expectations were too high. But, I know we Indians can do soooo much better and I just cannot fathom putting up a poor picture about us out here.

I still have hope that things can improve if the issue is taken seriously. And maybe, like Kalyani said, we can point out those posts, not with the intent of maligning the author, but helping each other improve.
But, is there a separate forum for that?

Well, if they think that, they are totally unaware of the value of their words and the right payment. They deserve a lot more.

But I also appreciate Boddunan for it's effort. It is one of kind site for Indian authors. I know there is a lot to be improved but I am glad that a revenue model exists for Indian authors.

Though I agree that bad grammar and hard to understand English put us in bad light in front of our readers, you should also take into consideration that English is not our native language. So I would give them a bit of discount. But yea, keep improving is the buzz word here.

Also, I have been a editor at an leading freelance company (The stint lasted for only 4 months and then I had to focus and concentrate on my own projects) and we were asked to be very tough on the freelancers. The parameters on which we were to judge articles were as follows:

1.Grammar

2.Proper sentence structure

3.Punctuation

$.Spelling

5.How useful and unique the content is

6.Does the writer have a strong understanding of the subject he has written about

7.Is the content properly formatted for online publishing.

and many more parameters.

We were asked to give detailed feedback to the authors to improve them.

I think Boddunan can also do the same, give detailed feedback to the author submitting poorly written and/or formatted article. Also suspend accounts of authors who keeps repeating the same mistake.

Also, Boddunan can have one super moderator who can check approved articles by moderator, this will make the process more stringent.

I hope what I have said will make sense to some.

Also Kimberly I think you should personally message the links to poor articles to Admin or Kalyani. This way you will not be pinpointing and will also help to clean the site without causing animosity and hatred.