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The 7 habits of highly UNsuccessful epinionistsMar 30 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line 7 key pitfalls identified with ideas and information given on how to avoid them
The epinions community has a lot to offer its members – publication of writing, rating of work, financial remuneration and the opportunity to meet interesting people from around the world and make new friends. Unfortunately, many epinionists are unsuccessful in achieving these advantages and below I list, as I see them, the 7 habits of highly unsuccessful epinionists, points to bear in mind if you want to avoid key pitfalls when writing for epinions.com and the epinions community. 1. Anonymity 2. Rudeness 3. Writing poorly 4. Writing ineffectively 5. Not reading other members’ work 6. Ratings wars 7. Abusing the web of trust 1. Anonymity It’s so important to have a good, detailed and friendly looking profile of yourself for the other members to read and look over. Unsuccessful epinionists will have forgotten or refused to include even just a real first name, will not have included their e-mail address and will not have enclosed any other info about themselves. This looks really bad – makes the member appear rude or shady and hardly establishes their credentials as a positive person and a respectable and quality member of the epinions community. Also bear this point in mind when rating other member’s work – unsuccessful epinionists might tend to rate anonymously, especially if their ratings are unflattering. But this is hardly in the spirit of what the epinions community is meant to be all about and should, as a rule, be avoided at all times. 2. Rudeness It almost goes without saying – if you want members to like you and respect your work, be kind and thoughtful toward them. Unsuccessful epinionists will often refuse to answer any comments or e-mail written to them by other members. This not only appears lazy, it really is quite rude. If an unsuccessful epinionist does write back on comments left by another member, it’s more likely that those comments will be of an accusatory nature, questioning the critic’s abilities and motives. Again, this is unsound and uncalled for. Ask calmly for explanations of poor ratings and always refer to other members with courtesy and respect. 3. Writing poorly Good writing is the hallmark of a good epinionist – therefore bad writing can often be the calling card of the bad epinions member. An unsuccessful epinionist will often write lazy, undetailed, incoherent, poorly thought out reviews and articles that often don’t rate well and are seen negatively by other members. Your writing is your main opportunity to establish your epinions personality, to get yourself not only known, but liked and respected as well. Writing well is a great way to build up a fan base whilst writing poorly simply alienates you from the rest of the membership. 4. Writing ineffectively There is a big difference between simply writing poor quality work and writing ineffectively. Ineffective writers are invariably unsuccessful epinionists. Their work can easily be distinguished for its lack of an eye-catching title, lack of organisation of material, lack of rich and engaging vocabulary and lack of warmth and personality in one’s writing. Writing good pieces takes more than the ability to string words together. It’s important to write in full sentences, to punctuate well, to spell correctly, to use good quality vocabulary and to get something of yourself and your own thoughts and opinions and experiences across in your work. 5. Not reading other members’ writing An unsuccessful epinionist is a member who spends all his time writing and none of his time reading. It’s an invaluable thing to go and read the work of others. Not only will it give you a feel for what the membership is looking for in its articles and reviews, it will also allow you to find out and acquaint yourself with your fellow members and their work. Even when an unsuccessful epinionist does bother to read the writing of others, they will invariably forget to rate the member’s work fairly and honestly. That’s not a good move as rating a member’s work will allow them to see you have taken the time to read and rate their writing and your reputation as a positive member of the community will grow and develop. 6. Ratings’ Wars When an unsuccessful epinionist’s writing is critiqued by another member, what does the unsuccessful epinionist do? Update their work? Listen to the advice kindly given by the other member? Think things over and try a different approach in future? No, they go and rate the other members’ articles as ‘not helpful’. Not only is this sort of thing unfair and against the spirit of the community, it leaves a bad taste in other members’ mouths and will serve only to further alienate the unsuccessful epinionist and their writing from the main fold of the community. 7. Abusing the web of trust The unsuccessful epinionist does not care for good relations and connections within the epinions community and does not attempt to create and forge them. Instead, he or she simply abuses the resources at their disposal by clicking a member into their web of trust for a few days in the hope that they will be grateful enough to read the unsuccessful epinionist’s work, and then will throw them out once that end has been achieved. As a practice it stinks, but the ramifications for the unsuccessful epinionist are great and often significant. The other members will catch on and will choose not to read the epinionist’s writing in future. His/her cunning plan will have blown up in their face. Take my advice: use the epinions resources with both integrity and care. I hope members find these points interesting and informative. For more information on how to write quality articles and reviews, how to make good money from your work here or how to establish your online credentials and personality on epinions, please refer to my other articles on the ‘7 habits’ theme.  |
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