Because the people who don’t play that game are CATCHING ON. And please EXCUSE MY CAPITAL LETTERS, but it’s ABOUT TIME.

The news? Professor Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? announced today on his blog, BuzzMachine.com, that he had declined Demand Media’s invitation to join their advisory board.

Professor Jarvis said in his announcement today,

…Demand is uniquely controversial right now and so I decided to decline its invitation to advise and also thought I should disclose that here once it made its announcement…”

“Uniquely controversial.”

Yes, Demand Media’s CEO has recently objected to his company being called a content mill, because, well, content mills tend to not like that term, but the only real controversy that I am aware of regarding Demand Media that might cause a highly regarded person to cite controversy as the reason for declining such a post is the [alleged] eHow UK scam.

I can’t read Professor Jarvis’ mind, and I can’t speak for him, but there is a good chance he smelled what Ian Lurie recently said about the eHow controversy and its terms of service,

If it stinks and it’s mushy, it’s probably bullshit.”

And Professor Jarvis is the kinda guy who does his homework and who understands the online content industry as few others do.

So I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that Mr. Jarvis did his due diligence to learn the stinky, mushy details of the eHow UK scam.

That’s not to say he necessarily agrees that it’s a scam or has any particular opinion about the controversy, just that he is no doubt aware of the allegations, and is concerned enough to decline the association.

But Professor Jarvis, if  you see this and I’m off base, call me on it and I’ll apologize right here. And not an eHow-style apology, either. A real, I’m sorry I messed up, bona fide apology.

Here is a quote from my recent comment to a reader, showing all that Mr. Jarvis would have needed to do to get a little background information on the company that wanted him to associate his good name with theirs:

…Any investor can run a quick search of the phrase, “ehow is a scam” (in quotes, or results are skewed to unrelated content) and find 9,170 results. Try it.

Okay, now search “InfoBarrel is a scam.” There are 0 results. ZERO. But InfoBarrel is relatively new, so let’s look at “HubPages is a scam,” and consider those 5 results, four of which are actually stating that HubPages is NOT a scam and used the phrase for attention. Zero for “Squidoo is a scam.”

Those three COMBINED have 5 search results for their names, in quotes, associated with the phrase, “is a scam.” eHow has 9,170 not counting “eHow UK scam,” at 1,480.

Do you think future investors will consider that significant? They will if they care about their money. Because those numbers will catch up with you, Demand Media, if they haven’t already.

By scheming to deprive writers of their earnings, during the winter holidays, during one of the worst economic times this country has known, history will show that for want of principles, the Demand Media-eHow kingdom was ultimately lost. And that is as it should be.”

THIS, dear readers, is going to snowball.

And it’s thanks to you. You spoke up here and on the eHow forums, on your blogs, and Tweets, and comments all over the Web, and you continue to speak up.

When uninformed (or possibly unequally compensated) eHow members and staff tell you to shut up and go away if you don’t like being…scammed, you stay and take it. And that’s not easy.

You ask the hard questions over and over, and you hang in there and take the insults and excuses and lies and double talk and censoring, and you don’t stop.

It’s enough that some of you merely say, “Hey, I’m here, count me in,” in the off-site groups that have formed and grown and continue to swell with the ranks of the righteously angry, the betrayed, dismayed, and played.

(Sorry, I prefer a little bad humor with my anger.)

So hey, ya’ll. Even if the reckoning stops here–and I’m betting it won’t–Demand Media just lost a battle. They lost the opportunity to add a wise, ethical, and informed contributor to their team.

And if you have been sitting on the fence about this issue, do your homework. Join us. If you didn’t agree with us before, even if you were once a forum troll yourself and you now see the light, come on over.

You owe it to yourself and to the future of the Internet to be informed and take a stand.

The Internet is where the people who will sign your retirement checks and teach your grandchildren when you are old will get their information, and to a great extent, where they are already learning how to treat others in business and in life.

And P.S. You may comment here anonymously. I personally read every comment before posting it, and if you want to share your opinion or information without having it made public, just say so.

I can keep a secret like a Demand Media employee manipulating internal links and keywords on New Year’s Day, but without screenshots.

For the latest in non-answers to the eHow UK scam questions, we go to eHow’s community rep, Rich Noguchi. An eHow member asked Rich yesterday,

“…I do have a very important question, and it relates to earnings.  Does eHOW plan on changing the WCP thing?  In other words, once this new global site is up, will we writers still be paid like we are today, by ad clicks?  I know there are many who are wondering about this very question.”

And Rich’s response,

“Yes, we will make sure to accomodate to our writers’ needs. However, I must clarify and say that today’s WCP payment algorithm is not based on “ad clicks.” We do not disclose in detail how our algorithm works, but we do indicate in our writer resource page as well as our TOS that many variables are considered when payments are issued.  Thanks. -Rich”

Okay, the primary question is, is eHow going to continue its Writer Compensation Program. It sure doesn’t look like it, the way they are squeezing out residual income writers in favor of prepaid articles, which is why the member is asking.

But that question gets brushed off with, “we will make sure to accommodate our writers’ needs.”

Well, eHow has two kinds of writers, and one of them, which eHow is increasingly favoring, is not paid via the WCP. They are paid small, one-time payments. So what does that even mean?

EHow has not “accommodated” the majority of its WCP writers’ needs in any sense of the word since last August when it launched its mirror site in the US, threw a UK flag on it, and used it as an excuse to bilk WCP writers out of many thousands of dollars–maybe more–for more than six months, and continues to do so.

EHow has not accommodated its WCP writers who want access to change their own personal profiles on its scam UK site, in spite of the members’ continued protests.

But Rich has a real answer for the secret algorithm, to which he devotes most of his response, using semantics yet again to avoid the real issue. We all know that ad clicks are a significant component of the secret algorithm. That’s what it’s all about. But instead of just answering the guy’s question, he zings him on a technicality. Sheesh.

This writer’s questions (mine, actually) on the same forum thread from two days ago have still not been answered:

At least two major issues remain that many of us would appreciate an answer to:

1. Not all of our losses can be accounted for by what the so-called UK site gained. Sure, you estimated what some people’s articles earned there and “compensated” them, but I know for a fact you did not pay everyone for their “UK” views.

But besides that, will eHow compensate us for our earnings losses that can be attributed to our original articles disappearing from the search engines for a time, or falling so low that no one saw them? You caused us damage in more than one way, and still have not compensated everyone. Is there a phase 2 planned for compensating everyone who lost potential income by investing in eHow during this fiasco?

2. What does the invitation-by force have to do with the global community, when the “UK” site is and always was in the US, with US writers’ articles, and that UK residents could not join? I am beyond perplexed, and I know I’m not the only one.

Another way to not answer pressing issues is to ignore them. Good strategy, eHow.

This is the “eHow way” these days. Scam your members, then skate around their questions like you’re Apolo Ohno.

Stay tuned for the eHow UK Scam Part Trois. Or be smart and run like hell.

I hear Examiner is looking for pet writers (meaning writers for topics about pets, not secret forum moderators.)

Now, the eHow forums, where members could at least discuss their questions and opinions until they were banned and/or censored, have eHow member-minions helping the scam along. The last couple of days, the suspected “secret forum moderators” (oh, please, tell me I didn’t just use that phrase with a straight face), have been throwing red herrings into the forum like it was Lent.

Oh, wait a minute…what week is this?

And if that’s not bad enough, members posting their valid opinions on the forum, (which is where you would THINK eHow would want them to feel free to post, as opposed to, say Conversation Marketing, Crunchy Data, or ComplaintsBoard.com), have actually had their words twisted and edited in an apparent attempt at humor in quotes by one “secret moderator.”

And you stood by and let them, eHow reps.

eHow, you won’t let me ask you where your so-called “UK” server resides, but you let your minions deliberately misquote and misrepresent other members in your forums?

This is so wrong. First eHow exploits member-owned content for their own financial gain without fair compensation, and now they are letting their senior minions run roughshod over other members with legitimate opinions, in direct opposition to their own stated forum rules.

Don’t think so, eHow. Ya’ll are diggin’ yourselves in deeper, and you’d best take another look at that.

Because when your members cannot discuss their opinions peaceably and reasonably in your forums about YOU victimizing them not once, not twice, but at least three times, without fear of their words being twisted…where do you think that discussion will end up?

Yup. All over the Internet. That place that’s stickier than a 10-year-old boy’s Xbox 360 remote. And harder to clean up after, too.

Okay, but that’s not all. The newest eHow UK scam is over member profiles. Many members want their personal photos and profile text removed from the fake UK site, or to at least have the ability to control the profiles that represent them. But no, eHow’s not having any of that nonsense. Control your own profiles? Pshaw, peeps.

Here’s what eHow’s forum rep, Rich, had to say about that:

In Response to Re: 01/22/2010– UPDATE on eHow UK site and US member articles:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: 01/22/2010– UPDATE on eHow UK site and US member articles : To answer your question, profiles will not be removed from the UK site. eHow.com is growing and as a result, we’re expanding to international markets and audiences. As we expand, we want our community to grow with us– therefore, we’re inviting each member to truly become a part of a “global” community. However, the bug you mentioned has been noted and I’m seeing what can be done to get this fixed. Thanks. -Rich
Posted by Rich – eHow Community Manager[/QUOTE]

And here is one eHow member’s quite understandable response to that invitation-by-force to be part of a global community that exists only on a fake site on a server in the US:

If profiles are not coming off the UK site, at what point will we be able to edit them? My profile on the UK site is no longer accurate and I would like to be able to change it. It is also my face there and I want to be able to change avatars.

See, this issue has to do with moral rights, which cannot be waived in the UK. And eHow wants us to believe their “UK” site is physically located in the UK, so…are they trying to have it both ways here?

And before we wrap this party up for the night, I will give you another taste of how out-of-hand this eHow UK scam has gotten. Please bear in mind, I do try to keep a clean house here. But this member spoke for many of us today (I have personally heard from at least three other people who said so), and I just want to acknowledge that publicly:

The initial post by Rich, eHow “Community Manager”:

In Response to Re: 01/22/2010– UPDATE on eHow UK site and US member articles:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: 01/22/2010– UPDATE on eHow UK site and US member articles : *****member, Please do not harass our members by calling them names.  Once again, I would rather not have to penalize people for acting out of order.  The forums is a great place to have a productive conversation, but attacking others is not necessary.  Thanks. -Rich

Posted by Rich – eHow Community Manager[/QUOTE]

And the member’s response:

Go F**K yourself buddy.

But if it isn’t clear to you yet how and why the fake UK site hurt residual income writers, (besides the fact that eHow decided that it was right and moral not to pay for the duplicate writer-owned content), this video may clarify things for you a bit:

Scroll to the bottom of this post to find a support forum and additional blogs and articles about this issue.

Supporting documentation is posted throughout this site, and will be added to during the next month. Please ask if you need documentation that you cannot find, as I have access to deleted forum posts and screenshots that are not yet posted here.

So let’s call it the way it is: eHow and Demand Media stole thousands of members’ articles, promised to remove the stolen content and “generously” compensate their victims. eHow’s illegal and unfair practices were uncovered and pressure was brought to bear on eHow to remove the articles and compensate the writers, which eHow agreed to do.

Only they didn’t remove the content—they redirected the links to that content and botched that operation. And they didn’t compensate fairly or reasonably, much less generously.

Instead, eHow is trying to cover up the issue by banning dissenting members, deleting most eHow forum comments that differ from eHow’s version of reality, then claiming they do not delete comments (except we have proof, so that’s futile, eHow).

Among the allegations that eHow members are making against eHow/Demand Media:

• unfair competition
• copyright violations
• false advertising
• consumer fraud

The following table shows how the two types of eHow writers research, write, and promote their articles, and how they are [supposed to be] compensated financially:

eHow announced today via a casually indifferent video blog post that it had heard the “chatter” and the “buzz,” and although they were “unable” to pay writers for the profits garnered from the “UK” site, they had decided to pony up “generously” via early-February payments to writers.

I know.

There’s nothing more annoying than reading a bunch of words in quotation marks, so don’t ever do it.

But how else can one subtly suggest that the words enclosed therein are what Ian Lurie called, “stinky and mushy” just four short days ago?

Wait a sec. Has it only been four days since Ian asked for a public explanation of how eHow is going to fix their mess? And compensation was one of the four steps he outlined…

Does that mean eHow will also own the problem, build transparency, and fix the terms of service as Ian suggested?

It’s not looking that way, from the “aw shucks” attitude evident on the video that dismisses the importance of two months of eHow members’ distress and six months of earnings losses, including during the holidays in one of the worst economic periods that most of us can remember, with glib, stammering banter. Sheesh.

But I’ll cast my doubts aside and give eHow the benefit of the doubt. And to celebrate this momentous occasion precipitated not, as one might imagine, by the sound of stampeding attorneys and outraged marks–uh, peeps–but by a “couple of postings” the GM saw, I present the Unofficial Official eHow Dictionary.

And after you check the dictionary out, if you’re really bored, go to the eHow video blog and count the number of “Uhs,” stammers, and backtracks when they diverge from the script.

I know you wanna believe ‘em. I know you do. It’s easier.

But can you seriously watch that video and not picture your seven-year-old’s face when you caught him feeding week-old cat food to his baby sister?

Edit: 2/19/2010 Invitation= Kidnapping as in, “We won’t let you edit your own profiles on our fake UK site, because you are invited to participate in our global [seriously?] community.”

And it’s escalating.

One eHow member posted a forum comment today in response to another member’s question that said in part:

Maybe what everyone is missing is that the site was never in the UK. It was and is located in the US…”

To which an eHow staff member replied,

Actually we have an office in the UK.”

Which prompted another to ask,

So Rich, are you saying the UK site server is located in the UK, and not in the US?”

And this question was immediately deleted, which gave the impression that “we have an office in the UK,” meant the UK server is in the UK. And that is not the case. It’s in the US.

Then the member posted another comment, saying,

Rich, why did you delete my question? It wasn’t disrespectful or against the terms of forum use, and I am trying to avoid making assumptions.

Are you saying that the UK website server is physically located in the UK and not in the US? Because I would like the opportunity to apologize and correct myself if I was wrong about this.”

This, too, was deleted within moments.

So as it stands, anyone reading this particular forum thread may be led to believe that the UK site is located in the UK. It’s the ehow UK scam in action.

Now, if the staff member had deleted the original comment about the UK site being located in the US, no one would have been the wiser.

But by leaving that comment and responding to it with an incomplete answer, the member’s post was exploited to spin the truth.

Otherwise referred to as, “lying.”

And I have the pictures to prove it.

Notable blogger and Internet marketing and content whiz, Ian Lurie, has called eHow on the carpet for their less-than-savory business practices during the past several months.

Ian called eHow’s terms of service, “bullshit,” their actions, “evil,” and summarily denounced them as bullies.

And all I can add is, “I CONCUR.”

Go read Ian’s blog.

Fantastic. Now what?

Well, “now what” will probably not be determined in the forums. Member concerns have been brought to light, and eHow’s hand has been forced to some degree. EHow has been called out, and they have finally begun responding. That’s a start.

But friends are fighting with friends now, fingers are being pointed, and names are being called. What a shame for such a great community of collaborators to spend their time and energy hammering this into the ground.

So because I have had a hand in exposing the issues related to eHow’s UK site, I believe it is important to balance that by also stating my opinion that the eHow community of members is among the best on the Internet.

This blog is about earning a residual income by writing online. Spending unproductive time in forums is time that everyone could be applying toward writing and earning that residual income that, let’s face it, we need.

This blog is also about collaborating to advance the online writing community as a whole. Revealing business practices that are potentially harmful to this community is part of that mission, but wallowing in negativity is not.

So whether you are, have been, or want to be part of the great eHow community, please help to keep that spirit alive.

If you have made eHow aware of how their actions have hurt you and what you expect from them, you have helped to give eHow, Demand Media, and other user-generated content sites notice that writers will not accept unfair treatment.

Demand Media and eHow have finally answered our initial calls to action, so let’s take some time to observe whether and how they will honor their stated intentions.

Only eHow and Demand Media know what all the facts are here. Speculating and threatening will not help anyone at this point. So how about we all put this into perspective, take a step back, and remember what makes us so passionate about eHow.

It’s the community. The people. The ones who write to you privately when you don’t know what to do next, and tell you. The ones who have your back on the forum, and who comment on your blog.

EHow is the members who collaborate on the forums and on their own blogs to bring attention to the plight of a missing child, to try to bring her home and protect her with prayers.

EHow is the people who rally around those whose family members are sick or injured.

EHow is a community of people who show they care, time and again.

If you join eHow tomorrow as a new member, and you post on the forum that you need a little help getting started, other members will quickly offer their assistance. I guarantee it.

When I was new to eHow and I was discouraged because I had earned no money after writing several articles, one long-term member helped me to carefully analyze each of my articles and why they might not be earning money. Although the lack of earnings was later said to be a technical glitch, I learned valuable strategies from this member, and from others, that have improved my article writing significantly.

Here are some of the many positive actions I have seen promoted on the eHow forums and the eHow messaging system:

• Keeping Lindsey Baum, a child missing for more than six months now, fresh in the public’s hearts and prayers.
• Recruiting members to post holiday greetings to a child with cancer.
• Throwing virtual holiday forum parties for the entire community.
• Offering helpful, free tools, such as the Earnings Tracker by 17of26, and ebooks/guides by Desolator and David Sarokin.
• Supporting members whose articles have been plagiarized by others.
• Coordinating a joint entertainment venture based on a doll that travels from member to member, and whose exploits are documented in the forums and eHow’s official blog.
• Rallying around a member whose child was badly injured in an accident, to help promote her articles on their own blogs.
• Generously sharing resources, such as reviewing other residual income opportunities and tips for earning more money.

Some of eHow’s best and brightest are quietly posting their own thoughts on the Internet, asking for us all to remember that eHow is a great community. I vote for honoring that community spirit, respecting those whose opinions are different from our own, and encouraging and helping one another again.

Let’s let the eHow UK Clone Saga play itself out for awhile. Most of us have already lost potential income one way or another through this whole debacle, and we owe it to ourselves to focus on writing and on our families and friendships, while still keeping an eye on the situation.

I challenge everyone reading this to spend time you might have otherwise used posting to the eHow forums, to earn an extra $10 by writing online next week and then donating it to Haiti quake relief.

And I challenge you to thank your friends. Publicly. If you hurt a friend’s feelings, apologize. Save your eHow relationships as you would your articles.

Please, post your comments here about positive actions you have seen from the eHow community. Your email addresses will never be shared, and they don’t have to be addresses you normally use if you are concerned about that.

So who’s first? Dolly?

P.S. Read about one member’s experience with eHow Dolly here. I ran across this today, and it’s a great example of the eHow community spirit.

And while I may choose to turn my head from that train wreck as much as I am able, and to focus on what we can all do to improve the industry and our individual opportunities, I am honored that someone has entrusted me to carry their message to the public.

The source of this message, in this case a third party, will remain private. Records will be retained in the event of a valid court order to produce them.

Following is the opinion sent to me today by Anonymous:

I wouldn’t get too excited yet about today’s announcement. Ehow is not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts or because it is the right thing.They are doing it because they got caught with their pants down and a bare arse in the dead of this cold, cold winter.  I personally believe they underestimated the masses, being the the ‘users’, and gave no thought to the fact than any of us were smart enough or would dare speak out. When the lawyer piped in last week with what could very easily be an argument presented in court and debated on its merits for jurisdiction of the site, I believe those on high took notice and perhaps thought better of proceeding.

I’ve not checked but my guess is the UK site is not domiciled in the US as someone said, but in the UK where the rules and laws are very different. And if someone who knows about this were to dig a little, I wouldn’t be surprised if they, DM have a surprise up their sleeves with reference to the TOU where we sign away all our rights and give them the right to use our material anyway they want. If they are out of the US doing it, then we have no recourse. Maybe it’s my paranoid freedom fighter rearing its years-old head, but frankly, this is not an innocent little game being played. I have no idea of their agenda, only that they like to make money

Anyway, don’t hold your breath. You’ll probably turn blue by the time the the articles are removed from the UK and we’ll be rolling in our graves before they give us any earnings from the time they were listing. I hope I’m wrong. We’ll see.

Thank you, Anonymous.