Home > Status Updates > What’s your reputation worth?

A Monday smorgasbord of reminders about living in the day to day Squidworld. Of course, 99% of you won’t even need to read this. But for the sake of clarity, give it a scan. Thanks. You’re good eggs.

• If you ask for ratings swaps or participate in traffic exchanges, your account will probably get locked.
• If you make a junky page, chances are people won’t like it, will feel scammed by it, and will report it. Is “junk” subjective? Yes. Sometimes it has to do with empty modules or thin content. Sometimes it has to do with sales lenses that scream buy buy buy in flashing green lights. But it’s pretty easy to know when something isn’t junk, don’t you think?
• If you actively, aggressively, selfishly spam someone, you don’t stand much of a chance here (or anywhere) at all.
• If you create multiple accounts, making good lenses in one but spammy lenses in the other, remember that your reputation is only worth as much as your worst lenses.
• Anonymity only makes things harder for everyone. Wouldn’t you like to stockpile all your goodwill into one, real, identity, and capitalize on the respect you earn over time? It certainly earns you the benefit of the doubt when something goes wonky.
• Yes, we actually can tell if you’ve gone on a 1-star rating run, or if you’ve been boosting your own accounts with lots of 5 star ratings. And if we find it, we’ll remove the ratings, and perhaps lock your account.
• Take a second to read (or re-read) our public SquidDon’t policies. Some topics just aren’t kosher on Squidoo, because the majority of lenses that get created about them are spambait and typically up to no good. Pharmaceutical lenses, lots of weight loss lenses, gambling and credit card debt lenses, stuff like that (just for example). If writing about those topics is your entire gig, chances are good you’ll run up against a few sticking points on Squidoo. Sorry.
• Be careful what you buy online. Squidoo is free. All our official resources are free. If you’re buying an ebook, or buying a lens someone built, that transaction is entirely between you and that person.
• We love giving people the benefit of the doubt. Do you, too?
• Online is made up of real people. That’s all. Just worth remembering. Would you say something mean to someone’s face? Then maybe you don’t want to say it online, either.
• Create content you’re really proud of, stand for something, and probably, none of this matters.