Is personal content bad? Absolutely not! Some of the most entertaining, instructional, informative, and most useful Hubs on HubPages revolve around personal stories and experiences. That said, personal content can be a contentious issue on our site. As it stands, “purely personal” content is against our publishing standards, meaning that if a Hub does not offer any value to a complete stranger, it may be moderated.
In this week’s podcast (Personal Content – Walking the Line), we discuss five major classes of personal content- four that are great, one that is best avoided. After listening in, you should be all set to incorporate your personal stories and experience into your writing knowing full well that you have avoided the “purely personal” boring hole of doom!
Is there an online writing practice, issue, or subject that you would like to see covered in a future podcast? Send us an email about it! Just address it to podcast (at) hubpages (dot) com. Happy Hubbing!
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I’m not sure this information is correct. First your site allows poetry, is anything more personal than that? Secondly it seems an arbitrary standard set by a group of moderaters who aspire to become the lowest of the low mainly self help authors. I’m sure many of these moderaters will soon move on fulfilling their lifelong dream of becoming authors of such meaningful brocheres as”How to assemble your new BBQ grill” an illustrated guide. Insert bolt A into hole B tighten nut C what a riveting read. In conclusion may I add that your moderators though well intentioned(the worst kind) seem to encourage text book ideas with pat & contrived answers to a form of expression intended to break the mold, not fit into one.
HubPages, because you’re mine I walk the line…….
This really contained a lot of good information. I hope many read it and put it to good use.
Thanks guys, it’s funny how the “personal” works so well with narrative, humour, satire, historical, and especially well in the “how to” genres, but bombs when it is purely self indulgent.
I believe people read to be informed or at least entertained, and probably we are also hoping to be inspired or motivated.
I haven’t checked out Hub pages literary section. But I am interested to see what people do with that here. Sometimes the most engaging poetry can be pretty personal. Looking forward to seeing how that fits into to the larger Hub Pages mode operendi.
Interesting comment, Casey Howell. By personal, we’re not referring so much to that which purely pleases the soul (e.g. poetry) but that which is just about personal things (e.g. My stove doesn’t seem to be working this morning. And my neighbor is so annoying, etc…).
As we pointed out in the podcast, we encourage people to add a personal tone to the things they write to *avoid* the sort of “Insert bolt A into hole B” sort of writing to which you allude. We really advocate for personal content, so long as it is not purely personal- just one of five broad types.
Thanks for listening in, Hyphenbird and Verlie Burroughs! And good point, Verlie. Somewhat more personal content is more effective at motivating and inspiring others. I hope you enjoy some of the fiction and other literary work on the site!