I'm still undecided as to whether renew my Giant status or... not. To tell the truth, I'm more inclined to not renew it then renew it as I think that Squidoo's standards regarding quality lenses have been dramatically lowered while mine haven't changed - or have even been increased.
These days, I've witnessed many things that shocked me and made me angry. A recent lens of the day that was just filled with posters and links to Yahoo and NO personal content at all, praised as if it was a gem. The community organizers who acted to make ding impact (angel's thumbs down) lower than ever, even asking for us to overlook junk, refrain from dinging dingable lenses, to the point that we should think doing something wrong when reporting a TOS violation, spam or else. Yeah, let spammers, cheaters, liars, losers the benefit of the doubt.
What about those who ethically work on Squidoo, devote their time mostly on their free time and for free, who abide by the rules and get never, never, NEVER thanked for their dedication but, more often than not, get smacked by new rules?
Nobody talks about them. They're even kept away from speaking their mind, censored in the forum, banned if they dare to insist, obliged to move their freedom of speech to Facebook or Twitter.
What's my problem with the new Giant rules?
Well, let's say that, at the time I applied for Giant and 100 Clubber, we had to have 50 or 100 outstanding lenses. Not that I mean mine were outstanding, but at least, I've always built lenses with content I personally wrote, graphics I carefully chose and credited.
Now in order to make Giant, lensmasters don't need more than 25 lenses. The motive being that in the past we could have built 50 or 100 lenses but may have sold or deleted them. Hahaha! Rolling on the Floor Laughing My Ass Off! --> Any lensmaster who cares about their Giant or 100 Clubber status never sold their lenses or never deleted enough lenses to not have enough to keep their status.
And even so... what prevents HQ from removing their Giant status from accounts that don't have at least 50 lenses????? There's no need for new guidelines neither for forcing us, existing Giants, to reapply!
Oh, but newbies are so disappointed to not be able to make Giant under 50 lenses! Well, we also were newbies at one time. We also had to wait until we were able to build 50 lenses. We're still alive... It takes times to learn to create great lenses. 25 lenses aren't enough for them to make outstanding pages. The Giant club will be filled with a bunch of junk - as if the current number of junk wasn't enough!
With the new Giant club, only outstanding lenses will be taken into consideration and lensmasters who are the best writers will be granted the status.
Hahaha! ROFLMAO once again! What about those that are HQ's or community organizers' friends? Are they going to be rejected? Don't lie to me, please! Copycats, idea stealers, copyright violating lensmasters (and there are a few that are known for doing so but lick the boots so much that they just can close their eyes on their behaviors and accept them), well known cheaters, those that bet on Squidoo's popularity game, etc. are they going to be rejected with their lenses that violate the TOS multiple times?
I'm pretty sure they won't. And will certainly post when they'll get their new status! Just to prove my point!
Believe it or not, but although I'm not a bragger neither a self-licking lollipop, even though I'm not the kind of person who'd praise her own work and even if I'm unable to tell HQ why I want to REMAIN a Giant and which lens of mine I consider worth a Lens of the Day, I have respect for myself and am really worried about seeing my name associated with cheaters, TOS violating lensmasters, spam and junk producers.
When we see the level of quality descreasing day after day on Squidoo, we definitely wonder why we would remain Giant, 100 Clubber of whatever new status they came up with!
And, because I worked hard, with English as a third language, building what I thought were and still are, quality lenses, I feel insulted.
This was my rant of the day... See you later for another post.
And in the meantime, if you wish to see what I consider quality lenses, then, I urge you to check out these outstanding pages built by first quality lensmasters on Squidoo:
