YAHOO PART TWO: I THINK I'M QUARANTINED!

Ladies and Gentlemen,can we not be civil? What happened to good manners and decorum? It pervades all areas of our society but of late I am seeing too much of it on the internet. All I am trying to do is catch up on the news of the day or read an article full of information that I find important. Yet invariably,I come away disheartened by the inhumanity of my fellow information seekers who take delight in lampooning these news and entertainment gathering services.
Take for instance this actual comment I found August 9 while reading the informative piece "The Highest Paying Jobs You Can Get Without A Bachelor's Degree":

"I think Yahoo uses a roomful of chimps throwing their keyboards around as journalism staff."
And if that wasn't hurtful enough,a follow up remark from an internet smart aleck stated:
"This is the head of the chimp union and we demand an apology and a ton of fresh bananas."

I'm sure these kind of remarks aren't exclusive to Yahoo but Yahoo is my news and entertainment site of choice. And I have a particular soft spot in my heart for Yahoo's journalism expertise.

I am a member of the Yahoo Contributors Network and have submitted several articles I had hoped they would consider for publication. As I was preparing my last award winning feature piece for the Herald Ledger* that had been rejected for use by Yahoo, I was considering that perhaps all my years writing features,articles,humor and news for a myriad of publications had drained me. Apparently I had lost any writing ability I had ever had and I had Yahoo to thank for bringing me to that realization. My contributions were deemed "Too Poor Of Quality" and I called myself out in an article of that same name that I sent to the Contributors Network. Unfortunately, they didn't see it as the ephiphany I had meant it to be, and for some reason threatened to "quarantine" me if I continued to send articles of this type. Some of my friends found this very funny but I took it very seriously.It hurt,as my fellow authors would agree.

Wow,this sounded serious. I know people have been quarantined when they had an infectious disease or the measles or something. But to quarantine me for writing articles like "Too Poor of Quality" seemed harsh at first blush. And given that Yahoo Contributors Network passed on articles other publications happily accepted,odds are being under quarantine wouldn't affect me much. Even "Too Poor Of Quality" turned out to be a pretty well read and entertaining blog column complete with Yahoo's editorial quarantine threat.

I have reconsidered all this. I have sympathy for Yahoo and a readership that holds them in such low esteem.Yahoo is a bastion of journalistic prowess and were I them, I'd pass on all the stuff I submitted that other more widely read and respected publications snapped up. The Yahoo Contributors Network is all right by me,even if an english teacher would blanche at the "too poor of quality" critique.

Today,I decided to take to the YCN and laud them for their literary vigilance and the hard work that goes into choosing the articles accepted for publication.

Good work,Yahoo! Bananas for everybody!

* that should read "Harold Ledger" who is a big fan of my work.

ATTACK OF THE YAHOO CONTRIBUTORS NETWORK

FOR the uninitiated,The Yahoo Contributors Network is a website that invites people to submit articles that will be shared with Yahoo's vast amount of web holdings should they approve of the material,which they almost never do. Not only don't they approve,they offer ham handed clumsy critiques that themselves are not fit for publication.

 YAHOO is not known for being a particularly good or reputable news/journalism site. Should you doubt that,try reading the comments posted by readers after Yahoo coverage of a particular story.
Here is one actual remark (of many) that I thought you'd enjoy:
"I think Yahoo  uses a roomful of chimps throwing their keyboards around as journalism staff."

I think I would worry were I ever accepted for publication by this bastion of journalism know how and knowledge. 

So one day,I decided to ship them an article I knew would never be published,but would make a larger point.  You cannot respond to their inane critiques of your submission,so I had to find another way. And here it is in an article with which they seem to have had a problem.



TOO POOR OF QUALITY
HOW I LOST MY ABILITY TO WRITE


I don't know when it happened,I don't know when I lost it.

All I know is,one day I was writing for newspapers including The Chicago Tribune,The Chicago Sun Times ,Chicago radio and TV and finishing first in Playboy Magazine's nationwide humor competition.That was back in my glory days. But as the Boss crooned,glory days will pass you by in the wink of an eye.

I just got another rejection from the Yahoo Contributor Network telling me my contribution was "too poor of quality", a clumsily worded review my english teacher might regard with thumbs down.

Oh I tried kidding myself. I fantacized that the Yahoo reviewers gathered around the table,hesitant to even touch the print out of my essay, were all ex girlfriends salivating at the prospect of rejecting me via an email to which I could not even reply. "This will fix him," they would say in a vengeful cackle.

But no,that doesn't make sense. Rather,Yahoo had likely turned over this position of responsibility to teenage boys to give them something to do other than to play video games all day. That might explain the questionable phrasing "too poor of quality". These kids just don't get my stuff.

Yet with Yahoo's vast resources and wide outreach,they wouldn't allow inexperienced teenagers to judge what kind of literary talent Yahoo features on its network. So try as I might to console myself with these unlikely scenarios, I must face the fact that I've just lost it.

The other night on the deck ,friends and I combed through my list of Yahoo rejections which included one for a piece called "Pizza Boy" which went on to be published in a Chicago newspaper. The rejections warned me to watch my capitalizations and it was fun to read through the piece and search for words inappropriately capitalized or not capitalized. There were none. Another rejection cautioned me to watch my grammar,which we found amusing given that "too poor of quality" might be eligible for that same kind of warning.

I have considered modernizing Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and submitting it .However, I'm pretty sure it would come back saying "too poor of quality and watch out when you go to the theatre."

I must thank the Yahoo Contributors Network for teaching me to watch my capitalization,punctuation and the quality of my subject matter. Those bylines and paychecks I used to get for my writing mean nothing without the approval I have been unable to get from Yahoo....because my essays are "too poor of quality."


But I will persevere and I know if I keep trying I can recapture the magic and be judged to create something of quality that will make the reviewers of Yahoo proud. I'll try to do better,and I breathe a prayer as I hit the submit button .


And here I am,on the Yahoo Contributors Network! Persevere and you too can overcome something too poor of quality.

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And in their critique they thanked me for my submission,labelled the piece "too poor of quality" and threatened that should I keep sending articles like this,they will "quarantine" me...which in my view is not only pompous,self important and laughable,but akin to winning a Pulitzer Prize.