Angel Blessings and You

Angels have volunteered to become the "Guardians of the Good" and the "Soldiers Against Spam" is the best way I know to put it in my own words. It is my belief that Squidoo was made for everyone to be able to get their fresh content out for the world to see. With that being said, "fresh" and "new" may have different meanings for some. In my case, it means if you are doing nothing but copying and pasting from around the web, with no thought for originality or beauty of the lens or for the trust your reader might put in your opinion, then you are not thinking of Squidoo as a community. You are thinking of it as a place to dump your trash. It means you haven't bothered to come up with an original viewpoint or any new information that can be garnered from your lens. It's called SPAM. That will get a "Ding" every time in my book. A "Ding" will drop the lensrank of that particular lens.

Angels want to "Bless" more than "Ding". Blessings give the lens a temporary boost in lensrank and help you to rise above the more common lenses. If you have been Blessed by a Squidoo Angel, most of the time they will tell you, but some prefer to be Ninja Angels and fly by never telling you if they did anything. You will usually be able to tell by your lensrank if an angel has been at work though. Blessing or Ding, it affects lensrank, if only temporarily.

Every Squid Angel has their own standards, some are more lenient, some are very strict. The one thing we all agree on is that SPAM has to go!

Angels want to encourage you to make the best lenses that you can make. Now for me, that doesn't mean you can't make a typo here and there or have an affiliate link. I think we are all here to make money. It's how we go about it that makes the difference. We are all human and mistakes and typos will happen. In our haste to get our beautiful new lens published sometimes we forget the all important value of changing the default headers on a module. A lens will not get a "Ding" for that. Instead, you may get a quick note that says "Hi! I just wanted to encourage you to fix...." whatever it may be "and I'll be back in a few days to look again." I keep a list of naughty, nice and needs improvement, so that I can go back and check later...and I will.

I look for lenses with some creative quality. Lenses that make me think, whether I agree or not with the subject matter, lenses that tell stories that tug at my heart, ones that are beautiful to look at and inform me, that make me laugh, and lenses that give hope and inspiration are the ones I hope to find. Don't we all feel this way?

If you think your lens is ready and you want me to look at it for a Blessing, you can leave the link in the guestbook or in the SquidU Angels Forum. HTML will be stripped out and only logged in Squidooers will be able to comment or leave links in the guestbook below. Beware, though, if you haven't read Kimberly's SquidU Critique Me, it would be a good idea to do that first.

A "spammy" lens is one that makes me feel like I just walked onto a used car lot and the salesperson is trying to sell me things he/she doesn't believe in him/herself. It's easy to spot in most cases. When someone writes with passion whether it is a product review or a human interest story, you know it. When someone has only copied content and put no personality into the lens, you know that too. Not everyone will find a story humorous or heartbreaking but they will know if the writer did or did not.

I am not saying the lenses shouldn't sell things, as a matter of fact I absolutely believe they should. I enjoy a good lens that tells me about a new product or an experience with a product..