Mahalo lawsuit
from Tech Geeks
It looks as though the inevitable is likely, in less than a week I’ll be forced to file a lawsuit against Mahalo.com and Jason Calacanis for failure to pay in accordance to the terms of our contracts
I noticed this just before Christmas, But I Honestly thought it would have been settled by now, anyway the backrub here is that one of Mahalo’s Mentors has been told that he is not getting paid because there was “discrepancy with some of the pages” then he he informed it was because “because I spent less than 15mins “QC’ing” some of these pages” then later “I’m told its because there weren’t enough edits or major changes”
funny thing is that the Mahalo Guidelines don’t say how much time or even if you have to make an edit ??
and with the announcement that Mahalo is going to be paying less for less trafficked serps results ,is Mahalo having cash flow problems !!
DaveN
Dave Dugdale 1943 days ago
http://www.rentvine.com/blog/I love it and hate it when Jason gets called out. I love it because it is fun, but I hate it that he gets more links out of it.
Steve 1943 days ago
Thanks for the article, mostly because I’d heard about Mahalo website but never visited there… until now.
WOW! The site appears to consist of only links to other sites! And some internal links go to pages where there are NO links – neither internal nor external – let alone any actual information.
And their ‘Hot Topics’ for celebrity news were all stories that’re over a week old!
I’ve got my own news site ramping up right now, and if this is considered profitable competition then I’m going to do very well! LOL
Thanks again for the heads up.
Lynn 1942 days ago
LynnI am a Part Time Guide for Mahalo. Let me just add to the comment about the change in prices paid for pages submitted to Mahalo. Although there are hundreds of pages on Mahalo that are related to most popular search terms, we also have guides putting pages together for recipes. We were started off on a progressive pay scale, toppping off at $15 per page submitted after “X” amount of submissions. SO whatever I submit now, I get $15 for. BUT we are still doing recipes and pages for forgotten or long dead sports figures, singers, etc. who not many people look up on the Internet. Mahalo (Jason) realized he is paying people $15 a shot and they are cranking out 2-3 pages a day on irrelevant topics. Not only did he revise the pay scale but they revamped the “Most Wanted” list to reflect more of the most searched topics, leaving the recipes, etc but paying less for them. I do pages of more relevance and am now receiving between $12-$15 a page. Guides who want to make more need to change their goals of writing short (Sometimes nonsensical) pages and start getting into other areas. The options are the same for all of us. Maybe somebody WILL look for stuffed olive recipes but I have chosen an area of interest in Education.
NOW onto the next comment about broken links. We know. We are also updating pages that may be out of date as we go. I personally keep track of mine and write notes to our “team leader” if I find information has changed or a link is no longer there. Unfortunately sometimes a website is taken down or not connecting. That is why on every Mahalo page there is a way to contact us to suggest a better link or to leave a comment. I’m hoping Jason asks for an “Update Team” because I will be the first to volunteer.
As for Richard M..although I liked him as Mentor because he was good at passing my pages quickly, try to remember he was getting paid per page. If the mentor was passing pages that weren’t to Mahalo standards, he wasn’t doing his job. I will bet money that Jason has data to show that RM wasn’t taking the time to do his job correctly.
Mentors are not expected to do several pages a day. But if they do them correctly Mahalo welcomes their work. If not, they are not mentors for long. We’ll see how this goes but from an insider’s point of view and knowing a few mentors that are “milking the system” , I’m betting on Jason. Even if you don’t like him .
Richard M 1940 days ago
http://tech-geeks.blogspot.com/Lynn, you have a very interesting take on how things work over at Mahalo. To say I wasn’t doing my job and the pages weren’t to Mahalo standards is rather odd. Every page that I’ve ever mentored or ever written myself is still listed as is on Mahalo.com. Had they not been up to standards then should they not be removed?
You also say Mentors are not expected to do several pages per day? Everyone is expected to do as many pages as they feel comfortable doing. As you can see from the mentors process it is far different than the steps for a simple PTG. The guidelines are pretty straight forward the fact is if the PTG’s such as yourself are doing their part and doing it correctly then mentors shouldn’t have to spend a great deal of time on a page.
David Eaves 1938 days ago
http://www.seoco.co.ukThe poeple working for Mahalo must be pretty hard up. Sounds like slave labor to me. $12 for a page, it costs me $30 to have an 800 word article proofread.
Crystal 1926 days ago
http://3stairs.comAs Lynn points out in her comment, she is a Part-Time Guide. I am a Mentor for Mahalo with Full-Time Guide privileges, meaning that I have the same ability that Richard had to place pages directly onto the live Mahalo site. I have an “insider’s view” of the Mentor side of the Greenhouse, which is very different from the PTG side.
We are indeed expected to do quality control on multiple pages per day, being instructed to send pages back for further work if we project it to take more than 30 minutes to complete the page and put it on the live Mahalo site. Richard was following the protocols (what few there are) given to him. PTGs rarely see the true inner workings of Mahalo and to bet blindly on Jason without knowing the whole story is a dangerous pastime.
I have spoken extensively with Richard and know that his decision was not reached lightly or without considerable effort on his part to negotiate with Mahalo as to more specific protocols and discussion of the problem.
To address several other misconceptions:
-We do have update teams of full-time remote guides whose sole work is updating pages on Mahalo. The update teams are chosen from Mentors and upper levels of guides based on their performance and speed.
-As Richard points out – and I have researched myself – the pages in question are still on Mahalo, untouched from what Richard placed there. Apparently they are within Mahalo’s standards, or the update team already mentioned would have brought them up to standard.
-The only “milking the system” going on is by those that realize and take advantage of a glitch in the system that allows them to claim and create one page more than the amount that they are supposed to be able to claim.
Richard 1924 days ago
http://tech-geeks.blogspot.com/As the issue was never resolved we are going to be facing court. I posted the final follow-up.
Thanks David for picking up the story, and thanks to everyone that has show support.
Surrender or Victory? 1878 days ago
http://andrew5heenan.netThe blog has been sanitized of all mention of Calcanis … so it looks like they settled.
Richard 1807 days ago
http://geek-news.net/2008/04/closing-book-on-mahalo.htmlSanitized of all things Calacanis? None of the posts have been removed. The case was lost as disclosed in the last blog post Closing the book on Mahalo. Unfortunately the judge decided that not enough evidence was provided so they got to weasel out of payment.
Ben 1672 days ago
http://www.seopositive.comThat is very cheap, and it must be slave labour.