Any Questions

OK, so you can only rate in the topics you have written in...?

Loosely and I say loosely because many of the topics may be in the same area where I have written, but not specifically in the same exact category. They just have the same channel.

Thingywhatsit wrote:

Looks to me there are two options. Either rate with the two screen thing or take a look around the site and read what you are interested in and flag inappropriate content with the tools at the top of the site. Either way member get paid, but reading around the site pays members for their writing but does not sort. I think a cross section of both activities is healthy and have done both.

Are you suggesting that the writer gets paid everytime someone rates his article because this is counted as a "reading"?

Yes, it seems to be a combination of reading articles and rating articles.

I don't believe that. I have an article which moved up and down like bogus (active since 01/24/2007 and actually the only one which showed any rank change, the others seem to be tacked to their positions). It must have been rated several times I guess.

Still it earned me $0.00 - so far for your theory.

Helium clearly lacks transparency. Everything regarding rewards for writing is mere guessing. Why do they obscure how it works and fail to disclose the reward scheme to the writers?

SaschaT wrote:

I don't believe that. I have an article which moved up and down like bogus (active since 01/24/2007 and actually the only one which showed any rank change, the others seem to be tacked to their positions). It must have been rated several times I guess.

Still it earned me $0.00 - so far for your theory.

Helium clearly lacks transparency. Everything regarding rewards for writing is mere guessing. Why do they obscure how it works and fail to disclose the reward scheme to the writers?

Probably don't want to reveal how it's doen so as to stop people manipulating the sytem to earn more...

I'm not convinced by Rachel's explanantion either and I don't see why certain articles of quite poor quality are 'fixed' to the top ranking spot...

If it is that vulnerable to manipulation clever people will find it out at some point and start abusing the system sooner or later anyway.

If that's the reason, I say: very bad concept of preventing manipulation/abuse.

SaschaT wrote:

If it is that vulnerable to manipulation clever people will find it out at some point and start abusing the system sooner or later anyway.

If that's the reason, I say: very bad concept of preventing manipulation/abuse.

I agree

As with all sites, you get those that will blindly defend the system and those that question/offer feedback.

I, unsurprisingly, am one of the latter.

However, I agree with those statements above: the system seems to be secret - moreso than Ciao! I've seen plenty of soundbites from Helium staff that seem to imply that rating has a direct influence on your own work. It's unclear if that means that rating is directly tied into your own earning ability (or the performance of your own work's rank) or if this is simply another way of telling members to put back into the site what they take from it (a la any other review site out there).

I've got active articles on Helium that haven't moved in 5 days, despite the fact that I know at least one category has been rated (by me) and I've earned the grand total of 1c per article.

As for crap being at the top, I can only surmise that the rating system is flawed. Perhaps not enough people are rating? Maybe there are flaws in the algorithms being used.

I find it surprising that a site that's been "live" since August or September still has this many issues, though they do appear to be addressing them.

What's their policy of cross posting from other review sites?

Mauri wrote:

What's their policy of cross posting from other review sites?

User agreement says:

Quote :

ou grant Helium, and its affiliates, a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable, non-exclusive right and license to use, copy, modify, delete in its entirety, adapt, publish, translate, display, create derivative works from and/or sell and/or distribute content posted to Helium

"Non-exclusive" means, you can publish content you are posting on Helium anywhere else without violating their UA