March Diamonds and PF

So how well did you all do this month? For the first time since joining the site a year ago, I received £5 from the PF which I was pleased with. I think they were having problems displaying the diamonds, as when I looked yesterday the March page was up but blank. Lisa x

A fairly productive month has produced yet another £2 from the PF. The diamonds should be up now.

Seeing as I wrote nothing in the month of March, I'm content with my £0 lol

My best result yet with 4 reviews and £12.00 payout this month.

I must say, I'm not surprised about one Diamond, loads of rewriting of instruction manuals and web information and ZERO personal opinion. Thank goodness I rated the review the way I saw it when it was posted. I wonder if the Ciao Gremlins have eaten the two brain cells needed to decide whether or not a review contain personal experience of the product or service.

Maybe for next month I'm going to write a great review about a product I do not own, have never used but can research ad nauseam online.

Good idea and don't forget to put plenty of lists in the review. Lisa x

I was thinking about the new all singing all dancing Nokia mobile phone, don't own one, never will, but I know it's got mp3, camera, video, sat nav, can cook, has baby sitter ......... all info available online so it shouldn't be a problem to cobble together a review.

Minnitee wrote:

Maybe for next month I'm going to write a great review about a product I do not own, have never used but can research ad nauseam online.

Sounds like you should be joiining Helium...

Minnitee wrote:

I was thinking about the new all singing all dancing Nokia mobile phone, don't own one, never will, but I know it's got mp3, camera, video, sat nav, can cook, has baby sitter ......... all info available online so it shouldn't be a problem to cobble together a review.

Oh yes, I think you should. That would be fabulous.

Ciao's Favourite Member wrote:

Sounds like you should be joiining Helium...

Too late, I'm already a member, just not active

Shame, it's a good site. Still a few hiccups, but working on it and actively.

There are loads of hiccups and it's still a long way from being a finished article. If you have aspirations of being a "writer" then you'll be embraced with open arms. If you're there to share your knowledge then you'll underperform. Writing style, not content, rules this site.

Both my writers aspirations and the sharing of knowledge go hand in hand as far as I am concerned, and it really is surprising how much you learn as well. There have been some first rate computer articles that have helped my understanding enormously. Each to their choice.

I'm not sure everyone shares that outlook, Rachel.

There are far too many articles posted to the site that barely touch on the topic at hand. There are a lot of articles that have been researched on other sites and reworded as an article and posted on Helium, lacking any personal knowledge or depth of experience.

Yes, there are good articles, but there are a lot of articles as described above - maybe even more than you'd find on similar sites. Is this just because of the competition or is this the way Helium will continue to be? I seem to remember a good number of articles lacking depth even before the competition started, so I'm not sure it's entirely to blame.

I think there are many ways of looking at it. Yes, there are many sourced reviews or articles, whatever you want to call them, and I was talking to Helium about this myself, since coming from review sites and having known the way we do things, I questioned whether sourced material had the same value. Many many people were doing it in the competitions, and much was the kind of review we would report on others sites, but the impression I get is that if it answers the question posed and doesn't use word for word exact copies, then they deem it acceptable. When I was rating for example, I could see which were genuine ones and which were googled. There were loads on places in the UK that were absolute nonsense but one thing that does seem an interesting concept is the amount of knowledge that you gain from what you read. I was reading stuff on the contest area and much of it needed checking obviously for plagairism, but to my mind also for accuracy of information, although the factor I do like is the gaining of information. It astound me how much you can learn from the will to rate properly. I check things I am not sure on to see which of the two articles is the most accurate, and which is just words padded out because it really does matter which float to the top, but in doing so have learned so much more than I would by researching something like a ciao or dooyoo review.

Hey guys, you've got a whole section of the forum for all the hot air about Helium. Let's get back to the monthly joy of slagging off the diamond reviews again.

Koshkha wrote:

Hey guys, you've got a whole section of the forum for all the hot air about Helium. Let's get back to the monthly joy of slagging off the diamond reviews again.

Okay: I didn't get one. That sucks!

I doubt I qwill ever win one. I do not write many technical reivews at all (I would not know where to start with my new computer) and i am not medically not allowed to drive so can not write about members advice on passing your drivivng test (have you noticed there has been a diamond for this three months consecutivley)

I don't even bother with premium fund or diamonds... it is just a complete waste of time and I'm sure that diamonds are picked to do with sponsors wishes, it is the only way things make even a small bit of sense.
Ciao don't care about the people who keep them going I'm afraid.

As to Helium I personally think it is the worst of the three main review sites because for a start it isnt a review site.
It also has a much bigger supply of complete rubbish on it then the other two, or so it seems from the reviews i get to rate. Most of the time i have to choose which is better... a rubbish review or a complete trash review!

Thingywhatsit wrote:

I think there are many ways of looking at it. Yes, there are many sourced reviews or articles, whatever you want to call them, and I was talking to Helium about this myself, since coming from review sites and having known the way we do things, I questioned whether sourced material had the same value. Many many people were doing it in the competitions, and much was the kind of review we would report on others sites, but the impression I get is that if it answers the question posed and doesn't use word for word exact copies, then they deem it acceptable. When I was rating for example, I could see which were genuine ones and which were googled. There were loads on places in the UK that were absolute nonsense but one thing that does seem an interesting concept is the amount of knowledge that you gain from what you read. I was reading stuff on the contest area and much of it needed checking obviously for plagairism, but to my mind also for accuracy of information, although the factor I do like is the gaining of information. It astound me how much you can learn from the will to rate properly. I check things I am not sure on to see which of the two articles is the most accurate, and which is just words padded out because it really does matter which float to the top, but in doing so have learned so much more than I would by researching something like a ciao or dooyoo review.

Loads of people are recycling information from other sources and posting, and yet Barbara has posted on the forum to specifically say that if you can't add anything extra to a topic, then there's no point in posting an article. 'Sourced' articles are exactly the type of thing that Barbara is/was referring to. I'm not sure about the rest of the site, but the competition topics are full of such mince. Topics that have the potential to be interesting have the soul sucked out of them because people are trying to post as many articles per week for the competition. I'm not sure how that's going to help Helium in the long run. Even Barbara, quite contradictorily, keeps referring to the old Hare and Tortoise fable when the site's running a competition that encourages quantity over quality.

I think it's disappointing that one of the site staff can make this post about rating when one doesn't have the knowledge to judge on content:

Barbara Whitlock wrote:

We can all judge how well an article is written. We can read two articles and determine if one seems more convincing or thorough than another.

Ailran wrote:

I don't even bother with premium fund or diamonds... it is just a complete waste of time and I'm sure that diamonds are picked to do with sponsors wishes, it is the only way things make even a small bit of sense.
Ciao don't care about the people who keep them going I'm afraid.

As to Helium I personally think it is the worst of the three main review sites because for a start it isnt a review site.
It also has a much bigger supply of complete rubbish on it then the other two, or so it seems from the reviews i get to rate. Most of the time i have to choose which is better... a rubbish review or a complete trash review!

There is an element of truth in what you say. As far as I remember, the diamond topics were related to some external source – site hits or advertising or some such, but I'm not sure about the actual reviews themselves. Electronics and Travel have always had a fairly high profile in the diamond lists. Travel ones, generally, seem to be decent enough reviews. Electronics ones are dire, though.

I agree with you completely on the Helium thing, a competition that puts quantity over quality is the worst kind of one and is one that puts me off doing anything much with Helium apart from posting stuff I write for elsewhere.