Deletion of your work from Helium

There seems to be a fair amount of muttering on the Helium boards about this, so I thought it was worth a discussion.

I'd have posted it there, but you can't post polls on Helium's forums. *sigh*

I'm all for author control of work they have created.

Yeah, me too.

From a business perspective, I can understand why Helium are reticent about deleting work, especially good work. However, from a member's point of view, this hardline attitude is frustrating, especially when you consider you HAVE to post work to get into the rating mechanism.

At least on other sites, if you choose to leave, you can "update" your work to something meaningless, an option not available on Helium.

If I were to suggest a compromise situation, I'd suggest that, as long as you haven't cashed out, you should be able to delete your account fully and without question.

I did vote as soon as I saw this poll but AOL kicked me off before I had a chance to post anything else grrrrr *&^$(*

I can't agree more with the frustration. I had no problems with getting one of my poems removed from a poetry site so that I could republish it in my book. It had been on there for 6yrs and they were absolutely fine with the request. With the way topics get lost or buried on Helium - and I thought I had heard somewhere that they remove outdated topics? So if they take the initiative to 'remove' at their leisure then the author should have this right as well. If you aren't making any money on a piece then you should have the absolute right to remove it.

Power to the people! Save the authors!

Ciao, what are you going to do with this poll or is it just to gather a general opinion?

I'm not doing much with it, Seph. It was more for my own curiosity than anything else, really, plus FOIB has polling tools or else I might well have posted this over on Helium's own forum.

I keep seeing Helium members post messages like "well, you should have read the terms and conditions when you joined", but few people are sticking their heads up and voicing a 'proper' opinion on the subject.

I am going against the grain here. I don't mind. I signed over rights and posted articles knowing the rules. I wouldn't be daft enough to post anything that I might need at a later date for publishers. as I get paid 125 Pounds for a 1200 word short story, so it would be a bit silly posting them there.

Helium are more than capable of changing the rules, Rachel. As Seph says, they'll happily remove content if they feel it's of poor quality or out-of-date (rather than against their T&Cs), but you don't have the same rights to delete your own work should the circumstances arise where you'd like to do so.

You might well be happy with that situation, but there are loads of people on Helium that are unhappy. It's not a case of being daft. You can't blame people who are dissatisfied with the site wanting their work removed, can you? It's entirely possible that circumstances have changed between a member joining and a mebmer wanting to leave.

I didn't say I blamed anyone for wanting to remove their work. I just stated the way I feel. Having said that I had this same conversation with ciao who refused to remove reviews, but have now done so.

Inclined to agree with you in that I dont post anything that I would worry about losing ownership of. Many sites, myspace being the classic own your stuff as soon as you post it with them, this is a bit of a worry being a musician and using it to promote your work, stictly speaking if myspace wanted to use by songs they could, although it is being fought by people as prominent as Billy Bragg and others. With written reviews although technically the same may hold true on some sites, I wouldnt lose any sleep over it.

For me, it's not really an ownership issue. I'm not a writer and the only other places I'd be posting are sites like Dooyoo etc.

If I were to leave Helium (or any other site), deletion of my work would be more to stop sites like Helium continuing to make money from my work than anything else.

Why do you think people in general shouldn't be allowed to control their own work, Rachel?

It's not a matter of people not being allowed to control their own work. It's a matter of knowing when they posted it what the rules were.

No, it's not. That's not why the question was posed.

In fact, the question was posed to stop/avoid exactly that kind of annoying "because the rules say so" comment, which crops up time and again on Helium.

Why shouldn't people be allowed to delete their own work (under reasonable cirumstances), Rachel?

I know of no other answer. That one works for me. Rules is rules. Why are you not allowed any more to delete articles from ciao ? Why are you not allowed to post over articles from dooyoo to the new review site. Each site has it's rules.

Ah, but just because the rules are in place (and just because they work for you), that doesn't make them a) fair b) right or c) unchangeable.

I would put money on it that if an author needed something removed because it was holding them back from being published Helium would be flexible. I can also see that if they openly publicised that people could remove stuff, they open the floodgates to all the drama queens on the site to get huffy and silly.

I suspect these so-called "drama queens" are only visible on the boards because Helium refuse to let them delete their work and move off.

If Helium were more open to proper account closures (i.e. complete deletion), then it's debatable whether you'd even see them on the forums at all.

It was account closing woes rather than deletion of individual articles and the subsequent replies from members all-too-willing to toe the Helium line that prompted this thread in the first place.

I can see why they would want to hold on to content they perceive they are paying for...as they are all about content. Whether their terms and conditions are deemed fair and above board is another question.

However, I would want the right to remove reviews from time to time - heck they go out of date for a start. I have removed probably half a dozen on ciao over the years, perhaps a few more for genuine reasons I felt. (including the fact I wasn't happy with the articles five years later!)

So I feel this rule needs greater flexibility.

Not that I go there so I just thought I would put my tuppence in for no reason...(still cannot get past rating those damn "top ten places to see in Europe" reviews...it even managed to bore a regular travel writer/reader like me to death! )

Hmmm... I'd question the statement that they're all about content! Given the amount of drama queen behavour about the standard of writing, I'd say that Helium was a writing site. Content is secondary.

When I first joined Helium, it was a place to share knowledge. I don't believe today's Helium is the same site I joined. I'm nearly sure that the focus on writing ability was not as apparent when I first joined and this is something that's only been apparent over the past 10 weeks or so.

It's this kind of thing that should allow members to delete their work if they close their account. If they sign up to the site and the site is not what they originally thought that it was, then why not have their work deleted if they close their account?

Interesting term there, Helen: "they would want to hold on to content they perceive they are paying for". Do you disagree that they're paying for content?

Well, they are all about "knowledge", which is the new black.

Quality of content, and quality of "knowledge", I agree is questionable, given the standards I have seen (in my limited rating sphere of travel etc...!)

I dont know if it is the same place or not, as I go there very infrequently...in fact, I dont know if I have earned a penny or $100, it has been that long..

no I dont disagree that they are paying for content...that is exactly what they are doing..same as all sites of this type. Whether they ever pay out on that content (i.e. how many members ever reach it over the threshold), is another matter.

Like Ciao, if I earned 4p from them 6 years ago for some review, I would hope they would delete it if I asked them to..(without paying my 4p back!) but I can see why they "perceive" that they shouldn't have to from a payment point of view - but if payment hasn'tbeen made then they don't lose financially.

I imagine most members (like me) decide it isnt for them and leave our content there and it isn't (or shouldn't be) a huge issue for them to manage a few members that want a few reviews deleting.


as a "non-writer", I dont know what the heck a writing site is. I know what you mean, but I just dont think a professional writer needs sites like the ones "we" all write for.

it might be a "Wannabe" Writer site however....

Ah yes. I getcha. That does make sense.

Oh, and I agree wholeheartedly on the "writing site" thing, though that's probably a complete thread on its own!

The way I see it is: If people agree to let helium have control of their work, then they have no right to complain later. They supposedly read the TOS and had no problem with it then. They knew what they were getting into, even with the possibility that they would find themselves not liking the way the site was run.

That being said, I do think that Helium should reconsider this aspect of the TOS. I can see why they do it, but it doesn't necessarily have the writer's best interest in mind.

KMello wrote:

The way I see it is: If people agree to let helium have control of their work, then they have no right to complain later.

I agree completely. I don't think Helium members should trot out this line every time someone voices disapproval of the site. I don't think they have a right to complain, but perhaps they have a right to question the T&Cs?

KMello wrote:

They supposedly read the TOS and had no problem with it then.

Even reading the T&Cs doesn't shed much light and might not help some people. IMO, they could be clearer.

KMello wrote:

They knew what they were getting into, even with the possibility that they would find themselves not liking the way the site was run.

I disagree here. Many people don't know what they're getting into with Helium. It's a site that quite's different from others in vaguely the same areas (Ciao, Dooyoo, Epinions, Wikipedia) and before you can take advantage of all the site features (inc. the rating mechanism) you have to post at least one article, so you're locked into the site before you know it. As can be seen from the various threads on the forum, an article might not find its natural place in the topic until maybe six weeks after posting. The 'full' Helium experience, therefore, is not apparent until then. On other sites, this full experience is available almost immediately - a few days at most.

KMello wrote:

That being said, I do think that Helium should reconsider this aspect of the TOS. I can see why they do it, but it doesn't necessarily have the writer's best interest in mind.

Yay. We agree again!

"I disagree here. Many people don't know what they're getting into with Helium. It's a site that quite's different from others in vaguely the same areas (Ciao, Dooyoo, Epinions, Wikipedia) and before you can take advantage of all the site features (inc. the rating mechanism) you have to post at least one article, so you're locked into the site before you know it. As can be seen from the various threads on the forum, an article might not find its natural place in the topic until maybe six weeks after posting. The 'full' Helium experience, therefore, is not apparent until then. On other sites, this full experience is available almost immediately - a few days at most."

What I meant by "they knew what they were getting themselves into" is not that they knew what the site would be like. I mean that they knew that they may or may not like the way things are run. Yet they still agreed to the TOS anyways. It was a risk that they had to be aware of.

But that kind of thing isn't immediately apparent, even if you've had a look at the site from a non-member's perspective and the T&Cs are vague as well. I doubt it's something that crosses most people's minds until after they've joined any site and start experiencing things firsthand.

Ciao's Favourite Member wrote:

I disagree here. Many people don't know what they're getting into with Helium. It's a site that quite's different from others in vaguely the same areas (Ciao, Dooyoo, Epinions, Wikipedia) and before you can take advantage of all the site features (inc. the rating mechanism) you have to post at least one article, so you're locked into the site before you know it.

Which is now what Ciao have imposed; no ratings can be given until a review is posted.