Article rating experience on helium

woudl say that the use of use rather than used is the error, although I don't actually like the use of inalienable either.

I think when she used inalienable she was trying to be different and stand out with an "intelligent" word as opposed to the informal humor that some people tend toward.

In the other version of the article I believe the word of choice was something like undeniable.

I was a top writer for awhile and was winning contests when I made the mistake of entering a contest on motorcycles. I was the top of the chain until another contester accused me of cheating and suddenly two of my top articles were deleted in the contest. I protested and left for awhile until they started bugging me to come back. The actions cost me the $75 in prize money and ticked me off. I adventually came back but I basically write for paying markets and rarely bother to rate except to keep my star rating high enough to compete in the marketplace. As a woman many of the competitors did not like the fact that a woman was kicking their butts in a motorcycle writing contest.

When you were asked to come back you should have asked for some kind of compensation for the way your articles were treated in the contest.

I'm glad to know things are working out for you there now though.

I think it has a lot to do with who is doing the rating. My guess is that the best writers on helium see it as a bother and not the best use of their precious time the way I initially did.

Finding out about the bonus helped and I have discovered some interesting information in the articles of other people pertaining to food and culture and history.

If the rater doesn't have the same standards as the best writer the situation is a little like when I was in college and I had some really good quality chocolate that was sold in the drugstore. It had a much better texture than the regular stuff like Hershey bars and yet when I let someone try it she told me she preferred Hershey's.

There was nothing wrong with her liking what she liked, but she missed the point on how to judge quality chocolate. The world is a largely unsophisticated place and people like common ground.

I don't think I have seen any of your stuff on helium, is there in link in your profile?

I don't have it in my profile, but here it is. Some of it I admit is crap, especially the recipes. I'm not above admitting that.

http://www.helium.com/users/424078

I sent you a note about lemon pound cake:-)

I looked at the satire piece on death and glanced at the piece in the number 2 spot and yours made me laugh right off, which was more or less the point, but hers had less errors so I guess the diehards voted it higher:-(

The thing is the errors are so minor that they could be excused in favor of your content. I do that occasionally when I like what the writer has had to say.

Often there are some pieces that are gammatically correct but just are not interesting or they miss the mark of what the title suggests the article should be about. I didn't want to spend too much time on the competition though; saving my page views for my mylot friends:-)

You and MommaJ should compare autism notes!

I got it and thanks. Yeah, I know I can write but punctuation is my bane in life. I look for the best written article myself whether the punctuation is perfect or not. I do, however, count against those who put personal information where it doesn't belong. Like if someone is writing about quantum theory a story about their lost dog doesn't belong. I see way too much of that kind of thing at Helium.
I definitely need the aid of an editor and thankfully I've hired one for my novel. I don't see the point in doing so for Helium.

I submitted an article yesterday to an empty title that I checked, and checked and rechecked only to discover a glaring error in the last paragraph after I posted!

I considered asking for a typo fix but as long as I am the only one with an article for that title I figure I may as well leave it alone. Hard to let it go though, lol.

Believe it or not, I responded very nicely to her email which only further peeved her and she said that others (plural) had seen my comments "publicly" before she had and that they (whoever they are) felt the comment about if "English isn't your first language..." was negative.

She also reiterated that I must be having a bad day because I apparently had a need to vent (ha ha) and assured me this was to be her last communication with me.

Hm, some people are not used to politeness:D I don't know how anyone else would have seen a private note sent to her. She may be more embarrassed by her own lack than by your effort to help her correct that lack. If she wishes to succeed on Helium, she will need to write within their guidelines!

I don't know but she said that "others" had seen it first.

LOL, she would tell you that it was a question of style! It occurred to me today while reading an article by a UK writer that English usage is sometimes markedly different across cultures.

This article I was reading/rating was about school uniforms and an American writer would have said "uniforms" or "a uniform" where the UK writer said "School Uniform." These are small differences in most instances but sometimes the difference can change the comprehension of what is being read.

It's an interesting thing to ponder.

and she would be wrong after writing two books I had to learn how to write, and change my style to fit the style of the rest of the writing world.

there are rules in writing whether she wants to accept them or not.

one for article writing and book writing is word economy,

she writes like she talks and that is not good professional writing.

I completely agree with you on that case; people who write the way they speak drive me nuts. Sometimes I even ask my students to speak English, lol.

Basically she had some usage issues like the word "use" instead of the word "uses." Because I was looking at two articles side by side and both had glaring errors it was hard to vote for either one. You may not see the error, but she should have. (Scroll up through some of the other responses.)

BTW, I didn't tell her she was ESL, I suggested that if English were not the first language she could ask an English speaker for assistance. And the reason she was upset over it was that apparently someone else saw the comment "publicly" before she did and thought it could have been insulting.

The thing is almost everything we do and say is potentially insulting to someone. Every time I leave the house unescorted with my head and arms bare I am sure I am offended the sensibilities of a large faction of people who are Muslim.

The fact that I speak in complete sentences and use standard informal English has for many years offended the sensibilities of schoolmates, teachers and others who are intimidated by anyone remotely sophisticated and take it out on me (and others like me) suggesting we somehow think we are better or that we are snobs. The world is full of immature people with a multitude of complaints that I can not take personally. But, I digress, LOL.

I check my articles repeatedly as I work but sometimes errors escape me and I hate when it happens because they are usually the result of me being in a hurry and it is a sort of kin to carelessness. It's not that I am a perfectionist, I just know better so I should be more careful.

I never learned all those proper grammer rules and I am sure I have split my share of infinitives or used double negatives and so forth. If someone looked at one of my articles and told me I had made a mistake I would react this way "Oh, shoot!" and I would try to figure out how I could fix it.

One guy did email telling me to check my links but I had checked them meticulously before I posted the article so I replied asking if there was a specific link that was broken because this might mean a website change but he did not respond. Now when I include links I remind people that web pages and web sites change all the time and what's here today may be gone tomorrow.

I have had editors change the wording in my articles for words they thought sounded better. The problem was the words did not mean the same thing which made me look like an idiot, especially in this one particular instance where the person I interviewed explained the difference between a movie soundtrack and an original score. (Still getting over that years later.)

I am sure there are a number of people here who would be more than happy to help you with your writing. Just make sure that they only edit spelling and grammar and not your writing style.

Would say that spelling mistakes are one of the major things that should be pointed out if they are spotted. They are often easier to remedy compared to grammatical errors and can make the difference between an article being completed read and rated highly, and one that is marked way down even if they content of the article is good

This is true. Even if the content of the article is good, if there are several mistakes it gives the impression the author has not been careful or is careless about spelling and this does not provide a professional presentation.

It is only fair to writers who put in the hard work to hone their craft that an otherwise good article with many of these kinds of errors be voted against.

There are some days when the rating is a pleasure and some days when it is literally a pain -- in my head. We all make mistakes but when you have a mistake in almost every paragraph that is not the result of being in a hurry or failing to proof a piece; that is a lack of a grasp of language usage.

If both choices are not very good I will rate one slightly better so that I am voting against the one that is worse. Some days it is hard to choose.

Frankly speaking, I hate to rate leapfrog articles, it is very hard to know why the writer wants to leapfrog in the first place.
And sometimes they just change one or two words, and you have to compare sentence by sentence to dig out that one or two words.
I try to avoid rating those articles.

In almost 4 months of rating articles I think that I have seen maybe 5 that were actually re-written and qualified for leapfrogging.

I am always amazed at how a person will try to leapfrog an article full of typos that they have not attempted to fix in the new version.

Hi Canellita, I doubt they even change more than a few words here and there.
Maybe they just want to make use of leapfrog, to push for a re-rating of the articles in the titles.
Sometimes some lousy articles manage to reach the top, and stay there for a few days, before coming down again.

I have been 1 of 2 almost from the minute I posted my article on swirl tie dye shirts and today I was 2 of 2 even though the other article has bad punctuation and grammar! I could not believe it so I went to look at the article again to see if there was any change but it is still the same. Helium is becoming a challenge to my ego!

Hi Canellita, relax, a title is not competitive with just two articles, wait till the third article comes.
Many seasoned writers complain that the rating is not really that fair, and penalize the first writer to write to empty title.
The ranking always 1/1, then 2/2, and finally 5/5. And you have to constantly worry and leapfrog those articles.

LOL, I guess I like my articles being number one and this is one subject I definitely know something about. My article was way better and I guess it was a question of principle. (Maybe ego, just a little.)

Usually people either do not respond or they look at the article and see it needs updating. This is the only time I have been told I must have been having a bad day!

That's a good sign then as you do not suffer as a general rule with people always complaining! I'm glad to hear that!

I have actually received some really nice feedback on a couple of my own articles from one of the editors. Very encouraging.

That is just great, I know that must make you feel so good! Congratulations!