Calling all Helium Writers...

Hi Byfaithonly, I have maintained 5 rating stars since the first month in Helium. I hope you can rate enough for 5 rating stars and earn the $3 rating bonus every month. Rating is very easy. You have to choose just 1 criteria, and consistently rate the article according to this criteria. An article has to submit to rating by many writers, when you use just 1 rating criteria, the other writers will use other rating criteria, only the article that can satisfy all writers can reach the top. Choose an easy rating criteria, such as spelling, or punctuation. In this case, you can rate fast, and apply the same standard to all kinds of articles. If you choose an emotional criteria, such as how the first 3 paragraphs appeal to you, you are not likely to apply this criteria to very technical and political topic. My rating criteria is very simple, I treat the article as the book in the bookshop, I just ask myself, which book will I spend money on? It is impossible for anyone to read the book from cover to cover before buying it, that's why I pay more attention to the first few paragraphs. If the writer can convince me that the following paragraphs are going to benefit me, I will rate the article better. Another tip is to rate "far better", do not choose "slightly more". From my experience, I find that choosing "slightly more" or "slightly less" affect the rating score negatively. Hope this help!

We have the same problem. I usually rate other members' articles when I really have time to read. It would be unfair for the writers to simply rate just to get rating stars right? I know I wouldn't want that to happen to my articles there. Unfortunately, since I'm very busy with work the past few months, I didn't get to rate as often as I would like to. Thus, I lost the 2 rating stars I already got. Now, I'm trying to log in and at least read 2-6 articles a day and rate them fairly. I agree that it's very frustrating. I wrote 4 articles last month and didn't even get any payments for them all because I had 0 rating stars :( It seems we need to have a rating score of 30 per month (I now have 56) and 90 or more for the last 90 days (I'm still at 80) to get 1 rating star. I guess if I put all my efforts at rating 10 articles today, I'll finally get a rating star tomorrow. Still, I have to gauge the time I have. As I said, I don't want shortchange the other writers by rating indiscriminately. Too bad, I'm the one who's feeling shortchanged at the moment :(

I quit writing for Helium when they started the new rating system. It doesn't make enough money for the time spent on it for me. Have you asked in their forum about why you can't get the rating star? Maybe there will be some pointers there, I know they had some knowledgeable and helpful people there at one time.

You know i use to be an active member of Helium, but like you i would get very frustrated with them so ihave not been on Helium for quite some time...I wish i could help but i was not even able to help myslf on that site...Good luck to you though...possibly you could contact one of the head huncho's maybe that is the head of that site...

I think you only need one star for rating in order to earn. I think that's obtained with thirty ratings a month. That's not so hard to do if you break it down to one rating a day. Or, rate seven articles a week. If you want to swap links for Helium pages, let me know. I have some articles on Helium too. I'll visit your pages and you visit mine and we'll help each other earn. Let me know. Right now, I'm making more money with my articles on another paid article site. I put the link on my profile page. That site doesn't have complicated rules about rating stars. They just pay you for traffic to your articles.

Hi , I have not been active on Helium since last 3 odd months . Before that I did had some rating stars - not too much , yet they were there . I think one needs to have good articles as well as a good amount of luck to help one get good rating on Helium . Hard it is ;yet it cannot be helped . Regards

I was a part of helium before they put in this rating thing so technically I didn't agree with it and find it unfair as well. I rate and write articles a lot and some of the articles I write are in the literature part where there aren't other articles so its hard to get more than a certain number. I have no idea how to get my rating. I have so many articles and apparently they dont count.

I feel that Mylot is better than Helium.

I have maintained my rating stars at Helium for more than a year now. Usually I have 4 stars, sometimes my score drops and I lose one. Today I have 5 stars, but I expect I will lose one of these before the end of the month. I don't think too hard about rating. I am in the habit of rating regularly every day and I enjoy doing it. I simply think of someone using a search engine to look for information and I decide which of the two articles would be most helplful to that person. I have been trained as a professional editor and proofreader. I do allow for some errors, if an article is generally well written. I will not give a higher rating to an article that has obviously never been checked or edited before it was submitted.

I don't like it either that the rating stars drop if we don't keep up with the rating. They didn't have rating stars when I joined. If you rate a few every day, you can keep enough to get paid, but I find that I can't find the time to rate. It takes time to read them are compare them and try to be fair. Based on my own temptations when I rate and have very little time, I wonder how many people won't really read them -- just rate and go on to the next just so they can keep enough stars to be paid. I think it could be a problem.

Hi byfaithonly, I have been a member for nearly a year now. I have a 3 star rating for writing which you can get only after you submit 70+ articles or more, and I have a 5 star for rating. You need to rate every day to maintain your stars. However once you submit 100+ articles and acquired 3 stars , your writing stars remain steady, but rating stars can decline. So I would suggest that you submit a lot of articles and gain your 3 stars for writing and then keep at rating others to maintain your rating star. If you have 5 rating stars you get an additional 3 dollars added to your account every month - all the best

it is too difficult to keep rating others 'articles and It is a waste of time sometimes . maybe we should try some other sites that may pay us according to the quality of our articles .

I am also finding my rating stars disappearing. For months, I had 3 stars, then overnight it reduced to 1, although I have never totally lost them. I think the truth is that Helium is starting to get too big for its boots at the moment. The new pay structure they introduced a few months ago has helped my earnings, but perhaps they feel they are paying out too much and are trying to keep it down by getting tighter on rating? The trouble with the Helium star system is nobody really knows how it works, so it's difficult to keep tabs on progress. In the Rewardathon last year, I had the one writing star and 3 rating stars necessary all the way through the competition. 2 hours before the deadline, my writing star disappeared, so I missed out on a $50+ payment. The next day, the star was back! I protested strongly, as nearly all the qualifying articles were in the top 10%, and the positions hadn't slipped, but I got nowhere. I have just reached minimum payout again, so I have requested it. If my rating star disappears and I stop earning, I won't bother with Helium any more.

i am now also inactive in helium because i don't really like the rating system where other writers who don't really read the article thoroughly could make your writing score rise or drop. getting a rating star was easy for me when i was still active and i think i've reached four stars. i just like the marketplace and i have sold about four articles for about $30-$40 each.