Who should rate Helium debate articles:Those who agree or disagree?

Disagree

6 of 16

by John Traveler

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If you want the chance to give voice to your ideological persuasions, esoteric notions, your personal opinions and beliefs, Helium.com is the ultimate forum to do it in. But, if you think you will be heard by bashing some other writer in the rating system, you are sadly mistaken.

When this word-smith first joined the family of Helium writers several years ago, it was a diverse institution of multicultural, multinational, ideological diversity, embracing just about every perspective on any given subject you want to talk about. Take religion for instance; there used to be multitudes of Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, and even a few atheists who could be counted on at Helium to provide dissenting views, making Helium interesting and representative of a wider spectrum of thoughts and perspectives.

Sure, some of them are still around, but those who remain don't bother to share their religious perspectives any more because they are all too well aware their articles will tank as more radical Christian bigots rate them, not based on any objective analysis of the writers ability to eloquently convey a thought, but totally subjectively on the basis that the rater does not agree with the writers convictions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not picking on Christians here, as you can be assured that a Helium site in Israel, where Judaism is the predominant view, would not treat Christian perspectives (which are considered heretical in Jewish orthodoxy) with any more respective deference. We could probably come to the same conclusion with respect to countries where Islam is the predominant belief.

It is important here too, to establish that the ideological rating bashing trend at Helium is not confined to topics of esoteric belief. If your views are anything to the left of conservative in your politics and you're considering participation in a Helium writing contest on political issues, don't bother to waste your time. But that's not the extent of it either. Even in a topical area such as science you will find people who have some weird notion of the universe and feel the need to trash more realistic articles substantively questioning the basis of their absurd conceptions, and which they can't bring them selves to agree with when rating.

My fellow Heliumite's, this is America, where the right of freedom of expression and belief in what ever establishment of religion or ideological posture you choose is supreme. If you don't agree with or like what you read in an article you are rating, don't trash that article. Instead, show that your ideas are better by making a convincing, well founded, lucid, and objectively supportable argument in an article authored by yourself. Then, allow a fair rating system to judge your article with respect to others for the title, not based on ideological preference, but by which writer demonstrates the greatest intellect on the subject, articulates it concisely and effectively, and does so with the greatest respect for the English language and adherence to grammatical correctness.

If you bother to read many Helium author bios, irregardless of all the contrasting individually unique attributes, you can not help to notice that a common theme restated over and over by Helium members is their love of writing and appreciation of a place like Helium to do it. Sadly, there are many good writers who have already left Helium, and the main reason is they don't feel they are being fairly treated in the Helium rating process.

There is a sense of irony to this, in that they are right, and you need no more than read the arguments on the other side of this debate for evidence of it. The problem is that the pool of remaining writers is become more radical in one direction or another, which means more radically subjective rating and a perpetually shrinking reservoir of the kind of diversity that originally made Helium so attractive to so many. In short, the consortium of Helium writers is dwindling, and with it the readership of Helium articles. The dollars and cents of it is, that as Helium site visitation declines so will advertisement on the site, and when that happens, Helium will be no more. So in reality, those who love to write and rate on Helium will ultimately loose this valued resource, if we allow our personal preferences to dictate how we rate articles.

As with every other aspect of life, nothing is ever black and white; there are always shades of gray in between. This author, as such, would be remiss if failing to point out, that in some instances, ideology should be a consideration in the rating process. Such cases should never be a matter of personal perspective, but when some writer crosses the line of good taste, participating in discourse to the point of hate mongering and fallacious or malicious damage to some other facet of belief, that line has been crossed and it is incumbent upon every Heliumite to send it to the bottom.

Furthermore, possible consideration of an e-mail to Helium content questioning the appropriateness of the article might be equally astute. An example might be some anti-Semite who disavows the Holocaust, radical pro-lifer who defends some crazed nut case who goes around shooting doctors who perform abortions, or perhaps a Star Trek enthusiast who believes warp drive is a factual reality (nothing against Star Trek fans you understand, as this author can be counted among their number).

So, here is some food for thought the next time you are rating. Consider an article on its literary merit, not its adherence to your personal ideological creed, and hope that other Helium raters will extend to you the same courtesy. If you feel the need to state your opinions, do it with your written word, not by trying to silence some fellow Heliumite's contrasting views through the rating process. As a Helium member, you and every other Helium member will benefit if Helium, as a place for you to write your stuff, is here tomorrow. That will only be the case if the best articles rise to the top.

People who visit the site, but are not members, in most cases, will appreciate a wide spectrum of opinions, but will not tolerate poorly written articles stating some arcane subversive viewpoint. If you really feel the need to talk down some other helium writer, here's an idea, send them and e-mail and tell them what you think!

Finally, one Heliumite writing on the other side of this debates has suggested Helium should only ask those who agree with the premise to rate that viewpoint. While well intended, this suggestion is fundamentally flawed; because it favors the articles which state the majority rater viewpoint. A better solution might be to change the rating process to a categorical rating system of 1-5 points for each of several different criterion such as, grammatical correctness, punctuation, spelling, word usage, sentence structure, conceptual clarity, appropriate use of citations and so on. You know, all the little things about being a good writer you are supposed to pick up in an English Composition 1-A class. This type of objective rating process would truly elevate articles to the top which will attract people to Helium, making it a better place for all Helium writers to give voice to their ideological persuasions, esoteric notions, their personal opinions and beliefs and, more importantly, to find an audience interested in reading what they have to say.

You wouldn't want to shop at a supermarket that sold only one kind of vegetable or fruit because the store owner decided it was the only kind you needed to eat. Helium is no different. People come here shopping for a variety of well scripted ideas and, if they can't find that variety and quality here, if they are constrained by some majority ideological viewpoint imposed through the rating process, they will go elsewhere. Ask yourself, where then will you as a Helium writer go, to Learn what you need and share what you know?

Learn more about this author, John Traveler.
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