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The Helium rating system seems to be quite unique and, in many ways, it is a great concept. However, it does have its flaws and does not work consistently and reliably. At times it can really get a person down.

Serious writers tend to be sensitive people and can take it very personally when an article they have put a lot of time, thought and effort into goes nowhere - or even worse, slides down the ratings ladder. This is particularly disheartening when others that are clearly very ordinary, and have obviously not had much effort at all put into them, are rated ahead. Worst of all is when a conscientious writer, who generally rates well, has a bad run of poor ratings.

I expect there are probably few writers that this doesn't happen to from time to time and, in all likelihood, the best course of action is to persevere and just keep on keeping on. I find that eventually things usually pan out to be reasonably fair in the bigger picture. If you keep submitting more articles, even when you're feeling fed-up and disenchanted with the ratings system, there is usually a breakthrough at some point, where things start to look up again. Then you might motor along happily for some time before you hit a depressing patch again.

Nevertheless, I do believe that the Helium staff need to be continually looking for ways to improve the system, so that it is as fair as possible. There can be no doubt at all that there are often times when really good articles get rated badly, and end up stuck indefinitely behind articles that are of a considerably poorer quality. The reasons for this may be rather complex.

To start with, there must certainly be at least a small percentage of those who rate for Helium who really don't make fair judgments. It could be that they are too lazy to read more than the bare minimum and just automatically rate those with the least content higher than those who have something of considerable worth to say. It would seem that there are a minority at least who have little or no regard for writing that is well-presented and that honours the rules of punctuation, grammar, etc.

Also, it has to be said that, while a high-quality article, written with considerable thought, research and/or personal experience and expertise, is generally recognized as such and rated accordingly, there are some individuals who just wouldn't have a clue.

There is also a considerable amount of subjectivity where rating articles is concerned. One person may show preference for an article

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