by Ravi Embar

Created on: October 25, 2008   Last Updated: February 27, 2010

I have written many articles on the Helium website over the course of the past year and I was fortunate to receive recognition from Foreign Exchange TV and the Pulitzer Center for two of my articles. A couple of my articles are rated at the top of their respective topics while some other articles , that in my opinion were among my better articles and should have rated higher, have not been rated that highly. This is part of Helium's peer rating system and I appreciate the opportunity that Helium provides for aspiring writers to express their viewpoints and discuss a wide range of issues. Contributing articles to the Helium website has been a very positive experience.

I have at times wondered how exactly the peer rating functions and if it is always a collection of peer votes or if it is possible for collective peer voting to influence the ranking. One of my articles "Faith of My Forefathers", which is my featured article, was rated the top article for several weeks before dropping to the penultimate place in a matter of several consecutive days. The article in question has remained in that position for the past several months. Some of my other articles were submitted on topics that already comprised many articles. The Helium rating system inserts new articles in the middle of the existing ranking list. Consequently, once the articles are inserted, in the case of topics for which there exist more than a hundred articles, the ranking of the articles does not seem to fluctuate. Since there must be a rapidly growing number of articles on the Helium website, is it possible that only the articles in the top twenty are rated frequently by other peers?

The Helium team is doing a great job in responding to the e-mails that I, and doubtless many others, have sent them over the past several months. However due to the ever increasing database of articles and the associated indexing and maintenance issues, is it time for there to be a review of the selection and frequency of articles for the peer review?

I was recently notified by the Helium Team that due to the higher rating of some of my articles, I have been identified as a "Premier Writer". While it is always satisfying to be recognized for one's writing skills, I have noticed that three of my articles written for the topics listed below are not included in the list of articles displayed when a search by name of the author is conducted on the Helium website.

(1) Should a US company be legally liable in US courts for environmental

consequences of its operations abroad?

(2) Are developing countries better served by male or female leaders?

(3) Poetry: New Age

These omissions might result from an error in the indexing process. Would the ratings of these three articles have a significant impact on my rating as a "Premier Writer"?

I think that at least a few other writers may share similar concerns about the ratings in the peer rating system.

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