The benefits of Helium peer critique. That's a conundrum if there ever was one, for what benefits are there that accrue to a writer versus those that accrue to a rater? Think about it. It's true; there are problems in the way rate and in the way we who rate are treated by those who write well and are not rating. Raters on Helium who devote so much time to rating can deceive themselves into believing that there are real benefits that accrue to them other than those that are pleasurable from reading and rating. I don't know of any benefits that accrue to me as a rater. They accrue to the writer, but not raters. And low ratings are not that helpful to writers if good ones end up chocking in the muck of a miss-worded topic or one that is topically miss-directed by some innocent who fails to grasp the significance of the assignment. or the ways that one can be turned on its head.

It would be somewhat fairer if those who write were at least to do a fair share in the rating department. If they can maintain five stars writing, they could at least beat one star rating. These writers are freeloading. That is a major weakness in writing for Helium while wanting to do one's share of rating.

Raters are like English teachers without portfolio. They do all the work grading other people's work and receive none of the benefits that accrue to those who end up ranking high in the pile and continue working the system to collect whatever they earn. I'm not writing for money, so I would like to see a fair shake.

Many times, raters don't know enough about what they rate so that their rating will adversely affect a piece of work that is far better for being on target than another rated higher but off target. Some pieces are rated better for the blooming vocabulary some writers use in disguising the fact that they don't have an inkling of what they write about for never having been there and never having done that.

It's not that these pieces cannot be done well, but buffet writing on subjects that writers know little about other than what they can gather from a quick Google is ludicrous, not for the writing, but for the rating. All of them start off with a superlative describing the assigned target subject: As far as these writers are concerned, "amazingly beautiful New England" can be traversed in one day from the Rhode Island shore to Vermont's North East Kingdom, from Machias to Greenwich while visiting superlative this and that nonstop.

Every writer who debates ought to get more recognition on publication with a byline. Whoopee. Is it because it's less taxing to at least be able to debate cogently and persuasively than it is to write a poem by any standard of poetics that is not a poem? Rating debates is not giving higher marks to some unknown with whom one happens to agree politically or philosophically. But it is useless to even make this point, as everyone rating is entitled to an opinion.

Finally, all this rambling has nothing at all to do with anything other than with the point of this piece. If a writer writes and does not rate, there ought to be a way to let it be known that those who rate won't take it any more. I'm declaring a moratorium on rating. Bad or good writer that I am.

Learn more about this author, Gerard Coulombe.
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