by Karon Brandt

Created on: February 03, 2008   Last Updated: February 05, 2010

Helium's exclusive rating system assigns us stars for doing "quality rates." We must go along with the "majority" in a system backed by algorithms to earn rating stars. If I am "forced" to rate articles I do not, in my gut, believe in, I am probably going to "skip" a lot of ratings. I don't want to feel like I am back in school doing an unwanted assignment on which I am being graded.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines debate as "A formal contest of argumentation in which two opposing teams defend and attack a given proposition." The obsolete definition is to fight or quarrel.

No matter how friendly we are as competitors, I think the "teams" could become un-objective and quarrelsome if given the opportunity. In fact, I used to avoid writing to emotionally laden debate topics because I didn't want to be bombarded with negative e-mails. Since raters only rate the side they agree with, I feel safer about expressing my views among like-minded peers, and I have written to several topics.

It is human nature to be biased about something. Psychologists say we tend to ignore facts and ideas that go against our beliefs and embrace those that agree with us (confirmation bias). That's what "cherry picking" a jury system counts on, and our differences are what makes us human.

The whole point of a debate is to present opposite views of a "controversial" subject. If people could choose their raters for their topic, they could cherry pick their "jury," too.

Helium asks us to be objective raters/critics when we rate anonymous, paired articles. No matter how hard we try, our core beliefs, our emotions, and our past personal experiences are going to feed into our ratings.

Raters/critics earn gold stars by fairly and objectively rating up the "better" article that offers the "more valuable" information. This requires considered thoughtfulness, which should not be tainted even by subconscious feelings of bias.

Helium's democratic rating system makes the articles ultimately move into their (overall) proper ranks. Based on those rankings, writers are paid according to their stars of recognition.

Our earned rating stars are based on the overall community's idea of which is "better." I do not want to second-guess the computer by trying to match my rate against the majority opinion about a view I disagree with, just to earn a quality rating point. I feel I can better judge the validity of the presentation of views that are similar to my own.

If I were "forced" to rate articles

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