There have been many items posted on the community forums by people that misunderstand the whole concept of writing stars and that believe that by producing volume they can attain writing stars. The stars on the site are calculated to award writers of excellence, and quantity is not as important as quality. Many writers have been disappointed by not being awarded the stars, though these are open to any writer, and are obtainable, and this article is written in an attempt to help explain the intricacies of the Writing stars on Helium.

COMPETITIVE ARTICLES.

Here many members misunderstand the writing star concept and believe that because they have many No. 1 items, they are entitled to writing stars, though imagine their surprise when in fact this is not the case. No. 1 stand alone articles have no competition and therefore deciding on whether they are quality submissions or not is very difficult indeed and these do not count towards writing stars.

So how can you draw attention to those stand alone No. 1 items that have no competition ?

Helium have thought of this and from time to time have competitions which were originally called Fat and Happy contests, to make those threads of stand alone items fatter. Another way that you can get more people to write to your topics is to post on the passion forums in the community, where you can find people with similar interests and perhaps suggest that they write to the topics you have proposed or talk to the site steward of that area and ask for generation of some interest towards your topics.

THE PERCENTAGE GAME

Here, Helium took account of the fact that many writers joined when the quality of the site was lower, and have discounted the lowest ranked ten per cent of each member's articles in the equation for being awarded stars. It's a generous offer, but they go further than that. For those struggling with getting their writing up to scratch, the mentor system helps people to improve old articles and make them more viable, improving their chances in the rating system.

GAINING AND LOSING

Stars on the site have a unique concept and one that is better than any other writing site I know. If someone loses interest and starts writing bad quality articles, preferring quantity over quality, what happens is that their percentage of good quality articles falls, and they stand a chance of losing writing stars. The concept is a very strong one and gives writers the incentive never to get complacent about

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