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I received an e-mail the other day from another Helium member who wondered why I had five rating stars and she had none after she had rated hundreds of articles. I e-mailed her several tips. One of them was "don't be afraid to flag articles." Flagging articles helps the person who has written the article because he or she receives constructive criticism. It helps the person rating the article because it helps him or her earn rating stars. Flagging also improves the quality of the entire Helium site.

How does flagging help me earn rating stars? You earn Helium rating stars by not only the quantity of articles you rate but also by the quality of your rating. What Helium means by quality rating is a trade secret, however, I believe strongly that people who fail to flag articles that need flagging will not have as many rating stars as people who do.

Of course, you should only flag articles that need flagging. These include articles that are off topic, adult, illegal or have a lot of grammar and spelling errors. One of the biggest no-nos, of course, is plagiarism.

I have only flagged three articles for plagiarism. Once I was presented with two articles that were exactly the same. They were not leapfrog articles, so it was obvious that one of them had to be plagiarized. I flagged them both because I didn't know which one was stolen. Another time I suspected an article was plagiarized. After googling the first sentence of the article and finding it on several web sites, I knew the author was a word thief.

Most of the time I find that I am flagging articles because the author has included his or her name in the article, the article has no paragraph breaks or the article is off topic. I have been flagging off topic articles more and more lately.

I try to be positive when flagging an article. If the article is a good one, I tell the author that it is before I tell him or her what is wrong with it. There is no reason to be rude when flagging.

As everyone on Helium takes not only rating seriously, but flagging seriously, Helium cannot help but become a better website. Flagging, more so than rating, forces a writer to write better.

I cannot be certain that responsible flagging has earned me extra rating stars. But I do know that the writer I sent the tip about flagging to, e-mailed me back a week later to tell me that she had earned two rating stars.

Learn more about this author, Dan Weaver.
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