by Roxanne Dubarry

Created on: March 29, 2008

Suggestions to improve the rating process. Currently Helium values the number of articles submitted by it's writers than the actual quality of the submitted work. If any writer fails to reach her numerical quota for the submissions of articles, she losses her blue writing stars. Trying to maintain her current level of reward able stars lessons the amount of time spent in the actual creative compositions process.

If an article is submitted in a foreign language such as Spanish should it be placed next door to an article written in the English language? The answer of course is no, I used the skip option and did not rate both article because I was unable to favorably compare them.

Articles written in Spanish should be rated next to articles written in Spanish. Then an article rater is able to skip the articles submitted to her on the grounds that she does not understand the Spanish language!

Gold starts should also be awarded for quality not for quantity. Once the stars are rightfully earned they should not be omitted unless the quality of submissions declines. Does that mean that Helium and other related on-line writing sites should not have a minimum requirement for submissions? Of course not, a writer should have to submit any thing ranging from ten to twenty-five submitted articles before she is eligible for a single gold star.

Articles that are flagged. I have flagged several articles for formatting purposes. Sometimes otherwise well written articles are submitted in lengthy descriptive paragraphs creating an unattractive appearance. It creates a great deal of difficulty for the rater to correctly judge the quality of an article or essay.

I have also flagged articles that I consider profane. Users of profanity long for acceptability in both the oral and written media. Profane and/or obscene language subtracts from the quality of the article. In one instance a female Helium raters lauded a mature actress who appeared topless on the cover of an AARP magazine. Did I flag her article, I did not although I should have.

Helium is not a scandal rag that caters to the perverse pleasures of writers who should think of submitting articles to Cosmopolitan and People Magazine! I gave her opponent a far better rating than I did for her. If we want to encourage our young writers to submit articles on this website perhaps some writers can remove their profane and obscene language from the gutter!

Although I consider myself mainly a Christian inspirational writer and poet, Helium should not solely be reserved for writers of Christian, Jewish or Muslim writers. Certainly secular writers should also be accepted. I have read well written and informative articles of view points and opinions that are completer polar opposite to mine.

What is the purpose of Helium? Knowledge. The free exchange of factual information, personal enlightenment, essays and poetry, and carefully researched articles. Helium writers refer their readers to additional websites. Helium knows no geographical boundaries or even political ideologies. By encouraging and mentoring writers, Helium can vastly improve it's rating systems.

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