Just lost my Helium Rating Star

Today, I was reminded why I was against the very idea of Helium tying the daily earnings into the rating star system.

Yes, today I lost my rating star.

Since November, my rating percentage has been dropping. And overnight I lost two percentage points which wiped out my rating star. And yes, I am going to be told that I should have stayed home last night and rated a bunch of articles, rather than going out and doing my job as a lodge officer.

Yes, I am upset.

The drawback of tying the earnings to the rating stars has never been pointed out by the Helium staff. I know enourgh math to guess at the horrible truth; over half the writers will not get paid on any given day.

At the moment, I am at 72% on rating and with 134 ratings done; in order to regain my star, I figure that I have to do over a hundred ratings. And lets presume that my rating percentage is going to continue to drop. At a certain point in time, it is better that I abandon Helium than continue to fight the battle.

Essentially, I have a choice now. I can either focus on my writing or my rating. I started off in Novermber with a 82%; in the space of a month and a half, I lost ten percentage points.

Either other people got really good at rating, or my fears are true and the system does consider the majority to be the norm and bases what it considers to be a quality rate on the masses.

For those who don't know, I am the same person that loathed peer review days in my college writing classes. My sentences were considered too long; no one was present from my regular audience; and my classe mates were writing stuff that could have been ripped from any television sit-com.

Bottom line, Helium may have just lost me as a writer.

This college break I am booked nine ways to Sunday for time, between the lodge (mainly rewriting the entire website) and house repairs. I am supposed to be focusing on my writing, not spending all my time rating which do not increase my potential earnings.

I think that Associated Content just became my primary focus when it comes to online writing. And Constant Content all of a sudden looks a lot better.

I understand why Helium has to force their members to rate, but I think it is going to cost them a lot of good writers in the end, especially if the system is going by the majority to determine how good a person's rating skill is.