Leapfrogging on Helium

One of the quirks of Helium, one of several online paid to write sites that I belong to, is the ability to “leapfrog” one of your own articles. Leapfrogging involves replacing an article that you are unhappy and not earning anything from, with an article that is you believe is better. Leapfrogging is a necessary option given the Helium system.

Helium, named for the concept that the better articles in a title will rise to the top, uses a rating system. It is an old fashioned system in the sense that it uses writers to rate the work of other writers. It is a new fashioned system is the fact that the ratings are ran though an algorithm to figure out exactly where your article should end up in the stack. Thanks to the combination of fashions, one’s article can sink in the ratings like a stone, or rise very rapidly to the top.

The rating system is one of the most hated things about Helium. Given the fact that many writers don’t really understand how the system works, and that it is based on other writers’ opinion of the merits of one’s work, conspiracy theories arise about it.

Quite honestly, given the randomness of the selections that are presented to rate, I doubt that anyone is gaming the system. I will admit that it sometimes moves very slowly, especially when it comes to contest entries; but given enough time, at least for myself, my articles end up exactly where they are supposed to be. Others may disagree with me on this; after all, we all think that we are the best writers in the world, therefore rightfully deserving the number one slot.

Besides egos, there is also the small fact that Helium pays writers using a revenue sharing system. (Other revenue sharing sites include MyLot, Yuwie, Associated Content.) In the interest of attracting users, and keeping them, some web sites are beginning to share some of the ad revenue that they collect with the people using the site and providing useful content. On Helium and Associated Content, that content is articles.

Many people prefer Associated Content over Helium, due to the fact that Associated Content does not rate articles in the same manner that Helium does. On AC, each article is rated only against itself, and it has no bearing on your revenue share (AC calls it “Performance Bonus). Your rating on Helium does affect your earnings; even if only because the top five articles in a title get seen more than the others in the title.

So in light of this, writers on Helium are allowed to attempt to replace an article with another version; hopefully, one that does better in the ratings. It does not always work, causing many experienced Helium writers to wait until their work hit rock bottom before they attempt to write a better version.

This year, during my winter break from college, some of the writing that I am doing is revisions of my bottom dwellers. Not all of them. Quite frankly, some of my lowest rated articles are there simply because I don’t care enough that they are sitting on the bottom (if I think the shelf-life of an article is over, there is no point in wasting time rewriting it).

And besides, some of these articles are no longer current with my skill as a writer. Thanks to college, a couple of novel rough drafts, and just sheer experience as a writer, many of the articles I wrote there when I first joined are articles I now am horrified to have written.

Say what you will about Helium; but at least they allow you to replace your trash with something more readable. I know that many people prefer Associated Content, due to the lack of a rating stack; but considering that an article there is forever and non-replaceable, perhaps Helium is the better vehicle for your writing if you are getting better as a writer.

And they look the same to me

So today, I was leapfrogging one of my articles on Helium.

(For those who are not familiar with Helium and the term leapfrogging, it is a process where you replace one version of an article that you wrote with one that you hope will do better in the ratings.)

Then, as is my custom, I started to rate articles. My theory is that is I do some rating, that means that my article will proceed though the rating system there at a faster pace than if I did no rating at all.

Besides, I am still trying to get back into the flow of things; call it a productive way of goofing off (it was either rate or do postings on MyLot). Either way, I figure I wasn't going to get much paid writing done today.

So there I am , rating away, trying to be useful to myself. And because I am rating, I am seeing the stuff that other people are leapfrogging (to successfully leapfrog one of your articles, the raters have to decide that it has as much merit or more than the original).

Maybe it is just me, but so many of these leapfrogs looked exactly the same. If there was a difference in them, I sure couldn't spot it. Now the leapfrog I am attempting (at this point, it is still pending) is a completely different version. It is not me trying to correct some small mistakes; it is me trying to get the article to sound more like me. So the raters that see my attempt are going to see a big difference.

And that is because there is actually a difference between the two versions. Even if it lands exactly where the previous was sitting, I figure I will be happier with the newer version (provided that the raters agree with me that it is the better version).

But this does make me wonder what is the point of leapfrogging an article that looks exactly the same as the original. Now, my crooked mind does tell me that perhaps they are exactly the same, and the writers are merely trying to get them rerated against the rest of the stack. In which case, I have to ask, "If you are unhappy with its placement in the ratings, don't you think that it will land in about the same position again if it is still the same article?"

In my mind, if you make no actual changes, then it should land exactly back where it was to begin with. And several of these leapfrogs could have used formatting changes at the very least. There was room for improvement.

I am pleased to note that one writer on Helium was leapfrogging for format changes. I could tell. I rated the better formatted versions higher than the originals (they were easier to read). And considering I tend to rate articles that have bad formatting down (if it is hard to read, it better be a really good article to stand a chance, or up against pure trash), they desired another go at being rated properly.

But outside of that, most of the leapfrogs I rated today seemed to be merely an attempt by some of the Helium writers to have another go at being rated without actually doing any more work. I wish them exactly the luck that they deserve; now, where is that eye of newt?