The Pricks In The Helium.com Balloon

There are many content sites on the internet to test your mettle as a writer. Some are fairly open about the goings on and you know what to expect. But as in any business, there are always some who take advantage of the hard work of others. I found out the hard way about the business of writing online. My first experience was at a site called Helium.com . It seemed like a cool site and the members were so helpful to newcomers like me. It seemed easy to write articles which ranked high enough to gain writing stars and I was having a blast for a while.

Then I started noticing things which made me uncomfortable. I began reading some of the articles which were rated #1 in a title group. One author would write complete paragraphs without a comma or period throughout and the spelling was horrible. This writer had many highly rated articles in his portfolio, just like the first one I found. I soon found this to be normal as others reported the same findings. I began reading the forums to see if I were the only one noticing these anomalies in the rating system. I was not alone.

I was informed any member can rate an article up or down if they had written in a channel in which the subject of the article was included. Even those who wrote terrible articles had the same rating power as someone who had expertise on the subject, or those who wrote grammatically correct, correctly spelled articles. Boy was I depressed! “This is the wave of the future” one pompous steward told me “if this article was chosen by the masses, then this what they want.” I was even more depressed!

I began to notice when other members mentioned the same problems I had encountered on the forums that the same stewards would rally around the Helium flagpole and dismiss or make light of the questioner. If anyone complained about an article rated above theirs, no matter how terrible the #1 article was, the complainer would be labeled as a “sour grapes” member by the same group of stewards. They became know as “Helium Cheerleaders.”

When I joined the site stewards were touted as “unpaid volunteers” helping the Helium staff by overseeing certain channels and sub-channels. They supposedly had no more control over articles than the common members. They didn’t even have to be experienced or particularly knowledgeable in the channel or sub-channel they were stewarding. Of course we common members didn’t know this piece of information, along with many more not-so-well-kept secrets. In short, Helium staff lies a lot. Not only the staff but the stewards too. Not all of them, as some the other stewards and subs were not aware of the special treatment of some elite stewards.

These specially chosen stewards were getting paid and still claimed to be volunteers. I confronted Helium about this by contacting Barbara Whitlock and exchanging many emails back and forth. “Like pulling teeth” as my dad would say about getting a straight answer. I knew it was true by the way she dodged and ducked the questions. She finally admitted it was a “trial” program and some stewards were receiving a small recompense for their work while others got nothing.

The stewards vilified me when I announced all of the stewards were not unpaid volunteers. I received copies of the stewards private forum posts calling me names and generally slamming me. Ms Whitlock also posted how the stews were heroes for treating me badly and threw in a few punches herself. Of course they didn’t know I was being fed the posts. But I was not through yet.

You see, the stewards do have privileges the common members do not.  They can rate in any channel they choose.  If they write to a title about flower gardening they can keep choosing the sub channel until they can rate their closest competition down or their friend’s article up.  It only takes a few rejected leaps to refuse an edit to a writer, especially important in the so called writing contests.  Leaping at the last minute usually decides the winners of the contests, not the content.  Coincidentally, stewards win a good share of these contests.

The writing contests are a joke, of course.  It is simply a leapfrog contest by those who know how to game the system.  The stewards can choose any channel they please to rate in, not just those they have written in and not random articles.  Since it only takes three or four rejections to prohibit a leap from being accepted, the steward can effectively eliminate the competition for top ranking.  The main staff members and stews say this doesn’t happen, but they cannot be trusted as I have shown. 

Some of the stewards are “pieces of work” when it comes to quelling any dissent from the membership.  It’s easy to pick which of them are “company people.”  Let a member ask a question concerning some new rule or policy change and they swarm on the “complainer” like flies on road kill.  Especially the community board administrator.  I really owe this silly little man a debt of gratitude.  His statements and excuses were so ridiculous to me that he was the reason I began to smell a rat, or rather a pack of them.

This mail-order reverend/shaman/braggart deleted my post calling me a liar in the process. I asked him to point out exactly where I lied in my statement. He emailed me saying he couldn’t recover the deleted post once it was gone. He loves to use stupid analogies to appear as a knowledgeable sincere helper but has put his foot in his mouth a number of times and had to delete his own ramblings. He once compared the writers to Nazis and the stewards to the allies. He got a few days off for that one. If a company is so hard up as to use this guy to moderate the forums, it has to be crooked.

But he is not alone. Another stew known as Ms. PMS is almost as bad as the rev. Helium likes a certain “ass kissing” type for the role of steward. Don’t get me wrong, there are some good people helping out on the site, but they are not aware of the unscrupulous goings-on by the staff. Before being banned I received a phone call from Mark Ranalli concerning the stews getting paid. He claimed to be unaware of the stewards being able to rate and access any channel they desired. Yeah right! After I agreed not to spill the beans about the stewards special privileges until after the new year, I was banned from the site permanently.

No matter what the terms of service were when you joined the site, you have no recourse if they suddenly change the policy. Oh yes, you can stop writing for Helium and lose all of your work, because unless you keep rating forever you receive no pay for your articles. When I joined, the agreement was for Helium to pay a writer for their work as long as the writer was alive. Even after the writer’s demise the writer’s heirs would continue to receive the income from the articles. Presently, the heirs have to participate on Helium by rating articles and keeping a rating star or they receive nothing. “Slick as owl shit“, as my grandpa used to say.

Many writers are trapped at this cruddy site. If they leave, they lose their work. If they stay, they have to contend with the slime balls running the show. I advise anyone writing there to cut your loses. Helium gives no accounting of the page views nor what percent a writer gets from the ads. The whole “trust us” thing is transparently corrupt.

Don’t just take my word for it, look at the home pages for the hunting and camping channels. I usually have at least one article on the front page while receiving nothing in return. I also do not know how many of my 109 articles have been sold as stock content with Helium pocketing the money.

In short, don’t give these people your hard work for nothing. Do not join this site if you are expecting fair treatment or are looking for a future as a writer. I have never dealt with such creeps before in my life. There are more pricks in the Helium.com balloon now than when they stole my articles. Check out past members on the internet and listen to what they say about Helium.com.

I am not writing this just for the hell of it, I’m trying to keep others from falling for the Helium scam. Just remember, they can ban you at any time for any reason, or no reason at all. They also refuse to respond to the Better Business Bureau about the many complaints filed against them. Stay far away from these cretins or they will rip you off. Take it from someone who knows.