Lol, Helium Leapfrog backfired
By iakulchen
@iakulchen (615)
Singapore
March 6, 2009 12:44am CST
Well, one of my articles has been sitting at rank 2/5 for quite a long time. The other articles under the title were : 1 off topic article which never even covered the title at all, sitting in 1st place. An article which didn't really address the title, had some incorrect info and had a number of grammar mistakes, sitting in 3rd place. An article which only touched on the title briefly in the last 2 paragraphs and wasn't indented properly so the paragraphs all flowed into one another without spacing in between taking 4th. And the one in last place was just a copy of mine, but rewritten in bad, although still readable English (I did complain to Helium about it before, but they did let it pass, which I presume was because he had rewritten it enough. But I still think an article of mine is stolen if I can just look at my article and tell you exactly what his article wrote and the exact sequence of the points he'll make)
Anyway, I finally got around to making changes to my article and leapfrogging it after several months of it sitting in 2nd place and it's now in 3rd place. The article which was originally in 3rd place has now gone all the way up to 1st place. And here I was thinking before the leapfrog that this was a "safe" leapfrog and that the worst that could happen was that I would still be stuck in second place.
5 responses
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
31 Jul 10
I'm sure by now you have figured out that leapfrogging an article under a title that has so few competitive articles is a waste of your time. When you see an article that is off topic please flag it as such and let us know about it.
@iakulchen (615)
• Singapore
13 Aug 10
Oh hi Canellita, didn't realise that someone had posted on one of my discussions, it's been quite a long time since I started one...
Oh, and rest assured I always flag the off topic ones, the ones that ARE ALL IN CAPS AND SAYING THE SAME FIVE WORDS OVER AND OVER, and the ones that in their attempt to avoid getting caught by plagiarism software have butchered the text so much in their "rewrite" that it doesn't make sense.
It just irked me that an off topic article would not only stay on Helium that long, but actually be rated higher than mine twice, pre leapfrog and post leapfrog.
@Canellita (12029)
• United States
14 Aug 10
Rest assured steps are being taken to deal with the problem. Have you considered applying to be a channel manager or joining the editorial team?
@scheng1 (24649)
• Singapore
7 Mar 09
haha, all the effort to make it worse off! Maybe your articles were rated by people who didn't really look at "quality" and enjoyed reading bad grammar. Too bad, unless someone adds an article to the title, it may stay in 3rd place for a long time.
Watching the writing score is as interesting as watching the stock market. You dont know which direction it will go to!
@iakulchen (615)
• Singapore
7 Mar 09
Scheng1,
I have read one of your discusssions where you mentioned that you do have some problems with grammar. It's probably the reason why you find your articles move up and down like stock prices in a stock market. My articles are fairly consistent in their ranks and most of them do rank in the top 25%. There are times when some do get ranked lower than badly written articles, but those generally don't affect me much. You could try getting a friend of yours to proofread your work before you submit them to help you weed out your grammar mistakes. Alternatively, you could post your work for critiquing in the Helium forums.
@scheng1 (24649)
• Singapore
7 Mar 09
That's a great idea! Since my friends are either those with good English and too busy to proofread or those with bad English and unable to help, posting in Helium forum is really a good idea. Thanks for the suggestion.
Your articles are really very well-written, I like the one about pros and cons of blogging. Hope your leapfrogged article jump to the 1st place!
@iakulchen (615)
• Singapore
7 Mar 09
Because I got tired of seeing my article being placed below an article that wasn't even related to the title at all. I don't mind being placed under genuinely good articles, but I do mind being placed under an article that totally doesn't give any info when it comes to answering the title.
@irishidid (8687)
• United States
7 Mar 09
I quit leap frogging a long time ago just for this reason. They should do away with rating because this happens more often than not and the forced ratings to get your money has made it worse.
@Lee_Rites (845)
• United States
15 Mar 09
I have had the same thing happen on Helium. An article I'd leapfrogged dropped drastically in ratings. I thought the article was better than the original and better than those that were rated better.
It is hard to tell which articles will do well on Helium. For the most part my articles have been rated well. So, I can't complain.
