Is Helium.com a fraud?

Two days ago I posted a short essay, also published on Helium.com. For those not familiar with Helium, it is a website for writers and provides many categories to publish everything from short stories to essays and book excerpts. Also, if an author's submission's are ranked high enough, they are paid by Helium via a PayPal account. So far, so good.

Stories are rated by other members of Helium. Two stories in the same category appear side by side without displaying the author's name. The reader rates which story is better and by how much. When you first submit, your story goes to the middle of the pack and then moves up or down from there.

I began to suspect problems when I looked at the stories ranked highest in the categories I'd submitted in. I wanted to learn what readers liked and thought maybe the highest ranked stories would have something to teach me. I was appalled at what I found. Not only did these stories exhibit a lack of even basic grammar on the author's part, but the arguments and story lines were both inept and juvenile on many occasions. There were some very good stories admittedly, but not nearly enough.

So I Googled Helium to try to see if others noticed any problems. It seems that this is a severe and ongoing problem with Helium. First, people who rate large numbers of stories can make money, so many are simply rating the stories without reading them. Also, who's to say a person can't create multiple accounts and jack his own ratings? To show you what I'm talking about, here's an article rated 2 out of 31 articles in the debate question: "Should the US continue to be the leader in world politics." It's author is Duane Kuehn. He wrote the article in the "yes" response, implying that the US should remain the world's political leader. Here's the link to his story: http://www.helium.com/tm/500449/united-states-should-continue

If this is 2 out of 31 articles, our nation sorely lacks 1) Critical thinkers 2) Good writers

Let's rip this sucker apart. First Kuehn states that we should remain the leader in world politics, but that we should not have taken the role in the first place. A tenuous line of thinking at best. Kuehn then goes on to deconstruct his own argument that the US should remain the world's leader.

Here we go. He says that if America demands to lead, many future problems await. Sir, you just stated that that we SHOULD remain as world leader! Then he calls us a bully for unilaterally invading Iraq (it was not unilateral), but then says we were the good guys for unilaterally invading Afghanistan.

Deep Breath. Here's the glory of bad thinking and writing: In the final sentence, Kuehn says that the US should step down as world leader, at once contradicting his opening argument and disagreeing with the very category he submitted to! I don't ask him to prove any of his dictates really. I didn't prove that the US is good and moral as I contended in my article. But there must be a consistent argument and stream of thought. Sentences must flow a little, if not like music, at least like a reliable toilet.

Helium will get no more of my fiction, as the rating system has proven to be of little use in judging it's quality. It is difficult though for me to keep my big mouth shut when it comes to a good political debate, so maybe I'll give that a shot again.

UPDATE: I take back everything I said about Helium. My story is #1, Kuehn is #7. (4:07 est) :)