Helium welcomes everyone and anyone to share insights, knowledge and creativity on our site. Helium is an open platform for recognition and reward. We strive to make Helium a safe, inviting and fun experience for everyone.

We also care a lot about quality. Helium’s success is dependent on the quality and quantity of effort that is put forward collectively by its community. When you join Helium, you are joining something that is bigger than any one of us. We are building a free, valuable and rich resource of knowledge for the benefit of all.

We ask our members to put their best efforts forward. Helium is not a blogging site. Helium is not designed for short personal anecdotes or personal diary entries. Think of each of your submissions to Helium as an article worthy of publication in your favorite magazine.

Helium is based on a fair, trusted and democratic rating engine that elevates the best content on the site. If your article is ranked in the bottom half of an article thread, we welcome and encourage you to use the Leapfrog feature to substantially improve your article. If your current work is not rated the best, we hope you will continue to compete for the top spot through Leapfrog or by writing new articles.

In addition to asking you to give us your best, we require these Helium Writing Standards:

1. Helium is a US-based site that insists on proper English grammar, spelling and punctuation in each article. While we want to encourage writers to submit articles and learn from the ratings and member feedback, we can and often will remove articles that are not written to the criteria of these Writing Standards.
   • Special Note to international contributors: We welcome everyone's contributions and insight from around the world. However, we require that all articles be written with proper English style, grammar and punctuation. If you need help, use our resources, such as the mentor program (write to Mentor@Helium.com), feedback in the forums or reach out to Channel Stewards. If you refuse to seek help, or after getting help you still submit low-quality articles, we will remove your articles and terminate your account.
2. Do not include your name or any specific reference to yourself or your company in your article. To preserve the integrity of our rating system, we cannot allow any reference to you in your article that could be used to influence the rating process. Helium encourages you to fill out your “About Me” page by providing links to your blog and website and adding other autobiographical information there.
3. Do not use your article to disparage (or praise) another writer’s article. The place for helpful critiques is in the Community boards. Each article on Helium should stand alone as a discrete and meaningful piece, focused on addressing the topic at hand.
4. Articles must be 400 words at minimum while we strongly encourage 1,500 words at maximum. Overly long pieces tend not to do well in rating. Please do take care with spelling and grammar as well as accepted sentence structure. Helium follows AP style on questions of spelling and punctuation.
   • We also don't like lists. Articles should be thought out and written like a professional piece. If a title lends itself or guidelines ask for a list, each item should have a fully developed point of information. We reserve the right to delete submissions that are all or mostly lists.
5. The content you post must be your own. Each article you submit must be unique. You cannot post duplicate articles even if titles seem similar. Plagiarism will result in suspension of your account. (If a title asks for analysis, review or plot summary, do not include the entire poem, story or piece of prose referred to. Only provide examples from parts of an original work to support your piece.)
6. We reserve the right to edit titles. We do this to increase a topic’s chances of being found by search engines and to make the title fit our style.
7. No adult content, hate content or profanity is allowed in either Helium articles or in postings in the Helium Discussion Board section.
8. Duplicate articles are not allowed. If titles are similar, writers may reuse some information, but articles must be rewritten so that the information is focused clearly on the specific title.
9. Submissions must specifically address the topic of the title. Articles that are off topic, or meander around the topic without addressing it fully, will be deleted. Members who continually submit articles that are off topic will have their accounts terminated.
10. Take a professional approach to your nonfiction work. Want to write for the New York Times some day? Then write like you have an assignment there right now. More and more of Helium’s Marketplace publishers and partners expect a professional polish to the articles on Helium. Such pieces do not start with “I feel…” or “When I did this….” Personal anecdotes can lend credence to some pieces, but ask yourself whether yours really adds anything to the reader’s knowledge. And ending an article with a cheery “Hope you enjoy this!” leaves the distinct aftertaste of “amateur” with the reader.

To get the best formatting for your article:

• Do not capitalize your article title in the body of the article or your sub-headings. Minimize the use of capitalized words and phrases in Helium articles. Not only does a string of words or a sentence in all caps looks amateurish, but it is a User Agreement violation.
• Single space your paragraphs. Use one blank line between paragraphs.
• Don’t submit articles that are one giant paragraph. It’s hard to read, it does not do well in the rating process and it looks like a lame blog post. Format articles so that there are paragraph breaks, like one would find in a professional magazine or newspaper.
• To retain formatting, we strongly advise you to write your article in Word or another word-processing program. Then use the "Paste from Word" icon to insert your article. (You may also want to save a copy of your article on your computer.) Read more about formatting articles on the How to publish an article on Helium page.