Web Writer’s Platform ejects most Indian writers
By Suneetha

English is not a strange language to most educated Indians. In fact, it is the lingua franca between the Hindi and the non-Hindi regions in this vast country with numerous languages on the official list. English is also one of the official languages of India. Several writers are accepted internationally like Pico Iyer, Salman Rushdie and Anita Desai

One of America’s top tech bloggers, Om Malik, graduated from Delhi University. And lets not to forget our Booker winners and Nobel winner.

English is therefore not a tough or strange option to the Indian who is a natural polyglot. The advent of the World Wide Web only went to further this hold on the language with thousands making a living by providing content to websites across the globe. Helium, a US based website, is a familiar place for most web writers from India. This is a ‘face of publishing revolution’ and a self proclaimed ‘knowledge co-operative’ and is recommended by many mentors as the place to start your bylines and earn too in the process.

America's No. 1 social media blog Mashable described the new Helium product Helium Zones launched in Jan, 2009 as "Let’s call spade a spade: it’s a website. Essentially, Google’s Blogger, Wordpress or any other blogging service can serve the same purpose; Helium tries to make a distinction between professional writers and other writers, but that line has already been blurred. Create a blog, slap some ads on it, and boom: you’re a professional writer. Whether you’re any good is beside the point; all that counts on the net is how many people are reading your stuff and how much money you’re making."

No, this is not a site for ‘writers’ alone, the topics handled are so varied that any one with something to say on their field of work can speak out…yes, they mentor your ‘English’ and allow for ‘ratings’. They say on their website that ‘At Helium, we believe that everyone can contribute what they know to share with millions of readers around the globe.’ Helium has been a popular place to write for over the years to many a person outside the US.

But no longer!

Helium has changed its acceptance policy say various writers who have received a rude shock in the form of the following mail out of the blue:

“
Helium recently changed its policy about accepting contributions from every country around the world. Helium.com instituted this policy as a result of careful consideration of its members and its publishing partners. Since our goal is to become the top-quality content site on the web, we realize that, as a US-based company, we cannot accept writers from countries where English is not the primary language. It has put those writers at a disadvantage in rating and getting the most from writing on Helium.
”

So what does Helium propose to do about this? The mail simply says this:

“
To prevent frustrations from all writers and to limit staff time spent trying to accommodate non-English-speaking writers, we have decided to stop accepting submissions from locations that may have a negative impact on the quality of our site.
”

Naturally, the writers are livid. The numbers of writers from India could not be ascertained at the time of filing this story, so this link and the comments on it came handy and supporting the authenticity of the decision by Helium.

The writer who posted it describes Helium as a site he himself had recommended a few days back but now sees as ‘the height of hypocrisy’.

So what happens to what you did write for Helium earlier in case you are from a “country where English is not the primary language?”

Helium authorities have an answer to that:

“
Because you cannot access Helium, or will soon be blocked from access, we feel it is only fair to remove your content from the site. Full rights to the work revert to you. We recognize that the version of your work that exists on Helium may be your only copy, so we will not begin removing content for four weeks (in mid-July). (For an easy way to copy multi-page articles, click “Print article” in the Article Tools tab on your article page, then copy and paste that version to your computer.)
”

So what about the unpaid amounts? The mail clarifies this too:

“
If you have earned over the $25 minimum payout, we will be crediting your Paypal account.
”

So? If you have a pending out of $24 which is worth about Rs.1000/ in Indian currency, and has some buying power in India, it will be done away with.

But don’t worry; you can still learn excellent English from Helium by reading, because

“
Readers from around the globe are welcome to enjoy Helium's articles. In the future, we hope to be able to offer a full experience of Helium that works well for everyone.

Thank you for your understanding.
“

Well, it is hoped that some of the readers understood what the Helium people meant, especially when they read this combined with a recent attack on non-English speakers handling English on the web, which was carried to ridiculous proportions.

Here, in a sting operation carried out by a Connecticut newspaper, they actually recruited Indian journos through an ad in the Craigslist Bangalore page; not the wannabe journos but good ones with great bylines behind them, to report local stories and then actually published them with a ‘Made in India’ stamp. Then published a Confession that they had outsourced this edition of their paper to India and why they did it. Yes, this was also a way of proving a point that outsourcing had its issues. They had no thought about the journalists who were innocent victims of the ‘sting operation’.

Racism in a new form? Or can’t they handle people from outside the U.S. writing better than they do? Why not reject the ‘bad writers’ instead of employing ‘staff who spent time trying to accommodate non-English-speaking writers’?

I suppose that would be mere good sense.