Invitation to Unity
Why Would a Pub Owner Call ILLUMINATION as “Illumibomination”?
An emotionally-charged story in question has been criticized for its lack of clarity and coherence by The Sturg
Interestingly, in 2020, a pub owner referred to Illumination publication as a “Ponzi scheme” on social media and in his newsletters after noticing its success surpassing his own publication. He discriminated against writers and ultimately closed his pubs, leaving the platform. We wish him well.
While we welcome stories written about our publication, as there have been hundreds of them, some praising us and some criticizing us, this particular story is misleading and misinformed.
The author, a popular publication owner, accuses Illumination of “publishing anything and everything without screening” and calls it an “abomination.”
However, Illumination has over 67K followers and has been contributed to by over 19K writers. How could a publication with such a large following and community of writers be called an “abomination”?
While it is true that anyone can write about anything on this platform as long as it meets our guidelines, we always aim to serve a good purpose for our community.
Our goal is to unite, not divide.
We never compete with other publications or criticize their goals, business models, or processes. We see all publications as collaborators, as they are tools that bring writers and readers together and create opportunities for collaboration.
We value feedback and are always open to suggestions that can help us improve our services. We believe in the power of diverse perspectives and welcome writers from all backgrounds and levels of experience.
The Sturg (Gerald) wrote an excellent article pointing out the logical errors in the story and responding elegantly by explaining the core values of Illumination briefly.
After reading Gerald’s article, we asked our chief editor Dr Mehmet Yildiz what he thinks about the offensive story and elegant responses of Gerald.
Here’s the response from Dr. Yildiz, which might give you a perspective.
“Thank you for asking my perspectives. I’d be happy to share my thoughts and feelings transparently and with respect.
After reading the story, I found myself amused by the writer’s style but also concerned about his action to share unfiltered thoughts and emotions publicly. It made me wonder about his motives resembling sour grapes. But I might be wrong in my first impression without confirming with him.
While I have no hard feelings toward this pub owner, I found the story to be illogical, based purely on emotions, offensive in its tone, and misleading to the readers.
I believe this type of storytelling might harm the community. Unfortunately, it is becoming widespread on social media, leading to confusion among people.
One of the fundamental mistakes in the story is the false accusation that Illumination publishes everything without any screening process. This shows that the author has no understanding of how Illumination operates.
In fact, Illumination editors meticulously screen every piece of content to ensure that it meets Medium policies and its own criteria to delight its readers. Volunteer editors work tirelessly to weed out toxic content, such as hate speech and defamation, and also prevent plagiarism on the platform.
Moreover, I was disappointed with the use of childish and offensive nicknames like “Illumibomination”, “The T-Series of Medium” and “The weird Black Sheep of the family that went on to make a million dollars trading Dogecoin”, in the story.
Such behavior adds no value to peace and collaboration on this platform. I personally believe that publications are tools for collaboration and should not be criticized in such juvenile manner.
For instance, imagine if someone were to call The Post-Grad Survival Guide, “A guide for weird entrepreneurs fancying zombie apocalypse scenarios.”
It would not be fair and nice to the owner and contributors of the publication, and it would only serve to create unnecessary tensions. We need empathy and compassion to connect with others meaningfully.
I appreciate the author’s right to express their opinions and healthy and constructive debates are essential for growth and development.
However, resorting to misleading and offensive rhetoric only serves to create unnecessary tensions and conflicts, adding no value to the collective consciousness.
I am grateful to The Sturg for writing this insightful and inspiring story. He articulated our core values of diversity and inclusion clearly. This is an essential aspect of Illumination that we strive to uphold. I am grateful for his contribution to informing the audience.
I am proud to support writers of all levels and backgrounds, delighting our readers. Cross-pollination of ideas is a great way to create serendipity and synergy with meaningful engagements on this platform. I invite you all to join this beautiful journey where we all accept and embrace the differences of each other.
I founded Illumination as a giveback activity to society using my content development and marketing strategy to empower writers to find their voice and build their auidences collaboratively.
I appreciate Tom’s decision to exclusively feature post-graduates in his publication. However, unlike him, I believe that every individual, regardless of their formal education background, has valuable perspectives to offer.
As someone with multiple postgraduate degrees, I still value the unique insights and experiences of writers without formal education.
In my own publication, we actively seek out and include writers from all educational backgrounds, ranging from those with zero formal education to postdoctoral degrees.
We also prioritize diversity in our selection process, including writers from all employment levels, from entry-level positions to senior vice presidents of corporations.
We firmly believe that diversity leads to innovation and value the voices of every individual on this earth.
Ultimately, the bottom line is that everyone deserves to have their voice heard, not just those with postgraduate degrees. Therefore, I architected Illumination to give voice to every ethical writer on this platform. It is by design therefore Illumination grows so rapidly surprising other pub owners who got stuck in their niche audience.
In addition Illumination does not earn a cent for the owner and editors and help writers earn income by hosting and amplifying their stories. I personally invest at least 6 hours daily to orchestrate its activities without expecting income and 119 editors also donate their valuable time.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the volunteer editors who dedicate their precious time to support writers and readers on this platform without expecting any monetary value.
Let’s spread love, light, and hope every human being needs in this ephemeral life. No one would care how many articles a publication on Medium publishes on their death bed.
Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts. I am grateful for the support of writers, readers, and editors of my publications which are just tools that bring us together.”
Copied the conversation on our Slack workspace with the permission of Dr Mehmet Yildiz owner and chief editor of Illumination Integrated Publications on Medium. If you don’t have access to Slack, please send a request via our writer registration form. It is a free and moderated platform for writers contributing to our publications.
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