Diversity, Inclusion, and Collaboration
A New Star is Born on Medium
Update on ILLUMINATION-Curated
I am inspired to write this story after receiving an email notification from Medium earlier today. While ILLUMINATION is reaching 50,000 followers shortly, our new publication ILLUMINATION-Curated hits the 10,000 followers mark today. This post provides reflections on our success and introduces our unique publication.
We established clear guidelines for our Level 1, 2, and 3 writers. ILLUMINATION-Curated currently serves Level 2 and 3. We prepare our Level 1 writers by giving them a well-defined path and achievable goals. Our approach is to cross-pollinate all contributors in a community model. Diversity, inclusion, and collaboration are our core values.
ILLUMINATION-Curated is 75 days old today.
ILLUMINATION-Curated, established 75 days ago, is a unique publication offering high-quality content to discerning readers while empowering experienced and accomplished writers to achieve their writing goals and take them to the next levels.
This publication is a strategic initiative designed to address the specific needs of writers and readers. ILLUMINATION-Curated publication hosts outstanding stories covering over 100 topics.
Let me give you some background information about this unique publication. This information can give you insights on why ILLUMINATION-Curated is growing rapidly.
Unique Publishing Model
As a first of kind on Medium, we established a unique process to publish stories in this publication. We offer five distinctive paths for articles to be included in ILLUMINATION-Curated.
1 — Transferring Medium curated stories
The first one is for Medium-curated articles published in ILLUMINATION. Our writers can remove their articles and add them to ILLUMINATION-Curated. We give our writers the flexibility to move their articles back to ILLUMINATION, if they so choose.
2 — Transferring ILLUMINATION curated stories
The second option is related to articles published in ILLUMINATION but not curated by Medium. If these non-curated articles meet our submission guidelines and Medium curation guidelines, they can be selected by our editors using a set of criteria. The editors approve the article for publication in ILLUMINATION-Curated and inform the writer. The writers can then transfer their article from ILLUMINATION to ILLUMINATION-Curated. Writers will need to request access to the new publication.
3 — Direct Submission
The third option is the direct submission by approved writers for ILLUMINATION-Curated, meeting all submission guidelines and approved by our editors. We selected over 700 top writers as part of the pilot implementation, and we are extending our offering to more writers at Level 2 and 3.
4 — Self Nomination
The fourth option is self nomination by ILLUMINATION writers. We allow writers to self-nominate up to 10 articles per post. These stories don’t have to be curated by Medium, but they must meet Medium curation guidelines and our set of criteria.
5 — Self-Presentation
The fifth option is Self-Presented Collection for ILLUMINATION-Curated writers who want to create further visibility of their high quality content by packaging them under topics and themes. You can learn about creating collections from this story.
Value for new writers of ILLUMINATION
This unique publication is a tool to encourage writers to grow their writing practice on Medium. Cross-pollinating writers at all levels is a primary purpose of ILLUMINATION-Curated. We are committed to featuring our writers and putting their high-quality stories to spotlight of readers.
Though we invite advanced and accomplished writers with a demonstrated curation success rate on Medium to write for ILLUMINATION-Curated, we also support writers at several levels. Please see the recent announcement.
We aim to give meaningful and realistic goals to our writers, for the purpose of elevating the skills of our writers at all levels. As part of our pilot project, aspiring writers made a commitment to follow Medium curation guidelines and improve the quality of their stories for a promotion to write in our new publication.
We use several external tools and social media sites to amplify stories of our writers and enable more visibility to their content. Some important ones are Flipboard, Quora Spaces, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, WordPress.
Value for top writers from other publications
ILLUMINATION-Curated turned to be a home for high-quality and outstanding stories. These stories give the best reading experience to our advanced readers. We only publish articulated and edited content with a clear purpose. The stories of top writers have the potential to find a new audience, because we are promoting this publication to readers who enjoy reading high-quality articles with important content for society.
This unique publication aims to bring top writers under an umbrella and encourage collaboration among them, having writers support writers because they know the challenges they face. As a bonus, networking with top writers from different backgrounds can increase synergy and create serendipity.
Our publication set the benchmark and raised the bar for producing and sharing quality content on over 100 topics. Stories submitted to ILLUMINATION-Curated must adhere to Medium curation guidelines at a minimum to qualify the contributors as permanent writers for this publication.
We discovered that even if many top writers religiously followed the guidelines, their stories still might not be curated by Medium. The Medium curation guideline clearly states that the curation process is subjective and we acknowledge this fact. We also understand this constraint undermines the quality stories submitted by top writers, if not curated.
We came across remarkable stories not distributed to topics. With this insight in mind, editors of ILLUMINATION-Curated are determined to evaluate articulated and outstanding stories by using our rigorous and objective process, leveraging Medium curation guidelines. If these outstanding stories match the set of criteria, even if we disagree with the content, we still qualify them for ILLUMINATION-Curated.
Each reader is unique. We respect the choice of our readers and do our best to meet their expectations. One person’s rejection could be another person’s curation as far as content is concerned. This is why impartiality for content is one of the core values of ILLUMINATION-Curated editors.
Value for readers
ILLUMINATION-Curated is a reader-focused publication and service excellence is our strategy. We aim to provide high-quality and high-impact content to our esteemed readers, representing a wide variety of domains.
Since establishing this publication, we communicate with the readers daily using various methods, including Slack groups, social media, email, newsletters, and voice communication.
We distribute our stories every day to serve our readers as a daily digest. Readers enjoy our distribution lists, through which they can access many stories from a single article. We archive articles, easily accessible from a single story. Readers enjoy this experience.
The audience for ILLUMINATION-Curated includes professionals in business, science, technology, philosophy, arts, self-improvement and many other interesting domains.
We identified that some readers of ILLUMINATION preferred only content written in simple language that appeals to a broad audience at all levels. However, the primary goal of ILLUMINATION-Curated is to cater to a more specific audience preferring sophisticated language and complex topics, as is reflected by the feedback during this pilot initiative.
Editing is a game-changer on Medium. Based on our daily interactions with thousands of readers, we know that advanced readers prefer curated stories edited by experienced editors. We have experienced editors and utilize their capability as curators, choosing the optimal content for our readers. Based on reader feedback, we know the expectations and requirements of our audience. We have accumulated rich and supportive data for our business strategies and tactics.
ILLUMINATION-Curated adds exceptional value to readers. For example, we not only select high-quality articles, but we also edit them to meet the requirements of our readers. Editing is an added value we provide to our writers and readers, but editing is an expensive process. However, our experienced editors are willing to perform this duty, free of charge as a giveback activity to the writer and reader communities. Editing is a primary focus of our publication.
Our editors are not paid by the writers, the publication, or Medium. These editors only do this for altruistic and intellectual purposes, and we are privileged to have a team of volunteers performing the editing function for the success of our writers.
Around 40 volunteering editors read and vote for stories to curate them for a specific audience looking for a quality reading experience. Our plan is to increase the number of editors to 100. These diligent and committed editors are also willing to undertake the role of curators for our readers.
Providing edited and curated stories to our readers is an innovative solution and can be considered a paradigm shift for publication services on Medium. This reflects the power of collaboration among readers, writers, editors, and the publication.
External readers love our stories. For example, our new Quora Space has already received 17,000+ followers in fewer than two months. https://www.quora.com/q/illuminationcurated
We have just created a new site and started connecting with readers on LinkedIn. I will shortly introduce this site to my 24K followers on LinkedIn. Our freelance writers can now advertise their writing portfolio on our LinkedIn site. Some recruiters from my contacts discovered our site and are asking me permission to approach our writers.
Why do we support old curated stories?
It may sound unusual but we value curated stories even though they may be old. The publishing date for curated stories does not matter to us as our readers love them. Some of our old curated stories gained super visibility and some of them even went viral bringing over a million views.
One of the major goals of ILLUMINATION-Curated is to give curated stories a second life. We value articles chosen by the Medium curation process as our readers enjoy these high-quality stories. Several old curated storied gained visibility and some went viral. We feature these stories on our publication.
If our writers submit curated stories to ILLUMINATION-Curated, these older Medium-curated stories can also be curated by ILLUMINATION. We call this “dual curation”. This process was developed based on reader feedback.
We offer flexibility for the success of our writers, so even though we recommend draft submissions, as a bonus, we created an exception for older curated articles to be submitted as published. This means that if writers have published articles, previously curated by Medium, these writers can still submit those older articles.
Easy transfer from ILLUMINATION
ILLUMINATION writers can easily move their curated stories between the two publications to receive the benefit of different audiences.
It is important to note that a story on Medium can be published in only one publication at a time. Therefore, you need to remove your curated story from ILLUMINATION and submit it to ILLUMINATION-Curated. Your story will be published and hosted on the new publication, and it should no longer be in the previous publication. There is no duplication. Your story is either on ILLUMINATION or on ILLUMINATION-Curated. Not in both of them at the same time. If you read comments contrary to this on social media, it is an allegation with no facts. ILLUMINATION and ILLUMINATION-Curated are 100% compliant with Medium rules.
Please check this step by step guide for transferring stories.
If you are a current writer, we can add you to the new publication so that you can transfer your curated stories. Please send a request via this link.
How can you nominate your stories?
We recommend ILLUMINATION writers to self-nominate up to 10 articles per nomination post. These stories don’t have to be curated by Medium, but they must meet Medium curation guidelines.
ILLUMINATION-Curated established terms and conditions. Our editors created the platform and will facilitate the process, but the writers need to take responsibility for their success. It is a collaborative effort. One way does not work for success.
We support pro-active, responsible, collaborative, and optimistic writers. Our platform is designed for the success of all participants. It is designed for high performers.
We established prerequisites to qualify for submitting self-nominated stories. Writers need to have at least five quality stories on ILLUMINATION. A writer request should be sent to access ILLUMINATION-Curated. Writer quest to ILLUMINATION-Curated via this link.
Nominated stories must meet Medium rules, Medium curation guidelines, and our set of criteria.
Please see this article for details.
How can new writers start contributing?
Please consider the following steps to start the submission process.
First of all, we need to add you as a writer to the publication. You can request access by sending a request with your Medium ID.
To join our vibrant publication supporting over 15,000 Medium writers, please send a request via this link.
The most important field is the Medium account ID. Please note that we are unable to add writers without a Medium account ID. Even if you are a current writer for ILLUMINATION, you still need to provide your Medium account ID.
As an alternative, you may leave a public comment on this story showing your interest in being a writer for ILLUMINATION-Curated. From our prior experience, private comments can be difficult to monitor.
You need to check Medium curation guidelines to ensure the content and formatting of your stories align with the curation guides. If we receive submissions not meeting basic curation guidelines we reject the story.
Your stories must appeal to discerning readers of this publication. This means, in addition to the quality of stories, our editors also assess your stories for suitability for our specific audience. For example, readers of ILLUMINATION-Curated are not interested in stories on how much money you earn on Medium and how many followers you gain in a month.
Diversity and variety are essential for our readers. We don’t restrict topics if they meet the Medium rules. We cover over 100 topics. As long as your story has substance and important messages for readers, we will consider them. We don’t censor content when your stories meet Medium rules.
Since assessment and editing may take a while, we recommend submitting drafts only. If your story is in the draft format, when we publish it, the story will use the date it is published.
If your story is already published and our assessment may take a few days, your story will take the date it was submitted. From our experienced, old dating stories do not perform well in publications as they don’t become visible to the readers.
We consider exceptions for time-sensitive materials. You may point out your circumstance with a private message when submitting your draft or published material. Our editors use a bespoke set of criteria for assessment submissions. Please use this checklist before submitting your story.
Our writers started introducing their backgrounds from their pens. There will be many bio stories. In the meantime, you can explore them from this preliminary collection.
Our experienced contributors think big and share impactful content with our discerning writers. Our publication aims to give a strong voice to these remarkable writers informing and entertaining our supportive readers.
We are only 75 days old. With our enthusiasm, persistence, and commitment, we aim to reach out to millions of readers.
You can learn more about our publication from this link.
Thank you for reading my perspectives.
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Stories reflecting my personal and professional experience on Vocal Media.
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I also write about valuable nutrients. Here are the links for easy access:
Urolithin, taurine, citrulline malate, biotin, lithium orotate, alpha-lipoic acid, n-acetyl-cysteine, acetyl-l-carnitine, CoQ10, NADH, TMG, creatine, choline, digestive enzymes, magnesium, hydrolyzed collagen, nootropics, pure nicotine, activated charcoal, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B1, Vitamin D, Vitamin K2, and other nutrients that might help to improve metabolism and mental health.
Disclaimer: Please note that this post does not include health or professional advice. I documented my reviews, observations, experience, and perspectives only to provide information and create awareness.
I publish my lifestyle, health, and well-being stories on EUPHORIA. I wrote several articles on major diseases and valuable nutrients for health. My focus is on metabolic, cellular, mitochondrial, and mental health. Here is my collection of Insightful Life Lessons from Personal Stories.
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