Better Community
Are Claps Poisoning Medium?
I don’t know the answer, but I have some perspectives.
Too much of a good thing can be wonderful! ― Mae West
2021 Update
Now my claps started disappearing, apparently, the system deletes them.
Medium Oh Medium, Wherefore Art My Claps?
I have no clue with what is wrong with my claps
medium.com
Introduction and Context
Claps are the most debated topic on Medium. There are a wide variety of views and sentiments on this hot topic. The spectrum is so broad that some love them, some hate them, and many have sentiments and thoughts between love and hate.
There are different interaction designs and implementations in social media. The most common ones are likes, hearts, and up-votes.
Claps are a byproduct of a unique design implemented by Medium.
When I joined Medium last year, I found this feature novel and wanted to explore it further by wearing my social media and content management hats.
I thought that it was the like button on Facebook, hence giving only one clap. Then the editors of large publications to that I’d submitted my stories to were giving them 30, 40, and even 50 claps. It was an incredible motivation provided by those broad-minded editors.
As reacting via claps is a subjective matter in nature, there are different views and sentiments. Let me give you some perspectives.
My Personal Take On Applause
As a public speaker, I enjoyed being applauded at the end of my presentations. In some of my performances, standing ovations raised strong emotions and even brought uncontrollable tears to my eyes.
Enjoying applauding started in my childhood. Whilst my dad was only showing his appreciation by nodding his head, I was standing up and applauding hundreds of times with my childhood naivety.
I remember applauding hundreds of times at a performance of Beethoven’s 9th symphony by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and at a Lady Gaga concert in Sydney on August 2014. Wish I could go to her many other concerts scheduled in big cities and show the same joyful appreciation; it satisfies my soul.
Coming back to Medium’s content platform, receiving claps for stories doesn’t mean as much to me as giving them to others.
My most clapped story so far received 4.5K claps and received 192 comments.
Which mattered to me most: claps or comments? Of course, the comments!
Even though claps give a sense of being appreciated, I enjoy the comments more because my readers are connecting with me by writing something meaningful. Genuine feedback means more than claps to me.
As I’m now wearing my editorial hat, I am spending 20 seconds per article on 150 stories per allowance by Medium. To clarify, as confirmed by Medium’s Helpdesk, claps for articles over 150 times a day do not take place. I tried and experienced the frustration of not being able to show my appreciation for the rest of the stories I enjoy reading and assessing.
What does clapping for 150 stories mean to me? This requires my personal time investment. Like Sharon, Roz, and many other top writers, I enjoy giving 50 claps for the stories for my interest areas. There are exceptions — times when I don’t clap — which I’ll mention in the next section.
Giving 50 claps take 20 seconds per story. As I am allowed to clap 150 stories, this equates to 3,000 seconds (50 minutes of clapping time). Is this a justifiable investment?
From a monetary perspective, it is not justifiable because I don’t earn a cent by investing this much time in clapping for stories that I enjoy. Plus, my fingers hurt.
However, from a satisfaction perspective, it is an excellent investment as I contribute to motivating and inspiring 150 writers to write better.
My Exception For Not Clapping
So far, I’ve applauded 99 percent of the stories I’ve read on Medium.
You may ask, “What one percent don’t you applaud?”
I don’t applaud stories in the following seven categories:
1 — Hate speech
2 — Harassment
3 — Illegal sexual services
4 — Deceptive content
5 — Exploitation of minors
6 — Promotion and glorification of self-harm
7 — Stolen copyrighted content
Rather than applauding these kinds of stories, I report them to Medium. These items are not allowed in this community.
Explaining these seven categories would exceed the scope of this story. Therefore, if you want to learn more about these items, please review Medium’s content policies articulated in this link.
To confirm: in my publications, I decline stories in these seven categories.
What Do Top Writers Think and Say?
I want to give the perspectives of a few top writers whom I follow and respect on Medium. Some of these writers also write for ILLUMINATION.
The reputable writer, Tim Denning, who is followed by over 100K Medium readers, has a distinctive view in this insightful story. Tim points out that “If you only show up for the applause, you might not show up at all.”
A top writer, Shannon Ashley whose content always inspires me with her no-BS type of messages, wrote a story titled Why I often give 50 Claps. She points out, “It’s a little too nitpicky for me to worry about how to distribute my claps. Instead, I look at clapping for my fellow writers as more than putting a few cents into their pockets.” In another story, I still give out 50 claps under the new MPP, Shannon asserts that clapping on Medium still matters.
By the way, the frequently used acronym “MPP” means Medium Partner Program.
Another top writer, Roz Warren, who vitalizes Medium and ILLUMINATION with her words, simplifies the topic in her recent story titled: “Why Do I Always Clap 50 Times?” Roz points out, “Fifty Claps from me doesn’t necessarily mean, ‘this was brilliant!’, it means ‘Roz read this.’”
The insight I gained from Roz’s story is that “a good writer knows that their work can’t be really judged by anyone but themselves. And that anything you’ve written could always be better.”
One of the insightful writers on ILLUMINATION, Adebola Alabi, focuses on what we need to build a loyal reader base: “Don’t beg people for claps on Medium anymore, instead, give them reasons to love your stories.”
Jordan Mendiola, in a story published in Better Marketing, also provided a view of why he gave 50 claps on every article he read. Jordan used a fascinating metaphor in this story: “Fifty claps are the fuel that gets writers’ bonfires burning red hot.” Jordan, who also writes for ILLUMINATION, pointed out, “A Little Appreciation Can Go a Long Way.”
There are confusing views about the financial aspect of clapping on Medium. For example, in an article published in 2018, Ev Williams stated that “More claps does not necessarily = more money. It’s all relative to the user. Each member’s portion of the partner program budget is allocated relative to their claps.”
The best interpretation and most informing story that I read was from all-star writer Casey Botticello, titled “How Do Claps Work on Medium?” Like in any of his other stories, Casey adds clarity to confusion in this story.
Some top writers use the claps creatively in their stories to help society in difficult situations. For example, Alex Valaitis posted a story that received 14.1K in 2017. Alex invited Medium readers, stating, “For each clap that this post receives, I will donate $ to help California wildfire relief efforts.”
A software analyst, Harrison Jansma, who writes about data on Medium, collected and analyzed a million medium articles to learn how many claps great stories get. Harrison created a web scraper in Python (found on GitHub) for this purpose.
Harrison concluded that “Most Medium stories get less than ten claps, and the top 1% of Medium’s stories receive more than two thousand claps. You can use these metrics as benchmarks to measure the performance of your articles or as a goal in writing future articles.”
There are many more views that can be beyond the scope of this story. If you search Medium with the term claps, you can end up seeing thousands of stories.
Now I want to briefly touch on a couple of points close to my heart related to claps. They are speculations and allegations on how social media impacts the reputation of Medium, and my publication, ILLUMINATION.
Speculations
People keep speculating that claps are abused to attract the attention of Medium readers. These speculations are made both on Medium and extended to social media sites.
There may be truth in this speculation, but there appears to be no empirical evidence for this assertion. Anyone can say anything on social media, of course. We need to keep the discussions in the right context.
I don’t know how Medium’s algorithm works. I don’t think anyone else knows, either. People offer views on this, but to my knowledge, Medium has not documented how its algorithm works. At least, I haven’t seen one yet. If you have, please leave a comment on this story, and let’s all learn from your experience.
Allegations
Wearing both my scientist and technologist hats, I am OK with speculations. They may help us build hypotheses leading toward establishing theories.
However, allegations created by destructive motives do not serve a purpose except to confuse people and damage the reputation of the wonderful Medium community.
Medium is a massive community thriving in an ecosystem made up of writers, readers, curators, publications, and administrative activity. Damaging one aspect of this ecosystem can adversely affect the rest. We are all connected in this system.
I came across some allegations on social media, especially on Facebook, speculating that ILLUMINATION writers are forced to clap for the stories they read in the publication.
This rumor is, of course, spread by those who cannot accept the success of our writers striving to touch the hearts, minds, and souls of their readers who need these critical messages.
2,600+ writers are currently contributing to ILLUMINATION.
The allegations are ridiculous, illogical, and idiotic. They target many writers. Some of these writers are in the top one percent of Medium members due to their number of followers and other metrics. You can see some of our top writers on this link.
These allegations are fabricated, false, misleading, hostile, and defamatory.
As chief editor of ILLUMINATION, I provided specific guidance to our editors that when they see any clap requests on any submissions, they must delete them before publishing and inform the author this is against Medium rules. This happened a few times with new writers who come from large publications that use clap calls as a promotion practice, but our policy was executed successfully to prevent clap requests.
I also strictly pointed out on our Slack channel to our 12K+ members not to ask for claps and never request claps from members. I made it crystal clear to all our members. I did not see a single message about requesting claps on our Slack channel. If I see any clap requests, I will immediately delete them and remove the offending members.
In my opinion, claps must not be requested, and they are given by the readers as an indication of their appreciation of the content. Medium implemented claps for a useful purpose, and we should take advantage of this tool.
The feedback from Chris Hedges, who writes for several other publications, made this comment on my post: “I write here and other places. People are free to go where ever they are happy. I wish them well. I clap 50x for everyone everywhere if I like what I’ve read. It is allowed. If they switch the system to a thumbs up, I will give thumbs up.”
We always encourage our writers to engage and collaborate, but I am against the abuse of claps like anyone else; therefore, I take appropriate measures to prevent the misuse by adhering to Medium Rules.
Bottom Line
As editors of ILLUMINATION, we conduct our practice based firmly on Medium Rules. Therefore, I do not accept malicious allegations made toward our writers. I invite them to stop making allegations and join us to add value to our society.
If our writers show their appreciation to their fellow writers, it is their preference. No one can force them, and I have no intention to kill the aspirations and joys of people, either.
ILLUMINATION believes in and supports the free will of writers. We offer them options and support their decisions for growth. I confirmed that our writers are not exclusive to us. They can write for other publications and collaborate with writers from other publications.
The authors writing for ILLUMINATION are not exclusive. They also write for many other significant publications. More interestingly, editors of established and reputable publications write for ILLUMINATION. These reputable writers can be the testimony that these malicious allegations are false and fabricated and used for selfish purposes.
Conclusion and Recommendation
There are many recommendations on the use and function of claps by many writers and readers on Medium. Some are complimentary, and some are conflicting. Some writers believe claps are wonderful, others claim they are useless, and some even believe they are poisonous.
It does not seem feasible to reach a consensus at this stage.
One of my favorite views was mentioned in an insightful story by Eric Yi, who recommends having two categories, such as likes and super-likes.
As an editor of a large publication, this solution resonates well with me as clicking on just two buttons, either like or super-like, can save 20 seconds per story which equates 50 minutes of my daily reading time.
I hope this story provides you with a perspective on this highly debatable topic on Medium.
To further extend the views, I would like to obtain your views on how claps can be improved and whether Medium should consider redesigning the reader reactions to stories for compelling reasons. I leave it up to your creative minds to comment.
If you want to join our growing, joyful, and supportive publication as a writer, please leave a message via this link. We help you become a successful writer on Medium.
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