Are You a Secret Top Writer?

Medium’s Tag page experiment — breaking news, tips and more

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or in lockdown without internet access (they’d feel about the same, I imagine), you’ve probably read something about recent changes on Medium. Since they were implemented in late September, some big-name writers have been threatening to leave, or have actually left the platform. Other articles are complaining about steep drops in views and earnings.

I imagine it thus. In a board meeting, deep in the entrails of Medium headquarters — to which no writers were invited, and where no one at the table has ever read on Medium, let alone tried to write — it was decreed that Topic Pages would be no more, and would be replaced by Tag Pages.

According to an announcement article by Tatania Colligan in the 3 Min Read, the changes give more specific categories and subjects for stories, and the seven million (yes, that’s the actual figure quoted) tags allow for a more “granular” reading experience.

While we only had 100 topics, we have 7 million tags that range from coffee to the metaverse to the latest on HBO’s Succession.

As a result, you can now follow a bigger and more granular range of topics.

Granular. Like sands through the hourglass — it must be a new marketing buzzword. So flow the stories we sweat and toil over …

Granular. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’ve never enjoyed reading with grit in my eyes — and having surveyed some of the rubbish now showing up in the streams on these pages, there appears to be far more material to make one’s reading experience itchy and painful.

With all this granularity, is Medium turning into an infinite virtual rubbish heap of lost stories, lost readers, and lost writers?

Whilst expansion of the original 100 Topics to embrace diversity and more specificity of subjects was well overdue, did anyone in this meeeting throw down their coffee cup and say: Hang on Ev — seven million — isn’t that taking “niche” to the extreme?

As I’ll show later, it seems pretty clear that Medium didn’t initiate a back-end data clean-up first — often a first step when re-organizing any system to eliminate multiple, but similar items (tags in this case).

And nowhere in the outlining of this brave new world of navigation does it suggest how new subscribers (let alone more experienced writers) are even going to find and understand the function of this super-spreading rash of new Tag Pages.

I’ve been researching them for months now, so let me save you the effort and walk you through how they work (and don’t work) and how this might change your tagging practices to increase visibility for your stories.

Features of The New Tag Pages

The new Tag Pages create significant differences to how work is categorized and distributed on Medium. Like the former Topics Pages, the Top Writers list on each Tag Page is updated daily. (Thanks Medium, for keeping us in constant performance anxiety mode). You can follow any Tag you’re interested in directly from the page itself.

The newsfeeds on the Tag Pages are divided into three categories: “Trending”, “Latest” and “Best”. The first two categories change daily. The “Best” category rotates more slowly — seeming to feature (and retain) stories that were either curated and did well, or non-curated stories that received a lot of reader engangement. I’ve deduced this from examining the selection of my own stories on pages where I’m listed as a Top Writer. Stories of mine with high engagment published up to six months ago still appear in the “Best” newsfeed.

But how does anyone even know about Tag Pages, or even think to read content from these pages?

There are also differences. Gone are the “Featured Writer” pop-up windows on each page, displaying their writer Bio and three most recently published stories. Personally, I miss that feature. As a Top Writer in Poetry, I was highlighted quite regularly, and it always increased views on my work and seemed to generate a spurt in Follows. But this is not is the most concerning difference.

Medium’s Disappointing Downplaying of Curated Stories

Unlike the former Topics Pages, which exclusively featured curated work, the new Tag Pages do not. This was specified in replies to comments on Tatania’s article.

Now, arguably, this change levels out the playing field, giving potential exposure to all. But the awful reality of these pages is that everything with that tag is simply tossed onto the streams — curated, uncurated and even incorrectly tagged stories. Sometimes my curated work doesn’t appear there at all, while work with no claps will pop up in “Trending”.

How is this an incentive for excellence? Does Medium even care anymore about retaining quality writers to ensure quality content?

User-Directed Tagging — Pluses or Pitfalls?

As the announcement article outlines, the Tagging system has become user-directed, rather than algorithm or system-centred. I’ve had this confirmed from Medium Support, but here’s Tatania again:

The variety and number of topics will expand dramatically because they will be populated by user-generated tags.

What does this mean? Well, it certainly points to the importance of savvy tagging for your stories. But, as is often the case with Medium’s “improvements”, the proposed changes are painted in brilliant sunset hues, while the reality is often far more chaotic and troublesome.

Why Medium thinks it’s a great idea to put so much categorization power in the hands of the writers (a group with vastly disparate levels of tagging experience and sophistication, let alone experience writing on this platform) does not make logical sense to me — at least without some system governance. Here’s what Medium Support said (email dated November 16, 2021) when I asked them for clarification:

There are no “official Topics.” Topics are user-generated, so the number of available topics is unbound.

Yes, authors are in control of the 5 topics they wish to assign to their story. Medium does not automatically or programmatically assign Topics.

As an example, my recent prose poem Wild Imprints was displaying on the Prose Poem, Nature, Mythology and Love Tag Pages — just as I had tagged. Theoretically, the more pages your story displays on, the more potential views.

But how does anyone even know about Tag Pages, or even think to read content from these pages?

Now, not all writers are tag-savvy — and nor should they be expected to be. Remember what I said earlier about no evidence of any attempt to clean up or sift through Tag info by Medium? I suppose that’s why there’s now separate Tag Pages for Poetry, Poetry on Medium, and Poem — all pointlessly similar, but all with their own Top Writer Lists. And you’ll notice even Medium Support is getting Topics mixed up with Tags.

It’s also a system that can easily be exploited if correlation between content and tags isn’t being system-regulated in any way. For example, a writer wishing to maintain Top Writer status can just tag any post (even if it’s completely unrelated content) with that tag.

Over regular observation, I’ve noticed the streams of “Trending” “Latest” & “Best” on each page are alarmingly random. Work written in other languages with no claps is also appearing. Work with titles better suited to a Triple XXX Porn videos appears in”Best”. A poem with the glaringly explicit title of “Fuck me on the Mattress” could be found in this stream on the Poetry tag — such an enticing example of quality writing on this platform for new subscribers.

I’ve been watching this for three months, and I still see the same randomness of content. It doesn’t appear to be fixing itself.

Should new subscribers find themselves on these pages, or start there to find content to read, Tag Pages are currently a questionable representation of quality writing on the platform. Their randomness does a total disservice to writers who do achieve curation — who are striving for excellence and quality in their work — only to be lumped in with the garbage that turns up on these pages. So I complained.

Here’s the response to my feedback email to Medium Support (dated November 16, 2021) regarding the vast disparity of quality:

Thanks for the feedback. We are aware that some erotic stories are creeping into incorrect tags, and are working on the filters for that. Please bear with us.

Over a month later, I’m still seeing the randomness and the trashy titles. How much bearing can we bear before we’re writing elsewhere?

Are You a Secret Top Writer Too?

Another difference is the newer Tag Pages don’t have 50 Top Writers listed — nor do they automatically award “Top Writer” badges to writers’ profiles. The Tag Pages that weren’t converted from those original 100 Topic Pages have a smaller Top Writers list — I’ve seen anything from zero to ten listed on the new Tag Pages. From observation, it depends on how recent the Tag is and/or its popularity.

A few months ago, I discovered I was in the Top Ten Writers in Prose Poem. As an editor for Scrittura, a pub that showcases the prose poem genre, I was excited to see the Prose Poem now has a Tag Page all of its own — separate to Poetry. I’ve been slowly climbing that list — and now I’m at #2. Currently there are 10 Top writer slots listed on this page.

See? There I am, looking rather pleased with myself — considering I’d published a total of thireen prose poems on Medium when I first saw myself listed there (at #7) and I only started writing prose-poems five months ago. As I continued my Tag page research over the next few months, I discovered more Tag Pages where I was a secret Top Writer.

As I’m writing this, I am #5 Top Writer in Prose, and #5 Top Writer in Metaphor. I also have the dubious honour of being #1 in Ravens (out of 3 writers), and #1 in Crows (out of 8 writers) by virtue of a few poems I wrote on these themes.

Move over David Attenborough — I’m the rising queen of the bird world.

Where are you a secret Top Writer? You might be surprised where you find yourself — but I guarantee you it will coincide with Tags you’ve used often or on a cluster of highly viewed stories — or a combination of the two.

If you’re a Top Writer in these newer Tag Pages — welcome to the secret club. Perhaps we should develop a secret handshake or greeting code-word — because Medium sure isn’t giving us any recognition. Yet.

Breaking News — New Top Writer Badges Coming Soon to a Tag Near You

In early November, I contacted Medium Support, asking (without much hope) whether Medium ever intended on awarding “Top Writer” badges for these newer Tag categories to writer’s profiles. To my surprise, this was the reply (thanks Arthur) a few days later:

Currently the “Top Writer” email and bio label is for a set number of previous “Tags.” We are looking to expand this to the new Topics, so please bear with us.

We are looking to bring parity to the former tags with Top Writer designation to all new Topics.

Gosh. That’s seven million (less 100 — you do the math, I’m an Arts graduate) new writer badges. In a scathing recent article on these changes, writer Joe Duncan informs us there’s now a tag for poop. I don’t know who writes about poop on Medium, but I’m glad that badge isn’t coming my way — I don’t think it’ll be a great look on resumes or a conversation starter at dinner parties. But I’d be happy to see that I’m a Top Writer in Prose, Metaphor and Prose Poem on my Medium Profile. (The bird badges — I can take or leave.)

So if you write and read in subjects that you’re keen to see become more visible and to have Top Writer badges awarded to them, make sure you follow those pages.

But how does anyone even know about — ?

I can’t answer my recurring question — and it seems to have been left out of the memo — but I can offer some suggestions to make the best of this granular new world.

Tagging Tips: Making the Most of a More Granular Medium

Sorry, I just have to shake the sand off my keyboard — I don’t know how that got there. Experience shows that when Medium makes changes, they tend to stick. They may tweak — but they don’t reverse their changes. In all likelihood, we’re stuck with 7 milion Tag Pages. So, based on my research, here’s how we writers can make them work better for us.

How do I search Tags to see if I’m a Top Writer or check if a Tag I want to use has an actual Tag Page?

Just typing it in the “Add Tags” section in your story editor won’t indicate clearly if there’s an offical Tag Page or not. Here’s my quick non-techie 3-step technique to get to Tag Pages or check if a Tag you want to use exists.

1. Hit the Medium icon (3 blobby black dots) in the top left of your screen to get to your Home Page.
2. Click on any “Topic you Follow” button (above the writers you follow) eg: Family, Fiction, Writing. You’ll arrive on that Tag Page.
3. Head up to the browser address bar. Backspace out the current tag name. Type in the tag you want to find. Let’s say it’s Metaphor. It will look like this: medium.com/tag/metaphor
4. Hit Enter.

If the Tag Page exists, it’ll take you there.

If it doesn’t, you’ll get an error page.

Other quick tagging tips

• Follow the Tag Pages you’re interested in— to help ‘grow” that Page towards more visibility and a Top Writer badge.
• Spread the Word: In your own posts, FB writer groups or, for pub owner/editors in your editorial posts, tell newbies and less experienced writers about the Tag Pages. Show them how to get there. Tell them to follow what they’re interested in, and that Tag Pages are a way to access stories about their areas of interest (no, you don’t have to use the word “granular”). Here’s how I made the info relevant for writers in Scrittura.
• Keep your own running list of Tags you use. Check if new ones actually exist, or if you’re using the most popular version of its variations on your stories.

You can also check out this article, more specifically on Tagging tips. Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how long until the new Top Writer badges start rolling out.

Until then, have some eyedrops handy to help combat all this new granularity — and as the Brits would say — Keep Calm and Keep Tagging.

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