Dear 🌽 Muffin,

I don’t foretell the future.

I prefer the past or the present.

Speculation invites argument which thrives when facts are scarce.

You have been on Medium 5 seconds and already you have a nickname!

How did you charm your way in so fast?

Other Observations

Another interesting thing about Medium is the contempt in which “real” writers hold the “listicle” writers. Poor writers consistently top the polls at Medium. You’ll soon find out who they are.

Oh, and Medium’s search utility is abysmal. I have written 1700 “stories” since March 1 and when I need to search by title or snippet thereof, I use Google.

Speaking of which, Snippets has written several fabulous articles.

There are a couple of people whom I see as stewards on here, @alto, for example and several others who put a lot of effort into creating and maintaining a civil tone on here. alto, especially, has stood up to at least one cyber bully. Yes, they’re here too.

I have decided, as a general rule, to only argue with people I know or have some kind of history of engagement with on here. Click the three dots at the bottom of your article to choose to not display responses. People can still respond; the responses just won’t be displayed.

There are lots of amazing writers on here.

My newest favourite is Melissa Hawks. I am binge-reading her mind-blowing essays.

Feb 1 update: Melissa has a web site too with even more stories. This one brought a tear to my eye:

My other favourites are Notorious DCI (he just published another masterpiece) Stella J. (I recommend a total-immersion) and Ellie Guzman, the Medium queen 👸 of sarcasm.

Troy Jensen wrote a very significant article on Jeremy Stoppelman, showing how poorly he has run Yelp and talia jane introduced us to a whole new realm of worker empowerment with her open letter to Jeremy earlier this year which brought me to Medium in the first place.

I am rambling.

I must do a curation piece soon.

I hope you fall head-over-heels in ❤️ with Medium like I did. It has changed me.

One final recommendation: clothilde. She wrote a piece on big noses that made me wish I had one.

Okay, one very, very last one: God, the devil and the $50-dollar bet by Sonny Bohanan.

Happy New Year,🎈

Best wishes,

Augusta

PS: If you haven’t tried it yet, you’re gonna LOVE the stats tab. Ask me if or when you need to know more.

Thank you for reading this far.