HOW-TO-TORIAL

More About Those Private Notes

Editor’s log, supplemental

For an excellent discussion of everything private notey, see Anu Anniah’s article:

One thing she forgot to mention is that if you want a line feed, you have to use shift/enter, otherwise your note will simply be posted as it was when you hit the enter key.

Ahem. The purpose of this writing is to point out that we, the hard-working volunteer editors of MuddyUm,

(OMG we were all so young and beautiful¹ then) depend upon private notes to communicate with you, the writer. I know, I know, private notes — Medium’s excuse for DMing — really bite. But we use what we have.

Therefore, please pay careful attention to Anu’s discussion of the dismissing of private notes. Although she didn’t explicitly point it out, they are slippery little beasts, vanishing when you least expect it. So do avoid that dismiss control. The cunning little imp sneaks up on you when you least expect it. If you do slip up, you will have about two seconds to undo using the little red thingy that will appear near the top of the screen.

The reason to avoid dismissing notes is that other editors looking at your piece need to see the private notes in order to avoid needless repetition. The private notes are important to our back and forth editorial process. We don’t correct everything ourselves. We prefer to call your attention to our concerns and let you do it.

Note that last sentence. Go to your settings, and be sure you have private notes turned on. Do it now, OK?

Then be sure you have email notifications turned on.

Once you have all email turned on, you can scroll up and fine tune this setting. I don’t know how much good it will do because I have set this setting

and I still get duplicate highlight notifications — that’s Medium for you. In any case, it helps you if you receive email notifications about your private notes. It’s another way of keeping yourself posted during the editorial process. If you are not receiving them and you think you should be, check out this help page.

Update: Reader Ellen B. Marshall pointed out that the link returned 404. This will happen if you are using the phone app. Here is a composite screen shot.

For more information open this article using a browser and follow the link.

I am just a newly minted editor here on MuddyUm, but I hope this helps.

¹ Forgive me, watching that video overwhelmed me with boomer nostalgia.

What was that you said, “hope I die before I get old?” Oh well — too late!