Over-Commenters Are Ruining Medium

You know who you are.

The Medium comment section is a valuable tool. But it is being badly abused- and something needs to change.

Comments allow readers to contribute to the discussion by describing related issues or relaying similar experiences.

Comments also allow authors to receive feedback on their writing- which can improve their future written work, and help them grow as a writer.

Unfortunately, many Medium authors are abusing the Medium comments function. They are ruining the comment section- and in the process, they are ruining Medium itself.

You know what I’m talking about. You have seen it. And you are probably sick of it too.

I’m talking about the writers who flood every Medium article with comments.

These writers comment on literally every single article. Their comments are not interesting or insightful. Rather, they post banal comments like:

“Great work! Very interesting.”

“This gave me chills!”

“I never thought of it this way! Good job.”

You can tell the over-commenters by the saccharine quality of their comments. These comments are upbeat, but don’t say anything. They lack substance. In fact, these trite snippets could be copy-pasted to almost any story at all.

The irony of the over-commenters is that their commenting is spammy, yet they are not spam profiles. They are actually “respectable” writers on Medium. The over-commenters are not unknown accounts with a dozen followers. To the contrary, they are often“brand name” writers on Medium with Friend of Medium badges.

We know why they do it.

These writers spam Medium with endless comments in a cynical attempt to raise their own profile by littering Medium with their name. (It is not much different from a dog marking its territory by relieving itself on a fire hydrant.)

Like any spammer, they believe that any publicity is good publicity. They just want their name to be seen.

It’s clear that they are spamming Medium. Comments from these authors can be found on literally every single story you read. If you come across an interesting story and scroll the comments, there they are: “Great work!” “You are an inspiration!”

Please- give me a break.

How could anyone comment on 500 stories a day? Who has the time? No serious writer would do that. Serious writers spend their time writing, not commenting on hundreds of stories each day.

These writers know they are spamming Medium with their endless comments. Yet they disingenuously try to hide it by making their comments upbeat and positive. After all, if they are saying something nice, it can’t be spam- can it?

Yes, it is spam- regardless of how upbeat the comment is.

The problem with the over-commenters is that they ruin Medium for the rest of us. They bring down the quality of dialogue. And like any publication, Medium survives only on the quality of its dialogue. When it becomes boring, repetitive, or spammy- readers depart. (And they take their paying subscriptions with them.)

Over-commenting also backfires as a strategy.

If you are trying to increase your readership by spamming the comments, you should stop now. It doesn’t work. And it will actually harm your reputation as a writer.

I never read articles by the over-commenters. If you are an over-commenter, I will assume that you have exhausted your reservoir of good ideas. I will assume that you have run out of interesting things to write about, and you are merely trying to get by on spamming the platform.

Is there a polite way to notify the over-commenters that we are on to their game? Is there a civilized way to say “This sounds like a comment written for your own exposure, not for insight into what the author has written?”

Perhaps Medium should consider limiting the number of daily comments permitted on the platform. I’m not sure what the current number of allowed comments is- but it’s too darn high.

Readers should be limited to ten comments per day. Genuine commenters don’t comment on every single article they read. Perhaps they comment on one out of ten articles. So an allowance of ten comments per day assumes that the reader is reading no more than 100 articles per day. Very few people read more than that, so this seems like a reasonable limit.

What do you think? What is the solution to the over-commenters? Should Medium be more aggressive in policing them, or should that job be left to us- the readers?