Readers Should Be Unable to Clap For First 30 Seconds
Let’s push back against fake engagement
There’s an easy solution to resolve the problem of Medium accounts that ‘clap and run’ — that is clapping without reading, for the sole purpose of trying to get naïve Medium members to follow them and check our their work, which often reeks of AI.
‘Clap and runs’ have the potential to undermine our read ratio and thereby reduce our earnings. So let’s have the claps and comments greyed out until the ‘reader’ has been on the story for 30 seconds.
By that time they will have registered as a ‘read’ for the purposes of payment. That’s one problem solved — their fake engagement is no longer bringing down our earnings.
Then, if they want to spam the clap button or spam the comments, at least it’s not adversely affecting our earnings, even if spammy comments can be a tad annoying.
It’s fair to say that someone who hasn’t read a story for at least 30 seconds isn’t really in a position to decide whether it deserves a clap, or to have anything worthwhile to say in the comments, so why does Medium allow it?
Tony Stubblebine — how about it? Let’s stop spammers from clapping and leaving generic comments by not allowing them to identify themselves until they’ve stuck around for long enough to register as a read.
It seems reasonable to me. You?
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