Tagged! Linked!

Now say thank you, or be ignored in the future.

Like any and all human communities, Medium has its cliques. I’ve read elsewhere that people run into resistance; recently Kristi Keller penned a piece that speaks to the behavior of various Medium writers:

While it’s tongue-in-cheek, she has a point. I have regularly tagged other writers who can’t be bothered either to read my piece and comment, after I’ve just brought their work to my some five thousand readers. Or return the favor. Or heavens, bother to pop me a thanks.

As along as I am in country and have access to wi-fi, if I see that some kind soul on Medium has bothered to tag or link me I am going to at least acknowledge the favor. It’s a courtesy, a kindness, and a compliment. I do my level best to respond to comments at least with claps, at best with a response long enough to be another article. Sometimes I may miss a few, or more, when I’ve been out for five weeks and have more than a thousand in my little green circle.

Sigh. Those days are gone for the time being, but the good news is that for now I really can be highly responsive. If I didn’t respond, it sure isn’t intentional, no do I not care. I’m still poring over old stories and trying to respond, and I have four thousand of them. Geez, Louise.

I honestly give a very large damn what people think and say. And that isn’t limited to the rare big fat attaboy. It is equally important for the critiques, as long as they are offered without intent to harm. People are giving me the gift of their irreplaceable time. The older you get the more you really do understand why that’s so important.

Not only that, on more than one occasion those exchanges have led to emails, those emails have led to phone calls, and those phone calls have blossomed into friendships with extraordinary people. People from very diverse backgrounds, cultures, ideas, and often a helluva lot smarter than I am. Not a bad payoff for being polite, I’d say.

So help me understand why other writers, especially the top ones, can’t be bothered to say thank you?

In the Illumination community where I’ve been writing now for more than a month, most of the time when I tag or acknowledge others’ work, the favor is returned. Or at least someone says thanks for the shout-out.

Here’s my favorite quote from Kristi’s piece:

Yes this is a humor piece but I’ve definitely taken note that a grand total of zero top writers ever respond when I tag them or comment on their stories.

Which really makes me wonder. What kind of jerks ignore people who help them succeed by sharing their material with their own followers?

Apparently that’s a shared quality among many of the so-called “top writers.”

One exception to this is Shannon Ashley, who does indeed take the time to read and comment and acknowledge, which speaks not only to her decency, but also her understanding that support is mutual. One person mentioned my work but never bothered to acknowledge the number of times I tagged his articles. So not only do I no longer tag his stuff but I muted him.

I’ve grown weary of one-way relationships. The energy I have for such drainage is limited and I am now just shutting that down.

Illumination is a unique community, a publication within the overall community of hundreds of publications on Medium. As I have watched it grow, I’ve also noticed how many of our fellow writers have taken the extra step to tag, compliment, acknowledge, encourage, and include one another. Not all, but many, if not most. I’ve watched the comments get funny, personal and engaging as people get to know each other the way they might if they were coming to work in the same building each day.

In the highest sense of this, that’s precisely what we’re doing.

That I think is part of why we fought so hard to protect Illumination from permanent exile a short while back.

It is of course part of what the publisher Mehmet Yıldız has modeled for the community from the beginning. These days as we’ve grown so rapidly and our collective productivity has gone from a trickle to an Iguazu Falls and likely will continue to do so, it’s harder to get those deeply personal comments and observations.

But read our stuff, he does. He’s engaged others who have spent their time and expertise getting us into different online streams for all of us to benefit. That to me, is how a community is defined. How we treat each other, help each other, back each other and promote each other.

In part because of Illumination and my habit of doing my best to tag, link, engage, thank and read other writers, my stats have gone from 34,000 to almost 46,000 reads in the last thirty days. Long way from where I was, but we all got body-slammed. The way I see it, it’s not about how far you and I fall, but how willing we are to slog back up…and bring others with us.

And, along with my funny buddies Charles Roast and Roz Warren, help us laugh along the way. TAGGED!

We as writers love to be seen and noticed. Those of us who have been at this for a while are fine with being ignored or not curated much these days (join the club, it’s a rare treat). However, shy of curation, the simple courtesy of a tag back, a linkback, or a thank you goes a long way towards building loyalty.

We’ve got enough royal arrogance at the top levels in the US Administration. For my Medium dollar and the investment I regularly put into reading and valuing other’s work, the least we can do is mind our manners here in this largely protected space. Illumination is setting a very high standard. That’s why I continue to post most of my work here. And it’s why when I want to read other’s work I give precedence to the lists that Dr. Y compiles, for I am largely guaranteed appreciative responses if I take the time to comment, compliment and tag.

If you don’t care enough about your readers, as Kristi writes, above, to bother to say thank you, after a while your readers will stop caring about you.

Manners matter. If you don’t demonstrate manners online, there’s a pretty good chance you didn’t possess them in the first place.

If you don’t open doors, say please and thank you, make sure that a door doesn’t slam on the pregnant woman carrying her bags to the car right behind you, if you can’t be bothered to smile at strangers, spare a dime or have a kind word,

Then folks, that is precisely how you are likely to show up on Medium.

We care about those who care about us.

Whether you and I are on an online community or in person, our intentions, the way we see our responsibilities to the greater good, the way we treat each other is indicative of our humanity. Being online doesn’t shelter any anger or angst we may harbor, or our resentment or feelings of entitlement. If anything that behavior is magnified.

Let’s magnify our manners.

Tagged? Linked? Say thank you. Reciprocate. Be gracious. Let’s acknowledge each other and continue to raise the bar.