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Summary

The web content discusses a third, less-known category in Medium's curation process, which represents articles that have passed the initial algorithmic check but have not yet been reviewed by human editors within the standard two-week period.

Abstract

Medium's curation process is a critical aspect of content distribution on the platform, where articles are selected for broader reach based on quality standards. Typically, articles either get curated and distributed across various Medium surfaces or get rejected. However, the content reveals a third scenario: articles that are not immediately rejected by the algorithm and are placed in a 'Hang tight!' category, yet do not receive a curation decision within two weeks. These articles fall into a limbo state, where they are neither curated nor rejected, and the possibility of future review by curators remains. The author shares personal experiences and observations, noting that articles in this third category may still have a chance of being curated, even after the two-week review period has lapsed. The article also suggests that submitting to prominent publications can expedite the review process.

Opinions

  • The author believes that the third category in the curation process is not widely recognized or documented, as evidenced by the lack of information available and the surprise at discovering this status for their articles.
  • There is a suggestion that the volume of articles passing the initial quality check may be overwhelming the capacity of human editors to review them within the two-week timeframe, leading to this third category.
  • The author speculates that Medium's algorithm may rank articles that pass the initial quality check, which could influence the likelihood and timing of editor reviews.
  • Despite the uncertainty, the author remains optimistic, viewing the third category as a sign of hope for potential curation, rather than an outright rejection.
  • The author recommends submitting articles to prominent Medium publications with large followings as a strategy to get articles reviewed and potentially curated more quickly.
  • The author emphasizes the importance of focusing on writing quality articles, rather than being overly concerned with the intricacies of the curation process, as the platform will ultimately handle distribution.

The Third Category in Curation Process

It is better than getting rejected — you still have hope to be curated

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

For those who are new to Medium — Curation is the process where a team of Medium’s editor reviews the recently published stories and selects those that meet their high standard of writing.

Once selected, Medium distributes the story on multiple platforms. Below is an excerpt related curation from Medium’s FAQ page:

When a story is curated, it becomes eligible to be distributed to readers across Medium surfaces — on the homepage, on topic pages, in our app, in our Daily Digest newsletter, and in other emails — and shared via Medium’s recommendation system.

Now you can understand why curation is a good thing for your stories. Medium takes the responsibility of distributing the curated articles to hundreds of thousands of its readers. The reach of your material gets multiplied.

The technical details about curation are available in many articles and the platform’s ‘Help’ section. However, there is a lot to curation than what is already written. Many of these facts are not widely available yet. I stumbled upon one such point through my writing experience on Medium.

Let’s learn more about the path to curation and how I found a new bucket under which your ‘yet to be curated’ stories are categorized.

[Update]

From 1.October.2020, Medium has redesigned the user interface and brought in a number of changes to how curation works. Here is a quick overview of the same:

  • The article stats page no longer indicates the topics selected by curators.
  • If the article is selected for distribution then there is a new message: ‘Chosen for further distribution.’
Screenshot by author.
  • I did not receive any email initiation by Medium when my above article got selected.
  • I came to know about the selection by curators due to the curation indication dot on the stats page graph.
Screenshot by author.
  • To find the topics under which the article is curated, open your article and click on the three dots ‘…’ on the top of the page (left to the search icon). Then go to the ‘Story settings’ option.
Screenshot by author.
  • There is no more ‘hang tight’ or rejection message on the article’s stats page. So, there is no clear indication of whether the curators have reviewed your article and rejected it or have not reviewed it yet.
Screenshot by author.

You can find out further details from this Medium blog.

[/Update]

Path to Curation

Let’s start with some basic facts so that you can understand better about the third category.

When you publish an article, it first goes into the ‘Hang tight!’ category.

Screenshot by author

You can go to the stats page and click on the ‘Details’ link underneath the story. The resulting page will show you the message as shown below — ‘We are processing this story. Hang tight!’.

Screenshot by author

Above shown is a standard message for every article that gets published. It means that your story is not outright rejected by the curation algorithm, which is a good sign. Yes, the algorithm does reject articles immediately after getting published if it does not meet the standards. Most likely, no one other than the team that coded it knows what those criteria are.

From here, there are generally two possibilities — Either your article gets selected for curation, or it will get rejected.

If your article meets the high standard of curation, then it will be selected by the editors. You will get notified about it through email. You will also be able to see the categories under which your article is curated by checking the stats page (as shown below).

Screenshot by author

You will find the message has changed to “Distributed by curators in …”, and it gives the list of curated topics.

In case your article is not selected by the curators, then there will be no notification about the same. You can check the status of the curation on the stats page. The message will now show as “Not distributed in topics.”.

Screenshot by author

That’s the only way you can find out about the rejection of the article. It will just say that curators did not select the story for distribution. There will be no feedback about why they did not pick it up.

These are the two possible outcomes when your article is not rejected by the algorithm immediately after it gets published.

Well, There Is a Third Scenario

In my very first week of writing on Medium, three of my articles got curated. But after that, I did not have any luck in the curation process. For the next two weeks, all my stories got stuck in ‘Hang tight!’ message. It was neither getting selected nor rejected by the curators.

In Medium’s own words, FAQ page about curation states —

Most stories are reviewed within two weeks.

As a new writer on the platform, I was curious to find out what happens to my article after two weeks from the publication date. Will the story surely get picked up for review within the two weeks? What if it does not? What happens next?

I found out that there is a third scenario in the curation process.

After two weeks from the publishing date, the stats page for one of my articles showed the dreaded message — “Not distributed in topics.”.

I thought editors reviewed the article and did not like the content. But, to my surprise, when I clicked on the question mark next to the text, it did not show the standard rejection message. Instead, it now indicates — “This story has been shared with your followers and may be reviewed by Medium curators for broader distribution.”.

Screenshot by author

I tried to find more detail about this new message in FAQs and articles from other writers but to no avail. Some of the social media posts had the same questions, but no specific answers. I also sent an email to the Medium support team to find out what does the message means — I am yet to get any response from them.

Meanwhile, over the next few days, more and more of my articles got into the same status message.

With many articles getting into this unknown territory of curation, I was able to establish a trend.

The common factor is that the articles were all exactly past 14 days mark from the date of publishing. So, I kept checking the rest of my’ published but yet to be reviewed’ articles to see if the same happens to them when they reach the two weeks mark — the maximum period mentioned in the FAQ page for getting the stories reviewed.

And, it is true — once the 14 days period from the date of publication is over, the article automatically moves to the third scenario.

Now I have five articles which are past 14 days period and marked as not distributed in topics but with a comment — it may be reviewed by Medium curators. As per some posts in various Medium related Facebook groups, many writers have faced this status for their articles. No one knows why it happens, but I have a solid theory based on my analysis.

Medium is getting a large number of submissions from writers. Many of them are good enough to pass the initial quality check by the algorithm. Hence, these stories are not getting rejected outright by the machine. In the next step, a human editor needs to pick the stories for review and manually approve them to get distributed under specific topics.

May be due to the massive volume of articles at this stage, there are not enough editors to review them anymore within the two weeks. So, these articles which can pass through the machine level validation but are not getting their share of editor’s review time go to the third category bucket.

I also think — based on specific parameters, the algorithm ranks the articles which pass the automatic quality check. Pretty sure curators don’t randomly pick stories to review. That will be a highly inefficient process. The team which can build a robust algorithm to check the quality of writing can undoubtedly enhance the code to rank them for easier access by the curators.

I am not sure whether it is a good thing or a bad thing to be in this third category. I think it is certainly better than the rejection as you still have hope to get reviewed. Whenever it gets considered, the editor might like the story based on its quality and curate it.

I don’t think Medium will put the message — “… and may be reviewed by Medium curators for broader distribution” — unless they actually intend to review these articles at a later point in time. Some writers have received curation to their stories well past the 14 days from the date of publication.

So not all hopes are lost when your article is categorized in this third bucket.

Take Away

Now you have an idea what the message — “This story has been shared with your followers and may be reviewed by Medium curators for broader distribution” — means.

With this clarity — go ahead and find out if you also notice the same trend in your articles. If you are also getting similar treatment from the curation process, don’t lose your heart. There is still a chance your story can get curated.

Just to give you a glimmer of hope — after two weeks of continuously getting this message for all my articles, yesterday two of my articles got curated on the same day.

One of the articles got curated 12 days after it was published. So, don’t worry much about how the curation algorithm works. Don’t fret over how much time your story sits in the ‘Hang tight!’ message. You have no control over it.

Are you are still not convinced about the review process? Do you want some surety that your articles get reviewed faster by the curators, whenever they get published?

Then — submit your stories to prominent publications that have over 100K followings. If the article gets selected, then it will be fast-tracked to the front of the queue for review. I tried this method and submitted one of my stories to a publication with a massive following. The story was accepted after a few days but got curated within minutes of getting published.

These details are from my personal experience with Medium and its processes. I don’t intend to provide advice as I am still pretty new to the platform. I am learning from other writers as I am engaging with them more and more. I hope you do the same — learn from other’s experiences.

Don’t let the intricacies of the processes distract you from your main focus area, i.e., writing quality articles as often possible. Let the Medium platform take care of the rest.

Thank you for reading the article. You might also like to read:

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