Advice

When In Doubt? Ask Medium Support

You’ll Never Know If You Don’t Ask

When I realized that there were people clapping for my work without actually reading it, I did what I do whenever anything on Medium confounds me. I wrote about it:

The question I posed in this piece was whether the claps of such a “clap and run” reader count as much as the claps you get from someone who actually reads your work.

I wrote it in part to call out the folks who were engaging in this dishonest practice, and in part because I was hoping that a reader who was more knowledgeable that I am about the ways of Medium (which is most of them) actually had an answer.

Although I received a lot of fun feedback, with plenty of smartass speculation, nobody was actually able to answer this question.

And then? I got the bright idea of asking Medium Support for an answer.

My fellow writers have told of contacting Medium Support for all sorts of reasons, such as vanishing claps and other system glitches. A popular plea is for the reconsideration of a piece that hasn’t been curated.

I’d once tried this myself, asking for the “not distributed in topics” decision about one of my favorite posts to be re-considered.

The response? Crickets.

But you never know unless you try. So I emailed Medium Support ([email protected]), included a link to clap-and-run piece, and asked:

I posed a question in this piece that nobody seem to know the answer to. Any chance that you’d be willing to answer it? THANKS!

To be honest? I didn’t expect to get a response. But I did! Here it is:

“You’ve Clapped For My Story Without Reading It. Does That “Count?”

The answer is “yes,” that does count.

We distribute a share of each member’s monthly contribution in proportion to his or her individual activity on stories written for members that month (with claps as the primary signal we use).

So all claps are counted equally, regardless of the view/read state.

We are working on improving this entire system, including the reflection of these metrics to the author, right now, so please bear with us.

So what’s the takeaway for you as a Medium writer?

Every Clap Counts

Whether a reader carefully savors each word of your latest Medium Masterpiece or just clicks on it long enough to clap?

Doesn’t matter. What we now know is that as far as Medium is concerned, a clap is a clap is a clap.

It Never Hurts To Ask

But even more important? If you have a Medium question or concern? Ask Medium Support! You just might get a quick and definitive response.

Which leaves me with this question: Should the 1850 claps I got for that original post “count” given that I could have just emailed Medium Support for the answer in the first place?

I’ll let you answer that.

Writing Coach Roz Warren, who writes for everyone from the Funny Times to the New York Times, can help you improve and publish your work. Drop her a line at [email protected]. (That’s Ros with an “s,” not a “z.”)