Why Do I Block So Many Writers on Medium?

Yes, I’m a trigger-happy grumpy old thing. But, there’s more to it than that.

I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my time on Medium recently blocking writers. To a certain extent, this is down to spammy-scuzzy-botty accounts.

But, it’s not just that.

I know a lot of you are really nice people who don’t like blocking writers unless they cross a serious line. I’m not that nice. I’m fairly intolerant of people who mess me around; blocking them is a quick way to keep myself happy and to keep my account as clean as possible.

Want to know why I block so many people? Thought you’d never ask. Here’s my current hitlist.

People who follow/subscribe without reading

Most of the accounts I block at the moment are people who follow me for no obvious reason. They haven’t read any of my articles but they follow me anyway and, sometimes, they also subscribe to get my emails.

Why? I could write articles in middle-high Martian on chocolate elephants for all they know. They are not interested in my stuff.

There are so many spammy scammers out there at the moment that I look at the account of everyone who follows/subscribes to me. I block them if they look spammy, botty or suspicious. I also automatically block them if they follow me and subscribe at the same time without any evidence they’ve looked at my account.

If a writer has written twentymillionhundred articles in the last 24 hours, they are gone. I’ve spent a lot of my career writing online articles in bulk and I can tell you from experience that you can’t write this many articles in a day without mechanical help.

I also automatically block any new writer who has opened a publication. Who does this? Most writers I know don’t anything much about publications when they join the platform. Most don’t realise that they can open their own pub. If you joined the site yesterday and you already have a publication, then I get suspicious. You’re probably a bot.

Some of you might be having a meh moment here. You might be wondering why I don’t just leave these followers/subscribers in place. After all, they boost my stats.

I simply want to keep my following list as clean as I can. If it is true that Medium shows your articles to a small percentage of your followers, then I don’t want my teeny-tiny visibility wasted on bot accounts or people who have no intention of reading anything I write.

I’ll trade high follower numbers for a set of followers who are real people who might actually read at some point in the future. The cleaner my list, the better chance I have that someone real might see my stuff when it is published.

I don’t care if some of these followers are real writers who are using a follow-for-follow or spray-and-pray model. I don’t want them cluttering up my list.

And, don’t assume that this kind of growth hacking is harmless for the platform. The mighty Smillew Rahcuef explains how people use multiple following tactics to get visibility on the site fast. If you don’t understand how this happens, read this (ideally after you’ve finished the rest of my article).

People who clap craply

Most of us know about clap-and-runners. They come into an article, clap and then get out again. Often, they don’t stay in for 30 seconds, so your read ratio goes to hell in a handbasket. Your earnings dribble away.

Individual clap-and-runners are hard to spot but sometimes I get lucky. If someone claps on an old article, then I can see if their view turned into a read after a few hours. If it didn’t, I block them.

I’m still getting a few multiple clap-and-runners. Here, someone claps on a few articles in quick succession.

I’m mathematically challenged; however, even I can see that clapping on three four-minute articles over the space of a minute means that that person didn’t read. They are an easy block.

And then we have the comment clappers. These people clap on comments you leave on other writers’ articles, and they seem to be more prevalent at the moment.

Sometimes, I recognise the person who does this. This is OK. They maybe just agreed with what I said enough to give it a clap. That happens.

But, I’m wary of a writer I don’t know who suddenly starts to clap on multiple comments in quick succession. I left these comments on different articles written by different writers, some of which date back months. These clappers look like automated bot accounts. Who knows? I check them out and block most of them.

People who put links in my comments

I have a thing about people who put links in comments on my articles. Sometimes, this is innocent enough. One of my mates might do this to shunt me towards something I’ll find useful. That’s fine.

I block anyone who sticks in a link to a product, service, website or spurious Telegram writing group. Just not interested.

I’m also not keen on writers who put in links to their own articles. Some just ask me to read them outright. Others shoehorn in a link to an article that they swear I’ll want to read because it is so close to what I’ve written. You know the ‘hey, my article on crypto gels so well with your article on bereavement’ types.

And, the irony is, I usually check out people who leave me a comment. If they stick in a link, I don’t. Well, I do, but only to see if I want to block them. I’ve even blocked some people I follow because they started to do this repeatedly and I have the tolerance of a gnat sometimes.

People who are beyond rude

To be honest, I’ve only ever had to block a couple of people for being rude. Most of my readers are nice. We can have an argument without it turning into a troll-fest that neither of us will win.

But, I’m putting this in here because I know some of my friends have had more serious problems with trolls and loonies. You shouldn’t be scared to block — or report — someone who is rude, hateful or harassing.

My personal favourite was a guy who got really ticked off because of my British English spelling. The fact that I used arsehole rather than asshole put him into a tsunami rage.

He left me a short comment which didn’t have many words in it apart from the worst c-swearword (the lady front parts one). I was quite impressed by the number of times he got the word in a couple of sentences. It was quite skilful.

He was also an easy block. I contemplated explaining that I was British but didn’t think that would make a difference. Might have made him worse for all I know. Sometimes, it’s better to just to let people go…

Want to read more of my Medium articles? They’re all in this list. If you save the list you’ll get an email/site notification whenever I add a new article to it.