Would You Like A Side Serve of Disconnect with Your Medium Read?

Or do you prefer to connect and engage without the noise?

I’m a recent Medium member. I joined in September. However, I feel somewhat mystified about the integrity of the platform and as a reader I’m trying to understand all I can.

Bear with me, and I’ll explain more in a moment.

Please be considerate of the reader

If you’re a writer, I think it’s wise to believe the reader, or your audience, is the most important person to address in your work. Without them, there’s no reason for your words, no reason for your story. If you don’t have a reader, then your written words are simply private journaling.

When I discovered Medium my first thought was how great a platform this is, for writers and readers to connect with each other.

In fact, Medium promotes itself as “…unlimited access to insightful stories from amazing thinkers and storytellers”.

These two groups I thought, both writers and readers, are members showing great passion and engagement in both comprehensive activities.

A veritable feast for the reader.

And I find evidence of this, particularly in many of the responses to the articles I read.

Sometimes the readers write about the raw passion they feel by their connection with the words. They document how the author has the skill to engage them throughout their story.

They document their opinions on the article, for and against.

Connect, disagree, engage or oppose.

How the writer makes the reader feel is what appeals.

The reader devours what’s delicious to them and wishes for more.

As a reader, I gain so much awareness of what my fellow readers think. This appeals to me. It’s a valuable insight and helps me to understand others’ viewpoints.

It helps me to consider background beliefs, readers’ reactions and to applaud the emotions, written and unwritten.

The engagement between the readers and the writer is an interesting reveal, also. It reminds me of a healthy and hearty discussion by a mini focus group after a presentation.

Like the feeling of contentment at the end of a great meal.

You may be asking, what’s my takeaway from Medium?

As a reader I want to be moved, entertained, enlightened, humored, informed, pleased, educated, persuaded, reminded, and indulged.

The variety on offer is great as Medium writers publish articles about life, about love, about living, about hope, about grief, about experiences, opinions and beliefs.

I read those stories and I’m moved emotionally.

I’m motivated. I’m entertained and left pondering new information.

I want to experiment more with writing. I want to be reminded of my own experiences. I want to learn and to grow.

I related to the article “Nobody Cares About Your Writing — Until You Earn Money”, written by Zulie Rane. Zulie mentions her passion and how it legitimizes her writing; meaning the money is secondary.

I like the concept she considers about her writing — it’s almost a bonus for doing what you love to do.

How I’m connecting with Medium

We’re all a little vicarious, even voyeuristic.

We want what others are having; what they’re experiencing. If we can’t quite look in on their lives, we want to hear about it, imagine it. See ourselves living their dream. Being a part of the life.

For now, let me return to explaining the mystery about the integrity of the platform and how I translate the engagement and the connection.

Lately what I’m perusing on Medium is my reason for feeling so mystified.

There appears to be a developing fairy-tale analysis, a game of “decipher the algorithm”, curated one-upmanship or competitiveness between writers to determine who will earn the most funds from submitting articles.

I looked at articles on the topic of being in curator jail.

I saw articles covering how to investigate exactly when you became incarcerated and I saw articles plotting how to set up an escape or rescue plan to freedom.

I scanned articles on how to make your articles earn more money.

And I observed how a great number of these writers are quite critical of Medium.

The authors’ futile attempts to understand the algorithm, to refine their articles just so they earn more, disappoint me.

What disappoints me even more, is how angry they sound if their articles aren’t curated.

This is not a side serve this reader wants to digest.

Thankfully, not everyone is angry or feeling they missed out

For example, Jeff Barton, says he believes his writing is better when he’s not focusing on being curated. He gave me consent to quote him and writes, “…we should all feel a connection to what we’ve written, otherwise, I question what’s the point?”

I assume there are many writers who aren’t curated.

I don’t know because I’m not trying to decipher the algorithm. But maybe we don’t know exactly how many because they’re not all lining up to complain about it in their articles.

They just keep trying and trying.

They just keep practicing and practicing.

And then we’ll see more writers curated, more engagement with readers because it’s what happens when you practice a skill.

You become better at it. You become faster. You become confident and prolific.

The same will happen for the complainers, too. They’ll become better at it because they’re practicing and becoming more prolific.

Anyway, enough about the complainers and back to the reader experience through reading great writing.

Pamela J. Nikodem, MS is another readers’ leader I noticed who endorses the focused improvement in her writing by dismissing thoughts of curation. She wrote the beautiful article, Daily Writing: An Essential Part of the Silent Music of Reading.

Pamela says her writing is more focused “…and becoming a place to create magic”.

I agree. She does.

Her article is about putting aside the need to write for remuneration and focus more on the inspiring connection between reader and writer. Pamela wrote, “…(A)s writers, our creating is a gift. Some people use their writing as avenues for good. They transform simple ideas into powerful concepts…I want to be one of the writers who inspire those who happen upon her work.”

Pamela’s writing is about daily writing, but so much more than just journaling. She wants the reader to absorb her writing and be inspired by it.

This is an elegant side serve, focussing on the reader.

Payment for writers

I’m certainly not opposed to Medium writers being paid for their writing.

Payment, however, as a rate per month I believe, shouldn’t be a given and considered a salary. This seems so inappropriate. Isn’t the membership payment allocated to writers through the curators? Would most memberships be from readers? Maybe not.

I wondered why some readers admire these angry and incarcerated authors for documenting methods of how to make a ‘living’ on Medium. And why they admire the critique of Medium also. Then I realized they’re probably writers more than readers.

I don’t understand how they believe this is the right platform for their type of article. Maybe they should leave their articles in the social media arena with other noise.

Entrepreneurship is great and I’m a firm believer. However, I also believe we have an obligation to be considerate of others.

To me, it also suggests the guest who brought the wine is being rude to the host about the service.

I’m able to decide for myself whether Medium is suited to me or not.

I really don’t want to read articles denigrating the platform with no opportunity for healthy debate or wholesome side serves.

I’m a member who wants to read great articles about things of interest to me; applaud those writers who offer me tasty bites, and in time assist others. My plan doesn’t include sidestepping public promotion of earnings from many of the publications.

I have the choice to follow different writers and publications, and have the choice of delicacies presented to me each time I log in. I’m also trying to learn more from the writers who are curated. I can follow them and try to understand and appreciate different techniques and how to offer improved food for thought.

As I mentioned I see the curated one-upmanship as impolite.

I echo the sentiments of Maggie Lupin in an article about advertising and requesting payment for e-courses on Medium. What are their qualifications? What are their intentions? What do they want to achieve with this type of boastful, unhelpful information? Or is the aim to ruin the integrity of the platform?

Is your article wearing a tux and muddy runners?

I do think some of the writers indulging in this navel-gazing exercise should cease condemning, stop examining and positing their stats and Stripe accounts and concentrate instead on their editing and proofreading.

The guidelines mention the writer should proofread and edit their articles before submission to avoid, “…major typos, errors, or formatting quirks in your story so readers can focus on the piece itself.”

I couldn’t agree more.

However, I was very surprised writers really need to be reminded to do this. Then my surprise changed to disbelief. After I read more articles, I believe writers do need to be told and reminded frequently.

Tip: Sometimes when we edit, what we read is not always what’s written. We just imagine the words are there on the page. Or there may be duplicate words. If you find you’re too familiar with your article to pick up errors when you proofread, try using the read aloud facility in Word before copying and pasting the article into the Medium editor.

I find quite a lot of these careless errors and typos in the articles I read.

Not because I’m looking for them but because I’m good at finding them.

I suggest you don’t overlook these unfavorable titbits and remove them before serving.

The reader will no doubt feel undervalued by simple, obvious editing errors.

I know I do.

Side serves are more appealing when presented in an attractive, uncluttered style.

Poor editing heralds a tarnished article from a writer who could have produced a great polished piece of writing. As a reader I may never know, because I may stop reading.

Errors and typos stop the flow of reading for me. It’s as if the sign to slow down appears after I hit the speed hump.

I want to be a valued, acknowledged reader, who has her takeaway from Medium delivered.

Please, up your game if you recognize yourself as one of those writers and give the reader their raison d’être Medium members.