Great News

Writer Names Back Soon

Medium is working to put writer names to the front page

I posted a story about the challenges we face from editorial, writing, and reading perspectives on Medium.

The comments on the post provided useful insights.

To make it easy for readers, I sorted 20 key comments and extracted them to structure this story. Most of the comments are complementing one another, reflecting similar sentiments, and providing a coherent view of the situation.

My aim is to bring us all on the same page, discuss the issue, and produce useful point of views as an input to the changes affecting all of us.

Here are the valuable comments left on my post yesterday.

1 — My favorite comment was a piece of great news from Edward Robson, PhD. Dr Edward informed us that Medium listened and was addressing the reader issue in terms of the recent removal of the writer names on the front page. Here is extract providing confirmation of Medium from the post.

“We have heard your feedback, and are working now to bring back the author attribution on the homepage. Our Homepage design and engineering teams are building this right now, and it will be updated next week.”

I want to share other prominent comments on the post, which give us interesting point of views from multiple angles.

2 — Tree Langdon, CPA, CGA comments on the impact of removing writer names on the front page.

“This change concerns me the most as a writer. The goal of most writers is to build a readership and by removing writer’s names on your main page you are defeating the purpose of being a writer here. (on Medium)”

3 — Raffaella Ferretti shared her personal experience as a writer. What is striking in Raffaella’s response is the poor return on investment by writers on this platform.

I don’t think it’s of any help to solve the issues. Maybe just read Medium’s beliefs of what’s right for its readers, editors and writers in their opinion. I will try to adjust as much as I can and I will give it a period to experiment it. Then, I will decide what to do. After all, with 1500 followers, in 18 months, my highest earning has been $3, 60 and some; this month just 0,45cents… And I’m not talking about money per sè; in fact, this math tells me that I am ‘followed’ by a ghost audience. If I decide to leave M, I have nothing to lose. I’ll only be grateful for the opportunity offered to go public as a writer and an editor and my personal relationships with a few wonderful writers, which in the event of leaving, I hope to maintain.

4 — Arthur G. Hernandez provided a positive and optimistic outlook for the change. I agree with some points Arthur raised.

I have noticed that my favorite writers are listed on the right side of the new Medium page. Posted with their number of newest articles. That’s pretty nice. There are also features to create my own customized page based on people I follow, as well as one for publications I follow. The customize features seem to do many clever things. Have those features always been there? I’ve never used them if that’s the case, but they seem perfectly capable of fulfilling my indulgences. I also noticed that the tags for Medium’s in-house publications do not show up anywhere on my homepage. I always thought it was a clever tactic to funnel new writers and visitors immediately into their own pubs. Not really fair to the other pubs, but what could we do about it? I don’t follow any of the in-house pubs, so it leads me to think that each of our homepages are customized in some way to us. And by customized, I mean biased towards our personal tastes, much like google searches are biased towards the specific searcher.

5 — Doody Richards commented on the challenges of new writers on the platform. I agree with the key points raised by Doody.

I agree with you. I assume you already read the article by Medium and Ev Williams regarding the changes. But to my understanding they’re trying to make medium all about readership and relational to readers. Hence no more curation but they claim they’ll ‘find’ stories and the topic will stay in the background. My concern as an emerging writer, how do I get my articles found and read if I don’t have 1K followers like some established writers? I’m here on medium because curation gives me motivation to produce high quality stories and opportunity of promotion and distribution and it means to get more followers and build the readership from there. While publications like illumination nourishes writers and opportunity of exposure within their network of readership. The changes are unfair to emerging writers and put favoritism on the established writers and medium writers who obviously sit comfortably due to their professions on medium. Readership and ‘relational’ won’t be their concerns. Please enlighten me if I’m wrong because I’d like to think so.

6 — Penofgold acknowledged the challenges, showed her empathy and provided an optimistic outlook.

Dr. Yildiz, I’m sorry to hear that these stumbling blocks are impacting you as an editor, writer and reader. I’m sorry that they are taking up your time — a resources you need for your multiple productive tasks. I’m sorry that the current entropy limits your ability to use systems you used before to promote the writers’ articles and delayed welcoming new writers. I hope that after new construction on Medium is completed improvements will have been made that add to excellence all around. Your honest input may be contributing to that future success. By the way — with all these challenges that consumed your time, you took the time to support me as a writer. Thank you for your thoughtfulness.

7 — Jacquelyn Lynn as a response to my point “I am wondering what the point is and why Medium removed writer names” resonated the voice of many writers on the platform.

I think a lot of writers are wondering the same thing. I hope Medium listens and adds the writer names back.

8 — J F Turner also highlighted concerns with missing names. J F also highlighted the importance of concerns for editors and readers.

With you on this. I was bothered by the names missing on stories and also by the removal of the curation tags. I feel like I need those to know what stories people want to read. I’m still new, but I was learning from them which stories to keep creating. Seems like a concern should be taken even more seriously if it affects both editors and READERS. We need to keep readers happy.

9 — Terry L. Cooper agreed with the challenges I pointed out from multiple angles. Like Terry, many of us are experiencing symptoms of rapid changes.

Thank you for this, Dr. Yildiz. I have these issues and several others

10 — Emily Kingsley touched on a few critical points, such as lack of visibility from curated stories. Emily also asked an interesting question on what will happen to the top writer status.

I agree — since the changes, I don’t enjoy reading Medium articles as much. Something about the interface just turns me off. And as a writer, I’m starting to wonder if putting energy into Medium is worth it. I’m not sure I understand what ‘promoted for wider distribution’ means. Although that said, in recent months, it felt like curation wasn’t as powerful a driver as it was in the past. I’ve had stories curated in three categories that got less than 10 reads. Interested to see how ‘wider distribution’ compares to old-school ‘curation.’ Also, without tags, will there be no more top writer status? Hoping these changes are a temporary step on the way to improved features.

11 — Florin Marchis shows his empathy towards the design team who may be overwhelmed with the workload created by these changes. As an IT professional, I agree with the sentiments of Florin; been there done that!

I noticed some of these issues myself. My opinion as someone who works in the software development niche is that Medium is going through massive changes right now and bugs are something normal when major modifications are made to a platform of such proportions. I also trust that the team behind the platform works hard to get it fully functional with the new design and changes soon. Do not forget that we have a Beta version right now, meaning the new platform is still in development and testing. Probably the old tags and small details that have disappeared will re-appear in a new form, that we can only hope is an improved one.

12 — Jan Vajda is expecting an explanation on two critical points like me. Jan also highlighted the point of curation tags which have implications for many writers.

I think many, maybe thousands of people share your perspective Dr. Yildiz. Removal of authors’ names on the homepage is really baffling. Same applies to the absence of curation tags. Hopefully, some in depth explanation is coming our way.

13 — Sumera Rizwan echoed my points and hopes that issues will be resolved soon. Like many editors, Sumera also experienced the editorial issues we have been facing.

Thank you for highlighting our concerns .This is surely confusing for us all,I hope these issues get resolved quickly.

14 — Dr. Dion shared her view and disappointment as a new writer on Medium.

I’ve only been on Medium one month. I immediately noticed the change. It seems like a downgrade in terms of sharing info with paying members and writers. Very disappointing.

15 — Alison Tennent touched on an interesting point and asked an interesting question that makes us think about the rationale.

Perhaps a misguided attempt to cajole people into clicking on work by people they wouldn’t normally read?

16 — Jazz Parks, as a new writer, shared his experience with curation and asked the common question appearing in many posts on Medium.

I’m a new writer here on Medium — only been here for the past few months or so — and just as of recently, I’ve noticed that none of my posts in stats inform me whether or not my articles are under review for curation. Has anyone else been experiencing this? Or am I just in curation jail?

17 — Dayton Parks, as another new writer, shared his experience on the platform and confirmed that he experienced the recent changes.

Hi Dr Mehmet, I’m new to Medium and still learning the ropes so thank you for this article. I noticed some changes and wasn’t sure what it was about at the time. Your article has helped me. Thank you!

18 — Dr John Rose provided an insightful view based on his technology and engineering background highlighting the symptoms of changes in our productivity.

I’ve come across this sort of development regime early on in my work on banking systems. I’m not privy to Medium’s working development cycle, but I think they’re ambitions far exceeds their development purse. So they overreach, under-test and don’t understand the possible outcomes. This is compounded by (I guess) little user and stakeholder engagement. I also came across sheer arrogance of one very large company, so perhaps there is a measure of unwarranted arrogance in Medium? Trouble is, having seen this in my professional engagements I can see the symptoms here.

19 — Bebe Nicholson echoed the concerns on removing writer names and the motivation factors for removing topics. Bebe also touched a very important point of change for the sake of change.

I’ve been through many changes at Medium, and they always come with glitches that need ironing out. However, the elimination of writer’s name with the article is a huge encumbrance to building community and supporting writers we like. Additionally, elimination of curation and/or curation tags removes some incentive and is de-motivating. Change is good when it moves an organization forward, but change for change sake can be detrimental. Drastic measures to produce desired outcomes that are not in line with what customers want will ultimately not work.

20 — Last but not least, Britni Pepper touched on the key issues on the platform and shared her interesting views based on her editing, writing, and reading experience on Medium.

Some of the changes seriously impact my work as an editor. I’m hearing a chorus of voices raised in opposition, and they are all citing valid reasons, not “oh, it has changed from what we are used to.” From my point of view, there are a few welcome changes, like being able to see if one of my favourite writers has published something new, but mostly I’m seeing a fresh coat of paint slapped over a crumbling structure. There isn’t as much information available as there used to be. Am I being spoon-fed what some algorithm thinks I should be consuming? What happened to my ability to tease out interesting details if I want something new? Part of the appeal of Medium, and especially ILLUMINATION, is reading fresh, new, diverse writers, and experiencing the thrill of discovery. Finding a writer who is exciting and entertaining, and sharing that news with friends, is half the fun here. I hope Medium works through the problems and is listening to feedback.

Conclusion

I provided the interesting, engaging, and insightful point of views from 20 writers who responded to my story. As writers, we are the key stakeholders of this content platform.

Our input to changes matters and can help to shape the sustainability of this ecosystem. This post depicts that we collaborate meaningfully to produce the best outcomes for our goals.

Please extend and enhance this story based on your findings so that we can create synergy with collaboration.

Thank you for reading.

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