Summary

The undefined website describes a Chrome extension that enhances the Medium experience by providing a clear overview of which stories have been "Chosen for further Distribution," thus saving time and effort for writers.

Abstract

The Chrome extension introduced on the undefined website is designed to streamline the process for Medium writers to check if their stories have been selected for broader distribution. It integrates with the Medium stats page to display which stories have been "Chosen for further Distribution," eliminating the need to check each story individually. The extension is compatible with another popular tool, Medium Enhanced Stats, and includes features such as sorting distributed stories by topic and displaying the number of distributed stories in the summary. The author, who has communicated with Medium to ensure compliance with their Terms of Service, has released updates to improve functionality and is open to feedback and feature requests. The extension is available for download from the Chrome Webstore, and its use is encouraged for writers looking to track the performance of their content on Medium.

Opinions

The author acknowledges a personal struggle with checking stats too frequently and hopes the extension will help others avoid this habit.
The author expresses admiration for the Medium Enhanced Stats extension and its creator, Tomas Trajan, and has based some of their code on his work to ensure compatibility.
The author is transparent about a minor issue where distributed tags may only appear after scrolling and has decided to release the extension despite this, with plans for future improvements.
The author values user feedback and invites comments for further enhancements or aesthetic improvements to the extension.
The author tags a list of Medium users who might be interested in the extension, either because they have written about similar tools or have had previous discussions about it.

Tools

Your Distributed Stories in One Overview

This chrome extension makes your life on Medium better

Ever wondered if your new stories were Chosen for Distribution, but you didn’t feel like going through each individual story to check? Now you no longer need to! This chrome extension takes away the hassle and shows which of your stories were Chosen for further Distribution right on the stats page.

I keep telling myself that I should stop looking at stats and just start writing. But curiosity does get me every now and then. I already found that this extension stops me from going down the rabbit hole of checking each individual story. I do hope you get a similar benefit.

Note: release notes to newer versions below.

What it does

An image can say more than a thousand words, so take a look at the screenshot below.

The stats-page now shows for which topic your story was distributed. Phew, am I glad that I got a few distributed stories… Screenshot by author.

As you can see in the screenshot, I opted to show the topic in which a story was distributed instead of using a checkmark. To get a quick overview of Distributed stories, you can sort them by clicking on the table’s header.

Compatibility with other extensions

As I love the Medium Enhanced Stats extension, my extension is compatible with it. Actually, to make sure the two extensions play nicely together, I have based a lot of my code on the code by Tomas Trajan who made Medium Enhanced Stats. Thanks, Tomas! You’re awesome!

Both extensions at work. Look how the complement each other nicely? Screenshot by author. Don’t mind my poor views.

As Medium Enhanced Stats also provides totals for your stories, I added the number of stories which were Distributed in the summary below the table. Currently, this does not show if you don’t use the extension on its own. That’s for a future update.

What is ‘Chosen for further Distribution’?

Chosen for further Distribution is the new name Medium came up with for the status known earlier as Curated. Medium describes it as follows:

In addition to reliable relational distribution, it’s also possible for a story, writer, or publication to be recommended across additional Medium surfaces via algorithmic or human featuring — in “Your Daily Read,” for example. Editors are seeking out the best from the platform every day to promote in a variety of ways. Subject-matter experts may be featured in a topic collection. Individual stories may be requested for a Medium-owned publication. A blog may link to your story as a recommended read.

So, basically, it makes sure your story gets more exposure. For example, they are included in emails and more likely to show up in a reader’s feed.

Feedback and feature requests

This is the first release for the extension. As such I expect to get some bug reports to come in. If you found something that doesn’t work as expected, please leave a comment in this post.

Actually, there is one ‘feature’ I should disclose: sometimes the distributed tags only appear when you scroll down a bit. I have some ideas on how to fix this, but as I am not too bothered with it myself, I decided to go ahead and release this initial version anyway.

I hope you like the extension and that it makes your life on Medium easier. If you have any feedback or want to request a feature, just let me know in the comments. Anything goes: aesthetics, positivity, or things I should improve. I value your input.

Update: v2.1 has been released

Distribution Extension 2.1

What’s New in Hovercraft

muffinimal.medium.com

Why Have They Gone Viral? Check With This Curation Extension

Version 2.0 — The truth is out there

medium.com

The Easiest Way To See if Your Article Is Curated

Version 1.1 — Save your time while you are procrastinating (or analyzing)

medium.com

Is this allowed by Medium?

Yes. I contacted our friends at Medium and asked for a thumbs up. They replied that if my development would not break their Terms of Service, that I am ok. That obviously goes for me. For you, as a user of the extension, you are bound by the Membership Terms of Service.

After carefully reading those terms, my conclusion is what I expected: I am fine to publish the service and you are fine to use it.

Scheduled for publication — another tool

If you like this extension, you might also like my other Medium tool:

Is your story scheduled for publication? Check with this tool

Tired of waiting? Want to check the status of your story? This tool disperses the fog of uncertainty. Somewhat.

medium.com

This tool is maybe not as nifty, but it might save some frustration of not knowing what is happening to your story. Currently, only a few people have installed it. If you like it, let me know and I will convert it to an easier-to-install extension.

Where to download

You can get Medium Distributed in Stats from the Chrome Webstore. Happy downloading!

Also, remember to download Medium Enhanced Stats. It’s great!

Again, I hope this extension saves you some time if you’re deep-diving into how your stories are doing. Thank you for reading and have fun writing wonderful stories. I hope they get Chosen for Distribution!

I’m tagging people that I think are interested in his extension. You have either written about it, or we had some contact about it. Sorry if you didn’t appreciate the tag. This will be the last time I do this for this purpose.

Karen Banes, Jessica Lynn, Nia Simone McLeod, Zulie Rane, Tesia Blake, Addie Page, Stark Raving, J.J. Pryor, Ellie Daforge, Shannon Ashley, K. Barrett, Carol Price, Kim Zuch, Celine Lai, Dr. Preeti Singh, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, The Secret Aspirant, Christina M. Ward, Terry L. Cooper, Xin Xin, Yana Bostongirl, Kiran Yasmin, Brenda Mahler, Karen Madej, Kristina Segarra, Jan Vajda, Tooth Truth Roopa Vikesh, Aldric Chen, Samra, Michael Burg, MD (AKA Medium Michael Burg), Kyle Chastain, Paul Coogan, Joe Luca, Suzanne V. Tanner, Cody Collins, Shamar M, M.A. Mercier, Erica Martin, Danell teNyenhuis Black, Subhash Gottumukkala