Snafu at Medium. Not surprised, just disappointed.

Also, thank you.

Happy Friday,

Don’t you just love the way military people cuss? In acronyms. lol

—Like Snafu. Situation normal, all f—ked up.
—And Fubar. F—ked up beyond all repair.

I’m not sure which of those applies to Medium right now, so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and go with Snafu. Maybe they can still fix it.

This post you’re reading? It’s not on Medium and isn’t ever going to be.

Most people want to do good. Let’s start there…

Before the internet, I worked in management for Canada’s biggest retail store. Those years confirmed what I always believed. Most people want to do good.

Doesn’t matter if you’re managing a company, a division, a department or a family. The best rule of thumb applies to all of those. Catch people doing the right thing and say thank you. It’s so stupidly simple, you know?

When they’re not doing the right thing, tell them. Gently and quickly. No long, drawn out lectures. No one wants to be lectured. Always inform, and never demean. No one deserves to be demeaned. It costs nothing to let people keep their dignity.

That’s how you manage people. It’s that simple.
Be kind. Provide guidance. And say thank you. A lot.

If you don’t tell people what you’re looking for, you make them guess.

When people guess, they have a 50/50 shot of getting it wrong. Punishing them for getting it wrong when you didn’t tell them is asinine.

That’s what Medium is doing.

Apparently, Medium is suppressing views of “some” writers.

If you’re on Medium, you might know Lincoln Daniel. He’s the creator of Pensignal, ManyStories and sMedian, the site that aggregates Medium publications. He has worked for Medium as a programmer and has a vested interest.

Last week, he published this post…

It says, in part:

Medium’s team has been in correspondence with me and made it clear that they are deliberately acting against the best interests of writers in a desperate play for the maximization of their “brand”.

I have receipts and would be willing to share, as I alerted the team earlier this year, but only if enough of the affected parties care. I will eventually share this information regardless, but what’s in question is timing.

To be clear, I have a real, unique stake in the success of Medium and hope they change their mind and actually return to their roots of trying to maximize the success of writers. I know many of the Medium staff follow me and occasionally engage with my stories, so I hope they see this and preemptively revert their bad actions…

I’m not surprised. Just disappointed.

All the comments (to his post) said much the same thing. Most have taken a hit to their views. They knew something was going on. They just didn’t know what.

It made me think about how important honest communication is. All they had to do was tell their writers what they’re striving for.

Hey, writers, we’re trying to go in a new direction here...
This is what we’re looking for. This is what we want.

How hard would that have been?

You know?

Most of us would have tried — really tried — to deliver what they’re looking for. If only we knew. Oh sure, there’s still going to be the people who have their own agenda. The people who don’t care what they’re looking for.

But I think most writers would have appreciated the guidance.
The information and communication.
And they didn’t even bother.

I don’t understand that.

It made me appreciate you…

When I read Lincoln’s post, I felt sad and a little unappreciated. Like they don’t even care about all the writers there. That’s not a nice feeling.

One of my first thoughts was that I’m so grateful I started this list. You make me feel appreciated, and I don’t know if I’ve told you that lately or often enough.

I’ve been told my substack is wildly interactive. More so than most.
I couldn’t do that by myself. That’s not me, it’s all of us.

So thank you. You are very appreciated.
More than you could possibly know.

:)

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“Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense. ”

—Theodore Roosevelt

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What I wrote this week…

• Medium may be intentionally suppressing views for some writers

• I baked a fairytale pumpkin pie. It was amazing. With photos.

• Medium feels like an empty fridge lately

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Thanks for reading. Comments are open if you want to discuss. If you’re reading in email, just click the title and you’ll be able to leave a comment.

If you enjoyed this, please click the heart to let me know.

Happy Thanksgiving in advance…

xo,
Linda