Thought I’d write something that may be useful from the perspective of someone who was leaving but has decided to stay because of this change.
First, as a writer:
Curation/distribution feels like a bit of a can of worms and behind the curtain. There are two conflicting problems that I see. Firstly, so much gets distributed that it seems not to matter anymore. Some people were given automatic distribution for every story. Those I know who received that have left because they didn’t get enough views. I suspect there are tiers of distribution and auto distribution was a very low tier that meant stories never got properly distributed. But it’s all a mystery. That’s issue 1 - when everything is distributed/bumped, nothing is distributed/bumped.
But that conflicts with problem 2. There is nothing worse than working on a piece for hours or days, working on something that is truly valuable, with relevant research embedded and lines tweaked over and over again for maximum clarity and eloquence - just for someone behind a curtain with lots to do and no time to read properly, or an algorithm, to decide that no one is going to get shown it. It’s the most disappointing and discouraging thing. It makes me want to stop writing here when it happens.
The problem here (and I have no idea how to fix it) is that I’m saying there is too much distribution and not enough. Clearly, there are too many stories written for them all to be manually and thoroughly reviewed. I don’t know how to fix it, but that’s how I (and other writers here I speak to) see it.
Then there’s a reading thing, where I see so many people complaining about being fed a whole load of rubbish and things they don’t want to read. I think I know a possible cause for some of this. In the same way people can’t help but look at a car crash, people can spot a trash article and will read it just to see if it really is that bad. Occasionally reading an utterly dire article can be fun. But because of the click and read, we’ll get fed a whole load more. Yeah, that’s partly our fault I guess. But even when I do it and then click through to ‘see less like this’ I still get more. Perhaps the ‘see less like this’ should override the original click. Perhaps at the end of articles there could be the options for ‘see more like this’/‘see less like this’ to help people guide their feed content better.
Then there’s the spurious topic connections that clog up reading feeds. For example, when I read about something I’m interested in - the science and mental health benefits of psychedelics - I get fed a load of stuff on mysticism, spiritualism and similar. I click and read science, and get fed anti-science that makes me cringe. That’s just an example of how reading feeds aren’t working at their best.
That’s a lot of criticism without many offers of solutions, so perhaps I can offer something there too.
As a writer, I’d like to be allowed to see behind the curtain of curation, and know that my best stuff will get seen.
As a reader, I’d like to get the option of ‘see more like this’/‘less like this’ on articles, perhaps instead of the claps. Perhaps positive feedback could be visibly recorded in a another way with something else you’re working on.
Hope that helps and you’re not being too overwhelmed on your listening tour! And thank you for listening