Does the Vocal Team Value its Creators?

I greatly appreciate your sharing here, Rick. I don't extend to high levels of time investment for observing Vocal operations, but I resonate with a lot of what you've stated regarding Vocal standards, transparency, and communication. Seen some things too. There have been recurring platform "glitches," and for members who have been paying a monthly fee, this is not acceptable without redress or some form of compensation. Why am I still paying full price for defective service? Would that fly okay as a tagline for a service? Like, "Hey, you'll get good service most of the time." The criticisms here are constructive. Silence is telling, because when members stop talking, you will likely lose them.

I also noticed a lot of the same people usually win these leadership places, and even some of the writing contests. Which is okay, if it's being judged by talent and skill, rather than a biased preference. But how do we know that's whats happening since none of the Vocal people ever engage anymore?

I thought I was alone in this, it’s nice to see I am not. Very valid points, and you couldn’t have worded it more respectful at to the point. Thank you. Hopefully they will listen.

Great points, Rick. I think Ive made the leaderboard once. Not that I’ve deserved more, but never really understood how to make the grade

I haven't done ANYTHING on Vocal for quite a while, but I had to read this! Frankly, I didn't even know about the leaderboard. Communication is definitely a weakness. I may get back to some writing during the holiday break. Thanks for writing this. I hope it gets read by someone who gives a care! All the best, Rick.

It’s honestly so frustrating when you put in all that work and feel like you’re shouting into the void. Your points about the leaderboard integrity are spot on! ❤️

Some pertinent questions Rick and I particularly agree with the first half of your article. Best

Thanks for sharing your experience and asking these questions so openly. It’s clear how much you care about the community and Vocal as a whole :-)

Your dedication to Vocal over the years really comes through here. It’s hard to feel undervalued after investing so much effort in building a supportive environment.

The problems with these platforms is that they NEVER listen, but it's even worse at Medium. Here I have noticed that it is often the same people in the leaderboard, as if they had nothing else to do. I was also a member in a tech community from a phone manufacturer (realme), there it was worse, always the same people winning, contents were not fair either and their Telegram community was vicious! Even rewarding bullies! I identified there many vicious fanatics.

Praying that the counts improve because right now the leaderboard counts are looking somewhat biased. 🙏🏾 Thx for opening up the discussion Rick!

Well said Rick, wether intentional or not this is supposed to be professional and therefore accountable. You are not a complainer but your words have power, as a leader and representative of all creators. ( me thinks this will be top leaderboard)😉

I totally noticed a shift in Vocal. I feel even the read counts are not right. Novel had written something too about changing leaderboard.

Vocal is mostly run by young-ish millennials - the digital communication generation, lets say younger than or at least 26-41 years old. What do we expect, they are creatures of the unseen world. There is at least one older individual, saw him on the one Zoom broadcast which they did. I am fully of the belief that they are working on an upgrade. many times I have asked that we know the faces behind the Curtain, but that sucker stays shut. Good luck. i did glance at the list while reading this, and yes, something is off with the numbers.

The Vocal community is lucky to have you Rick. Your attention to detail and exceptional contributions make this a great community. Thanks for being on on top of issues like these, you asked all the questions I've been thinking about and unable to vocalize.

secondary comments count, since when, what the living hell is going on. i though it was just genuine comments. Woe is us! what the kcuf.

Interesting questions. I haven’t paid much attention to the leaderboard really and wasn’t sure how it worked. I think I placed once on controversial piece though, and while people commented that they appreciated the writing itself it occurred to me that on some level the volume of comments might have come from the subject matter rather than my writing quality. Led me to think that the leaderboard might measure more than pure writing quality, since it includes a social element of comment engagement it seems to on some level reward stuff that is either politically or morally charges, to incite debate. I have t looked through other leaderboard announcements to see whether there is a pattern to support this idea or not. also… I didn’t even know vocal had a discord lol. I’m pretty out of the loop. All that being said, I have emailed vocal support a handful of times whenever I’ve had a question or issue and they’ve always replied usually within a day. If your inquiries on the discord seem to go unnoticed, have you tried emailing the support team? It’s been a while since I’ve emailed them, and I’ve never emailed them general feedback but I was always satisfied by their replies whenever I emailed them questions in the past. May be worth a shot! Also I may be the odd man out on this one but I kind of like that the judges are anonymous. I’ve written for other contests before where the judges are named and credentialed with short bios, but then I feel a pressure to write what I think so-and-so will like rather than what I’d like. The compared lack of transparency/ personality in the judging takes away some of that pressure at least for me. my creativity tends to thrive on uncertainty and open endedness, I assume many others would be better off with increased transparency so, they can write to a more targeted audience… so my opinion may be unpopular. And all that being said, I bet vocal could actually drive engagement and subscriptions by having “guest judges” who could draw a crowd. I doubt anyone would do it for free because judging contests is a lot of work. But if they paid current, published authors to guest judge a contest here or there it could increase visibility to the platform, I think.

I understand what you’re saying. I’ve never really understood how the leaderboard works. I had a poem that received nearly 30 likes and several comments, yet it didn’t place on the leaderboard at all. I’ve only placed once, and that was about two weeks ago. I completely understand your frustration, and I wish they were more transparent about the process.

I do wish Vocal was more upfront and transparent about who judges and determines winners, top stories, and leader boards. I really like the idea of having a representative to be the face of communications; an actual person or a small group of them. Its important to foster trust and community on sites like Vocal, or else its going to crumble down.

I haven’t seen that leaderboard but I noticed issues and irregularities with the leaderboard long ago. A couple of times a story of mine had more comments than some others who placed on the board. So I thought it was an arranged thing and never cared again about the leaderboard. The challenges are are as dark and foggy as Victorian London. And I’ve wondered some of the same things you mentioned. So I stopped caring about that as well. To that, earlier I was contemplating to downgrade my membership when it’s due next week. As for top stories, I have seen people getting a weekly TS. To that, let’s add that a few cents a month can hardly count as motivation and that the retribution per 1K views is ridiculous at this point. I noticed the absence of some people as well and I have not been active as before myself because, why should I! When you get finally to the minimum twenty dollars, it takes over a third of a month to get the payment into your account. That should be updated as well to this era of instant transfers. Where is Tiffany?

Interesting...

This is one of the reasons I haven't been publishing lately and have been considering removing my plus subscription. I put a TON of blood and sweat into getting noticed on this platform, and I achieved some moderate success because of it. Two years ago, I had reads coming in left and right and a number of top stories and two runner-up contest placements. However, over the last year -after a severe depressive episode had caused me to back away for a month-, my reads and comments have been scant. I begin to wonder what the use of publish through Vocal+ is if no one is going to read my writing, nevermind meaningfully critique it. I write to share, and it seems very little of it is lately.

I've noticed a lot of things I'm shocked by. I placed on the leaderboard for the first time ever this week and was shocked and grateful. I wasn't high up, but making it at all made me happy since I've been writing here for years and have never achieved it. I didn't check comments on any one else's work, I don't usually do that... I did a handful of times on challenge winners and not on purpose. I was reading stories that won that I hadn't gotten a chance to read yet and leaving my congrats and comments and I noticed a few creators who won were brand new members with 5 stories max and every one had earned some kind of an achievement. There were no comments on these works, excluding my congrats as well as congrats from one other creator. I don't know if this meant anything but I just found it unusual. No comments. Nothing. But achievements on every story. I ended up reaching out to one of the creators because I found them on Facebook. They replied they'd never heard of vocal. I sent them the profile and their picture had been stolen. I don't know what came of it, we never spoke after that but it made me wonder if sometimes they're not accounts or something like that. I don't know that would be a vocal problem, but it's sad when real people miss out on a win due to fake accounts. I don't know how any of the winning works. I know I'm grateful when I win because I put my whole heart into my work. It's nice to have recognition. But is it recognition? Or luck of the draw? Also, side note.... I love rhyming. It's my favorite way to write because it feels cohesive and that's just my vibe of poetry. I've seen some harsh comments about how people hate rhymes but I love them 🥴🥴

I agree RE talent being put above engagement/friends of friends/etc. On a personal level, I do feel valued, and I don't feel elevated beyond my skillset. If I have a grievance with Vocal, I just email them? They've been quite helpful.

Omggg you know what? I thought replies don't count at all! That shows how attentive I am towards the Leaderboard rules, lol. I thought only the main comment by V+ members count. I guess Vocal is just choosing quality over quantity. They shouldn't though. I hope they'd do something about this. But I doubt it. They've been very absent lately. Not replying emails, and on Discord too like you mentioned. I have no idea what's going on