Vocal Top Stories

Top Story is such a tricky one yeah. I echo others when I say that they should represent the best recent work from creators- pieces that should be on the front page because they are well-written. It's obviously impossible to read every single story that's published on here (as a human working for Vocal), so they have to outsource somehow, but the criteria being unclear does make it hard to know how it all works! I had not really considered the idea of a pattern, but it looks like you're not the first to notice it...

Seriously, so many of these articles of yours are just so validating for me!! I also noticed the "top story window" pattern and love that im not the only one!! Love the suggestions and even feel like this is a great reminder that vocal needs to do some up-keep/ maintenance... 😅

Out of the gate, yes, scan all potential top stories. I feel this is an absolute must! I never thought of a whole cycle possibility with top stories, but you might be on to something. I just had one, but going through my timeline and comparing yields some interesting data. Hmm... There is some terrific material in this piece, D.K., and I truly hope your stories are being read by people who can make the changes this platform desperately needs!

Some awesome observations, DK! I think I'm on a 3 month timeline - you are definitely right. And agree - it's bothersome when what we consider our best stories get passed up, only to have what we consider our mediocre ones displayed. I've gotten to the point I wish there was a box I could mark off on the submission page that says "please consider this story for Top Story". That way, ones I feel less confident about wouldn't have a chance at getting TS and the ones I'm prouder of would have better odds. I think this woud only work as a Vocal + feature though...I just know those bots would be clicking that box on all their AI BS, lol. *sigh* So much of the site feels run by AI anyway.

I agree so much with everything here. I noticed a significant shift in January of last year. I used to get two or three TS back to back. I'd regularly get 3 in a month. One month I got 7! Then in January I started posting every day and... woah. It was SO OBVIOUS I'm on a kind of cycle. Mine seems to be 10-15 days. It's nice to get the bonus, it means this is a hobby that pays for itself. But there's no pride or excitement anymore, and there is often embarrassment. I think my disillusionment started when sponsored posts (ads, basically) got TS. That hasn't happened for ages, thankfully. My best pieces get ignored, and the "pretty good" ones get recognised. I would love it if we could "flag" a post we love for Top Story. Like, if there was a button we could click somewhere. Should pop up a little box where you justify your nomination. That would be cool. I don't like it that we have to use discord, or wait a fortnight for RYV. I'd be ok with being limited how many times I could nominate in a day or a week.

I agree with Rick Henry. And I am subscribing to him. Nice comment, and so much truth in it.

I will add my two cents here. The idea of having vocal creators (Vocal + members in particular) in my mind would not work too well. Because then that’s when we’re going to get into favoritism and cliques and such owning the top stories. What the vocal team needs to do is set a specific criteria of what becomes a top story. A few years back they did set such a criteria but they seem not to be following it anymore. So it would’ve been nice when they stopped following this criteria to let us know that they have changed The criteria. Previously the criteria was that stories leading in engagement such as comments and hearts were become Top Stories. So basically at that point top stories were mostly a popularity contest. I have always felt that top story should be chosen for the quality of writing. But then that would actually mean that there would have to be a staff of people that are reading these stories and choosing the best written stories of the day. Then you get into the issue of what is quality writing. Quality writing can be subjective. So I understand why at one point a top story was data based. At that point when top stories were data based, they were all going to the most popular and known creators on the platform. New writers were not getting their opportunity to be noticed. The people choosing top stories should never be comprised of people that are socially involved with Vocal creators. Second, I feel top stories should be partially data driven, such as reaching a minimum plateau of engagement to qualify. Next, this that qualify should be checked for AI, if it is not a trusted/proven writer. After AI determination the pool of potential top stories should at the very least be scanned to make sure that it reaches a bare minimum of quality writing. Quality being at least proofreading for punctuation and structure. We should never have a top story that has not been proofread and has terrible punctuation, grammar, sentence and paragraph structure. At the very least a top story should be something that has been proofread before publishing and has a minimum of professionalism. But that would take work and yes that would delay a story for becoming a top story for about a week. I’m going to vent here. I do take the time to read and reread my stories in order to shape the best possible stories. I do a good amount of “fat” trimming in order to present a lean and effective story. I also look for creative and out of the box methods of writing my stories. I put forth an effort to not be a “cookie cutter” writer. Of course before I publish my stories I put them through a proofreading process (not all - such as opinion pieces I usually do not proofread - I just let the unfiltered Rick speak). This process includes using an ai tool such as Grammarly. But after that I reread the story to make sure Grammarly (or whichever tool I use) has not changed any of my story. I make sure that all the proofreading tool has done is fixed any punctuation, grammar, and structural errors. I never publish anything until I have personally done a final read. Then I publish. Please be patient with me I know I’m being long winded here. But I wanted to explain all the work I put into my stories to get to this point right now. I have not had a top story since the end of February. that is 2 1/2 months now. I have published nothing but one quality piece after another one and they have all reached a comparatively good level of engagement. But still nothing. I noticed the top stories stopped after I had publicly voiced my opinion on an issue. I feel like I have been in the dog house, like I’m being punished for doing what everybody else does, publicly airing their opinions. nobody should ever be in the doghouse. Those writers that are consistently publishing quality work should be acknowledged from time to time, whether or not that writer is well liked. Also if we have a criteria for top stories that is based on both data, such as engagement, and quality writing. That will make it harder for the new lesser-known writers to receive a top story. So there should be a separate category one that can possibly be called: “Highlighting New Creators.” Maybe two or three stories by new creators are featured daily or weekly.

Indeed: How are Top Stories selected? And is that selection process a good one? WE ALL would like to know. And I don't want to read an article by Vocal like they put out years ago. Give me bullets on the process. We won't know though unless we work at Vocal, that is how business is run. I've been saying for years that the TS are probably chosen by an algorithm. I have seen names on the "Creators we are loving" who hadn't written anything in over a year. That meant to me that V was encouraging them to come back. I saw a TS that had NO LIKES OR COMMENTS, and it was marked TS a minute after it was posted! (Sheer happenstance, I caught that one.) I guess, like our writing, the platform is a work in progress, and they would have to have dedicated, well-paid TEAMS to do all we creators wish for. 🤷‍♀️ Raise Your Voice does help to promote some stories into Top Story.

I am most likely risking the 85 cents I have in my wallet to write this. But when I came to Vocal eight months ago, I wrote a poem saying how to you get into the "clubhouse". Vocal.media is clearly a social media platform that all of you have been on for a great amount of time. I wonder if you think about what it is like for someone new to get a key to the clubhouse. I deleted the article about the clubhouse because to tell you the truth I invested $50 and I didn't have it to loose. But then I got Top Story and it changed everything. I won $5 and it counted toward the $50 I had invested. I wonder if you realize how much that means for someone outside looking in. Yes, looking into the clubhouse. I think that Vocal knows what they are doing, and trying to give the "NEWBIES" - A little encouragement to keep writing and posting and giving all of you the notorious "Half a cent a read". I entered the contests a lot of times and yes, it would mean something to me and to my wife to at least get honorable mention. Let me ask you all something, so you think that if you sum it all up to people who have been here a long time and have a key to the club house, if that would pay the freight so to speak. If that would support the Vocal Platform. Maybe it could. But I know that I made my subscription fee by making the leaderboard (and I am not an AI user), you can run my articles through. But making the leaderboard gave me encouragement and I do think it was a mistake to eliminate it, because it gave the newcomers encouragement that did not have a key to the clubhouse. As far as Top Story goes, it does give encouragement and now with stories like yours coming to light and asking for acknowledgment - I haven't made Top Story in a long while. But now the clubhouse wants to put explanations on that also and have less of them. I have made my subscription fee and I have learned a lot about writing and that is what is important. But I have lived almost 70 years and I will tell everyone that has a key to the clubhouse, that be careful what you ask for you just might get it. Because of what you ask for I don't have a hope or a prayer of making anymore money, and for those of you that say, I write for the love of writing, that might be true, however, you don't turn down that money and it must be important to you or you would not be writing this article and pointing out how Vocal could more fairly distribute the money and for those of you that say "For the love of writing" - I have some swamp land in the desert I feel you would be interested in. If Vocal is that financially stable they can take away the incentive for new members to write, keep writing this articles, you will not only chase the AI users away, but you will chase the new people away. I made the leaderboard a few times (mostly under the emerging creators), and I was thrilled), I think it was a mistake to take it away. I am discouraged these days, and when I see articles like this, I wonder if I was right about the notorious clubhouse. My mother used to tell me life is not fair, I guess she was right. I am grateful I made me subscription fee, it these changes you want take effect, I won't be resubscribing. New people don't have a chance. Sincerely - Gregory E Payton

This is such a well-articulated critique. My stance on Top Stories is simple: they don’t need to be flawless, but they should represent the best of what Vocal has to offer—exceptional, standout work. Yet too often, I’ve come across pieces labeled as Top Stories that feel misaligned—whether due to questionable originality, inconsistent quality, or an obvious algorithmic bias. The rigid timing window for eligibility only exacerbates the issue, forcing writers to game the system rather than share their work organically. It’s frustrating, to say the least. Transparency is sorely lacking. Paul’s suggestion of a monthly featured roundup—akin to contest winners—would be a fantastic step toward accountability. A peer-nominated option could also reinvigorate community engagement, something every platform should prioritize. There’s no denying Vocal’s shift over the past year. The energy feels diluted, the buzz muted. While the talent here remains undeniable, the platform’s growing reliance on algorithmic curation has left a stale, impersonal aftertaste. It’s disheartening when passion projects start feeling like they’re feeding a machine rather than reaching real readers. Still, your piece nails the conversation we’ve all been tiptoeing around—excellent work.

Another riveting read! ✅I totally agree with your ideas about validating Top Story choices. Great suggestions: “ I think this could actually be feasible as a daily roundup option if Creators nominate stories and explain why they are nominating them. For the ones Vocal chooses they could feature what the nominator said about the piece with their own affirmations.” All my Top Stories come as a surprise, but some are even more of a stretch than others. I will check for a pattern.🤔

Oh wow, I have never noticed that pattern before 😳😳 Now that you've mentioned it, I'll pay attention to see if I can spot it. As for that Top Story by Ali Raza, it screamed AI to me and I was furious it got a Top Story. But although it's not a Top Story anymore, he still gets to keep that money. Similar to his, I've seen a few people who got Top Stories who I feel shouldn't have. Two of them are Rohitha Lanka and Nikita Angel. Some of their pieces are very obviously AI and they binge publish numerous pieces in a few hours on a daily basis. As for Top Story nominations by us, they used to have that on Discord last time. I'm not sure if they still do. And yessss, they could give us feedback on why each of the Top Stories are chosen. At this point, it just seems like eeny meeny miny moe 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I think anything I could contribute to this article would be not important. Great article however DK. Nicely done!!!

This is such a great write-up. My take on top stories is that okay, sure, they don't have to be a masterpiece but they have to be a TOP STORY. They should be high-quality pieces. Top of the bunch. I've read plenty of pieces on here that are absolutely stunning and then I read something as a top story that just...doesn't seem to fit, is plagiarized, or AI. And that window between top-story cycles is too real. I've written stuff that I've held off on posting because I know it falls outside that window. And I hate that. Cowing to an algorithm feels gross. There isn't really any transparency with top stories either which feels sus. I love Paul's suggestion. It'd be cool to see a monthly round-up of four or five top stories that month in the way they do contest wins. It'd also be cool, like you said, to have a peer-nominated option on this site itself. It would drive up engagement here, which every site should love anyway lol Vocal itself really feels like it's changed in the last year and I'm not sure what's going on, what they introduced, or why, but you're not alone in noticing that shift. The joy has been...dry. I don't feel the buzz (as Paul said in an earlier comment). Everything feels like it's feeding an algorithm and has that same, flat, AI taste. The writing? The people? Still gorgeous. But there's mud on all our keyboards right now and it's never fun to feel like efforts are in vain. Anyway, great job on this!

The timing is sometimes a little suspicious, and I think they hand it out to challenge pieces even more often. I do feel a bit sad when I think a work should make it, but I’m off cycle. I think you’ve got some good ideas here

Excellent and informative article. I am on a 35-day Top Story cycle, I think but previously it could be anything. Also, my Top stories are seldom my best work, but I don't want to know how to get a Top Story.

Again, agreeing with most of this and then saw my name haha. So, yeah, agree with most of what you've said. I have so many different views on Top Stories. I also am aware, that often my views might sound like a embittered old relic lol. Cos, I do know I am fortunate to have been given a fair number (I can't but can remember the number lol). But, I agree. I would also say I have had a steady decline of the regularity of my Top Stories. I don't consider it a "must get them" only in that I feel a lot of the work I do is my best possible work and then I see poor spelled and not checked work being awarded it. The 500 Shockwave challenge for instance. There were at least two of my entries that rank among my best work, technically, but I never got even a sniff? lol. Again, I do realise that much of my bread and butter earnings came from Top Stories. But that was a lot when the days it meant something. When it felt like they were selected for being exceptional or trendsetting or something. Whatever. Nowadays, I am left scratching my head sometimes. I've done a few pieces in one week and thought "I hope that one, if any, gets it" and then it's been the most random of them. I used to love the buzz and still like it, and obviously the monetary gain is at least something too. But, I do think you're right. They did that guide where they said what they look for, and I am not even sure they follow their own guidelines now. I wouldn't worry about this being the least developed part of the manifesto because I think it's a messy muddy business and there is no easy solution. We would need to know, from Vocal, what the hell is going on, before a more decisive action could be taken. But I think you've done a wonderful job, as you have with the whole thing, to address all the most common issues raised with it. Thank you for the shoutout about my comments too! Very kind of you. I, like you, just want it to be the best it can be. Well done on keeping momentum on this. It echoes, the whole thing, many of our comments chats we've had over the last couple of months and glad someone's taken up the mantle.

Love the series of course. one thing I wanted to call out is that the discord does have a top story nomination tab that has a ~70% (totally made up but aren't all numbers) hit rate of peer nominated stories hitting the top page.