Juhi, Medium’s Claps Are one of my Pet Peeves (deliberately capitalized). I get lots of 50’s and am always thrilled when I do. But I also get 1’s. I think one of the reasons for that is some readers have an older version of Medium which still uses “hearts” — or so I’ve been told, that show up as 1 Clap.

But others on Medium seem not to give much thought to the meaning of their Claps, numerically. There’s someone who always reads my work and no matter what it is, I always get 10 Claps. Always. Just 10. The other day, an Editor who I thought liked my work, gave me 49 Claps. Was that a message? Another Editor, whose comments on a piece I wrote for that Editor’s Pub which were over-the-top complimentary, gave me 41 Claps. ?? And then I have a follower who reads all my work, as I do this follower’s work, and I only ever get 5 Claps. Do I say anything to this person? I always give far more… We often communicate in the comments section… maybe some people just don’t know how the system works?

Sometime ago I wrote a piece here — can’t look for it now — telling Medium when they first introduced the Clap System, that they really had to publish a Guide to Medium’s Claps along with it because no one seemed to really get it. And since many make their living on Claps, it seemed to me that it should have been an important consideration for Medium to do that.

I, for one, believe in being generous! It’s hard work, writing anything. It take guts to put it out there for others to read. Even if I don’t love someone’s work, I feel they deserve to be acknowledged just for making the effort. So I try to do that to those I follow. And I follow for very specific reasons most of the time. (“Following” is a whole different subject, however, and there’s some underhanded follow-stuff that happens on Medium… for another time. I’ve been working on a piece about it.)

Ugh! Sorry! Now I sound like I’m ranting. I’m just having an odd day… as the saying goes, in my “business”!

Okay, Juhi… signing off now, from the Land of Oz ❤️💚🧡💛 🤪

~~ Joan