Not Only Disappointed But Also Annoyed
By: Dr Mehmet Yildiz
Tags: Tech, Writing, Life Lessons, Technology, Self Improvement

Background

Since my publications ILLUMINATION and ILLUMINATION-Curated grow rapidly, I sent a post inviting writers to join our editorial team. After sending the post, I received many applications. I am honored and grateful to have so many writers interested in contributing to our publications.

The problem

The problem started yesterday.

I attempted to add some editors who met the criteria and qualified to become an editor for our publications. Even though I am an owner of these two publications, I couldn’t add editors. The section is locked.

I checked both publications showing ownership.

Considering it may be a permission glitch, I sent a request to Medium Helpdesk, but I haven’t received a response after 24 hours.

I am annoyed because lovely people who are conversing with me on our Slack workspace are waiting to join as an editor to support our writers.

Considering it may be a browser problem, I tried both publications in five different browsers, and none worked.

I only can enter editors on my latest publication Technology Hits. Interestingly, it was built after Medium changes were made and caused us lots of grief recently. My gut feeling is that the recent changes also created a bug in our older publications, preventing us from adding editors.

I am annoyed because after having so many bugs, this one is like the last straw on a camel’s back.

Do you think I am over-reacting? Not in my humble opinion.

Why am I both disappointed and annoyed?

Because, as publication owner, I take full responsibility for providing excellent customer service.

I influenced and convinced volunteers to join my editorial team as an altruistic activity to support 7,000+ writers. These editors are not paid a cent. They just perform these duties to help the writing and reading community of Medium.

I am annoyed because I cannot merely give them an editorial privilege.

This simple administrative constraint has a substantial impact on our writers and readers. The submission queue is growing, and many writers impatiently want their stories to be published and be read by their readers.

Since it is holiday time, many editors are on leave.

To cover the gap during this period, I spend 10–12 hours of my personal time to publish stories in their absence. The submission queue was gigantic in the last three days. I had to shoulder around 70% of the load.

I am disappointed because I make an effort and take all measures from my end, but the entire workload is impacted due to a system error. And there is no response from the Helpdesk.

I am annoyed because I feel like the slave of a system which constrains me.

Residual Issues

I shared the challenges of publications on Medium on a previous post.

Medium help desk also informed two of my editors to publish a maximum of 15 articles a day. My editors tried to explain the situation and point out the size of the submission queue, and the Helpdesk employees responded as editors could only publish 15 articles.

This is not true. I sometimes publish many more stories. My issue is why can I and some other editors can publish, but another editor cannot publish more than 15. This does not make sense. I also asked my editor friends from other publications, and they said they did not know about this rule.

My editors asked Helpdesk to provide a reference about this, and they did not. They keep emphasizing that every editor can publish only 15 articles from the submission queue a day.

Even worse, these poor editors, after publishing 15 articles from the queue, they cannot publish their own editorial stories such as bulletins. They got extremely upset, but they are staying as editors because they believe in the importance of service I provide to Medium community.

A few months ago, several editors left the publications due to frustration.

You can check this story to understand their frustration.

I am annoyed because my publications serve thousands of writers and readers of Medium, but we are not getting the necessary support. All my editors are MPP members contributing to Medium pool financially. Yes, they are paying their $5 monthly contribution.

These editors edit and publish stories, but they are also educating, guiding, inspiring, and motivating our writers to help them get productive and keep them in this platform.

You can read my sentiments about additional support of editors by going above and beyond in the attached story.

I don’t like comparing. And I want all publications to be successful. However, I heard that some publications have several privileges that my publications don’t have. Let alone having any privilege, and my publications have constraints, not being able to publish 15 stories from the gigantic queue.

The publication interface is so primitive that we cannot even sort the submission based on date. The system automatically puts the latest submission to the top. Poor editors keep scrolling down after publishing each story to give priority to the earlier submissions.

And not being able to stop publication notification caused me to lose many editors. Poor editors couldn’t cope with the inundated emails in their inbox, and they did not have the luxury of having multiple emails like some of us. We cannot stop notifications. Many of us requested help from Medium, but the functionality is not there.

Some editor had to leave because they cannot perform publishing activities from their mobile phones.

Concluding Remarks

So many issues and I don’t want to bore you with more problems.

Despite all, please don’t take this story as a complaint. It is not.

I want you to understand our situation and explain why your stories may be delayed for publishing in upcoming days. They can be delayed for reasons beyond our control.

I am tired but okay and still keep things in the right perspective.

I am still optimistic that the problems will be resolved soon.

Unfortunately, the problems coincided in a very bad time when my editors were on leave and when many new editors volunteered to help but we cannot add them as editors.

After taking this annoyance out of my chest, I want to request your patience until this issue is resolved.

I am doing my best to clear the submission queue with help from a few volunteering editors in these holiday times.

I hope the Medium support people take this request seriously. This is not just one member’s problem. Publications support thousands of writers and paid readers of this platform. They should make this a priority issue and resolve it urgently.

We are not asking privilege or any extra support. I invest to cover functionality problems.

All we need is a basic functioning system so that we can do our work productively and meet our customers’ demands.

Until recent changes, I haven’t experienced this restriction of adding editors to my publications. These recent cosmetics changes in the platform mocked up our profiles, reduced our reading times, and now are affecting our publications to function correctly.

I now better understand why our top writer Julia E Hubbel and many more writers are so annoyed and planning to leave this platform.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Our editors work hard to help our writers succeed and ensure that readers are delighted with our services. They invest their valuable time volunteering for smooth publishing of your stories. You can connect with them and start dialogue in our Slack workspace.

ILLUMINATION-Curated, ILLUMINATION, Editor of Technology Hits, Dr Mehmet Yildiz, Tree Langdon, Brian E. Wish, PhD, Dr Ron Pol, Dr Michael Heng, Dr John Rose, Paul Myers MBA, Karen Madej, Joe Luca, Dipti Pande, Kevin Buddaeus, Kate Maxwell, Arthur G. Hernandez, Bill Abbate, Michael Patanella, Aurora Eliam, CMP, René Junge, Geetika Sethi, Ahmed Jamal, Britni Pepper, Selma, Earnest Painter, Dew Langrial, B. A. Cumberlidge. Lanu Pitan, Agnes Laurens, EP McKnight, MEd, CR Mandler MAT, The Maverick Files, Sumera Rizwan, Liam Ireland, Tony Young, Jr., Neha Sandhir S, Desiree Driesenaar, Stuart Englander, Ntathu Allen, Thewriteyard, Haimish Mead, Maria Rattray

How to connect with me

I established three significant publications supporting 7,000+ writers and serving 70,000+ readers on Medium. Join my publications requesting access here. You are welcome to subscribe to my 100K+ mailing list, to collaborate, enhance your network, receive technology and leadership newsletters reflecting my industry experience.

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