Suggestion Box

3 Things I’d Like to See on Medium

In a very particular order.

“Suggestions at Your Peril,” Grammar Dragon, Himself. Photo © Her Authorship, Holly Jahangiri

1) Stop Lumping Comments in with Stories

I don’t know what diabolical genius came up with the idea that Stories and comments should all be treated as “Stories.” On the one hand, if authors thought about this long and hard, they’d make sure to leave only comments worthy of showcasing in their writing portfolios. On the other hand, the reality is a messy RSS feed and a disorganized portfolio that doesn’t clearly distinguish between our Stories and our comments on other people’s Stories. Or replies to comments others have left on our Stories.

I understand not allowing us to monetize comments; as I said to Toni Koraza:

I think that Medium needs to address the issue of comments-as-stories, but I believe comments are…

I like the ability to embed a comment, like that, and to comment further on it, like this, but such “responses” will never be eligible for curation or monetization, so the streams — the RSS feeds — should be entirely separate, as they are with Publications and Topics.