Should We Say Thank You?

Introduction

I have railed in the past about the waste of resources and effort that Vocal put into flooding us with the same repeated publications, and I am still unhappy about it. They have refused to do anything about it (it's on the roadmap, yeah right) and I am half expecting them to offer a new publication feed while ignoring the actual problem with the model.

I know I am not a normal Vocal Creator because I publish so often, which is possibly why they have decided I can be pushed to one side. This is one of the reasons I have deactivated my Discord account as I see it as Vocal's attempt to create a clique by effectively cutting off most creators. The only positive thing that I got from there was when I listed five stories by other authors as Top Story nominations and they all got Top Stories.

I also posted five tips pieces and there was not even a thumbs-up so I gathered them here, which is also linked on my profile.

Don't get me wrong, Vocal is a great writing platform, but it is big and complex, but that means that things do go wrong and they should be addressed, not ignored.

Anyway, this is about the Vocal Comments.

So Should We Say Thank You?

Vocal Comments are a great addition to the model, and I love seeing in my notifications that someone has left a comment. It shows that they have read my story, and taken the time to let me know. It tells me who has read my story, unlike a heart that just tells me that someone has read my story. I like to let them know that I am grateful for their support by leaving at least a thank you, and if I have time something more, also if it is a new connection I visit their profile to check out their work and leave a comment there if I like it.

I love to see that I have a new subscriber and immediately visit their profile and check out their work there.

The problem is that all these notifications are usually lost in the tidal wave of publication notifications because I subscribe to a lot of creators. I can see what they publish in a timely fashion on my subscription feed, but Vocal had decided it would be more fun to destroy my notifications feed and virtually erase the notifications that matter to me.

I have been berated by many Vocal Creators for pointing out this and many other faults with Vocal and told to shut up about it. It is actually a fault, it is badly designed and always will be that.

I often only get to see people's comments by visiting my own story, so if you do get a reply from me it is probably just luck that you see it, or you have a relatively small subscription base. There are certain creators who always notice my thanks and I know one does not have a small subscription base. I don't know how they managed to see my replies.

Conclusion

It seems the only answer to my predicament is to decimate my subscriptions, going completely against my inclusive nature and what I thought Vocal was pushing. But I know Vocal loves cliques and exclusivity so won't do anything.

I will keep on doing what I am doing and just access notifications very sparingly and read new publications from my subscription feed (I could not believe one Creator who said that it was far too difficult to use, but what do I know, that would imply their wallet would be just as difficult to access).

Thank you all for reading my whiney rant.

The music is "Right Place, Wrong Time" by Dr John

Incidentally, this was post number 1984. If you haven't read "1984" by George Orwell rectify that now.