Are Our Stories Still Being Moderated By Vocal?
Stories Are Being Published Super Fast Is This Just A Major Improvement?
Introduction
The reason I am writing this is that I believe that the Vocal Moderation Team have been let go, and then our stories are suddenly being published almost immediately after their submission. I am unaware of any official change in method or policy from Vocal and they have never acknowledged any question I have put to them in my fourteen months of Vocal but I am just one of seven million on the platform, although they recognise me as a Top Creator in Beat for some reason.
The Reason For The Change
There could be a few reasons for this:
The most worrying is that moderation has just stopped, maybe to stop the flow of Vocal Plus members drifting to Medium. Personally, I find Medium more about getting followers than actual writing, like Twitter, but that is solely my opinion and I know I lot of people love Medium and I have a presence there too.
Secondly, and this is the one that I really hope is the situation, they have a new team using AI to moderate posts and this is now working really well meaning that the Vocal people who are in charge of moderation can speed through the publication of stories almost automatically and much more quickly.
Since the new fast publications, I have not had a rejection for “broken links”, “story not meeting standards” or other reasons, and this in turn makes me a little more confident in my writing.
I recently had a story first rejected for “plagiarism” a week after submission. When I asked why I got no reply so I resubmitted it and another week later it was rejected for “broken links”, again I questioned Vocal, but no answer, so I resubmitted and a week later it was published. You can read it below.
It was obvious they were under enormous pressure due to challenges as well as day-to-day maintenance but it would be good to have a permanent “State of Play” on the Vocal front page, make it a Top Story permanently pinned to the front page and updated when needed, and this would be a great history of how Vocal is actually doing and display greater transparency to Vocal supporters.
Vocal Is Not Perfect, but it is Perfect For My Writing
Vocal still has lots of flaws, not least the stats reporting and I reported on the problems which will probably never be addressed, although I really wish they could sort them out (if I had access to their code I could fix a lot of them within the day) but check out the article below for my observations on the situation.
The thing is people complain that there are not enough challenges, there is not enough focus on fiction and there is too much poetry, but the point is Vocal focuses its members on the creation of content, and with the addition of post-story commenting allows users who are only connected via Vocal to interact with each other and I recently got a subscription via this method, so there are continual improvements in the system as well. This does not take away the fact that if you want an audience for your work you do have to grow it yourself.
Personally, I have been severely criticised for publishing too many stories, but my writing is mostly articles like this, poetry and music. My fiction is very limited although all my writing gets a great reaction and seriously, I could not expect anyone to read everything I write, and I am the same with other people, and I always will pick up on the good stuff and know that I will miss a lot of it too.
Conclusion
I really do hope a Vocal Moderator or Administrator sees this and clarifies things and puts any worries that the users and supporters have to rest.
Reader insights
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Comments (10)
This is a good timely piece, Mike. I wrote one on the sudden speed a few days ago, and am about to do another. I've noticed the speed change in publishing too. But, like you, I've not received any answers to this either. It is certainly strange but it is very welcome - this is the main reason why I have begun to write more here than I used to. Thanks again as I thought I was going mad🤣!
I noticed that my work has been published faster as well. I hope I get them comma's that quick!! Keep up the glorious work! I'm proud of you.
I agree with this article. I hope that this is just a time of transition for the platform. The comments section I do find helpful though I'm still a bit concerned about how it effects judging in challenge pieces. I would like to hear more from judges that comments are turned off for their viewing when they are submitted to a challenge. Any hoot, this article was on-point and really relevant to how many of us are feeling right now. Well done!
I wondered what was happening. I hadn’t published anything for a couple of weeks and then today I got 4 pieces published within minutes of submitting. I was shocked.
I don't mind the short approval time but I wonder how Top Stories are picked now. This was a very well written article!
Good points. Approval time seems to have to do with the challenges. Maybe some moderators have caught on and are pushing through fast approvals instead of waitin. Mine gave been slow getting published which is strange, they used to be right away. This was good to read.
You presented some valid questions that many people would like the answer to. You have certainly earned your place as a top writer in Beat, as well as your Top Stories. Hope you, and all of us, get some answers soon.
A well put together article, Mike! I hope for the sake of all the creators that these are good changes happening. I guess we'll eventually find out. I hope this article forces them to make a post and address these questions. Thanks for always being so supportive on this platform :)
Good article. Some questions you may never get answers to, though.
These are all great questions Mike. I’m curious about the faster publication times, but I feel like they are definitely preferable to the very long delays many have had not too long ago.