Vocal Creator Chat: 4/25/23

I have been trying to get paid out for over a year. I have contacted both vocal and stripe on dozenS of occasions, and I am still unpaid, and my money being paid out to someone else. What do you digest for this one? Because I’m done leaving it in an inbox.

I am not sure I am making the best use of the categories (communities). I always forget there is one for marriage as well as Families. I'm not sure why there's a section for sport, and another for football, but that probably is because I don't understand football. 😂 When I am writing about writing, do I submit to Motivation or Journal? 🤔 The other thought I have (and I'm really sorry if this is a stupid question) but is it worth have a screenplay section? This is something I am VERY ignorant about and I'd love to read and learn more. 😁

Thank you for this chat! I became a Vocal+ member a few days ago. I have published pieces before. Reading through your guidelines, I was encouraged to publish some of these on Vocal Media. Is it possible to publish several in bulk or import them into Vocal Media? For instance, by using Python and an API?

I have been complaining about not being able to heart un these comments, but we can always leave a heart or other relevant emoji as a comment. ❤️

I’m not sure if that has been asked before (apologies if it as) but can friends and family create an account to subscribe to us and engage with our posts..as opposed to just a read? I.e they don’t want to write for vocal but wish to support family etc. I only ask this as I know there are a number of fake accounts and that some of these were removed recently so I didn’t know if this would technically fall under a fake account. Thanks very much.

I think I'd like to block some writers so I can better curate what I see on Vocal, and make it easy to see the stuff I enjoy most.

Late to the party as usual lol Sorry if this is code heavy but... I've often wished for the ability to size and crop my banner, profile image and just photo improvements on here in general. Is that a possibility? Also a carousel of pinned stories would be cool... of course if that's not something you can do 👀... could you whisper in the ears of Instagram and let us tag stories by embedding hyperlinks in posts over there?? Kidding 😜 But now my banner and carousel requests seem easier right?! hehe

Regarding Top Stories. Last week it was mentioned that engagement is mostly what will get a Top Story. This is because Vocal wants to encourage creators to bring more readers to Vocal. So I get that. I understand why Vocal would want us to bring more readers to Vocal. The more readers there are the more successful Vocal will be. I am all in for helping Vocal to be a success. I am going to be honest here. I will probably get a lot of flack for this. I'm used to it. Awarding people for getting a lot of comments and hearts on their stories is nice. But the ones giving hearts and making comments on people's stories are already registered with Vocal and are already readers and creators. Therefore those that are getting the hearts and the comments are not really bringing new readers to Vocal. But I see a lot of stories that get very little response as far as comments or hearts. But they get a lot of readers. Case in point my story Black Female Vocalists of the 1970s has about 5,300 reads but only eight hearts and one comment. Very little engagement. But how many thousands of outside readers did I bring to Vocal? Tons of them is the answer. I feel that those that actually do the footwork to promote their works outside of Vocal and outside of the Vocal Facebook groups and bring a good amount of new readers to Vocal is what should also be rewarded.

Honestly so beyond hesitant to be the one to mention the elephant in the room but here goes... You guys are awesome at making the platform feel like a family and at showing us you want to improve, involving the creators in the process. And its one thing i truly love about Vocal. But let's be real... The inclusivity could be better. And I don't mean inclusivity regarding race, gender, social issues etc. I mean making Vocal not feel like the impossible club to break into. Vocal feels like that clique in HS that everyone wanted to join, but only a select few could break the code of what it took to make the list. It felt that way when I joined early 2021 and has only increased in exclusivity since. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing the skilled and adored creators recognized. But seeing the same names day in and day out on Top Stories is discouraging. I can imagine how it feels for some of those newer creators who write awesome articles and stories but never get that feeling of recognition. Utilizing social media, joining the Facebook groups and etc. should be a staple in every writer's toolbox, but it shouldn't be the way Vocal recognizes its creators. I'd love to see newer creators or older amazing creators recognized for their work that deserves it. It would be wonderful to see more inclusivity from the vocal curation team. ( please don't blacklist me for saying the thing we fear saying😫😩😫)

I’m curious to know about the process by which Vocal selects Challenge topics. Purely for curiosity’s sake, since they seem to crop up completely at random. Also, is there any way I can make a challenge suggestion? I think a fiction story with the Epistolary framing device would be fun since the poetry challenge has proven so popular

As I mentioned several times, we need better formatting options. SEO is also a must. Without those two things, we will never garner attention outside of Vocal.

I am not getting a single email from notifications. They just stopped completely, so unless i catch them on the fleetingly fast notifications as they pass by, I am missing my comments. I have to search through individual stories to find my comments. I am not happy. Am I the only one here, cause that would be strange.

I just returned to Vocal after some months of Hiatus. This is the first time I saw free challenge and I was so excited! I notice there are some changes when I returned, such as: the screening process for publishing the story, now is faster. I remember last year, I have to wait for 1 day at least for my poem to be accepted but recently, it just takes less then an hour and voila!! Back to the context about the free challenge. It is such a shame that the free challenge receive a lot of spam. Perhaps, the vocal team need to add some screening process and hide the rewards before the writer could enter the challenge. For example, adding extra page such as agreement to enter the challenge and the penalty to if someone violate the rules. In that case, you need to add signup page as well. Later on you will open the sign up process for, maybe only 1 week then the author can only upload after the signup closed with maximum 1 content. Author that has not signup will not able to upload the content. As for the author that already upload 1 and will upload again, will get rejected. That could be another process for free challenge. Because doesn't matter if it's free or not, spamming issu could happen everywhere. Maybe now is only the free but if there is no more free, it could be happen in the exclusive challenge.

Hey Vocal family! I've noticed a massive amount of challenge entries when there is a poetry, i.e. haiku, limerick challenge. Are there any conversations to having more runners-up, especially on a challenge that garners thousands of entries? To choose only twelve including the winner and second place is not a lot when there's so many entries. Just an idea.

I want to know how to grow an audience. Pretty much everything I write is stuff that comes directly from the heart but it feels like no one sees. I know there are people who can relate though. Some stuff is just to spread awareness too.

These twice-weekly threads are brilliant, and work for me as I am on the Eastern Time and can participate while (kind of) taking a break for lunch. Could there be one that is in our 'evening' time so that those in other time zones might be more active?

It would be nice to be able to heart Vocal comments like on Facebook, where you agree but don't necessarily have a comment, sorry about all these technical suggestions

Could we filter our notifications? My subscription thread shows me all the new stories published, I don't need it duplicated in my notifications. I want to know about comments, replies and new subscribers. Just a thought.

Hi there! I've noticed that this past week I've no longer been receiving the emails telling me when someone has commented on my story or replied to one of my comments. I'm assuming that's due to the new notifications addition, which I'm loving. The move makes total sense. However, I think it would be really beneficial to send mass emails maybe once a week with new things going on with Vocal as not everyone is reading the stories where you post this information. I appreciate the What's Happening email and the Live Challenges email, but neither of those address what is really going on with the platform itself. Sending those weekly updates may garner attention from creators who don't frequently check the main page of the platform. Or haven't been active for awhile.

When we see obvious spam (such as 3 stories on non-related topics posted in a community, such as the ones by this new 'creator in 01 today https://vocal.media/authors/salaamblclaireto) What should we do? Are we clogging the system reporting each as spam? Does that slow down the team in removing them? Or are they ignored and eventually move down into archive order for the Community? I am interested because these posts can bury the submissions of relevant posts that then are missed by readers slogging through the dreck. Thank you!

One issue with Ambassadors' Payments. After thirty days a payment becomes due and used to automatically transfer to your wallet. For over a year I have had to chase payments via tickets and emails. This does need addressing.

I really like the Raise Your Voices Thread on Thursdays where we can share stories, poems we really enjoyed even if they are older pieces. It was great to see a couple of pieces I nominated get a top story. I hope Vocal can keep a form of this thread going after these sessions are completed. Maybe once a month if not weekly? Thanks 🦋

I really appreciate the comment section added to our stories this past year. Is there any plan or possibility to have a comment section on a vocal accounts home page? In particular, it would allow for Thank you's for reads and tips to further engage our subscribers that are not creators.

Are Vocal ever going to fix their stats? I reported the fault two years back and nothing has been done. If I write a story I cannot check how many reads it has unless it goes above 100 or stays at zero. It would help if the number of reads were on the post itself with number of hearts and comments

Good afternoon. I received a question from one of our Vocal+Assist members, Hazel Rymell with respect to a Top Story she wrote. The story in question is "The Blushing Moon" and currently appears on page 30 in the Top Story section. She says she did not receive her Top Story Bonus and, after repeated requests for assistance, she did not receive an answer. The bonus is not showing up in her wallet. Will your team be so kind as to look into this? Thank you.