A Vocal Raise Your Voice Conundrum
And A Workaround
Introduction
This is very short, about a slight issue I have noticed with Vocal's excellent "Raise Your Voice" fortnightly gatherings which you can see here:
The Problem
Not everyone reads the "Raise Your Voice" but unlike the stuff in Discord it is available to all Vocal Creators and everyone is made aware of it when it lands, either because of its Top Story placement or email notifications.
I choose five worthy stories each week and very often two or three become Top Stories, so Vocal does take notice of my suggestions.
This week these were my five suggestions (though you can actually visit the "Raise Your Voice" piece on the link in my introduction):
If these Creators do not read the "Raise Your Voice" post or if they do, and do not see the nominating post then they will not know that they have been nominated, but will be happy when they appear in the Top Stories and get their five dollar bonus, and I am really happy when my nominations get Top Stories.
These two did:
So your nominations do get noticed and will make the nominated creators feel better about their work and give them more confidence in their writing.
The Workaround
I always say that if you need a workaround then there is something wrong with the system, and an ideal one would be a notification to the creator, either by an @name option or the fact that the story has been shared in another Vocal piece.
The workaround is simple.
When you nominate a story, go back and leave a comment that you have nominated the story, then the creator will be informed.
I won't be doing this retrospectively but will do going forward.
They may not get a Top Story, but they will know that you rate their story highly enough to nominate them.
Conclusion
I hope you have found this useful, and it could bring us Vocal Creators even closer together.
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Comments (9)
Back when creator roundups were more popular (articles where you share your favorite stories by others), a couple folks came to my stories to tell me I had been featured. Maybe they still are popular; hard to keep track without tagging, lol. I also will do this if I ever call out/highlight someone else's piece in my own articles. Even at the risk of appearing to be "link bombing" in their comments when I share the link to my own article 😅 So, yes, do this anytime you shout out someone! It's the only course we have that's in-platform. (To be fair to Vocal, user tagging could also be abused quite easily—imagine getting dozens of notifications because spammers are tagging you in random comments/articles—so I don't completely fault them for shying away from it while their moderation and enforcement arms aren't exactly at "full strength" 😉)
Good suggestion Mike! Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I don't participate in Raise Your Voice or the Vocal Creator Chat because they are always launched when I'm sleeping. Blame the time difference, lol. But yes, it would be nice if we can tag creators like in Facebook or Instagram
As always, Mike this is fabulous advice!!!💕❤️❤️
I didn't even see, that you commented one of my stories too... I'll go and check now😄
Mike, you are doing excellent work, and I am glad I am in contact with a sincere writer like you. Who thinks of others? Your suggestion is very good; while reading comments, the Novel comment makes sense, and some writers may not like it. But you should continue your kindness and happiness, which comes into the writer's heart and face after reading. Your story has been selected as the Top story.
Good idea Mike, I'll be doing this
I did once with a new creator and I think the person was annoyed that I was taking the credit for her work. She has since disappeared. Still, we keep going despite the hiccups, slights and being ignored. I must confess that my Vocal meter is at an all time low these days. Keep the advice coming Mike.
Great idea, Mike. I will begin this practice myself. I recently gave a shout out via VSS to a writer who I don't think is yet a member of VSS. She might like to know the shout out is out there.