Does the Vocal Team Value its Creators?

I am not a complainer - never have been. So this piece that I am writing is not so much a complaint but a conversation with several questions that have gone unanswered.

On the leaderboard dated 12/17/2025, there were a few stories that made it into the upper part of the leaderboard because of replies consisting of extended off-topic personal conversations in the comments section. These stories had very few comments between five and six while other stories that were lower on the leaderboard and some that didn’t even make it onto the leaderboard had many more comments.

This raises some important questions:

Is this sloppy work by the Vocal team members? Are they not performing their due diligence to ensure that what makes it on the leaderboard has comments and replies that are “top level” and on-topic?

Is this simply casual chatter with unintended consequences?

Regardless of intent, the Vocal Team is not enforcing its own criteria. The rules clearly state that only top‑level comments and replies from paying members count, and that replies from the story’s author are excluded. Off‑topic exchanges between two people should not count toward leaderboard tallies.

Extended conversations that have nothing to do with the story — especially those about unrelated personal topics — should be a red flag. The Vocal Team should review these threads to ensure that counted replies are both top‑level and on‑topic. Otherwise, leaderboard tallies become inaccurate and easily manipulated.

This makes me wonder just how much the Vocal team values its creators. It’s no secret that lately Vocal Media has been losing members left and right.

Here are a few other reasons I feel that the Vocal team is undervaluing its members:

I have seen some members, including myself, pose questions on the Vocal Discord channel to the Vocal team — even tagging specific Vocal team members — and they never respond. Even when we send a question or a note to them in private messages on Discord, they still do not answer.

There is a lack of transparency in most everything done by the Vocal team. Who are the people who judge the challenges? Are they professionals? Are they literary scholars? What is their background? What are their credentials? How about the people who choose the top stories? Who are they? Who are the people who put together the leaderboard?

As a Vocal+ member who has been very loyal and has done a minimum of complaining over the past four years and seven months, I feel very undervalued. I have done a lot to bring people to the platform to read and comment. I have done more than most to build community on Vocal.

It seems that some creators on Vocal are elevated — and not because of their skills as writers — but for reasons that aren’t clear. I feel it’s time that Vocal really starts putting talent as a priority over whoever is in the inner circle or whoever is friends with the people making the decisions. There are a lot of Vocal+ creators who are being overlooked — a lot of very talented writers who have been dedicated to this platform for quite some time, and yet they are only getting very few reads and hardly any comments on their stories. What is Vocal doing to build a true sense of community? What is the Vocal team doing to build a sense of fun and excitement? I will tell you: the leaderboard and the Raise Your Voice thread are not doing it.

The Challenges are a good thing. But what the Vocal team needs is an available and approachable personality who will answer our questions, make us laugh, challenge us to be better writers, give us mini-lessons on writing techniques, and so forth.

Right now, Vocal Media is hurting in two areas:

A: Integrity in things like the leaderboard and top stories.

B: A person we can count on for support — someone who makes us feel heard and valued.

Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity to express myself.

With Respect, RHC ❤️