Observations On Getting A Top Story, The Vocal Leaderboard And Congratulations Comments

Introduction

This is just a short piece on a couple of things that have been running round in my head, essentially to draw the positives from things that some people may see as negatives. I would love to hear what you have to say (as I always do).

The Top Story

I just got my first Top Story in two months, but it is a fact I am resigned to. I still get a lot of reads (87,000 with 1,100 subscribers), so it's not like my Vocal account is stagnant. I also reshare older stories, and some of them are Top Stories, so people might think, "How did he get a Top Story when he only published it twenty minutes ago?" It is because the award happened two years ago.

This is my recent Top Story, though I haven't a clue why I got the award, and this is a good thing. Imagine if we were writing to include the factors that would give us a Top Story instead of using our imagination.

The five dollars I get for the Top Story, added to the lots of half cents I get for reads, more than covers the ten-dollar Vocal subscription, and the extra goes towards coffee money. However, til December, I am on a free pass for the time I was unable to publish on Vocal, which I am thankful for, but the principal holds.

The Leaderboard

I think this started out as a good idea, rewarding creators for getting hearts and comments on their stories, which is fine, as it is expected that the best stories will get the most recognition. There were other awards for top commenters and new authors, but they became very abused and were dropped by Vocal.

The problem has now become that it is all about the numbers rather than the quality. That is not to say that the stories are worth reading, but there are many authors who appear week in, week out.

When I was having issues with Vocal, I proved that it could be done with this piece.

So if a number of Creators decide to get a piece on the Leaderboard, they can heart and comment and get someone a bonus.

According to the rules, this is acceptable though it grates with me. One other thing is that for the Leaderboard, comments and hearts from non-V+ Creators do not count.

This means that comments from Dharsheena and Mark Graham are not counted, even though they are very supportive commenters, and their comments do give you half a cent.

The Congratulations

Some people are not happy with the floods of congratulations and "wow" messages when they place or win, and sometimes it annoys me a little, but only if they have not commented on the story before, or have not included something to imply that they have read your work.

There are many supportive creators who read stories and then return when the story is a success to congratulate the author.

Remember, all these probably contribute half a cent to your vocal coffee fund, though if it's just a congratulatory post, I don't acknowledge it.

Conclusion

As I say, these are just a few possibly controversial thoughts on these subjects.

The music is "Gimme Some Truth" by John Lennon

Thank you so much for reading.