Reaching 100 On Vocal: But Are All Communities Equal?

This is my 100th post, and it has taken me nearly six months to reach it.

I learnt about Vocal by chance, while searching for something else, and it was not a persuasive introduction. In fact, the critique from another platform was pretty scathing and off-putting. However, noting that the piece was written over two years ago, my open mind suggested that Vocal could have changed some things since then. I decided to give it a try, at least for a couple of months, as its approach aligned with what I was seeking. Well, as you can see, I am still here, so there must be something appealing about it!

Well, LOTS, actually!

Despite the large number of writers on the site, Vocal feels like the right base for me, for the following reasons:

• It has the right nourishing atmosphere which accommodates my varied output and makes me want to post more regularly. I no longer feel that I have to write to fit a rigid kind of genre, style or subject matter.
• Vocal members have been pretty welcoming and encouraging, too. Despite the difference in audience (being American-run), I have felt quite at home being a Brit with a different cultural perspective and outlook.
• I love to experience new ideas and styles, and have learnt a lot from seeing the quality of highlighted posts that are chosen as Top Stories.
• It's fun to check each day to see how many cents I've earned (I find it really cool moving from ONE cent in the first week to over a dollar now - pretty fascinating and heartening)! Each day I cannot help boasting to my boyfriend that, at this rate of earnings, I have only 32 years left to earn my first 100 dollars, and I wait with growing excitement and delight to cash in! :) But I won't knock it because I am sure there are many members who still have yet to make that one cent start. Instead I give grateful thanks.
• Above all, I love to post my articles and see which ones get some attention to help me gauge my Vocal audience, and the number of readers who might find them useful.

I post for the love of it, as I am passionate about my subject matter (advice on better relationships and boosting wellbeing). Sometimes the posts I think might attract attention don't, which feels disappointing, while others that I might not rate too highly draw the members. I see it as a learning curve, and if just one reader finds anything of value among my posts, I am happy!

Hidden Top Story Bias

During the six months I have also been learning how to use the site, which brings me to the Top Stories I mentioned above. I really love this feature, because, as a motivator, I delight to seeing others being recognised, too, especially in an inclusive way. I firmly believe that only by helping one another can we all excel, so I thought it was a great way to empower writers daily.

I remember when I got my first Top Story I was so surprised and elated. It was a narrative about me and my beau so I didn't expect much attention for it, especially me being barely three weeks into joining. I didn't think my writing would reach such heights so quickly! Since then, I have been intrigued by which posts make it to the top, especially as they are supposed to be 'handpicked stories', as noted on the home page heading.

Perception is the most crucial way we see the world, and people have to perceive fairness in any operation to be comfortable and reassured, regardless of the actual reality! Most people just want to have the same opportunities as their peers; the chance to shine, too, and to have that feeling of achievement and satisfaction for what they produce: a goal that seems to fit in with Vocal priding itself on being a community for great writers. However, do their home page Top Stories fit in with this ethos? Noticing a trend in the chosen stories prompted me to look closer at this aspect, especially with me being a Diversity and Inclusion consultant.

It seems that Vocal is definitely falling short of its own inclusivity goal in its Top Stories. Personally, I have had nothing to complain about, but the daily evidence suggests that these 'handpicked stories' on the home page, favour certain communities over others. I decided, as a keen researcher, to seek some evidence before publicly noting anything, and set about monitoring the 300 stories featured on the home page over the past month (excluding Vocal posts), as they relate to communities, not just individuals. Would I find any real bias when the figures were analysed?

Top Story Findings

For those who might not be fully aware, there are 48 communities. The largest memberships (Poets and Humans, with Fiction not far behind) also produce most of the posted stories. The two smallest memberships currently are in Critique and Humor. The 300 top stories date from this week to the middle of October, and they do NOT include top stories within each community.

In summary, if you were hoping your post would carry a Top Story tag during that time, you would have to be in just TWO of the 48 groups to stand a chance: Poets (85 top stories) and Fiction (79). Vocal seems to reward those two writing genres more than any other, to the extent that some members of both groups have had top stories multiple times (up to 4) during the one month!

In essence, the Poets and Fiction communities accounted for nearly 55% of all top posts over the month, while the Writers, Horror and Chapters groups added another 16%. It meant only five communities captured 71% of all top stories. The stark fact is that, overall, just 20% of communities accounted for over 84% of home page top stories, and I am willing to bet that a similar pattern repeats itself every month. Worst of all, there were 18 communities that did not feature EVEN ONCE on that front page for any recognition! That is so disproportionate as to be almost disheartening! If we accept that stories are 'handpicked' for their quality, is Vocal's real message that only poetry and fiction writers give quality and are deserving of recognition?

The results begged some important questions:

1. When so many top stories are in so few communities, what's left for the members of the other 43 groups? And why should they bother to publish in the other groups?
2. How can it be fair that getting a Vocal top story seems to depend on the community your post is in, rather than just the quality?
3. If the stories are 'handpicked', are the pickers biased towards certain communities, cultures, members, genres, styles, etc.?
4. If it is not human but AI doing the choosing, how can the picks be made varied, and fairer, to enable many more members to get some valued exposure?

These are not silly questions. A Vocal top story carries a payment with it, as well as crucial exposure for the writer to the whole of the platform. If those benefits are only earned by five communities, in the main, what's left for the rest, and how can that be fair and justified when most members pay an annual fee to enjoy the site and showcase their work, yet are out of the exposure loop? One can also see that trend in the Challenge winners, too - a biased system reproducing itself in its recognition process.

There is nothing worse than diligently writing regularly, giving of your best, and seldom seeing your name in lights, while the same names keep coming up, again and again. One can point to all kinds of reasons for this (like more talented writers in such groups, etc.), but, in a circular way, exposure helps people to choose what to read when competition is strong, resulting in the same kind of stories getting constant attention. Hence such hidden bias does not encourage input, regular involvement or traffic. It simply reduces the real value of each post and demoralises the excluded writers.

I can say sincerely that I enjoy the platform, and have even had three top stories in six months. I am very happy with that, because it leaves room for others to shine, too. I also need to emphasise that nothing is perfect, hence why I appreciate Vocal in all its imperfections. However, as my life's work is centred on inclusivity, and I have noticed some fascinating gender and ageist trends, perhaps my research isn't done yet!

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