Badri Sunderarajan
Aug 22, 2017 · 2 min read

I, too, am planning to use one clap by default. But I’ll also use more, occasionally, if I feel the story really deserves it.

I don’t think the algorithm will ever be able to account for all the nuances of clapping: the different ways in which one can clap, what the contexts of those claps are, and what they’re supposed to mean. And yes, a single clap in real life will seem really weird.

But I also don’t think Medium claps are going to work the same way as real claps. Medium claps will probably take on a meaning of their own, just as ‘liking’ something on Facebook is a completely different thing from liking something in real life. The word ‘clap’ in this context will, I think, be used differently from the how we usually use the word.

I just wonder what will happen if the Medium usage spills over to real life. Will we start clapping differently? Will we only clap once by default?

I was just reading this piece by Lucas Neumann, and I realised that I feel the same way: I’ll miss Recommends. I mean, the word: ‘Recommends’. It sounds more professional, more serious, than simply ‘claps’.

When I Recommend something, it’s not going to be simply when I like it, but when I actually want to recommend it to other people: when I think it’s something that they should read, too. That’s the impression I got when I first came across it in Medium, and it’s the way I’m still going to continue using claps.

But what about newcomers joining Medium? Will they think of claps the same way as I thought of Recommends? Probably not. ‘Clapping’ seems more frivolous. People won’t think so much before doing it — and when that happens, the action will also have less meaning.

Okay, I just noticed this point is the opposite of my original post, that clapping will take on the meaning of comments and make people comment less. I guess both will happen. People will comment less, because they can just give more claps, but they will also start the applause more easily than they would a recommend.

This is more to do with terminology than with the actual behaviour of the thing. I wonder, could we find another word to use instead of ‘claps’?

)

Badri Sunderarajan

Written by

Books reader, Websites coder, Drawings maker. Things writer. Occasional astronomer. Alleged economist. Editor@Snipette.