The Winning Essay of the Medium Writer’s Challenge Should Have Been Disqualified
It did not meet Distribution Standards
Yesterday Medium finally announced the winners of their crazy contest, The Medium Writer’s Challenge.
Let’s be honest, the whole circus was a shit show. It was poorly organized, they pushed back deadlines on judging, no one knew what was going on with it behind the scenes, how it was being handled, or what exactly constituted quality to be handed to the judging panel. There was an extreme lack of transparency in the process, despite the elevated stakes.
The whole contest seemed like a giant publicity stunt, only meant to drive up engagement numbers for writers joining the platform. Shortly after the contest announcement, Medium proved this goal by changing their terms to become a member of the Partner Program, and telling writers to seek referrals to the Program for extra income.
Their goal here was clear. Furthering evidence of this goal, is that there was no clear cut direction on how judging of the contest entries would take place, meaning Medium didn’t seem to really care as long as thousands of people flocked to their platform to get their entries into the lottery.
