There’s no room for your dislike
Thoughts on interaction and adding value to a post
Medium is getting bigger.
I see more comments and recommendations. We’re all building up this thing and that’s good.
However, I couldn’t help notice some of us are still making some ‘mistakes’ when it comes to interacting with posts.
Examples on well known platforms
Facebook:
If you like something: Good, go ahead and hit the ‘like’ button (or share for that matter).
If you don’t like something: Ignore it or comment.
Twitter:
If you like something: Good, go ahead and retweet or fav.
If you don’t like something: Ignore it or reply.
There are far more examples out there, and we all know that love should be spread and hate should be ignored. But the main point this platforms are technically making is:
There’s little or no room for your dislike.
If you’re not going to add, try at least not to subtract.
My take on good practices at Medium
If you like a post on Medium: Recommend it.
If you don’t like a post on Medium: Ignore it or comment, but please keep it constructive.
Adding value or supporting a post
There’s a moment when you feel the need to let the post author know that you agree with him/her. On Medium, you can do that on every word.
Here, try it out with this sentence. Just highlight it and you’ll see a bubble. (Knock yourself out)
On the previous sentence, you could be seeing a lot of comments saying: ‘You’re right, I’ve highlighted the sentence and was able to comment, that’s awesome’ or something like ‘duh, everybody knows that, dude’.
Did those comments add value to my post?
Not really.
Getting to the point
I think the best way to add value to a post is to leave a comment. But we shouldn’t confuse value with simple approval.
It’s great for authors to see that you agree with them. But I’m guessing they will be thrilled to see their posts recommended and actually read (consequence of that recommendation) rather than seeing lots of ‘I agree’ comments.
And I’m sure we readers will be more than thrilled to find that those 9 comments are actually insightful, and add real value to the post.
I’m not saying that we should suppress our voices. I’m just saying we should keep it constructive, so we have rich, insightful conversations and the reading flow gets much more interesting.
At the end of the day, it’s all about spreading the love.
