Medium Killed This Collection

with its new collection system

When I first heard about Medium and its (original) collection system, I became very excited.

It seemed to me like a new way of sharing stories and ideas. We write posts and submit them to collections. It sounds simple, unique, and fun.

I signed up for Medium right away.

The Birth of Meaningful Conversation

life is made of meaningful conversations

After reading several stories, I saw that some are written in a conversational style—like a chat log.

I really like this style of stories. They are lively! There are people talking to each other, and it feels like I’m really reading a story, and not just an article. This one is my favorite, and I also wrote one in that style too.

This leads me to create this collection. I wanted to aggregate stories written in this style; stories of precious conversations people had in their lifetime.

The Growth: So far, this collection had gained 19 followers. From time to time, I received emails that there are new submissions to my collection. I enjoyed reading them and adding those stories.

To me, collections used to be like #hashtags. They aggregate stories of the same kind. Just that some can be moderated (like this one).

The Death of Meaningful Conversations

Then, Medium announced the new collection model. They claimed to make it “simpler for both the authors and the editors.”

As an editor of this collection, this is not true at all! Here’s what happened:

• Only writers can submit a story. Submitting stories to my collection used to be simple—the author just submit the story to my collection! Now, the author must become a writer first in order to submit. Since this new system had taken place, no one ever contacted me with interest in writing for this collection.
• I can’t add just any story to my collection. They must be submitted first. Again, it used to be more simple.
• A story can only belong to a single collection. This essentially kills this collection, because this collection is focused on the story style, not the topic. Back when I had the ability to add stories to my collection, I found that all of them already belong to other collections.

They also claimed “that these new features will strengthen collections, making them ‘must-visit’ destinations for readers.” You see, it is now dead.

And not only this collection. Other collections with similar intent—to aggregate stories of a certain topic—are also dead.

Even @Medium’s own collection Feedback Wanted is dead.

Collections Today

Today, collections are more like a blog or a magazine to me. I created a new collection about Ruby programming language, called Ruby Everyday, which now functions more like a magazine.

I could have also used Blogspot or WordPress for this as well.

P.S. If you agree and like this story, please recommend and share. Thanks!