Member-only story
Attention Medium Writers And Readers
You have more than 50 claps to give
Many of us start on Medium with misconceptions and confusion about exactly how this marvelous platform for writers and readers works. Some of us (I see you Elle Beau) don’t like to read directions. So, I can’t tell you exactly where you will find the rules for clapping, but I’ll bet someone on Medium will enlighten us.
The basic rule is that members can applaud for as many articles as you want, and you can applaud EACH of those articles with up to 50 claps.
When I started reading and applauding I thought, like many newcomers do, that I was only allowed 50 claps total, and had to divide them between those writers I liked the most.
Don’t ask me how I thought that could possibly work.
I must have thought Medium magically bestowed 50 new ones on us every day, so if we guarded them carefully we could at the very least give one clap to each of 50 authors. Sigh.
You know how you can tell newbies on Medium without checking out the number of their followers, or how many they follow? Look to see if they are awarding one clap at a time.
I don’t remember if it was an article by Joe Duncan or Andrew Knott that ultimately enlightened me. The article suggested that we always give at least 25 claps for articles we like, and 50 for our favorite authors or stories we deem excellent. I’ve been doing that ever since. And I had been posting for…