13 comments

  • Jim SilvermanJim Silverman, over 5 years ago

    my thing is it's now just a useless metric. some asshole like me can sit there and spam claps just to play with the button. then you have 50 claps and no idea how many people actually enjoyed it.

    6 points
  • No NameNo Name, over 5 years ago

    70 claps from 7 people

    Using the metric from this article itself. Two months ago, 70 recommendations was a pretty good number. Now, Medium has completely destroyed the user's perspective on value.

    Amazing articles that used to have 1.2k recommendations are now going to need 50k+ claps. Just seems silly to afflict your platform with sudden inflation.

    5 points
    • Ben Digman, over 5 years ago

      Forgive my ignorance but weren't recommendations 1 to 1 or could one reader recommend an article multiple times?

      0 points
      • No NameNo Name, over 5 years ago

        Yes, they were.

        0 points
        • Ben Digman, over 5 years ago

          So, wouldn't the 7 people in this example essentially be the same metric as prior number of recommendations? It seems, if that's correct, they've simply added an additional data point somewhat akin to the volume or am I totally off the mark here?

          0 points
  • Sam SolomonSam Solomon, over 5 years ago

    Honestly, it feels a lot like Kudos from Svbtle.

    The metric itself feels muddled. I'm certain this is a byproduct Medium scrambling for metrics to justify their valuation.

    It's a shame. Back in 2015 it felt like Medium had an incredibly strong product vision—build the best experience for reading and writing on the web. Had they not raised that much money, I think the product would have been better off.

    2 points
  • Giulio MichelonGiulio Michelon, over 5 years ago

    Should designers clap?

    1 point
  • Ale UrrutiaAle Urrutia, over 5 years ago

    Soon enough we will have clap farms in India and the Philipines.

    1 point
  • Cody IddingsCody Iddings, over 5 years ago

    I gave you 50 claps for the article. I'm over it.

    1 point
  • Bobby AndersonBobby Anderson, over 5 years ago

    If claps were in addition to likes then fine but this just seems completely unnecessary to me. In my opinion, the whole point of Medium is to focus on the content and the reading/writing experience, why has this been interrupted with the need to applaud any and every valid point an author makes when we already have the ability to highlight and comment on particular areas of content?

    Strikes me as struggling startup trying to reinvent the like.

    0 points
  • M. AppelmanM. Appelman, over 5 years ago

    Great in-depth article about Medium's Clap by Thomas Baekdal: https://www.baekdal.com/analysis/the-problem-with-mediums-new-metric-public-vs-private-analytics

    0 points
  • Juan J. RamirezJuan J. Ramirez, over 5 years ago

    There's probably an underlying mechanic to prevent artificial inflation, spamming and "clapping" farming schemes.... or at least I would hope. Otherwise I see this degrading the ability to react legitimately to a piece of content.

    0 points
  • Lucas Neumann de Antonio, over 5 years ago

    Hi everyone, I wrote a little design critique on Medium's recent switch from Recommends to Claps, based on human behavior and storytelling principles.

    TLDR; I don't like it.

    What do you guys think?

    0 points