I Was Warned By The Medium Team!!
Read Medium rules carefully. Medium is smarter than you think.
I did not read Medium rules and regulations in the first place. So, I was unaware that I was overstepping the platform’s rules. I took them for granted and was warned by Medium’s trust and safety team. So here’s what happened.
I got an email yesterday from the Medium team asking me to remove the repetitive responses from my account. If I fail, I will be suspended until it is done. I kept reading the email, unable to understand the problem. I was thinking for a long time and then wrote another email to the team and got a reply this morning.
We ask that you not use the responses strictly to drive traffic or attention to posts or websites, or copy and paste a single response to multiple posts or responses — Medium team
Then I realized my mistake and felt very bad and guilty. Here’s what I did and shouldn’t have done: I read many articles, clapped, and wrote to the authors asking them to follow me if they liked my work and also use my referral if they decided to become paid Medium members.
I used the same template every time I did this. I honestly thought it was okay within the platform. So I overdid it. I had around 30–40 such repetitive responses to different writers.
This morning I got this reply from Medium:
A large number of your responses are soliciting interactions, formatted the same, or have links back to your account.
Posting duplicate content, whether from a single account or across multiple accounts
Performing a disproportionately large number of interactions, particularly by automated means. This includes bulk or indiscriminate interactions, such as following other accounts (follow spam) clapping, highlighting, or leaving notes
Repeatedly using responses or other interactions as a method of promotion or marketing
Please delete a portion of the violating content in order to remain in good standing.
Although I feel guilty about what I’ve done, I am really impressed by how smart and clever the Medium crew is to be able to find such issues when there are so many writers writing thousands of articles every day. When I asked the team for specific details, I got a screenshot of all my responses that need to be deleted at once.
https://policy.medium.com/medium-rules-30e5502c4eb4
My respect for Medium has grown several folds now. I have learned my lesson. So, new writers, please read the rules before doing anything silly and ignorant as I did.
