Consistency is a problem. Yes, it's a subjective game, but having worked as an examiner, I can confidently say that I have nominated stories that would score almost identically on the stated Boost criteria, and that have received different pass/fail responses.

And I am confident that if the 'failed' writers had appealed in a formal examination situation, that appeal would have been upheld.

I raised the issue of standardisation with Terrie last year, months before becoming a nominator myself and experiencing it from the inside.

It is a failing, and I feel that given the information available to Medium, they could and should be doing a better job of internally workshopping the process to establish a degree of homogeneity and reliability which at present is sometimes lacking.

Staff churn is presumably another issue. Every time a Curator leaves, or the team needs to be expanded to accommodate the volume of nominations - now over double what it was a year ago - that new hire needs to be properly onboarded using authentic test materials, and initially mentored. I suspect that process is not receiving the necessary resources, in terms of either data or personnel.

This would tend to result in Curators adopting an overly cautious, dogmatic, formulaic approach in their interpretation and application of the 'rules'.