Hi, Harris. To be honest with the alerts outage, there was nothing coming through from HQ, just a series of terse messages posted on the help page.
As far as I recall,
1) There's a problem. We're working on it.
Fine - but 'apologies for any inconvenience' wasn't included, and I would say that's a minimum courtesy. Otherwise it looks like the inhouse lawyers are running the show, paranoidly saying 'Don't apologise! They could take that as an admission of liability!'
2) Problem solved - earnings weren't affected.
So you say. We have to take that on trust, and that trust has been slightly undermined by (1). Also, it fails to take into account the fact that traffic on articles, both overall reads and read times, will have dropped, because the many readers who enjoy using the platform because of the opportunity of near-instant or at least prompt dialogue with writers and other users will stay away, or engage less, if they know alerts aren't going through, so no one will see what they write.
So, yes, the data might still be there, and fed into the earnings formula, but they are almost certainly not the same data that there would have been had the glitch not occurred and lasted for several days.
The 'nothing to see here - move along' dismissiveness of the message suggested a lñack of empathy with users, and a lack of understanding of how users view their interaction via the platform.
I'm not sure which is more concerning or disappointing.
(God, I'm sounding really schoolteacherly by this point, aren't I?)
3) It happened again today, but seemingly got resolved pretty swiftly, while some were still in bed, in fact. That's good, but this morning, Europe time, we were all looking at the situation and thinking 'FFS! No alerts for another 4-5 days?' That didn't happen, but people were expecting it, and Medium must have known that would be the reaction. If the lights go out, and stay out for 4 days, the next time they flicker off you think 'Will it be 4 days again?' That's a natural reaction, which needed better and swifter preemptive reassurance, I would say.
Right now, I feel in a really good place here, building traction, gaining momentum. But that comes down a lot to making sure I respond to every new reader who comments on my stories, engaging with them, reacting to the points they raise. I think that's important, for me, for them, and for Medium, in establishing itself as 'The premier platform for genuinely thoughtful human interaction online, in a world of shitposting and flaming'.
That was jeopardised by the alert outage, because everyone had to keep checking manually, and many individual opportunities for timely interaction may have been lost.
This should have been understood and acknowledged, I feel.
As for the bans that were then rescinded, in those cases Medium made the mistake, but failed to explain or apologise. It was very much 'Yeah, you spent a night in the cells, but we now see you broke no law. Off you go - be grateful we're letting you out.'
People were upset and angry. Upset and angry paying users are less likely to keep paying their monthly sub. It's a matter of self-interest to bend over backwards to make sure people feel cared for. That didn't seem to happen, from what I heard from fellow users.
I hope that helps - that has been the attitude shared by those users within what I would see as my closer circle here, and it could all certainly have been improved with just a few more, better chosen words, at the right time.
Not necessarily as many as I've just written. Phew!
Good job I wasn't trying to do this through 200-character private notes via the editing interface.
Speaking of which...
No, that's a matter for another time.
Take care, and good luck with it all, Harris.
