No slight intended to the contents of this newsletter, simply an observation on the increasingly common practice of 'staff picking' staff pieces, for the editorial team to consider.

Right now, 2 of the 3 staff picks are internally written stories. This is a bad look, which is much derided by users.

It creates a poor impression for a couple of reasons:

1) Writers complaining of dwindling reads and earnings for their stories, aware that the prized 'staff picks' home page shop window is the most prized real estate on the site, feel even more slighted when Medium Staff take up that space to promote their own messages.

2) Readers receive the impression that out of all the millions of stories on Medium, the most relevant and engaging are these brief summaries by the staff themselves, or in the case of the current Scott lamb piece, self-promotion. This doesn't inspire confidence that there is a wealth of content to be discovered here.

It makes sense for Medium to have its own home page space where it can feature these metastories, drawing attention to and linking together various other items here and on the wider web. But mixing that in with features that belong to the entirely separate category of 'great user stories' is, to me, messy, confusing and self-defeating. I would consider splitting this into two: 'News from Medium' and 'Medium staff picks', for example. Or 'What we're thinking' and 'What we're reading', perhaps.

I hope this input proves useful.