Thanks for the reply, Rodrigo. I think there are various factors that Medium has unwittingly created that would tend to encourage malpractice/gaming of the system: the inordinate difference between boosted and non-boosted; the lack of oversight of nominators (as mentioned), the lack of inhouse curatorial resources (unsuitable pieces being greenlighted without proper checks), as also flagged up to management. As well as ill-advised recommendations by senior figures to do just that - try to pally up to nominators.

Lack of oversight, lack of regulatory consistency and lack of transparency will tend to result in the spread of corruption in any system. In this case it's limited by the fact that you can't fake decent writing - at least not for long. But I would say that is the main barrier to malpractice, aside from the personal ethics of nominators themselves.

It would be preferable to have a more robust system underpinning the whole venture, in my opinion.

Beta-testing live on the fly with paying users and suppliers is, shall we say, a bold management decision...

Anyway, thanks for your time, and good luck with the pub, which I enjoy reading. Maybe 2024 will be the year when I finally start taking some serious snaps myself and join the photography gang here on Medium...