Hello Tony - I have a suggestion and I hope you are able to take some action on it. A couple of years ago I attended 1 online writers session with editors via Zoom. The editors talked a lot about what they wanted and were not very engaging with the writers who attended (maybe 50 people?). I didn't get much, if any, good info out of that session because it was vague and non-specific.

I just read another article here and saw the 4 articles listed to the right hand side ("More From Medium"). I am assuming that this part of the screen (or a certain area for mobile devices) is the area that counts as "views" for average/ordinary articles. I just looked at that and realized if this is where any of my new readers come from it means that I do have some type of traction, as having anyone even look at those titles, much less read, indicates interest. My suggestion is: have training sessions for us writers that explain how the system works. Then we can use this information to improve what we are doing and better-serve readers and Medium. Right now, the way articles are distributed or shared seems opaque. I have literally looked at others' articles, some "bragging" about various metrics or money, and used those to compare what little data I have from the stats page. That has translated into some improvement in readership for me. I believe I could do better with more info. This should not be firewalled or kept from people who are actually writing on Medium. We deserve the opportunity to understand and control what we do, and how we do it, for ourselves and for readers.

Here is an example of a metric I have, but I never see it mentioned: how many reads/views (read/view ratio) and read/clap ratio. If you get over 80% of readers clapping then maybe it is a good thing. But I do not know if this ratio going up means I am doing better or if it means the algorithm just knows that those specific people are the ones who will read or clap. Does that make sense?