Nick, I did read several of your pieces last night and really enjoyed a couple of them. I’m sorry if my applauding left a bad taste in your mouth or seemed “shady.”

There is nothing automated, as you suggest, except an alert that sends new pieces submitted to the partner program to a Slack channel monitored by several Medium employees. There is no automating clapping — nor has there even been a discussion that we should encourage our partner writers by doing so. I suspect, like me, some of our folks liked your pieces.

It may give you reassurance to know that there are, as of now, very few participants in the program. We’ve started that way so we can keep a close eye on things. We won’t always be able to review every story from our partners, but we are in the beginning stages.

Thank you for your participation.