Thank you for your time to respond. It is helping me unlock the puzzle I have been working on for a very long time.

Initially, I thought I should take you on your offer. It would be a worthy experiment. But I think you need to understand that I am on a very different path than most other Medium writers: I want to start a social movement, not make money as a writer. And it is a very different kind of movement than BLM or MeToo. Once I get my following of people who will work for this movement, I will be spending my time working with this group. I will be revamping my website and no longer participate on internet forums.

What I am looking for are people who (1) recognize our system of governance is broken AND (2) are willing to sacrifice a few hours a month building a new system.

Last February, I came the realization that I was marketing to a group of people who spent a lot of spare time on the internet. I see them more as watchers than doers. Or perhaps better said, they are more complainers than builders.

Last November, things kind of fell into place for me to attend a conference of mental health practitioners. There I encountered a whole bunch of people who are trying to fix the world. Lots of non-profit groups and government agencies. These are the people who put in volunteer time into their community, sitting on boards and helping others. They are already very civic minded. I bet they probably don’t spend much time on internet forums.

While I need to figure out how to market to this group better, I think I need to make the best splash I can on Medium. And maybe you can help me here.

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Medium is a much different culture than other internet forums I have been involved with. For that reason, I decided it might worth it for me to spend a couple hundred hours here.

For starters, one needs to acquire some kind of reputation for the Medium algorithms to place one’s articles high in the Medium rankings. I have already put up 24 articles. None of them have gone very far. In other forums, the algorithms place emphasis on NEW. If an article gets some response, the algorithms will keep the article in a high place for a couple of weeks. But generally speaking, the algorithms of the other forums will slowly fade an OLD article away from the front page, regardless of response. In that regard, Medium is different.

Another way that Medium is different is that it allows fairly lengthy articles to be published. I have read several 30-minute pieces on Medium. And I have purchased one book based on a lengthy piece (it was a great book). So I can put excepts from my book on Medium. But the only problem is that if I am not getting the traction, those excerpts are not likely going to be accessible to be read.

And one more difference is that Medium will bring up articles that were published a year or two later. I bounce around a lot on Medium. I often find good articles that are both old and did not get much attention. It’s hard to encounter dated articles on other internet forums. So I still have the possibility of getting attention a year after I stop being a regular contributor on Medium.

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You have read my piece “A Constitutional Blunder”. It is one of my many shorter pieces that are designed to build a relationship with an internet forum’s audience such that when I introduce my TDG, I come across as someone credible.

This particular article generated a fairly lengthy discussion thread on Writerbeat and DebatePolitics. So I’m not exactly buying your argument that it needs a serious rewrite.

Most of my other articles usually generate a reasonable response on internet forums that encourage debate and discussion.

But one of things after your last post is that I noticed is that Medium allows a secondary title, something to tug at the readers a little more to open the article. I’m sure I could develop some good ad copy. But I can’t see how I can put this secondary title in place.

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My plan is to put another 10 to 20 shorter articles on Medium. Then I will place my longer articles that directly talk about the TDG. But if we were to consider the current trends, the Medium algorithms will bury the TDG articles and my “following Dave” base won’t be large enough to get much traction for my TDG articles.

Any ideas you have will be appreciated.