The story that started it all. Medium CEO Tony Stubblebine announces the Boost, what we want to do with it, and what kinds of stories get Boosted. Notable quote: "Our goal is to work in partnership with community curators to maintain a high standard for stories that get this Boost: stories that are constructive, original, written from relevant experience, well-crafted, and memorable."

A simple answer to one of the most common questions we get about the Boost. Written by the person running the Boost Nomination Program, Ariel Stallings. (She's also Director of Publisher Growth.) Notable quote: "Here's the easy answer: Find an indie publication in the BNP that aligns with your style and start submitting."

A great behind-the-scenes post. Gets into what the Boost is, how it works, and how we pick nominators. Notable quote: "Assuming stories meet our Boost distribution standards, we strive to represent stories on all topics. Again, that means constructive, well-crafted, memorable, and original, written by a credible author with relevant experience."

This is a selection of highlighted questions and answers from the comments section of the "A Nosy FAQ" story. The two questions tackled are why we have a Boost in the first place instead of relying on algorithms, and why certain writers have seen views go down after the Boost system was put into place. Notable quote: "The only way to really write for this new system is to spend more time on fewer stories, because the investment of making a story a bit more personal, original, memorable, etc will result in more distribution and earnings than a bunch of stories that don’t."

In short: no, nor does it punish any topic other than the ones we specifically talk about in our Quality Guidelines as topics that aren't eligible for a Boost. Two notable quotes from this one! "I also want to share this data with you: stories on the topic religion have been boosted more frequently in the past 10 days than stories on topics such as javascript, books, social media, money, and justice." (Although worth highlighting this changes organically over time -- I haven't checked the most recent distribution stats, but sometimes certain topics are more Boosted, and then less Boosted just depending on what people are writing and what our nominators/curators are finding.) "I can tell you quite confidently that there’s no algorithmic or curational bias against stories about topics like javascript, books, or social media — nor is there a bias against religious or spiritual content."

Not strictly a story, but a great comment on another FAQ. Ariel answers "What specific topics is Medium is looking for in Boost Nomination Pilot publications?" Notable quote: "The key here is that we don't want folks running pubs based on topics they think people want to read about -- we want folks running pubs focused on topics that they have unique, specific experience with."

Another great BTS read. This one goes into more nitty-gritty mythbusting for folks who are well aware of what the Boost is and want to know more of the smaller details. She is unafraid to get into the difficult questions! Includes top hits like, "My story got Boosted yesterday, so why didn’t my traffic immediately jump?" and "Do Boost Nomination Pilot nominators have an unfair amount of power on Medium?" Notable quote: "Only half of the stories that get Boosted across Medium come from nominators. The other half is Boosted directly by our internal curation team, who review stories from across Medium all day, every day."

This one's all about what we're looking for when we add publications to the program. TL;DR: We're looking for a focused publication topic (i.e., not "stories about life"), high quality writing (should be a given), editors with a strong POV or expertise on a subject, and clear publication submission guidelines. Notable quote: "[W]e’re looking for publications that share stories speaking to readers with very specific interests and goals."

I wrote this one too! Quick caveat: this is NOT a checklist. Nominators and curators don't use checklists. This is just some factors that COULD mean your story doesn't get Boosted, if curators were already on the fence about it. There are exceptions to every one of these, because at the end of the day, curators are looking at the whole story to see if we'd be proud to recommend it to our readers as the best of Medium, not going through a checklist. "Our team can’t provide feedback on every story they choose not to Boost (literally in the thousands every month), but I know that feedback is really valuable. I asked our curators to share a few times they said 'We wish we could have Boosted this story, but [something],” so I could share them with you.'"

A really fab interview between Ariel and Adeola Sheehy-Adekale, the editor of Modern Women. Really insightful story about what Adeola does to manage her publication, how the Boost changed her editing style, and what she looks for in stories to nominate. Notable quote: "Having Modern Women be part of the Boost Nomination Pilot has really nudged the writers in my publication to be like, “How can I write in a way that my story will be heard and be listened to properly?”" And another fantastic quote: "Don’t be satisfied with just being published on Medium. Ask yourself: Who is my story for? Who will remember it? What difference is it making? If you want to write an outstanding story, you have to think about the difference it’s going to make. How will your story sink in with readers?"

Terrie, Director of Content Curation, explains why certain kinds of stories don't currently get Boosted, like violence, non-fiction sexuality, and other topics. This is something we hear a lot at Medium -- "Why don't you Boost XYZ?" -- and I thought Terrie's comprehensive answer was well-worth a read, even though the whole piece isn't strictly about Boosting. Notable quote: "The issue here is one of context: Boosted stories are given high visibility on the site, in the app, and in email digests. It creates a poor experience for readers to unexpectedly have profanity, gore, or sexually explicit material foisted upon them. That makes it a basic courtesy to not Boost this type of content."

Another from Terrie, Director of Content Curation. This one explains certain changes we made to how we trained curators to decide on stories to Boost. "The best overall way to think about stories we Boost is to think of them as if they are cover stories for a magazine. We’re selecting the stories that shine."

How can you get Boosted? The simplest way: write something that fits the guidelines, and submit it to a publication that is in the Boost Nomination Program. That way, you guarantee that an editor with the ability to nominate will at least see your work and potentially give you some guidance or feedback. Notable quote: "We want Medium to be a place where anyone can start a publication about their niche, and get involved with nominating quality stories for our curation team to see."

I wrote this one! Not strictly Boost-specific, but I do talk about one of the most pervasive myths on Medium and how it can affect your likelihood of getting Boosted: trying to publish a story every day. Basically, we've worked hard to align all our incentives to reward high-quality, deep, thoughtful, insightful stories written by people who have a reason to tell those stories. For the most part, that tends to exclude high-volume publishing. I'm sure there's a writer out there who can publish an amazing, Boost-worthy story every single day, but for most of us mere mortals, it's just not possible and we tend to write more Boostable stories when we take our time and go deep.