I follow those writers who comment and clap for me. That’s a lot. but I also put real work into reading other’s work, and when I clap or comment, I do my best to make it count. I have not noticed a huge dropoff, but for the simple fact of holidays and I was gone for three weeks in Ethiopia. I no longer read any advice on how to on Medium, Helen, which may or may not shoot me in the foot. I write my ass off, comment when I see something interesting. What I will do, and I think it snags me both claps and readers, is that I love to uplift, highlight and further build on other people’s work. I regularly pilfer their comments, link back to their stories so that they get readers, and I turn their comments into a larger story. This speaks to my pleasure in building community, highlighting good writers and honoring those comments that I think are really striking. This isn’t for everyone. Part of what’s fun for me is to tease out a thread and turn someone else’s thread into a complete article. Sometimes I do that with several writers. My impression is that people like that- if for nothing else, it makes it very clear that I take their comments seriously. This goes back to your point about potentially over doing it. I probably have too, but I really do read folks’ stuff.