It seems no one at Medium is thinking clearly about this at all. If these 85 nominators pass on an article, by definition they've excluded that writer from success. Even if Medium had 10,000 nominators, they still wouldn't be able to read every new stories. Thus, nomination is in itself exclusionary.

(Do we even need to point out the irony of the sentence "our internal curation team also organically reviews stories"?)

Deep down, everyone knows the truth: the entire curate/boost system is an unhealthy affront to free speech. Readers literally pay Medium to show them stories the readers will love, not to see articles that curators and boosters with personal tastes and agendas think they should read.

The current system also GUARANTEES that some writers will write to please the Medium gods, rather than writing for themselves and their readers.

Medium is heading in a terrible direction and needs a massive re-think. No boosting, no curation, just actual organic reach. Fire all curators and nominators and build an algorithm that does two things:

1. Delivers readers 100% of the articles written by writers they've chosen to follow. Readers have instructed Medium to do so, and Medium should put reader preferences ahead of their own.

(Most Medium readers I know are facing the same problem right now- Medium is no longer showing them articles by writers they love. Most Medium writers I know are facing the same problem right now- Medium is no longer showing their articles to all the readers who follow them.)

2. If there's any room left over once the algorithm has accomplished task #1, it should deliver readers articles by writers they aren't currently following, but align with their interests. Their interests, not the interests of Medium's favored few.

Medium needs to put paying readers first. Otherwise, you'll be left with a bunch of groveling, psychophantic "writers" who scribe to please the tower instead of the square.