I will address the Priyanka issue later in this comment.
As you point out in the body of your article, while frowned on by many as self-promotion, there is nothing wrong with dropping links to one's own stories in comments to others when it adds to the conversation. I do that often. It is a form of meaningful engagement.
"Meaningful engagement is getting into a discussion with the piece, for the writer and the other readers to see, and enables one to broaden the base of who benefits from ones thoughts, and I have no issue citing my own stories, in context. I am not in it to shill for MPP $$ so I dont care, and frankly it’s stupid, that some consider citing ones own work in a response to be bad form. Why short change my message, and the readers thereof, with paraphrases." That's from a piece I posted in SYNERGY over two years ago, before you and I were acquainted I think, that covers many topics that I think you will enjoy or find interesting. https://medium.com/technical-excellence/waxing-tanka-about-home-5344f8581e1a
That story is subtitled "and finding serenity in the perspective of the shortness of life" and has the header "WITH WRITING TIPS AND A LESSON ON MEANINGFUL ENGAGEMENT ON MEDIUM TOSSED INTO MY CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL"
I also often drop links to the works of others in my comments, which I rarely if ever see anyone else do.
Medium does have a policy that counts mass self-promotion through irrelevant or copy-pasting multiple comments throughout a story as spam and is reportable.
As for Priyanka, as she did here, earlier this week she replied to me in a comment I had left in a story "Hey Marcus, Would you mind visiting my profile and read few article that might interest you? In this follow for follow race, I'm looking for someone who can do READ for READ so that we can find right people of our interest and follow them. :)" I was a bit disappointed that her comment had nothing to do with my comment but I felt that her energy was not ill-intended and actually reasonably well intended and I decided to check out her profile, replying to her, "I'll take a look. I don't engage in follow for follow or clap for clap etc. Even if I did choose to follow you, that's still not likely to cause the algorithm to push your stories to me. What you really want are subscribers and I'm very picky about who I subscribe to so my email doesn't get inundated." I found two stories in her profile worth reading and responding to, to which she replied in context. Today I found two newer ones there that I enjoyed reading. I think you would too.
Honestly Pretty Preeti, I am not sure why you are so upset or why readers have commented apologizing for engaging with her. I clicked into your story because you said someone sabotaged your work. I thought maybe someone plagiarized you or left mean comments and that triggered the defender in me. Frankly, I feel clickbaited. ;-)
Much love to and for you,
Marcus
