Hi Andy, I'm an editor for Illumination and I can tell you that "Thanks to whomever" note is a completely automated thing done by Medium. If you leave a private note on a draft, and the draft gets published, that thanks note pops up. It's fine if you actually made a contribution to help a writer and they felt good about the contribution, but I've rejected pieces before, and saw that note pop up on articles I didn't exactly want to be associated with. As far as I've seen, publications don't have any control over it.

It doesn't make it any less frustrating, but at least you know who to blame :)