Please Publish Appropriately To Groups

It seems clear from my experience and from emails received from other group leaders, that not everybody is posting to appropriate groups.

Generally, I don't think this is deliberate misuse. With a few people, I think it IS deliberate misuse, where someone simply publishes to many, many groups with little or not thought as to appropriate content.

For example, the two-word challenge group run by Monica Kennedy, pertains to articles that respond ONLY to the two-word challenge of the week. The articles posted to that group MUST have the two-word challenge of the week IN the article. Yet, some persist in publishing ANYTHING to that group. Pity. It gums up the works for everybody else. It's a fine group. Join the two-word challenge. It's fun. You don't have to publish on the CURRENT two-word challenge; you can publish on ANY of the two-word challenges.

Some groups have a lot of members; this, seems to be where a lot of the problems lie. One of my groups, Gatherholics, is for articles that pertain ONLY to Gather addiction. Some good Gatherers may have misunderstood Gatherholics to be simply articles about Gather, or, simply just articles in Gatherholics. The description clearly states Gatherholics is about Gather addiction. Generally, this has not been a problem with Gatherholics, but in a few cases, I think people may not be reading the group description.

Group owners need to be careful when writing the group description. Also, when sending out an invite, make sure the recipient knows exactly WHAT type of article is accepted, WHAT type of article is NOT.
When an owner sends a group invite to join from the group settings page, there is no room in the invite to make such a statement; I suggest sending an email before hand to say the owner is inviting people to the group - and that the group publishing rules state which kind of content is acceptable. I have done this with one of my groups.

Another of my groups, The Renewed Activist, generally has appropriate content, but a few people consistently post across all groups indiscriminately. I wish I could state that these people know who they are, but they don't read other comments made by other people, so they are in the dark.

Some articles in The Renewed Activist are borderline appropriate, though, and I would urge authors to reconsider them. The Renewed Activist is about civil had human rights issues; this DOES span across a wide spectrum, but it is NOT a general-purpose group. It is NOT enough to mention the name of a famous civil rights leader, for example, without it being OBVIOUS that a connection exists between the leader and the article. Otherwise, it sounds like the name has been inserted simply to fit into the group.

When a reader reads any article, it should be OBVIOUS why the article is in the group. This should be obvious to ANY reader of the article, and especially to group leaders.

I also think part of the problem lies with perspective. Many group leaders (I fall into this category) may have a certain angle or perspective in mind when creating the group. Other writers may believe their article fits into that category and may publish under that belief. So, it behooves the group leaders to be as clear as possible when creating the group and when communicating with the group.

Some group leaders have sent group emails clarifying the position on which perspectives are appropriate for their group. Thank you!!! This is a very helpful thing to do, as well as to state up-front on the group description page, what perspectives ARE appropriate and what ARE not.

So, if it happens to you that a group leader has emailed you stating your article does not seem to be appropriate and will be removed (or, if it has been removed) do not fret. It is in the best interest of everybody. It has even happened to me.

And I thought I was publishing appropriately. It is a matter of perspective and of being clear in the group description.

If, however, you are someone who simply mass posts to groups, please CEASE and DESIST that practice. It does not win you readers; quite the obvious, in fact. People will skip your article simply because it does not fit.

I have an idea: somebody could create a group where ANYTHING goes, so that content not already fitting in one of the many, many Gather groups can find a home.

Just a thought....

I'm not publishing this to any of my groups, because none of my groups are about building a better Gather.