I created what I'll call a "map" to my Gather articles (aka: "posts"). At first I wanted to help readers find my earlier writings, but it became clear before long that even I had trouble negotiating my 100+ posts. Eventually my quest led to the creation of a group where other writers have now created similar maps of their own.
Lest it seem I am embarking on self-promotion here, I'd like you to also know about two other groups that accomplish similar objectives.
Kevin V has put considerable effort into a group called Gather Group Directory, that organizes existing groups alphabetically by tag.
Bart H hosts the group One, where members are encouraged to post only one article apiece - thereby drawing more attention to that article than if it appeared in one laundry list or another.
If you know of similar efforts on Gather, please do provide the link or description in a comment.
I don't take the formation of any of these groups to be a criticism of Gather. These groups are complementary to the system design and represent the natural organic evolution of the site.
Please check out maps created by various writers in the Map to our Posts Group. Each of us charged ahead without any instructions - that I know of - and I've already adopted a few ideas from others.
This is not a how-to, but rather I'll just give a few pointers.
1) To create your map, you need to know how to link to your articles. Monica Kennedy wrote a very nice tutorial for this, and you can find it here. If - like me - you have difficulty following instructions, do not despair. I skimmed the article and came up with enough clues to figure it out. If your learning style is more conventional, I'm sure the instructions are fine.
2) Sometimes you may want to create a link without the tool provided by Gather. I had no idea how to do this, and Jim Vaughey was so kind as to provide this quick little tutorial:
[a href="the page link"]the words you want linked[/a]
except change the brackets to greater/less than symbols "< >"
This made sense to me, and if you fiddle with it a little it will become clear how it works. If after you've posted or sent your document the link fails to appear as a simple, blue underlined word or phrase, just delete it and try again (the link, not your post : )
The links will not appear until after the document has been posted or sent.
If that's still to cryptic for you, Jessie Voigts has posted a great tutorial on the topic.
3) You may want a quick way to get to your map, and the map itself will become less and less handy as your more-recent posts push it further and further down on your list of recent posts.
My suggestion: Go to the drop-down menu for "My Info", select "About Me", and click on "edit your profile". In the beginning of the Favorite Music section, create a link to your map. It can be something as simple as a dot (that only you will recognize), or something a little more instructive, like my phrase "About me (really)". By placing a link here you are always two or three clicks away from your map (depending on how you count clicks). As always, if you can find a faster route, please teach me.
4) With easy access to all of your posts, I encourage you to put links within one that connects to something related in another of your posts (or someone else's). After all, if someone likes what they're reading, why not give them the option of continuing on to another piece?
5) I believe Google also weights content on the web by how many times it is linked to. If this is true, you are moving your posts (and Gather) up in the googasphere results by creating links. I could be wrong about that.
6) Keep in mind that every time you link to a site outside Gather, you are drawing the reader out of the community, and they may not return. I'm not saying this is wrong to do, but just be aware of that. What's good for the Gather is good for all of us; we want readers/writers to come here and we want them to stick around.
Whatever your motivation in creating a map, I highly recommend it. I encourage you to be creative. There's no "right" way to do it, and nothing would make me happier than to see someone else come up with a system that puts the efficiency of mine to shame. If this happens I'll copy it in a heartbeat.
.
recommend this
email
print
link to this page
Comments: 23
Great information from you as always! ...about a week ago, I published an article to the Gather Tips and Tricks group in which I describe a quick way of locating special articles, just like your 'Map to my Posts'. You can view this article here.
In addition to the tag method I outline within the article, you can also place a specific keyword in the body of the article itself (perhaps at the bottom). This eliminates the need to use the word 'tag:' when doing a search. I use this method whenever the words won't seem out of place.
But you have cleared it up, Kevin. If I just type in the search box a unique word I know is in the article - bang - there it is. Much better.
Now the news flash. To my delight, you clued me in to the obvious. I bookmarked my map. I then named it "@@map", so it would float to the top of my bookmarks. I can now access my map of articles with - whoa - ONE CLICK!
Magi
On my home page here on Gather, some of my articles are listed, but I am supposed to click a link to get to other ones. That link does not work. It has gotten to the point where I can't remember everything I've written, so what can I do?
Martha
Martha, if I'm not mistaken, you're having trouble with the link below your ten most-recent articles that says "next". If so, scroll up to the "next" link *above* that list of ten. For some reason the one at the bottom doesn't always work.
Now, all I have to do is get off my butt and do it.
1) Display a listing of all of your articles. As you know, they will be spread over multiple pages.
2) Open MSWord.
3) Click and drag through all of your articles, being careful to only highlight the article information, and not the ads in the right-hand column.
4) Copy and paste into Word (all hyperlinks will remain intact).
5) Repeat for each page of articles.
6) Then, in Word, simply delete the things you don't want to include in your map.
7) Rearrange and modify as necessary (font type, size, etc.).
8) When finished, select 'Replace' from the Edit menu.
9) Replace all ^p with ^l (this will prevent blank lines from being inserted when you paste the document into Gather's editor).
10) Copy and paste into Gather.
11) Done!
Pam, I too like to reciprocate when someone comments on my posts. It's easy to not do that, and it's a good policy to help people feel appreciated.
Mariana, thak you also. It's what these maps are for. Several of the writers have organized their posts by topic, and I learned from seeing that and followed suit. So if it's fiction you want, some of the maps will direct you right to it.