Dear Tom Gerace - I have a suggestion

i'm trying to figure out your idea. so would there be individual politics groups?

i would like it if more than 3 articles are listed on the group homepage just because of the # of articles posted.

the place to post this is improve.gather.com
join that group, edit your article and add it to that group.

It would mean that when you go to the articles page you would find it subdivided into several large groups. If you go to the politics page you would get all of the politics posts which would also go to the individual groups but you could skip the larger group and not see any politics posts. You could go to the gatherfluff page where all the games and one liners. etc.

It would add another layer at the top but it would eliminate going through as many irrelevant articles unless you want too and you wouldn't have to go to 500 groups to do it.

Thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't heard about that group.

This is what people have been suggesting for a while but in a different form - setting up hierarchical categories in addition to tags.

Tags came out in the last year or so as the new cool way to "organize" information on a website, but it is quite clear that they are the ADHD way of organizing and not a good way to create usable hierarchies of information.

I would love to have categories AND tags. You can only put your article in one or two categories, but add as many tags as you want just like always.

I wasn't suggesting getting rid of tags because some of the super groups, or categories, will be huge all by themselves.

I think it's a good idea Nanci

Nanci,
It's a good idea, but what about those of us that like a lot of different things. OK, I do. Nevermind, I'm probably just confused. It sounds good. You can also post this as a question on Kevin's question group on Sunday....

I think it would be a big step in the right direction. I have said this before, we need a way to filter OUT things we don't want to read. I don't read jokes. I don't read religious articles. I sometimes am in the mood for political stuff and sometimes not. I NEVER read recipes. So filtering would be great. Your idea, Nanci, would be a great one toward being able to bypass all the stuff we just aren't in the mood to read.

Nice idea. Nicely written.

Nanci - Good suggestion, very well written. There are thousands of Gather groups. It would be nice to segregate them subject-wise into super groups or folders.

This article may get some management attention if it is posted to any of the groups relating to 'Better Gather'.

Ok, at first i was confused.. but reading the comments made it a little more clearer... yes i agree this would be a great idea.

in order for others to read what you wrote.. including those that are not in your first downline to get more exposure.. you have to click let all read and then choose groups... it would be nice if our articles had to be posted to at least one group instead of all our people.. then people interested in certain topics would have to be in a group for that topic to get that type of message.

Nanci!

That's why I keep 30 of so members I am interested in following, 40 or so groups and thirty or so subscriptions. I want no more than that.

I'm a slow reader.

I think the first step is for the members to post in the correct group. For example, I don't think this article has anything to do with Target, or Surveys, or Homemade Gifts..... etc. But you posted it in all those groups. Wouldn't that be against the concept in this article itself?

Joe - I am suggesting broad super categories such as politics, religion, etc. and then to sub-divide those broad categories further by groups. That way people who want a specific subect like republicans or democrats can still go to those smaller groups but people who want a cross section of the politics articles can go to the politics page. People who don't want any politics at all (or religion or games or whatever) would just skip those super-groups. That way instead of coming to gather and having to wade through 1000 articles on everything under the sun, you would only have 200 articles on politics. to sift through.

People get really uptight when certain groups publish - whether it is religion, games, politics or whatever. If you didn't have to sort through those to get to what you want to read, it might eliminate some of the hostility that we see on Gather. If you don't see the articles that annoy you, you might be less inclined to do some drive by sniping. At the same time, you don't miss good articles that someone has posted on the topics that interest you because you don't have to weed through the stuff you aren't interested in at all.

Think of it like a book store - there are 10,000 items in the store that are subdivided into topics so if you want fiction you can go directly to the fiction section. Once you get there, there is further organization into subsections - romance, literature, horror, general fiction, etc. Instead of browsing through 10,000 titles, you can look at the 1,000 or so that are your primary interest area. The super group would be the section and the existing groups would be the subsections.

Selene, I posted to all of the groups because I wanted a broad section of responses since everyone is affected by the sensory overload of having hundreds of new articles every time they log in to Gather. It also illustrates my point because I had no idea that there was an improve gather group until trouble posted about it, so I missed that group entirely. This is the first time that I have posted to a broad cross section of Gather. I usually try to keep my articles to the interest area of the groups but in this case I wanted everyone to comment.

There definitely needs to be a better way to organize articles than the one that now exists. I like your idea and if it is read slowly, it makes perfect sense and would be a start.
A lot of groups get missed because there are so many groups and no index for them. If you don't enter the right tag or word in "find groups" you won't get all the groups pertaining to that category you are looking for and sometimes you get groups that aren't exactly what you are looking for. I like the library analogy and think this would be the perfect starting point.

I like the idea. I'm new and learning my way around but it does seem that I'm spending a lot of time glancing at a lot of ones in which I have no interest to get to the ones I like.

If you use the term "gathercom" as a tag you will see all the groups that have to do with gather.

It is hard to weed throught the general articles-thousands of them...

Nanci - I understand you want as many people to read this as possible... but I just don't agree that posting this article into the inappropriate groups is the way to go. Like Bonnie said, if you search the tags under Groups, there are many Gather related groups for suggestions, tips and tricks, etc, already. I think the first step to establish a rule is by not breaking it.

Selene I am sorry you are offended. As I said above I thought about it and decided to post to all of the the groups of which I am a member.

As I also said, I did not know there was an improvements group until Trouble and Bonnie told me. Obviously I know that now.

Just in case you didn't get it, for the third time - I did not know there was an improvements group but, in any event, I made a choice and posting this to multiple groups did not offend the 'rule' I ws proposing. That adds an extra layer of organization on the top. It does not in any way change the existing group structure. I understand that you are bothered by my choice.

Selene N. to Nanci B:

But you didn't .... and so on.

Damnit Nanci. Bad, bad Gather citizen.

Great idea. I'd like a button like 'post to all' then go back and eliminate the one's I did not intend to post to.

And I would like to see an end to articles posted verbatim from web-browsing (with a comment or to for originality). I can do that without coming here. I believe it is refered to as 'point-whoring' in some circles.

An idea sparked and an opinion expressed is a little more time consuming so it would cut down on some tripe. Kind of like a term paper without plagerizing too much, a Cliff Notes of publishing. An original thought and not a rip-off of a news service or dreams of a network-news-outlet wannabe. I think some times people are trying to publish a Gatherized Drudge Report for our edification.


Hey Girl - what/who is a Tom Gerace? Don't you have his email? Why did you bother all of us with this great idea. Tom should have already thought of it. Why did I read this in my group 'Life Sucks and So Do You'?

Hey!

Do you expect us to score this?

(points)

Nanci - I wasn't offended. I am not that easily offended. :-) I am just disagreeing with your group choices, that's all.

Steal Some more Baby, can we unload some Jolly Rogers here? LOv You!!

Nanci,

I totally agree 100 %. Now, can you make sure this link gets to Mr. Gerace? Unless he's answered you privately, this thread only serves to ...... to what? lol I'm very glad you wrote this!! :0)

Heather, I emailed Tom with the link and MaryAnne emailed back and asked me to post it here so it has definitely come to his attention!

just crap spread your legs on a football field but then again everyone would run

agree with Forest hey idea old lady spread your legs from one end of the football field to the other everyone will run honest

Thanks Nancy! This is something we are thinking a lot about for 2007.

Everyone- if we had 10 "Super Groups" - what would be your top 10 list?

In no particular order:



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