Welcome to our monthly Ask the CEO chat!
I would like to start by thanking you for joining me today. As always, I look forward to the helpful and thought-provoking comments these chats generate. Gather has seen some extraordinary growth in the past month, making our site even more of a world-class community. My time spent with you really helps our team focus our priorities and gives us insight into the needs and wants of our most valuable asset: our members.
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I will be here for the next hour to listen and respond to your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.
For those who are joining this chat for the first time and even for those who are returning, this is your time to let me, and the entire Gather team, know your thoughts. I encourage you to voice your opinions about everything Gather. I am excited about spending time with all of you -- so let's get started!
All the best,
Tom Gerace, CEO
Gather.com
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Comments: 66
Next week, we will launch a new version of our text editor. This will include greater formatting flexibility, easier posting from Microsoft Word documents, and the ability (for more technologically advanced users) to post HTML.
Editing comments is in our queue (you can currently delete and repost comments, but we know that's not a good long term solution). We will likely also allow formatting and links in comments once this goes live.
What do you mean by a time stamp? Do you want one for comments (in addition to the date)?
Thanks, Tom!
In the future, we will enable you to "block" certain users so that you do not see their content. We expect to allow members to also choose to not see members that have been widely blocked so that individuals can benefit from community discovery.
I should call out, of course, that we encourage free speech and debate here on the site. Calling an idea "stupid" may not be polite (or particularly helpful), but it doesn't violate our terms of service. Threatening or harassing a person, however, clearly does step over the line. We will rely on the community to help identify members that violate our TOS and on our member services team to make close calls in a fair and consistent way.
The "article feature" function should allow the group owner to assign the order the article should be featured in. Currently, articles appear in the order they are deemed "featured". if you want to leave a particular article as the "main" feature and add others beneath it, you have to keep unfeaturing and the re-featuring the "main" article. Very annoying.
We should also be able to "jump" straight to the page we want when searching for an article within a group, rather than having to laboriously scroll through each and every page in turn. This creates a really annoying situation for a group owner who wants to remove multiple articles from a group. You have to remove them one at a time, and after you've removed the article the program takes you back to the *main group page*, meaning that you have to scroll through ALL of the content all over again to remove the next article! Now I understand why so many group owners don't bother to remove unwanted content, it can take hours!
One other thing I would also like to see is article author's icon displayed along with the article title.
Stay tuned for more detail (and please post your suggestions in our improve.gather.com group!)
Hooray! I think this will be a great improvement. Will we be able to "block" groups, or just users?
My concern is being unable to delete certain photo that you invite people send you when you feel they are in appropiate.
Travis- I will add the idea of a comment time stamp as well. It makes good sense in the threaded and/or editable comments world. Thanks.
I notice that quite often duplicates of the same article show up, either one right after another, or after a brief time lapse. I suppose this is someone's clever idea of gathering more Gather points, but it is annoying. Any way for "Gather technology" to prevent this?
I second Auntie S. on the Hooray for this one!
- Group management tools (similar to what you suggest)
- Group customization (allowing you to customize your group look and feel)
- Group survey tools
We had not spent as much time considering editorial feature scheduling (e.g. "this should be featured for X days in the #1 slot") but I will be sure our product team sees your comment. I will ask they consider author photo display next to comments as well. Thanks!
Auntie S- initial "blocking" will be for individual users (group memberships change over time so that makes it difficult for groups). We will be seeking comment on a feature set here shortly.
Love the site. Thanks for making it run.
When I first came to Gather the old set-up had drop down menus; are there any plans to add them to the Andre version?
Also; Do you have a link to the MSNBC video clip? That would be cool.
You are probably really busy there improving this site. I enjoy all the comments that one can make on all the articles. I hope there will be ways to delete pics that people send you that you dont want showing on your site. Like yesterday i made the mistake of accepting a request for someone to join my group well afterwards I saw he was into porn and deleted him from my group.
Other people's photography cannot be deleted by one individual member. We do maintain community categorization and reporting systems for adult content to prevent members that do not wish to see this content from happening upon it as well.
Did this answer your question?
I would appreciate it if you would detail "fair and consistent". This, as I hope you know, has been a huge problem for me, for many months. I have reported (and provided proof) that certain members approach new people with untrue and/or terribly misrepresented information about me. Although they have removed the articles and comments that prove they are being dishonest, and everything I have done here is still available, it is too much to ask new members to go back through a year of my history to see who I really am. I have sent copies of those missing articles and comments to you, and others have told me that they also sent you copies of the letters that go out to new members. As a result, some new members join Gather, immediately seek out those of us on the 'hit list', referring to things that they 'think' happened months before they joined. I'm sure, if you offer this: In the future, we will enable you to "block" certain users so that you do not see their content. We expect to allow members to also choose to not see members that have been widely blocked so that individuals can benefit from community discovery. the owner of the group that created the hit list (Candida, from all the reports I have received) will make sure those of us on the hit list end up on that 'community discovery' list. My only recourse to date has been to repeatedly rehash and republish the truth that those who threaten some of us have removed from the site. It it not a pleasant position to be in. Does your plan for 'fair and consistent' take this huge problem into consideration?
my other question as others have stated.. that when publishing an article or picture. For groups that we have joined it would be nice to be able to sort them into some type of category so that we know what type of article can go into what group. something like this
Gather.... groups that are specific to gather questions that would be for people like you to ask questions to or groups that are specific to gather management.
post anything.... groups that allow anything to be posted....
christian groups...... groups for christian content..
it would be nice to be able to categorize them myself for my needs....
Saw you on MSNBC - really cool! How was going toe to toe with Chris Matthews? Also, what are the plans for the Gather Election Group now that the elections are over?
Thanks!
You never need to post an article twice to have it appear in different places. This second step makes submitting your content to various groups a snap.
I just reviewed your proposed Community Standards. Could you please define the term "comment spammiing"? Thanks
I will see if I can track down the Chris Matthews video and get their permission to post it. We do have a copy, but it's MSNBC's copyrighted content so I can't post it without permission. I will drop you a note if we get their nod.
Thankyou~ Have a nice day ~
I recently noticed that if you are looking for one of your people, you can go to People and then Find People and in the upper right hand corner I noticed where you can click on friends, family or colleagues. Is it possible if I have already connected to someone as a friend that I can change the connection to family? It would make it so much easier to find the people I consider family.
The challenge here is that IP (IP = Internet Protocol, for those reading along) addresses are not unique for all people. Many services (AOL, for example) use proxy servers for their members, meaning that thousands of people's requests come to us via a single IP address.
I think threaded comments will let group-owners do just what you suggest. They will then be able to start a new conversation with little more than a title and short description (even, as some bloggers do, "Open Thread on Turkey") to create a focused space to discuss any aspect of a topic from time to time.
Thanks!
Thanks again for making Gathering possible.
We have learned our lesson here that these systems can be used (like any other) as a method for one or a small handful of users to attempt to silence the voice of another. For that reason, systems we build going forward will have mechanisms to identify and prevent "crying wolf." In fact, the act of reporting a user when the have done nothing wrong violates our TOS for this reason and we will be tracking "malicious reporters" as well.
Sadly, everyone, I need to head to a meeting. I will check back later today and answer as many open questions as I can, though. Thanks for joining us here today. I look forward to talking with you all again soon!
thank the gohds...
(1) The new version of the text editor
(2) The threaded commenting system
(3) Individual capability to "block" certain users
(4) Improved group search tools
Some more suggestions:
(1) Reintroduce persons with highest number of comments
(2) Indicate unique page views for every article
(3) A corner for updated statistical data about the site
(4) A corner for information on important Gather staff members.
Have a great Day.
Keep up the good work. Thanks.
Thanks for your commitment to the gather community.