I'm excited to report that today, Gather introduces a series of brand-new features and enhancements to existing functionality to make the site simpler to use. There's also new technology that helps regular Gather readers keep track of their favorite authors and content off Gather. Read more about it, and take a look at all the features of our latest release:
- A new article publishing tool
- New group identifiers
- RSS/syndication of Gather content
- Group search functionality
- Better management of sign-ins
- New notification email settings
Because there are so many exciting changes across the site, I'll address them individually. You can always go to our FAQ page to learn more, as well.
New Article Publishing Tool
Our new publishing tool lets you publish an article easier than ever. It includes new features like the ability to publish from MS Word, clearer icons for basic tasks, and -- most importantly -- a draft mode that saves your work automatically as you move from step to step! 
This last feature has been requested for some time, and we're pleased to enable you to create an article, upload images, and have your work be there if you have to step away from the computer before you're finished. Some additional features in the publishing tool: the ability to resize the box that holds the body of the article (so you can see your whole work in one screen), and improved compatibility with Safari for those of you using Macs.
New Group Identifiers
When you publish your articles to groups you belong to, you'll now notice that some of the groups have the words "private" or "moderated" after their names. This serves as a reminder of how the distribution of your article will occur in that group. For moderated groups, remember to leave some time for the moderator to review your content.
RSS/Syndication of Content
You may have noticed the orange RSS icons around the site, in particular on your namespace pages (e.g. tom.gather.com) or on group homepages (e.g. politics.gather.com).
With this new release, you can subscribe to the recent stream of articles published by any member or group. Whether you subscribe to this "feed" using your browser (Firefox, Microsoft Explorer, or Apple Safari), Google, Yahoo!, or other portals, or if you use an RSS feed reader, you can keep up-to-date with your favorite authors and concepts there. We'll provide lists of new articles wherever you read your RSS feeds. When you're ready to read an article you see there, just click the link and we'll whisk you back Gather to read the full story.
Group Search
Gather members have such diverse interests that you've created more than 3,500 groups through which to explore them together.
Members have formed groups on everything from poetry and politics to pie baking and parachuting. Today, we've made it easier to find those groups. Our new Group Search capability scans the groups' names, tags, descriptions, and content to see if there's a match for the type of people and content you're looking for. 
So now you can find that small group dedicated to bird-watching in Montana or the fast-growing eco-friendly group on how to live a sustainable life.
More Email Notification Options
We've added a new set of options to your Settings that allows you to turn off email notifications inviting you to join groups or connect with someone new.
Even if you decide to turn these notifications off, you'll still see these requests in your My Gather dashboard. All of your email settings can be adjusted by going to the Settings page.
Staying Signed In
Because it's important to be recognized when you navigate through parts of the site or link in from outside of Gather, we've changed the "remember me" link to "keep me logged in."
This means you'll never have to log in again. If someone else wants to use Gather on your computer, simply sign out.
Many more features and improvements are on the way, but I hope this gives you a sense of what we're doing to make your Gather experience the best it can be. And I hope you're as excited about these updates as we are. As always, keep the comments and suggestions coming. The entire Gather Team and I appreciate your feedback; simply leave a comment below this article or in our improve.gather.com forum. Thanks for helping build a better Gather!
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Comments: 62
I would like to see Groups in Alphabetical Order, and the pages listing groups and connections easier to use. If Groups and Connections are in Aphabetical order, and the page numbers listed, we could click on a page number and find what we are looking for. Right now, if you have 20 pages of groups it takes forever to click on next each time to view your listings. If the pages were set up in alphabetical order, and instead of page numbers use aphabet letters, we could click on the letter and it should take us to or close to the group we are looking for. The same could be used for connections. Alphabetical order with the alphabet letters to search for the connection. The "Your connections who just signed on" could be done away with and instead, an offline or online phrase added to the member's icon.
Thank you for your consideration.
thank you from the bottom of my peanut butter heart. :)
I love the fact that you people actually LISTEN to us!!!
What a great community!!!
5 points to note:
1 - the link to your "improve.gather.com" forum didnt take me there. i got an "oops: page doesnt exist" note twice. it may be my stuff doing this or it may be an oops somewhere else down the line - i just thought you might want to know.
2 - i've often found i have comments to something i've published, dialogues, questions etc. but i find it difficult sometimes to find where that comment actually is - which article or images etc. would it be possible to list new activities on your articles in the dashboard area of our gather.com page with a link to the specific article or image where the comment was made? i think this would facilitate discussion and dialogue among members and the exchanges could take place quicker and easier.
3 - i like the idea expressed above about alphabetical listings and "jump to page" buttons for every area where there can be multiple pages.
4 - i also like the idea of being able to organize my group lists the way i want to organize them. not just alphabetical listings, but my own grouping of groups.
5 - i also like the idea of online/offline indicators with icons. many sites have this feature as well as an invisible feature so that you can choose to be online but not be seen as online - this helps when you are reading articles and you have limited amounts of time, or are responding to something and do not want to be interrupted.
mahalo (thanks) for all your hard work. i'm excited to see how the new publishing features work for me as i have had difficulties with some of them. your crew helped me figure it out once and then i lost my computer and switched over to an imac which changed things up on me again. firefox has worked better for me than safari so i switch back and forth between the two when i am publishing or reading - i'm hoping the safari adjustments will solve some of these issues for me. that would be way cool.
thanks again, keep up the great effort - cool on these new features - aloha - Wrick.
But how about giving us more control of the functionality: more basic publishing tools (see Barbara's comment) and the ability for us to organize our groups, connections and comments.
Another huge improvement would be enabling us to organize our articles and pics in the way that we want them - i.e. not everything automatically place into chronological order according to publication date. Think folders! Finally, having to refresh the page after every comment drives me and many others crazy - there are sites where this is not necessary.
What I'm really saying, Tom, is please give us more tools which allow us to organize the Gather experience that we are having.
TY Tom & Gather for making gather a Better Place to Gather.
Clearly, they are not reading the proviso at the bottom of the AP or NYT page, which clearly states 'reproduction prohibited'.
I do think a reminder from you that the US Copyright Office clearly states that EXCERPTS from articles ALONG with commentary may be published by another author, but NOT ENTIRE articles.
Lots of exploring to do this morning.
I have mentioned this to you guys since the beginning. It is a feature on another site I write for called BLOGIT.COM. I used that feature all the time. Have one of your team go check this out and build it into your next version of gather.
And why can't we have back to back posts in the comments section without having to refresh??
I wasn't on Gather after the upgrade (until this morning), but so far, it appears as though Gather has 'done good'.
Hopefully, we can now use the OR operand in article searches, as that would provide significant advantage in finding content of interest.
Well Done!
I would just like to add my plug for a master index of groups sorted by major category. It would be so much easier to find them, as opposed to repeated tag searches, article announcements, or stumbling into them like we usually do. A link to this index on the front page or My Gather would be great.
Thanks again.
I also want to put in my request for a way to arrange all my groups the way thats most convenient for me. I think this would cut down on alot of posting something to the wrong groups.
It seems we can't all be satisfied all of the time, and I hate to bring it up when so many nice features are just added, but some of the comments above make a lot of sense. I do hope eventually (soon, please?) we can see some of these addressed.
My Christmas Wish List:
1- A way we can group our groups by categories - whether in alpha order is irrelevant to me, but by categories would be great! John's idea of a Master Index by Major Category with a link on My Gather page would be awesome!
2- A way to be able to make back to back posts in the comments section without having to refresh!!!!
3- A way for us to be able to change fonts, text color, text size, quotes, centering on the publishing page would be absolutely fantastic!
4- What Magi - Nicola says
5- My Connections in Alpha order would be nice
But mainly....thanks for listening to us!
Wishing you and the rest of Gather.com crew a Happy Thanksgiving!
I don't understand your post at all. What do you mean by having only 3 slots in which to publish your work?
I noticed you belong to many groups (3 pages) and many of them are poetry groups. If you publish your poetry to all of them, then a wider readership reads them. Your article or poem will always be there for others who might have missed it at first, to see when they log in and search for articles. Your connections should also be able to find your articles/poems easily without you having to republish each time.
Your articles will not disappear as you seem to think. They just slip down into the group's article line-ups as other publish after you, but they stay there, they don't go anywhere.
1) We are now removing content that violates fair use quickly whenever flagged by members. We encourage you to flag content that contains other people's intellectual property.
2) In early 2007, we will allow you to create legal citations of off-Gather content and discuss that content here. This system will remove the incentive to repost content here that belongs to someone else.
Stay tuned! We believe protecting intellectual property rights is as important as you do.
I second the suggestion of John S. for a master index of groups sorted by major categories. That can narrow down the search. Scanning by names, tags or descriptions may not give the right clues for finding members' specific interests.
I have yet to explore these exciting features. A customizable home page is one of the new features that I am looking forward to in the upcoming updates.
I have not been able to publish 'anything' to my group or any groups since you updated. NADA!
I am on a mac system using safari browser ... but it was working fine before the updates. I do not have the luxury of using another browser so if this is not 'fixed' soon ... and the glitch in the program remove so it is more universally user friendly ... my Gather experience is very limited and will have to go migrate somewhere else in cyber land.
Now I don't want to ... but there is not much use for me in Gather.com if I can't publish to my groups or to my friends groups! Would really appreciate some assistance.
Thanks again ... I am posting this too often as it is. Also in the support group ... plus have personally email the support team. Will see what transpires.
Thanks and kudows to you and all the Gather staff. Really like the new publishing tool. For the first time since joining Gather, I have been able to use the regular publishing link. Check out my article published with it.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976848806
Thanks!