Gather Upgrade - A Report Card

For those members that have an interest in such things…this is an OPINION piece.

Earlier this week, Gather made some long-awaited updates to their system functionality and security.  The following represents a brief review of these changes (as well as a test drive of the cool new article editor!).

Article Search

The Good: 

• Searching does seem a bit faster, and newer articles appear to be indexed much sooner as well.  Previously, it could take a relatively long period of time before newly published articles would show up in an article search. 

The Bad: 

• No significant external changes are visible, with the exception of a new text entry box on the search results page.  However, this box is fairly small, compared with its bigger brother further up on the page.  This box could add significant functionality to article searches if it was used to search within the displayed search results.  Currently it performs the same function as the article search box at the top of the page.  Hence, somewhat redundant. 

• Searching still does not recognize the OR operand.  Consequently, searching articles that may contain a variety of keywords, like 'immigration' or 'alien' still requires two separate searches. The availability of this operand is fairly common in most search engines outside of Gather. 

• The text displayed on the search results page is incorrect (or at least oddly placed), as it applies to Gather Group searches, and not articles:
  

"Finding the group you're looking for is a snap. Each group name, groupspace, and group description will be searched. And you can sort by most popular, recent content, number of publications, and recently modified. To search for groups by topic, go tag hunting. Visit any tags page by clicking on a word in the left-hand column, or try your own tag at www.gather.com/yourtaghere."

Grade:  B-
 

Email Notification Options

The Good: 

• Any ability to reduce or manage emails is a good thing. 

The Bad: 

• While 'poking around' in this feature, it would have been great to also turn off the notification we receive when we comment on our own content …or, provide the option for doing so. 

Note: To learn of a work-around solution, read this article:  

Gather Tip: Email Notifications Tune-up #1

Grade:  A
 

Staying Signed In

The Good: 

• Hopefully never having to 'log in' repetitively.  Did I mention never having to log in repetitively?
  

The Bad: 

• When using a shared computer, you may wish to sign out after each Gather session, to avoid others from accessing your account.
  

Group Search

The Good:

• Search results are much more comprehensive, as a larger pool of data elements are now looked at when conducting a search.  Search results can also be sorted by a variety of elements, and the drop down boxes actually work correctly (well, sort of). 

• Search 'wildcards' may be used to increase the effectiveness of group searches, and to reduce the requirement to search multiple times, using individual variations of the search term.  For example, entering a search term of garden* will search groups for any occurrence of the following words: garden, gardens, gardening, gardener, etc.  The group search function recognizes the same wildcards as article search.  For a tutorial on using wildcards in article searches, you may read this article:

How to Find 'True Love' on Gather

The Bad:

• Search results are almost too comprehensive.  Since the group name, group descriptions, tags, and group URL are used collectively in the search, the selected search term may return a larger quantity of groups than anticipated.  This is due to some group descriptions containing words which are not necessarily applicable to the groups content.  There is currently no way to refine the search, or to search within the search results.  We also cannot search data elements individually, such as group name, URL and group descriptions.  Thus, we must either drink from a firehose, or dehydrate.

• The OR operand is not recognized (see Article Search section above).
  

• The drop down sort box options are misleading in their labeling, and out of sequence with the description heading for the page. The 'Recent' option does not sort by recently published content, but by the date the group was created, while the 'Recently Modified' option does sort the results based upon the date and time content was published to the group.
  

• Using HTML in Gather Group descriptions prevents group search from recognizing the affected text.

Grade:  B

RSS Feeds

The Good: 

• They work. Yay! 

• Use of the 'mouseover' menu, makes selection simple and clean. Nice! 

The Bad:

• I am prone to accidentally running my mouse over the RSS icon, triggering the menu.   Fortunately, you don't need to click the 'close this' link.  Instead,  just run your mouse over the icon again to close it. .
  

• Even more now to 'feed' my existing RSS addiction!

Grade:  A+

FAQs (help)

The Good: 

• The FAQs have been updated to reflect the new features, they include simple explanations, easy to follow instructions, and even graphics! 

Here are a couple: 

Publishing 

RSS 

• Also, it appears as though prior errors or omissions in the FAQs have been rectified. 

The Bad:

• Some of the new FAQs are inaccurate.  For example, the instructions for the hyperlink button states: "Position your cursor in the text where you want the URL to be located, left click the link button and then enter the URL of the address you are linking to."  This should actually inform members that they must select, or highlight, the text they wish to link from, not position the cursor in the text.
  

Grade:  A-

Article Editor

The Good: 

• What's not to be thankful for this holiday season?  Saving drafts, MSWord formatting (tables! colors! style!), as well as HTML commands. 

• Text and image placement is now MUCH more consistent between various browsers, and versions. 

• Other image issues appear to have been resolved or minimized. 

• Identifying moderated and private groups is very helpful. 

The Bad:

• I have encountered multiple formatting difficulties, especially with line spacing.  Occasionally, these issues are exacerbated when saving articles as a draft first. 

• I also have noted odd behavior on the second publishing screen with viewing options deviating from the norm.
  

• A few problems have been encountered with the display/format of the hyperlink window in Firefox.
  

• Some fonts and formatting options do not transfer well, or at all from MSWord.
  

Grade:  A

Communication

The Good:

• Contrary to prior updates, communication to the community for this update was exceptional.

• The FAQs reflect the current changes, and helpful articles written by Jim Bostick explain the new functionality in greater detail, and were published to coincide with the change, instead of the following day.
  

• Regular updates provided by Tom kept the community apprised of issues related to the changes, as well as his informative article summarizing the enhancements.
  

• Video overviews will provide additional instruction for members to acquaint them with new functionality.
  

Excellent!

Jim's Articles:

New and Improved Article Publishing on Gather

New Gather Feature: Keep Me Signed In 

Tom's Article:

Gather Update: New Features Make Gathering Easier

 
The Bad:

• It would be helpful to provide information for ALL changes made to the application, especially those impacting the user experience in some way.  As examples:

• HTML tags are no longer allowed in Gather Group descriptions.  Also, for existing groups that are currently using HTML, affected text will not be recognized by the new Gather Group search function.  This information would prove useful to Gather Group owners, as the elimination of HTML tags will increase the likelihood of their group appearing within group search results (by the way, there is a typo in the related error message on the 'Edit Your Group Settings' page).

• When attempting to join a Gather Group from the groupspace,  members already having a pending invitation to the group are now informed that they have a pending invitation.  A link to the 'Group Invitations' page is also provided.  Previously, no join button or message was displayed.  Awareness of these corrections improves user experience and perception.
  

Grade:  A

Overall Grade:  A