Problem with Gather's "Find...

I don't know what's wrong, but the "Find People" function doesn't seem to be working properly. Earlier I was looking for an article posted by Leti M. I searched for her name space. Her first name as displayed is "Leti", and her user name is simply "leti".

I searched for First Name "leti", First Name "Leti", and user name "leti", and each search returned 5 results. However, she was not on any of the search results.

Can Gather Tech Team fix this problem? I have so many connections, and sometimes I really have to rely on the "Find People" to get to a particular person, as I don't remember people's usernames, and the usernames are not displayed with the icons anyway.

Comments: 12

Wendy F. Apr 4, 2007, 4:47pm EDT

Yes, I have problems with finding people this way as well.

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Michele Scercy Apr 4, 2007, 4:51pm EDT

I can't ever find anyone with that function.

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Jim Bostick Apr 4, 2007, 5:11pm EDT

Hi Selene. Sorry you had this trouble. We are increasing the number of people that the "Find People" page returns from 5 to 10 some time next week. This page was not originally designed to be a search function. It was intended to let someone find a particular person and assumes that you have enough information about the person to do that. So if you place leti as the first name; M as the last name, and leti as the username the only person that appears is the one you were seeking.

We are currently rethinking this and hope to introduce a real "People Search" function on Gather later this year. SO essentially I'm saying that the function isn't broken, it just could be better. We're working hard to get there. Continuous improvement is always our goal.

Jim Bostick – Dir, Gather User Experience

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Nana to Seven Cutiepies Apr 4, 2007, 5:15pm EDT

I agree, I can never get it to work either unless I have a lot of information to fill in the blanks. Looks like Jim has answered our questions. Thanks Jim.

Have a great day Selene!

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Elaine B. Apr 4, 2007, 5:54pm EDT

I have the same problem with the "find people" system.

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Jennifer M. Apr 4, 2007, 9:15pm EDT

I wish there was some way to upload your address book and have it run an email search for all your friends.

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tomi r. Apr 4, 2007, 11:09pm EDT

I think it is just fickle, Sometimes I can get results, sometimes not.

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Selene N. Apr 5, 2007, 12:14am EDT

Thanks Jim. I didn't know it was designed to be that way. Good to know. And I am glad Gather will be offering a real people search. That would be helpful.

I will remember to put in as much information I have as possible next time. (The truth is, I only remembered her first name. I didn't remember her last name nor the user name - I only found that out later after I went through pages and pages of articles and finally found her).

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