Welcome to the 'Sunday Help Series'...!
Where other Gather members can help you with your Gather-related questions or problems!
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Simply enter your question as a comment below and any experienced Gather member can provide you with an answer.
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If you miss the Sunday Help Series, you may also ask questions of other members seven days a week, in the Gather Help Forum, as well review the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), located under 'help' in the upper right corner of any page on Gather.
Have a Great Sunday!
Please note: Responses will be given periodically throughout the day, and conclude at 10:00pm (EST). Most answers provided will reflect the opinions of Gather members, and may not be that of Gather, Inc. or its business partners.
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Comments: 41
Plus, a categorized help index and troubleshooting guide which will provide helpful links to just about anything you will ever need to know on Gather.
Look for that in the next few days!
Now, who has a question? :-)
What are "tags" really used for? Will that be included in your cool new tutorials?
Also, is there a good way to emulate the "blogging" experience, so that if you have a series of articles, it's easy to share them in chronological order?
Well, two of my tutorials focus on Gather Group™ owners, and tips for effective group creation, management and marketing or promotion. Tags play an important part in the life of a Gather Group, and are applicable to group content as well. Thus, these tutorials delve into the use of tags. Another tutorial is on content searching. Specifically using tag searches, and the differences between tag searching and other types of search on Gather.
Tags are CRITICALLY important on Gather, and when used properly can dramatically improve the Gather experience as it applies to finding 'stuff' that is important or meaningful to you. Unfortunately, tags are not used properly, and abused in some cases. Thus, this makes the effectiveness of tags break down over time. Hopefully I can bring more focus to proper tag management.
"Also, is there a good way to emulate the "blogging" experience, so that if you have a series of articles, it's easy to share them in chronological order?"
Well, yes and no.
Almost all content listings are sorted based upon the original publication date. Readers can override this, but it is a manual process (via drop down box). Therefore the most current article will always be on top. There are several ways to avoid this, but each method has it's disadvantages. To learn how, please deposit another quarter in the slot...
When the programs were first announced I informed Carl and MaryAnne that I wasn't interested in the position. However, I also know the most effective way to manage this type of program, reach members effectively, and to incorporate technical 'help' into the 'Greeters' portion of the program. Therefore, I am uncertain how to inject my knowledge and experience into the program, without actually being designated a 'guru'.
Continuing with the topic of conducting searches on Gather, is there an easy way to search for groups? Lots of times the name and web address of groups are not quite the same (why is that, anyway? Seems confusing to me.) I've typed the group names into the "Search Articles box" and sometimes a "search groups box" will show up on the left side of the page.
Is searching for groups something you will be covering in your upcoming tutorials?
Just to put in my two cents, from what I understand, Guru, has a number of meanings, one of which is TEACHER, and you are an excellent teacher, Kevin. That's what matters to those of us who come to you for Gather guidance.
The article on categorizing groups on the publishing page will be coming out later today. You can't actually rearrange the display of groups on the page, but you can do something which works just as well (even better actually). This makes publishing MUCH easier as you can choose only the groups related to your content quickly and easily. No more hunt n' peck!
Welcome to Gather!
Yes, it is acceptable to republish articles to groups you may have missed previously. However, keep a few things in mind:
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What makes a good article on Gather? - Read THIS and THIS.
Thank you for the nice compliment! You are correct in that the word 'guru' has many different meanings. However, the title was not one of my reasons for abstaining from the new guru and greeter programs.
As for group search, yes, I cover this area in my upcoming tutorial. However, let me give you a few tips now (why wait?) :-)
1) Use the 'Search Groups' function under the 'Groups' tab (as you noted, it also appears on the left-hand side of some pages). This will search the group tags, title and description information.
2) Use article search (at the top of most pages) to search for articles pertaining to your search subject. Then, see what groups the articles are published to. Occasionally you can find a group which does not appear in a group search.
3) Perform a tag search. On the tag search results page, groups having a matching tag will appear at the bottom.
For all of the above, you may need to enter various iterations of the same search term. For example, some functions (like tag searches) require separate searches for 'kitten' and 'kittens'. Article searches however will accept 'wildcards', like * which will allow you to do a search for both terms at the same time by entering kitten*. You may follow the link at the end of this comment for an older article of mine which explains the use of wildcards in more detail. This article has been updated though, and a new version will be published in the next couple of days.
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♥ Looking for 'love' on Gather? - Start your search HERE.
I have been on gather for awhile and I still find new things to do in your articles. Thanks
For example, is there a way already (that I am unaware of) when you get to the 'which groups you want to publish to" page to get them in some type of order? When you have dozens of groups it can be dizzying!
I know I have mentioned this before but figure this is a good place to hear the latest.
Thanks you.
As always,
I don't work for Gather, but I do know that Gather is looking into the entire publishing process, and bringing some order to the jumble of groups we need to wade through when publishing (assuming you belong to a lot of groups).
Later today I will be publishing an article which details the process I use which completely eliminates my need to hunt through groups on the second publishing page. As just one example, if I want to publish to all cooking-related groups, I simply use Ctrl+C, and all cooking groups are checked for me automatically. This save me a LOT of time when publishing.
I'm interested in the groups grouping too.... and have been having a heck of a time with font leading and publishing anything but the san serif stuff here.
any ideas?
Thanksm
Cur
Thanks for giving me some of the tips early! They are proving helpful already!
I will check out the older article about "wildcards" in searches and read the new one when it is up! Thanks again.
Audrey:)
And you're welcome for the compliment. You deserve it!!!
hmmmmn.
Take a look at the article I link to at the end of this comment. It describes a technique for retaining article fonts and features when transferring from an editor outside of Gather.
Of course, using HTML is the best, if not the easiest method.
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Tame your article fonts! - Click HERE to learn how.
I'm doing that NOW but it is 'variable' I'm fair with HTML but everytime I try to use in in Gather outside BOLDING something it barfs.
The 'Ctrl+C' technique I describe above will not work until you have set up your computer to recognize those commands. It doesn't have to be Ctrl+C, as you can use any shortcut command that is available.
I have established about 10 different commands I use to select specific 'personal publishing categories' which are each comprised of different groups (photography, writing, cooking, etc.)
The sky's the limit!
Look for more details on this later in the day...
Sigh! I spent 5 hours compiling your answer too. ;-)
Let me look it up, and I will post it again...
Just kidding!
The problem stems from the inability to recognize some forms of quotes in article titles. This is much more prevalent in Gather Mail messages, when members paste from Word or other sources.
To avoid this, simply delete quotes in your title, and retype them before publishing...or turn off 'Smart Quotes' or 'Curly Quotes' in Word, as described below.
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To rectify this, turn off 'smart quotes' temporarily. You can toggle this feature on or off in Word through the following menu options:
Tools ⇒ AutoCorrect Options... ⇒ AutoFormat As You Type
Then, make certain "Straight Quotes with Smart Quotes" is NOT selected.
Note: If you have already begun typing, and have used a single(') or double apostrophe("), you will need to either retype these characters with 'smart quotes' turned off, or use the Replace (F5) function to replace all current quote marks with new ones.
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Who has the 'Spirit of Community' this week? - Find out HERE.
I haven't experienced any difficulties with images, and I haven't seen any related concerns within the community (yet). What are you seeing (or not)?
When you publish, your content will appear for your connection's under 'Articles for Me' and 'Images for Me' on their 'My Gather' page. They may also receive an email notification, if they have chosen this option.
What problems specifically are you experiencing?
Truly,
I appreciate and am amazed how helpful you are to all us newbies!
I hope you do not mind a question ...?
My question to you is:
I often get an invitation to different groups ... I understand how to e-mail invitations but have yet to discover how to e-mail invites to people in the group! Can you advise me on this?
Thank you so much.
Computer Clueless in NJ,
Ask as many questions as you like! ...that's what these articles are for! :-)
I do not fully understand your question though. Do you want to send a group invitation to members of a group? (If they are already members, then they wouldn't need an invitation!)
...or, do you want to send an email to members of a group?
If you can give me a few more details, I'm certain that I can help.
I will be publishing that article in the next couple of days. When it is available, I will send you a message!
This is a fairly common occurrence if you have your 'Guarded Viewing' option turned 'on'. I would suggest that you turn off Guarded Viewing on your 'settings' page, and then attempt to access your group invitations again.
Please let me know if that doesn't work!
I'm having trouble finding an agent to help market my recently published romance novel. It is self-published by iuniverse, which is great that they helped me to get published but I have to market the book on my own. Does anyone know of any reputable literary agents?
Sherry
Yes...it is true!
You can read more about it HERE.
Plus, Gather now has another promotion where you can win a $20.00USD Borders Gift Card. You can read about this promotion HERE.
Dominique Stone