Memoir is the group for posting pure memoir pieces - memories, reflections, and narratives of your history, or the history of those in your family. Poetry is accepted if it is reflective and narrative and is about actual experiences you have had.
Two recently featured articles in Memoir:
Mike Firesmith's The Bookstore in Hell
Joseph Ritz's When the Iceman Came
Galaxy Wanderer was initially created to be a tiny, intimate group of under ten people: Do you wonder about this fine earth, what place you hold, what places hold you? Do you write about philosophical questions, write you inner thoughts and fears? Yes? You are a Galaxy Wanderer.
But now it's become a bit of a free-for-all with folks posting things that completely don't relate to the subject at hand. I'm not sure how to handle this. I hate to delete content that real friends are posting, but the group has become a pretty-much-post-it-all place. My vision is for it to be a place where folks talk about things like aliens, the origins of the universe, what is reality, what is life, the meaning of life, philosophical truths, space exploration.
I would deeply appreciate any thoughts on how to moderate a group, when the members are friends! (And if you are a Galaxy Wanderer member, PLEASE stay on topic from here on out!) This is the only group I truly wanted to create at Gather, as I have been a life-long philosopher. I think what I will end up doing is deleting all the unrelated content (90 percent of the articles, sigh) and moderate from here on out. Please DO join if you love these subjects! I could use a few great introspective, philosophical friends!
A good example of Galaxy Wanderer material:
Girl in Training's Ghosts
New Mexico, Land of Enchantment
Live in New Mexico? Visiting New Mexico? This is the group for all things Red and Green! Post fun travelogues of your trips to Santa Fe, read stories about presidential candidate Bill Richardson, or post a great chile recipe! Anything having to do with New Mexico is welcome!
One of my New Mexico articles: What is Richardson Country?
Jennifer's A Long Weekend in Western New Mexico
My personal group for my Gather column, Nature and Nurture. Anyone may join and read all of my Nature and Nurture works in one place, however, only my stories will be posted to this group.
A recent column: My Libertines
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Comments: 20
Ina, LOL!!!! You said it!!! ha ha!
I have had the same experience with my groups. Even after sending a nice reminder, and then a not so nice reminder, people continued to submit work that did not belong in the groups. For some reason, there are Gather members who believe they are so special that everyone here should want to read their work, and will welcome it in every group on the site. And they have convinced others that the group owners, not the group members who refuse to follow the guidelines, are rude for demanding compliance.
I put a few of my groups on 'temporarily unavailable' status while I cooled off and thought this over. I am cool now, and have decided I will ban members who have no respect for my groups or the other members in those groups.
I hope you come to a resolution that you are comfortable with.
Sandy, yeah, I'm worried about folks getting upset with me for wanting to keep the group on topic. It's a real conundrum. There are quite a few "post whatever you want" sorts of groups where people can post anything, but it seems that many writers post everything everywhere. I try to be judicious and only select a handful of on-topic groups for each of my articles; I don't want to spam.
Real friends wouldn't post unrelated content in a group that you ask them not to. I say give them one personal reminder notice and then block/disconnect/remove the article/remove them from the group.
When I first joined, a short time ago, I inadvertantly posted an article in some groups that were inappropriate and was rejected.
I said to myself, "self, get with it! This article don't belong here!"
Delete, you won't hurt anybody.
Stephen
I've also occasionally had articles rejected because I simply checked the wrong box.
Of the groups I own, two are very specific. Panel_Discussion is specifically for comic book reviews, and any other content (even stuff about comics that isn't a review) gets rejected. Likewise my group Magic:_The_Gathering_Players, is only for articles relating to that game.
My biggest group (and the one with the widest appeal) is Geek_Travel, and I try to be pretty liberal on what I accept there. I've approved a wide range of nature photography, SF/Comics convention reports, and general travel articles. The way I figure it, there are a lot of different ways in which something could be considered "geeky". The only things I have rejected were unoriginal content or content completely unrelated to travel in any way.
In general, though, my feeling is that these are your groups. You should be the one to choose what gets included and people should just deal if they get rejected.
[kidding B.. just kidding...] you do what you need to!
As you said, there are plenty of groups that accept all articles. Nothing wrong with limiting groups to particular topics.
If you plan to delete existing articles, you might want to let the author know why before you do it, just to prevent hurt feelings.
I am going to take much of this advice to heart, and work out a good plan for moderating my groups. I can't tell you how helpful these responses have been.