Suggested Gather Improvements

I agree with most of these wholeheartedly, but the last one sounds nearly impossible to manage -- not to mention, it then results in a lot of fighting. "Sorry, I don't think your articles meet my standards of science fiction, so you're not allowed to publish them here." Could get ugly really quickly...

Assuming people don't just bypass the system by making the only 'group tag' be the name of the group, thus ignoring any tag-based filter process.

I think it would be nice if we could upload more than one image at a time.

I also like you idea of having a way to categorize your groups, it would save a lot of time and hassle

That's a really good point, Austin. For posterity: "Institute some sort of filtering process for people creating new groups. I use lots of groups, but only because they exist - do we really need all of these 'scifi readers' groups? I'm all about people making their own groups, as long as it is for some intended purpose not already covered. This will help make groups more concise and limit the number of groups published to in single articles."

Edited.

yes, they do need to revamp the whole page. Good ideas Luke!

Here's some things I've been thinking of....

1) A Gather "marketplace" page where members can post items for sale or trade, something like freecyle.org or Craig's list...

2) Ditto for a seperate area for personals (with all the people here, there's got to be some hook-ups), and perhaps a freebie page as well, so that the article forum isn't cluttered by unrealted posts.

3) A chat room, some of the posts here are basically conversations between certain members, not articles, per se. This would alleviate the "point whoring" charges and a more appropriate place for what doesn't fit the definition of a traditional article.

4) A tutorial page for new members as to the rules, regulations, terms and conditions. Make it a condition before posting that all new members have to enter this post before allowing clearance to post.

5) The ability for the original author of an article to "close" posts to futher comments. This would be useful for conversations that get out-of-hand and may help control spammers and others with malicious intents.

This is just some of the things I'd like to see, maybe it would help with the semi-annual Gather wars that we seem to experience.

Oh, and I forgot and as you can see I occasionally need, spell check capabilities in the comment and article sections. This will make this a kinder, gentler, correctly spelled place for all and will give peace of mind for those who are concerned about such matters.

Interesting ideas, Stacey - not sure about the marketplace or personals. Sounds like a lot of liability to me, and I can just see Gather on some news expose a year down the line.

Luke, if Gather is worried about liability, then they should act on that quickly because that's basically what we have now, it's more of adding catgories to place appropriate posts in, to make finding what you're looking for easier. If I come into the articles tab, I can feel confident that I will see legitimate articles. If I want to see freebies, I can go to that tab, etc. It's clear the tab system is not working, because there's too many variables and a tab I may choose to classify and article may not be the same you would choose, so we've got thousands of tags floating around here when it would be much easier to divide articles into tabbed catagories. Besides, I don't recall hearing of Craig's List, Freecycle, Match.com or other like sites for personals or trading having any problems, they can do a disclaimer and that's that, it's at your own risk, should you want to join that particular sub-group.

Oh yeah, another idea, an indicator (like MySpace, Messenger, Yahoo, etc.) that shows you when a person is online or not, over by your stats showing last sign in. Then I know instantly who's on and who's not and I don't have to guess by the posts.

I hope they're listening. 10 from me.

Wow - I was thinking about suggesting some of your suggestions! Definitely uploading more than 1 image at a time. If they're worried about bandwith, they can always put in a maximum of say, 10 at a time.

I'll add one more:

Quick Editing. Being able to edit an article without having to revisit the 'which groups to post to' page; likewise, being able to add more groups to the post-to without having to revisit the editing page.

Congratulations, you've reached over ten comments and in accordance with the rules of our group your article has been removed from Comment Speedway!

Luke,

I love all of your suggestions!

I would also love to see the option to organize images into albums.

I got bumped off the speedway, cloven-footed one.

And thanks, Katharine. I don't think we'll see albums too soon - the dynamic on Gather is much more about the 'moment' of publishing as opposed to storage.

Wow, that's a good one - I could use a feature that emails me whenever a particular article is commented on to keep up with conversations.

I do like to sort out between friend, family and colleague. I'd really lie to sort out my Gather friends from my family, friend and colleagues, I say add one for Gatherite and it will be easy to sort out my connections.

How about a larger window for tags when publishing an article, so you can scan and anticipate the ones you want to click on. the current window is TINY!!!

PS: You are invited to join these groups:

indiepublisher.gather.com
daytripperboston.gather.com (metro boston
daytrippercape.gather.com (cape cod & south coast)
daytripperwestma.gather.com (western massachusetts)
daytrippernhvt.gather.com (VT and NH)
daytripperspokan.gather.com (metro spokane & coeur d'alene)

I'd like to see a snapshot of activity for a group.

What in the world is this new GATHER feature that advertises articles on MY articles without my approval? They have outdone themselves this time. My articles need be cluttered with their promotions because they don't have effective enough software engineers to make scaleable search engine databases? GREAT! Just FLIPPIN" GREAT!