Welcome to our monthly Ask the CEO chat!
I would like to start by thanking you for joining me today. As always, I look forward to the helpful and thought-provoking comments these chats generate. Gather has seen some extraordinary growth in the past month, making our site even more of a world-class community. My time spent with you really helps our team focus our priorities and gives us insight into the needs and wants of our most valuable asset: our members.
To join the conversation, here are some helpful tips:
1) To see new comments and keep up with the discussion, you will need to periodically refresh your screen. You may refresh your view by using the refresh button on your browser, or the F5 key on your keyboard, or through the Ctrl+R key (on Windows) or CMD+R (On Mac) key combination.
2) Once you have posted a comment to the conversation, refresh your screen (see above). Don't worry about accidental double-posting of comments, as Gather technology prevents doing so without a screen refresh between posts. This will ensure that you can more quickly "chime in" with your thoughts.
I will be here for the next hour to listen and respond to your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.
For those who are joining this chat for the first time and even for those who are returning, this is your time to let me, and the entire Gather team, know your thoughts. I encourage you to voice your opinions about everything Gather. I am excited about spending time with all of you -- so let's get started!
All the best,
Tom Gerace, CEO
Gather.com
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Comments: 241
-Tom
The team and I have been talking about how to keep people in better sync with the groups that matter to them. Stay tuned until our next release, (codename: Hawthorne), where we hope to have a solution for you.
This past week's challenges have not been related to problems in Gather's software or systems. We use a partner (called a CDN or Content Distribution Network), Akamai, to more efficiently serve images and videos around the world. Akamai has more than 20,000 servers spread across the planet for that purpose (having servers closer to people means a faster serving time).
What happened last week was that, in updating a few settings with Akamai, we accidentally severed the connection between their servers and hours. In the half our it took to correct the situation, most of the files on their 20K servers were removed. It took a long time to put them back in place.
We're really sorry for the inconvenience. We are updating our operational procedures to make sure it does not happen again.
About the only thing I'd really like to bring up is sorting issues. I publish different things, but typically have specified groups that the different items go to.
I think it would be great (and easier on us), if we could make up pre-sorted lists of specific groups.
For instance, if I'm posting an article about my children, I have about 10 groups I post it to. I would love to be able to add them to a list, so all I would have to click is a customizable link that will automatically insert those groups to the article.
Does that make sense? I'm not sure I'm complaining it right.
With our upcoming Guthrie release, we are creating a wizard for new members that will help introduce them to the site and get them started. We will have several additional releases as well that will make the Gather experience easier for new folks too.
With Gather getting easier, we thought it made sense to let the guides share the things they love (creating a richer experience overall), instead of focusing the Guides' talents on Gather.
The tree system you suggest is interesting. I'll pass it on to our product team. We were also considering letting members find groups with a simple search (e.g. "poetry" and bringing-up all groups that included poetry in their name or tags. What do you think of this solution?
Now that you've seen and gotten many complaints regarding the use of alters (when used inappropriately - DB1s, nasty comments, general nastiness), have you considered changing your allowance of alters or users to have multiple accounts?
Second part of the question: If you are dedicated to allowing alters, has there been discussion amonst you about how to handle those that abuse the system? It has come up in the past that the Powers That Be don't do anything - and when they do something, it takes forever or is not handled efficiently.
a simple improvement would be for the public comment section to just list the last comment on any one article so that you do not see fast chats taking up the whole page.
similar for the personal comments, just my last comment on any particular article would help to condense the pages and increase the information I get from any one page.
hope that makes sense.
I wouldn't mind seeing new gift card choices, but honestly, I think bringing in things like Target or Walmart (as many users have suggested in the past) would bring in people who are just here FOR that.
I will admit, though, that the points and gift cards are what brought me to the site. However, I found a quality site I enjoy using, and would stay even without the points.
The next update will be focused on allowing members to organize friends into friend sets (see above comment to John S) and then allowing you to share with just the friends you want. It will also include the registration process I mentioned to Cheryl.
We have lots of great stuff in the works, too, for a couple of months out...but I don't want to ruin the surprise.
In light of the incident last week with one of my photos posted on Gather being stolen by one of my Gather connections and used for profit on Zazzle.com, and the massive response from the Gather community, we all need to know if efforts are being made on this!
Did this help?
I think harrassing members should be a banable offense- for all ego's involved. Erm, I mean "Alter Egos", not just egos. ;)
forgot to say gather is a very interesting experiement and you guys have done a good job with it.
Can we talk about the search algorithm?
Why are searches based on ANY of the words, not ALL of these words? If I search for 'kitchenMage" I get ~100 articles, but if I add a word I get MORE results, not fewer. That is backwards from what you would expect. Also, if I search on 'kitchenmage AND beth" (my test) I get ONE article, which is also wrong since I have published a number of articles with both words.
Also, are there plans to make quoted text string searches work on Gather? It is such a great way to narrow searches but it always returns no results. (For those of you reading along, I mean searching for "Gather has seen some extraordinary growth" which should give you this article and little else - only things with that exact phrase. Without quotes, you get all articles with those words...lots of noise.)
I can accomplish these things with Google, but really - it's not rocket surgery, ya know...
~km
Points are earned primarily when other members of the community find the things you share (your content and your profile) to be of interest. The best way to increase points earned is to share things that your friends enjoy, consistently, over time.
When the new search was first introduced, I did a search for members in Michigan. I came up with members from all around the globe, some who didn't even have the word Michigan in their profile.
I was wondering if you have any plans to make moderating groups easier? When we bring up our list of owned groups, it would be so helpful to be able to see if there are any posts awaiting moderation rather than having to click into each group just to get that information.
Additionally, adjusting member's settings requires hunting through the pages of members, which is very time consuming. If the functionality to change the settings went with the member whenever they posted, that could be so helpful. I.e.: A member consistently posts articles which do not belong in your group. On the 1,546th post, you decide as moderator that you're tired of spending all of your time having to review and reject their submissions. If the member settings functionality was available with their posts, you could click right there and change their privilege to post any further.
Features like this could go a long way to making group ownership less burdensome.
Why is Gather's official stance that you will only remove content based on a DMCA takedown notice from the copyright owner?
Is there debate that people are not infringing when they steal, err, I mean publish a Windows wallpaper image? (and can I smack the people who comment about how great it is, leading to a comment thread where the poster lies about having taken it in their personal lily pond...?)
People here are getting away with murder in copyright violations and it is dismaying to see Gather shrugging its corporate shoulders at it.
Why the decision to allow copyright infringement?
Are you revisiting it?
What will it take to get you to do so?
Have a nice day.
In light of the incident last week with one of my photos posted on Gather being stolen by one of my Gather connections and used for profit on Zazzle.com, and the massive response from the Gather community, we all need to know if efforts are being made on this!
"Rocket surgery"?
Tom, you're a geek, right? It's a cross between rocket science and brain surgery - you really should read more Dilbert. :-)
Tom G.--do you guys support Boolean terms in searches? AND/OR /NOT?
No. It does something, but not what you would expect.
btw - I'm really enjoying this thread - thanks
The honest answer is that it is exceptionally hard to prevent the use of multiple accounts/avatars. It is impossible to distinguish between two real people in a household and one person pretending to be two.
We decided to permit them because we had requests from people who wanted to engage anonymously in discussions they were afraid to join otherwise (often about having a specific disease or discussing family issues/abuse/drug use, etc).
As you suggest, our member services team will never scale to respond in a timely fashion to every comment/DB1 that happens on the site. We receive a comment every 3 seconds on Gather and comments are growing quickly each month.
To help members have a better experience, we have made several changes to the site:
1) When you share, you can now choose to let people rate your work or not rate your work
2) When you share, you can also decide whether everyone on Gather or just your connections can comment
3) You can moderate comments, deciding which appear on your work
4) If you don't moderate comments, you can delete offensive comments after they appear.
With our next release, we will take a big additional step in empowering our members to create the experience they want on Gather: we will let you share your work with just those people you want to see it. We think this extra level of control will let those who want to be broadly read remain broadly read, while allowing those who want to have a private discussion to have that conversation, too.
I would think maybe limiting it to X amount per address might be a better way to go- they can have an alter or two, but why would anyone need 50 alters? I'm sure that number is probably more extreme than not, but I don't doubt 1 or 2 people have insanely high numbers of alters.
They could also be used to just "gang beat" on 1 person- several alters all leaving nasty comments, and floods of 1's to dishearten and bully a member.
When he publishes a video, the groups almost never show up until the 3rd or 4th try for him. We both use the same OS, same browser, etc. (xp & ie)
Maybe whitelist/blacklist might be useful here for finer grade
if you use a whitelist only those people or groups can respond,
if you use a blacklist those people or groups cannot respond.
I have one gripe about the way things have been going. I seem to lose or regain the notifications sent to my outside Gather e-mail address whenever there is a system upgrade or adjustment.
This is not a crucial function (I know), but they are an important convenince to me. E-mail notifications are what I rely on to let me know that someone has commented on old articles of mine. I cannot keep track of how many comments are made on each of my articles any other way. I have over two hundred articles and over one hundred images published here.
I would really like to support the idea of being able to search through an individual member's articles. I think that would indeed be a GREAT thing.
We are considering systems that let you: ignore very short comments, view comments by frequently read Gatherers, or look back at other commenting systems.
On a related note: Jonathan- we are actively planning a new commenting system as well, examining threaded comments, better notifications (so you know when someone has responded to you or commented after you on a work). Thanks for the suggestion!
I second that. Even going through my older stuff to find something I want to reference can be a pain!
I will talk with the team about additional gift card and donation opportunities.
On another foot, you commented in an article I wrote about the "front page" of changes coming there soon. How is that working it's way along? Thanks.
Well, no complaints...just wishing some more gift cards of good stores...:)
Thank you for your response, I truly appreciate it.
A couple reactions from the peanut gallery (or maybe just me).....
"As you suggest, our member services team will never scale to respond in a timely fashion to every comment/DB1 that happens on the site. "
-- You're correct and I think it would be a waste of the member services team to babysit each complaint. As a community, I believe we need to be accountable and take some responsibility (and maybe a few just need to GROW UP). Not everything warrants a complaint to member services and we should realize when it has crossed the line and become a valid concern.
As for the changes you listed... Yeah, they are great. But... If only my connections can read my articles or see my photos, how will anyone new know they want to connect with me? I guess in general, I don't know why I, an innocent writer, should have to pussyfoot around and modify MY settings in order to keep one or two mean-spirited alters from creating havoc.
The problem is a few - not the majority. I don't think that it's fair for you to expect the majority to make modifications in order to please the few jerk alters that tend to bully. In the end, it takes away from why you created the site in the first place (or what it has evolved into being).
Oh.my.goodness. Am I really seeing this?
My main concern is also security. I have removed all my content except two articles that no one would want. I would like to be reassured that our content is safe from plagiarism. Secondly, I would like to know why people are permitted to have alter egos on here. If you cant honestly contribute under your real identity, what are you doing here? 'Nuff said.
For instance, one week could be who we support in the upcoming Presidential race. Another week could be how we feel about organized Religion in the Media. How we feel about raising children in a violent world, our thoughts on new movies, pop culture, etc.
Each week, people look at the challenge, submit an article to the challenge, and it creates buzz on the site- people are writing quality articles, and the site is getting good PR in the process.
Maybe instead of a weekly gift card prize (and I do think that would get more people), offer up merchendise, or extra points. I would even suggest bonus points for participation, which would be given manually, and not automatically. That would cut back on people posting whatever in hopes of triggering an automatic point bonus.