Group 'W' Bench - a user's thoughts on the Guthrie Upgrade

~ Group "W" Bench ~

a user's thoughts on

the Guthrie Upgrade

Or did Gather mean to name this the "Woody" upgrade?
The "This Land is Our Land" upgrade maybe...

This upgrade sounds...well, too good to be true! And you know what the rule of thumb is on that, so I won't be holding my breath.

And, what's all this nonsense about not having "friends" on Gather?

True, I've got these things called connections, however mine are sorted into categories - Colleagues, Family, and...low and behold...FRIENDS! So Tom and Pam and other Gather Honchos are now telling us that our "friends" on Gather aren't really friends.

So after all these months on Gather we're now being informed that all this time we have been sitting on the Group "W" Bench. We've been sitting "with all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to us!" Oh and silly me, I forgot to bring the "twenty-seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one".

Announcing this upgrade at the end of one of the worst months for Gather system performance is even more perplexing. A month that kept many of us offline half the time, and caused all kinds of problems with publishing, deprived us of points (for whatever Gather activities now earn points), reeked havoc with email, photos, and groups. Gather always tanks after implementing their so-called "upgrades". After missing more than half of February because of Gather's assorted system kinks, quirks, and cockups, I am definitely not looking forward to the upgrade. Sheesh! It's only been the past few days that I have been able to reliably login and use the current system again, and publishing is still hit and miss.

This also comes on the heels of Tom's denouncement of article "comments". Which continues the evisceration of the rewards program and flies in the face of the concept of a "social network". The Gather points system has practically quit functioning! Nothing seems to earn points anymore - not comments, not ratings - not even reading articles and viewing images, known as "page views", is earning members points. It is no wonder people are stampeding their way out of Gather, there are many other social networks available and those sites are giving the rewards to their members!

Should we mention the demise of the Guides? Or the transgressions of some of them?? All-in-all, another dark spot for February, "social networking", and Gather.

"Never underestimate the stupidity of the general public."
- Scott Adams' Dogbert

"There's a sucker born every minute."
- P.T. Barnum

Lyric quotes ~ Arlo Guthrie's - Alice's Restaurant