What I Don't like about the 'New' Gather.

I joined Gather so I could enter the First Chapters contest. End of story. I truly had no intention of continuing once the contest ended. I made connections, learned loads about writing..so and so forth.

When the fall update happened and left members mute and stranded, I didn't complain.

When the update which put our profile on display happened. I was a little startled, but accepted the change.

When subsequent updates have brought the entire site crashing down, and cut the number of comments you can comfortably put on a specific article..I only grumbled..and not very loud.

I'm fixin' to get loud soon. Before I do here is, as best as I can explain, my beef with the new gather.

1. What good are friend and group sets if I can't chose what I see first on my Gather page?

Why do I have to reset these EVERY time I go to my page?

It is a complete irritation to open my gather page to a bunch of garble.

The comments and activity are poorly defined. That sorry little pencil line is less defined than article comment boxes. It makes it look like a running chat and is enough to give a person a headache.

Most of the time I'm assaulted by 'so and so just made friends with so and so' 

Excuse me, but why do I care? Of what possible use could this information be to me? It's awkward and makes me want to not connect with anyone because, who I'm connected to is no one's business except mine. Thank you very much. It's just down right creepy.

2.  The old page told me when my contacts posted an article, then images and comments. Why has this order been up-ended?  It's not more personal. It's confusing. I liked seeing the most recent articles of my contacts. 

The old way I could see  preview articles, images and comments from one location. If I wanted more articles I could chose more articles and so on.

The group feeds are as crowded and annoying as my gather page. When I view my groups I want to see articles first. Not all activity, most of which I couldn't care less about.

3. The default 'All Activities' for EVERYTHING drives me nutz. Back to one. Why can't we set these?

4. My life is busy. I don't have the time, want, need or desire to jump through hoops every time Gather new and improves itself.

5. If I wanted hyperactive I'd have a MySpace account.  I've explained to face 2 face acquaintances, "Gather is like MySpace for Adults."   Oops, better take that back.  It's beginning to resemble an ultra feed for the easily bored. I come to Gather to wind down and enjoy my writing companions, that's all.

6. It was said on one of the Chat threads Tom hosted that part of doing this was to help people connect more easily.  The people I connect with or who have asked to connect with me were met through articles posted in mutual groups or by mutual friends. The 'All Friends' 'All Activities' doesn't serve as connection incentive for me. It makes me want to cover my eyes and scream, "Make it go away. Make it stop."  Since it's difficult to change the settings without use of my eyes, I quick hit 'My comments' and head to friendly territory via articles I've visited.. so I can connect with friends without all of the mumbo jumbo.

This is the best I know how to explain this. If it's sketchy, please ask for clarification on a specific point. I wouldn't want the miscommunication to continue.