Turn Gather Back
July 23, 2008 01:27 AM EDT
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comments: 31
Let's Turn back the clock. Let's tell gather that the new design is not good. If everyone posts a comment - we can take this back to the way things were.
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Comments: 31
Never happen. I have been here through several revisions and one thing is clear above all else. Gather is not responsive to its users. Every revision has, at its core, increased the number of page views necessary to accomplish the same task. Increased page views yields increased ad views which presumeably generates more revenue, which ultimately is the goal.
or we can leave...
On another note, once I've entered the site, I quite enjoy it. I find that there are FEWER clicks and things are easier to find. The website has a lot less clutter then it used to have which is also nice. I hated the clutter that the last revision brought with it. It took me a couple minutes to figure out how to post an article, realizing that the new word for Publish is Share, but I figured it out quite quickly. The drop down menus when you roll your mouse over the 4 headings at the top are similar to the original Gather, which is a feature I missed a lot with the last revision. I'm glad it's back, because once again, it makes for easier posting!
What might that site look like? And would that site welcome responses from its users on the new interface that in fact boosts the profile of the ads which become far more prominent in the 'new' design?
Doesn't Gather actually pay its users? This is markedly different to other blog/cum-social-network sites. As a Canadian, of course, a foreigner, while my participation is appreciated, and Gather tells me that, they can't offer people like me any of the goodies Americans get.
Anyway, it's a loop. Advertisers pay for the site and enable Gather to offer goodies to its users. Hence the importance of keeping the advertisers happy, and attracting more and better paying companies.
Is it possible that the redesign of Gather wasn't for the users but the advertisers?
Do the strange and awkward changes make sense when that is placed in the centre as the operatus mundi of what's going on?
Gather's a different site than the one I used to post regularly in in 2006. Cumbersome and slow are the two adverbs that come to mind for Gather's blogging machine. (Me, I like it simple, painless, fast posting, control over your site's html if you want, no bells and whistles, if I want social networking I can go a site for that.)
It's very easy. Do the research. It's all documented around here on various higher seniority member pages.
Mine included.
To sum it up quickly?
"Don't hold your breath"
Found here:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976962195
It should give ya a pretty decent head start...
Back when writers and artists came to Gather to
present their finest work for viewing and commentary.
I was challenged by the quality I saw here, the
diverse personalities and the generosity of spirit
in most critiques. The quality of most work was so
good, I knew that if I continued, my writing and painting
would improve and hopefully attract a challenging group
of friends and co-creators. All of that happened
quickly, and we even started the pre-Sim group in 2006 which is
one of the finest and most talented groups of people I have
been honored to know. But as the years and upgrades
mounted, the complexity and confusion of site design and
the overwhelming onslaught of new people who were just here
to slam writing, or just to get points and gift cards, or just
to hang out and lamely babble increased. It feels like
Gather now chooses them as their target population for future
growth and , most likely, profitable sale of the site. I receive
no answers to my critiques of the site's "upgrades" and I do
not feel any interest on their part to addressing my concerns for
returning this site to its initial vision. They have quickly capitulated
to market greed and I hope that when they see my publishing
of their original voiced intent, that they squirm a bit inside and
question their loss of integrity, and their fading interest in promoting
the PBS following and like-minded souls in producing a model for a
website that chose to step outside the "mainstream" and promote
the finest they could attract.
It would be as if I came here to write quality poetry and then had
wasted away into merely quoting the top sales slogans from
national advertising campaigns and called that original "publishing".
What used to be held in disdain, what used to be censored as plagiarism,
what used to be monitored for point accumulation abuse....is now usually
featured as the "most popular" articles of the day.
So, Tom and gang.....I believed you and supported you and your fine
goals to add a taste of quality to a world that needs it so desperately.
We need it to do battle with the crap that is proliferating, we need
it to give kids a place to aspire to publish in someday, we need it to
challenge all writers and artists to continue to grow and expand their
talents, we need it to spiritually honor the artistic quest that represents
why I believe we are here on this earth....to create new visions and seek
only to make it better, to not allow the internet seas to become more slick
global pollution that can never be recalled or returned to their original state
of dream and beauty and teeming growth. It isn't too late to wake up and
reinstate the fine vision you had, gather team, and to say to yourselves, "We're
better than that. We slid a bit, but you know, we really do want to advance
an interent locale that challenges and attracts the brightest and/or those who
revere fine writing and art. What a fine thing to be able to hold in your heart and
glow about....a real contribution....instead of tucking your dreams and highest
visions into a plastic piggy bank and leaving it up to someone else, with higher
standards, to make it happen....all the while secretly stewing, cuz' you knew
you could have been the one to make it happen.....but you sold out.
Once upon a time.....Gather had a dream:
Old Highlights of Gather's Early Conception
From TMCnet September 21, 2005
Gather.com Launches Website for 30 Million Public Radio Listeners to Interact and Share Diverse Perspectives; Earnings-based Model to Supplant One-sided Blogging
BOSTON --(Business Wire)-- Sept. 19, 2005 -- Gather(TM), the unique online site where public radio listeners and other informed, engaged people share diverse perspectives, announced today its public beta launch at www.gather.com(TM). Gather is the first online outlet to encourage global perspectives to emerge across a wide variety of topics and be heard above today's media noise. In contrast to other media and single-sourced individual blogs, which are hard to find and difficult to compare across a single topic, Gather provides a high-visibility environment where writers, bloggers and other individual contributors can come together to provide a 360-degree global view into shared areas of interest - and get paid for it. ……
Today, public radio listeners enjoy diverse radio programming that spans local and national news and political commentary, business and economics, food and wine, spirituality, music and comedy. Listeners to a single program share a common passion, yet have varying perspectives on a single subject. The one-way radio medium fails, however, to capture this collective knowledge and does not allow people to interact together in a broader forum.
"The 30 million people listening to public radio every day have a depth of knowledge and perspective to share. They often have more in common with the people hearing the programs they love than they do with their neighbors or family," said Gather Chairman Bill Kling, who is also Chairman and CEO of the American Public Media Group, the nation's second largest public radio organization. "Gather allows this audience to dynamically interact and form friendships with people who add value to their passions through shared experiences and perspectives. That may lead to conversations or to adventures with similarly interesting people."
"Gather is creating a unique place online for me to interact with smart, engaged people. It's a place where I can be rewarded for contributing my perspective through thought, art, or commentary," said Verie Sandborg of Deerfield, Illinois, a Gather member and frequent contributor.
.....then there was an enormous flood ......and it was washed into oblivion in its "mainstream" rush to become a surface reflection of the world.....where the depths and the original inventive nooks and crannies take very concerted effort to ever find.....many of them just drowned. But you can see their remains in colorful little bubbles all over your front page.
And.........where do "my paintings" now go.....the "team" seems to think that they should be happy to be "my photos"? They are not happy at all. "Images" was vague enough, but when the world of original art on a popular site gets relegated to "my photos" you know that they're losing interest in original work and simply looking for light-and-lively reproductive clones....this continues to cheapen Gather's profile. It may be more "mainstream" but I always thought that Gather wanted to profile and represent quality and originality.....well, they used to......how sad....how very, very sad.
Since the first major site overhaul, Gather has been running from its original mission statement.
May it Rest in Peace.
At least bring back the homepage, and let's keep pretending there's original content here in addition to the chat. There have always been people who would buy it for a while and publish such content. Why are they hit over the head and called idiots for their efforts with every single "upgrade"?
Precisely explained.
Please write a movie title. One only per post.
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That is it. If this is not the most egregious point whoring useless drivel ever - I don't know what it. And the people that jumped in are just as bad. They are rewarding this behavior. If this shit is earning people points - I am just really sad.
Frankly - it's gotten so that that is what people want here on Gather. When I saw that article - I threw up a little bit in my mouth from disgust.
My recommendation - it's a social network - punish people for bad behavior. Downmodd their posting. If it's not a real, thought-out, legitimate thing - do something about it. Write them a comment that says there article sucks and is a waste of your time. Don't be a woose or a pansy and just give um a 1 star or whatever - grow a sack and take a stand.
Too bad. I don't harbor much hope for Gather. It was clear a long time ago that this site was degenerating into a LCD for clicks and ad sales. It's the reality, unfortunately. Nobody is going to fund the development of an enterprise except to be profitable. Since nobody at Gather has shown any insight into the solution of this problem (I feel safe going on the record saying that Gather will never turn a fairly accounted profit), they are instead trying to fly under the radar of the SN boom in the hopes that someone as optimistic as those still hoping for Gather to return to a "writer-friendly environment" will shell out the golden egg you speak of in your previous piece.
I'm happy Gather enabled my network to include many of the fine writers and minds I've come in contact with here. And thank God for the redundancy of the Internet, that I can maintain those contacts, regardless of what the future holds in store for Gather.
As an aside, may I say that I just cashed in all my points, and am THRILLED that the transaction appears to have been successful. I guess I'll know for sure in 3-6 weeks.
Do you really think it could go back to what it was? I'm just wondering if this is an official petition.
That's my two cents.
I cashed in as many points as possible the morning i woke up to the latest changes. My Home Depot cards came yesterday. I need about 120 to cash in the remaining balance.