What the heck is going on with Gather...besides little or nothing? It seems like lots of things aren't working right around here for me and lots of others. Here a glitch...there a glitch...everywhere a glitch, glitch, glitch. It's not getting any better. It keeps getting worse! I was already ticked off when they first started last week after the latest upgrade, Jagger. Now, I'm infuriated...and I'm not alone. Many members of Gather are just as concerned...and angry about it all...and it seems like nothing is being done.
A new photo loader is added to make life easier when it comes to publishing pictures...and it ends up making life here a living hell. Not only does that new loader not work properly for many of us; it's also brought on what seems like every glitch imaginable. Not all are affected by these inoperable functions...another thing I don't get. Why some and not others? Don't give me that horse manure it has to do with browsers and all. Some who are having success are running the same thing I am, whether a pop-up blocker is activated or not. Occasionally, things will work for me; then just drop off into limbo and cease to operate. We're told to 'give it time.' 'We're working on it.' 'There's always a glitch or two after an upgrade.' That's another load of road apples. I don't hear about big companies going haywire after upgrades to their systems. Not once have I ever heard Chrysler say they can't make any cars this week because their computers have gone awry. Even if...even if...time has passed and it just keeps going further down the toilet instead of getting better.
The first day of Jagger, it took me almost three hours to upload eight pictures to add to a post; a process that used to take me about six minutes in the past. Now, it takes almost that entire six minutes just to upload one picture...if the darned thing even uploads at all and doesn't just disappear. I know it's not me or my settings because sometimes a photo will eventually go through. That wouldn't happen at all if there was a problem at my end. I know it's Gather. There was trouble initially with Gather's E-mail that was soooo important; they had to jump right on that to fix it and say the heck with everything else. Guess what geniuses? Gather's E-mail still doesn't work properly! That's the least of my worries, though.
There's the issue of my computer becoming frozen when I'm attempting to use the new picture uploader. Now, I've got to try and save everything, hopefully, and reboot so I can come back to Gather and try again...only to keep freezing up. This is on top of Gather being as slow as molasses in the winter at times. Sit and wait...sit and wait. Finally!
Another problem that has crept up is the points/dollars...or lack thereof. Members are wondering where their 'rewards for participating' are...if they're even able to participate at all. The last time my account total moved was overnight Wednesday. I went four days before I saw any increase whatsoever. Lo and behold, when I awoke this morning (after setting my alarm for 5 AM so I could work on this piece, seeing how you never know how long it's going to take to be able to publish anymore), and I had finally made another dollar. That's right...one whole dollar over four days. I usually make at least a couple of bucks daily even when I don't write something. I went from making a quarter an hour for the time I invest posting an article...to a quarter a day! Let me tell you, that's sure not worth the time I invest on this site. I could make more collecting returnable bottles and cans or begging on the street. Of course, we'll never get a straight answer about the point system here. We've come to accept it as one of the great mysteries of the universe. I have no clue what the answer is to this, but some members are beginning to wonder if Gather has altered their formula so they'll be handing out fewer points or eventually eliminating points altogether. (I wonder if the new PayPal gift cards have anything to do with it, in that too much cash is going out the door now?)
Speaking of the time I spend on Gather, that has been cut back drastically over the past few days. I haven't done that myself being disgusted with the crap that's happening. Another of the great Gather glitches has done me in. Where are all of my E-mail publication notifications? I'm lucky if I'm getting twenty five per cent of what I should receive. I'm missing out on things those I'm connected with are posting...and I'm not about to hunt and search sitting glued to my computer all day and night using those stupid feeds. I got off the computer at eleven o'clock last night and, as I've already said, got back on at five this morning...six hours of being away from this machine. How many publication notifications did I have when I got up today? TWO! Two??? What the......? With about 1,250 friends in my network, I normally have around one hundred during this time period. The publication notifications started coming in drabs and dribbles after Jagger. Now, with only two overnight, you might as well say they're not even coming in at all.
Others are being hit with these problems...and more. I've noticed some are having their posts go to groups they didn't even select to publish to; some to groups they're not even members of. That was pointed out by one witch with a broom up her behind who loves to complain when people post improperly to her groups. Oh, to be as perfect as she...a perfect butthead. Mistakes happen, but this time; it's Jagger's fault.
While I'm at it, what about glitches of the past that still haven't been taken care of? Some have been going on since Ice and even as far back as Hawthorne. (For those who are unaware, whenever Gather makes a new upgrade, they allow one of their employees to name it after a musician...as in rapper, Vanilla 'Ice' or Mick 'Jagger' of the Rolling Stones.) I always have to go through extra steps with my articles to make sure they don't vanish into thin air after spending time creating them. That's baloney, especially after all this time, since it's not a new problem that has recently arisen. If I spend any more than ten minutes typing on the publishing page, I can't move on to add images or post. Why even have this feature then? I'm not a whizz at things by any means. I type using two fingers and I like to think things out and try to proof read for errors. Sometimes, it takes me a couple hours on a post before I'm ready to add pictures. In order to prevent my work from being lost forever, I have to copy and transfer and fart around doing all kinds of things I shouldn't have to. Thousands of posts by hundreds of members have disappeared into the great beyond because of this ongoing glitch. Though this hasn't happened to me, many are logged off Gather at the blink of an eye while in the process of doing something; writing, publishing, making a comment. Not only do they lose whatever they're doing at the moment; now they have to sign back in...some, constantly.
Gather, I think you need to slip your technical monkeys an extra banana or two so they work properly...because you're site sure the heck isn't. Better yet, wake them up and get them to take care of all the problems. They keep multiplying. One would think efforts would be taken to make sure all is in proper working order before installing something new; not go by hit and miss trial and error and bog everything down with bonehead glitches. It's Monday. Now get on it! (I wonder if Gather turns down the money they make over the weekend, since no one works on Saturday or Sunday to take care of troubles?) Either fix it or get rid of Jagger and put things back the way they were...when things worked for the most part.
Mick was arrested once for obstruction and now Jagger is obstructing our participation. Since it's already busted; maybe we can charge it with gross incompetence.
How many of you are experiencing problems with any of these Gather glitches? Line up and list yours here. Maybe if Gather sees how widespread they are; they'll do something about them...now. We want sooner...not later. Lock 'Jagger' up and throw away the key!
A new photo loader is added to make life easier when it comes to publishing pictures...and it ends up making life here a living hell. Not only does that new loader not work properly for many of us; it's also brought on what seems like every glitch imaginable. Not all are affected by these inoperable functions...another thing I don't get. Why some and not others? Don't give me that horse manure it has to do with browsers and all. Some who are having success are running the same thing I am, whether a pop-up blocker is activated or not. Occasionally, things will work for me; then just drop off into limbo and cease to operate. We're told to 'give it time.' 'We're working on it.' 'There's always a glitch or two after an upgrade.' That's another load of road apples. I don't hear about big companies going haywire after upgrades to their systems. Not once have I ever heard Chrysler say they can't make any cars this week because their computers have gone awry. Even if...even if...time has passed and it just keeps going further down the toilet instead of getting better.
The first day of Jagger, it took me almost three hours to upload eight pictures to add to a post; a process that used to take me about six minutes in the past. Now, it takes almost that entire six minutes just to upload one picture...if the darned thing even uploads at all and doesn't just disappear. I know it's not me or my settings because sometimes a photo will eventually go through. That wouldn't happen at all if there was a problem at my end. I know it's Gather. There was trouble initially with Gather's E-mail that was soooo important; they had to jump right on that to fix it and say the heck with everything else. Guess what geniuses? Gather's E-mail still doesn't work properly! That's the least of my worries, though.
There's the issue of my computer becoming frozen when I'm attempting to use the new picture uploader. Now, I've got to try and save everything, hopefully, and reboot so I can come back to Gather and try again...only to keep freezing up. This is on top of Gather being as slow as molasses in the winter at times. Sit and wait...sit and wait. Finally!
Another problem that has crept up is the points/dollars...or lack thereof. Members are wondering where their 'rewards for participating' are...if they're even able to participate at all. The last time my account total moved was overnight Wednesday. I went four days before I saw any increase whatsoever. Lo and behold, when I awoke this morning (after setting my alarm for 5 AM so I could work on this piece, seeing how you never know how long it's going to take to be able to publish anymore), and I had finally made another dollar. That's right...one whole dollar over four days. I usually make at least a couple of bucks daily even when I don't write something. I went from making a quarter an hour for the time I invest posting an article...to a quarter a day! Let me tell you, that's sure not worth the time I invest on this site. I could make more collecting returnable bottles and cans or begging on the street. Of course, we'll never get a straight answer about the point system here. We've come to accept it as one of the great mysteries of the universe. I have no clue what the answer is to this, but some members are beginning to wonder if Gather has altered their formula so they'll be handing out fewer points or eventually eliminating points altogether. (I wonder if the new PayPal gift cards have anything to do with it, in that too much cash is going out the door now?)
Speaking of the time I spend on Gather, that has been cut back drastically over the past few days. I haven't done that myself being disgusted with the crap that's happening. Another of the great Gather glitches has done me in. Where are all of my E-mail publication notifications? I'm lucky if I'm getting twenty five per cent of what I should receive. I'm missing out on things those I'm connected with are posting...and I'm not about to hunt and search sitting glued to my computer all day and night using those stupid feeds. I got off the computer at eleven o'clock last night and, as I've already said, got back on at five this morning...six hours of being away from this machine. How many publication notifications did I have when I got up today? TWO! Two??? What the......? With about 1,250 friends in my network, I normally have around one hundred during this time period. The publication notifications started coming in drabs and dribbles after Jagger. Now, with only two overnight, you might as well say they're not even coming in at all.
Others are being hit with these problems...and more. I've noticed some are having their posts go to groups they didn't even select to publish to; some to groups they're not even members of. That was pointed out by one witch with a broom up her behind who loves to complain when people post improperly to her groups. Oh, to be as perfect as she...a perfect butthead. Mistakes happen, but this time; it's Jagger's fault.
While I'm at it, what about glitches of the past that still haven't been taken care of? Some have been going on since Ice and even as far back as Hawthorne. (For those who are unaware, whenever Gather makes a new upgrade, they allow one of their employees to name it after a musician...as in rapper, Vanilla 'Ice' or Mick 'Jagger' of the Rolling Stones.) I always have to go through extra steps with my articles to make sure they don't vanish into thin air after spending time creating them. That's baloney, especially after all this time, since it's not a new problem that has recently arisen. If I spend any more than ten minutes typing on the publishing page, I can't move on to add images or post. Why even have this feature then? I'm not a whizz at things by any means. I type using two fingers and I like to think things out and try to proof read for errors. Sometimes, it takes me a couple hours on a post before I'm ready to add pictures. In order to prevent my work from being lost forever, I have to copy and transfer and fart around doing all kinds of things I shouldn't have to. Thousands of posts by hundreds of members have disappeared into the great beyond because of this ongoing glitch. Though this hasn't happened to me, many are logged off Gather at the blink of an eye while in the process of doing something; writing, publishing, making a comment. Not only do they lose whatever they're doing at the moment; now they have to sign back in...some, constantly.
Gather, I think you need to slip your technical monkeys an extra banana or two so they work properly...because you're site sure the heck isn't. Better yet, wake them up and get them to take care of all the problems. They keep multiplying. One would think efforts would be taken to make sure all is in proper working order before installing something new; not go by hit and miss trial and error and bog everything down with bonehead glitches. It's Monday. Now get on it! (I wonder if Gather turns down the money they make over the weekend, since no one works on Saturday or Sunday to take care of troubles?) Either fix it or get rid of Jagger and put things back the way they were...when things worked for the most part.
Mick was arrested once for obstruction and now Jagger is obstructing our participation. Since it's already busted; maybe we can charge it with gross incompetence. How many of you are experiencing problems with any of these Gather glitches? Line up and list yours here. Maybe if Gather sees how widespread they are; they'll do something about them...now. We want sooner...not later. Lock 'Jagger' up and throw away the key!
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Comments: 81
My points have been crawling also. I have been making a point of being on here more to build my points in hopes of getting at least one more gift card before x-mas. That is not going to happen at this rate.
I have had to figure out easier ways to get around their little glitches..........you know me...I am always looking for the easiest and best ways to get my stuff out there........
I do love Mick and the Stones though...
rock on my man rock on ! ! !
Everyone used to respond to me how Gather is the best site out there.Now,points have stopped and there are 100X more problems than before.
Oh this is just to funny,lol
and now i see it keeps getting harder to post to,lol-Gather is commiting Suicide.to funny.
Oh Well,I am not one to say i told you so.....But.................................lol
At the beginning of the month my posts would disappear. Then it was fixed, then last night, gone again.
I couldn't access the friend requests, then they're back.
I know that the help desk is working overtime on this...
I lost a complete post the other day, and YES I had saved it as a draft. And often.
I am not getting notifications, it takes forever to open my mail, earnings are drastically reduced, no one looks at photos in albums, etc.
What a waste of time.
Sigh.
Yes, the upgrade has caused some unfortunate member issues, but some of them are certainly related to members' computer settings, browsers, and antiquated hardware. Any software you buy has minimum system requirements, and those requirements change as technology advances. And let's not forget, Gather is free; we haven't spent a dime to be here.
As far as the points, the way people have been complaining, I wouldn't be surprised if they do away with them altogether eventually. We are not employed by Gather and cannot expect a "paycheck" for chatting with each other, or even posting an article- no matter how deserving we think it is. The points are a nice perk, but no one should "expect" a certain number of points for anything. I think this obsession with points has deteriorated the quality of the posts and the comments across Gather. In my opinion (however unpopular it may be), the focus should be on the sharing of ideas and information, not on the gift cards.
I did a photo essay yesterday and didn't have any problem, I use firefox. I am getting alot of emails in my gather mail that I don't usually get. I have a group invite that when I click on it nothing comes up on my page. At the beginning I was having lots of trouble, but it seems some of it has been worked out. The main problem being my points didn't move for almost 2 days. Now they are slowly going up. I don't have anything sent to personal email, because I didn't want that clogged up, so that is not a problem for me.
I hope Gather figures this out soon as not to lose their good members like Rob.
I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try
I can't get no, I can't get no
Too much crap on this upgrade that I have never experienced before. The only other time that I had this much trouble was with Hawthorne when it took me days to be able to get on Gather at all and then when I did finally get on it kept kicking me off.
so far, I haven't had any problems. I was worried about that yesterday when I published an article on writing and pictures. But it went pretty smoothly. The first pictures I published after the upgrade, took me much longer as I had to figure out the format, but once I did, it was easier. I do like the feature where you can drag and drop your pictures straight from your computer files to the article you're working on. I haven't found any other glitches yet. But then, I'm not all over Gather, just a few selected places. The thing I don't like has been the broadcast notifications. For a while I was getting probably 25 or 30 a day. But once I changed my settings, that went away.
I hope your glitches disappear soon.
But I hope that the problem is fixed for you quickly!
oh I have noticed though that I am not getting all of my email notifications when someone comments on something of mine. Which stinks because this is how I try to keep up with commenting back on people, and especially if it is not something newer I do not check a lot of my content regularly unless I get an email saying I had a comment on it.
One of life's ironies, I am getting more inspiration to write original things these days then this happens.
I made a suggestion about Firefox for Gather members having issues to try- I never promised it would fix ALL of anyone's problems. It has in fact fixed some of the problems for some members who switched to it from IE--they have written to me and said it did. It's also important to make sure to have the latest version of Firefox (or any web browser), which is version 3. There is a definite interaction between a web browser and web sites; doesn't it make sense that the interaction is affected by the way the web browser is written and configured? Installing Firefox is an easy thing to do and it's free, so I stand behind my recommendation.
Clearly it is not just a Gather upgrade problem or EVERYONE would be having the same problems, which is not happening. I have the same Gather as everyone else, and I am not having issues. The upgrade is exacerbating issues that people running older hardware and outdated web browsers are experiencing. They can't keep writing outdated code to accommodate users who have old computers and don't upgrade their web browsers- no modern web site does that. And there are settings users can adjust in their browsers that affect performance as well; who knows what exact settings people are using? The only way anyone could reasonably blame this entire problem on Gather is if we all had exactly the same hardware and software installed with the exact same settings and the same method and provider of internet access. That's just not the case. So it really comes down to what each individual can do to improve things on their end first and let Gather fix what they can on their end. Between both ends, hopefully everything will work out satisfactorily.
And as far as the points go, I'm not "anti-points" but it's not why I came to Gather. You mentioned that you expect to be "rewarded as promised" - what does that mean? There is no promise of any specific number of points awarded for anything here at Gather. I'm sure it's tied to their advertising dollars- how else could they afford to give anything away on a free site? There must be an algorithm they use to calculate the awards. I wouldn't expect the calculation to be a constant because as in any business, advertising dollars fluctuate.
I'm truly sorry so many people are having trouble and are upset about it- that's why I offered a suggestion. I hope it works out for each and every member soon.
And what is it with Gather ads that swell and get in our way ??? It make me HATE the product. I like products that have good manners !!!
*Shrugs* I do know many people are having problems though.
Kevin did have some things to say about all our woes, check here:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977488398
My other main issue, which now seems to be resolved, at least for the moment, was that I had no new content listed last night. If I went to recent posts, the screen went completely white and I had to close the browser. They seemed to have gotten that fixed by the time I went to bed, but who knows...
I hate the new picture system, had the old one down pat. Now when I click on my pictures, they all come up with just numbers, who the heck remembers the numbers,doesn't show me the pictures anymore, so I guess I will have to go in to my picture finder, and name every picture so I can post it if I want to. How crazy is that. I also didn't like to have to download new software to upload pictures, I use Firefox to publish, going to use that word, too, and before everything seemed to go much faster. The only way I find out you are posting is because you are using my group and I check that, Thanks for that by the way. I hope this straightens out soon, great article as usual.
I do realize Gather has been kind to you and all man but hey,isn't enough of this nonsense enough yet?Told you well over if not at least up to a year now that things will be getting worse.And ok,you tell me..Are They?I'd say yea,lol...
I haven't been on now for at least 2 months other than this am browsing around.and maybe doing some mail here nd there.and I think all this going on at Gather now is hilarious.
This is great.I am laughing at how Gather is finally commiting Suicide.Do not get me wrong.I do not wish it to go under or anything.but they are losing and have lost tons of great members for updating uselessly and making matters worse.It's Great.
but hey,guess some people enjoy hassles.I no longer worry about the hassles for i found better sites around that do not have these annoying problems.Tried to share alot of them but refuse to do that anymore,lol.....But i will say one thing....Lois Lane(whoever the heck she is since she is not using her real name,hmmm wonder what she is hiding,lol),But she did say it best,if it ain't broke....TAKE THE HINT GATHER.Your Falling and soon you won't be able to get up,lol....to funny....
LMAO!!!
Peace Out Rob.
Hey Charlie B...I know you do not know me.but when Gather tells you something.try not to believe it man for most often it doesn't happen.just a tip fom a Gather Veteran man.
Haha,Sorry people.but oh man.i am rolling over here,lol
I am not getting my personal e-mail flooded any more, and I don't know if its because I changed a few mailing preferences on my Gather account or because the glitch went reverse. Who the heck knows. All I know is I hope they fix these problems. And if I see that they are getting fixed maybe I'll try to posting again. In the meantime I'll stick to commenting, at least I haven't ran into problems with that.