Gather is a community of diverse adults who for the most part, are here to share part of their lives and ideas and to have fun, meet new friends and maybe learn something along the way. In Gather’s efforts to meet the varying levels of privacy and control versus expanding your networks and sharing we have developed features that offer members options to control the level of exposure they have when using Gather.
Gather is primarily a sharing site, so we do not have a feature to completely block members from seeing each other. However, we do offer a wide range of options to help you feel comfortable onsite. The tools we provide give you flexibility over what you see, who sees your content, what you share and who you share with.
· Profiles – The information on your profile page is optional, and you decide who can view each part of your profile by setting the "Who Can View" options beside each question. Please carefully consider what you share online. We have controls in place that allow you to decide exactly what information is public and what's available only to the people you identify as friends, family, or colleagues in your friend sets. In the end, you need to exercise common sense about what personal information you choose to share.
o The sections of your profile that will be publicly visible if you choose to fill them out are clearly noted.
o You can choose to make your ‘about me’, ‘interests’, or ‘affiliations’ public or with limited visibility to your friends sets.
o You can choose if you allow pings on your profile at all, if you allow them only from your friends, or if you moderate them. You can delete any ping posted to your profile, plus any ping you post on someone else's.
· Account Settings
o You decide if you want to use your real name or a pen name and you decide if you want your last name or initial to be visible.
o Guarded Viewing can be turned on so you do not see any content that has been set to include nudity, crude language, graphic violence or adult themes, or can be turned off so you see content published at all settings.
· Friends
o Only connect with members you enjoy interacting with, after you have reviewed their profile and content. Disconnect from any member you are not comfortable with.
o Friend sets enable you to have greater control over which of your Gather friends will be able to see, rate, or comment on your content on the site, at any given time. Set up friend sets to give yourself the most control over who can view your content.
· Groups
o Members can form groups where they moderate group members, group content and decide if they want the group to be publicly visible or visible only to its members.
· Private Messages
o Members have the option to block receiving messages from other members. If you do not want to receive future messages from particular members open a message you received from him or her and click on the "Block Sender" button.
· Content visibility and permissions
o You can share content to everyone, with a limited group of friends or only for yourself.
o Each time you share content you can choose which Gather members can comment on it. Either all site members can comment, only your friends can, or no one is allowed to comment on your content, including yourself.
Some members have suggested Gather offer the ability to completely block a member from seeing your profile and content on Gather. This suggestion was raised to Gather’s Product Board team this week. The preliminary feedback is that Gather is designed to be a sharing platform. Therefore, the technology to develop a feature with blocking ability would be very complicated and could be in contradiction to the site’s vision. The suggestion needs to be scoped out to fully understand if it is feasible.
Balance common sense regarding what you share about your personal life with open communication. Use the tools that are currently available and consider the ways your lives have benefited by opening yourself up to many of the wonderful people who use Gather. Then make the best decision for you and your comfort level, knowing you have the ability to adjust your settings at any time you wish to.
If you have any questions about using these tools or concerns about interactions on Gather please contact the Support Team for assistance. We want you to enjoy the time you spend Gathering.
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Comments: 95
better duck M... get out the Kevlar keyboard again...
I understand the above comments, however, they may not understand the full implications of cyber harassment and how that affects one's ability to interact on a public site.
I don't think the recent voices raised where "hysterical" at all, as I was one of them. I take offense at such a statement.
n.
1. (used with a pl. verb) Theatrical arts or performances.
2. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) Exaggerated emotional behavior calculated for effect.
This is NOT what I experienced. What I experienced and documented were very serious threats.
Other sharing sites - such as myspace - have privacy blocks available and still have the vision of being a sharing site. It is possible.
I was hoping to see some positive changes when I read this article, but I don't see that anything has changed.
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474977557971
I probably understand internet harassment better than most anyone. I've had my life, and the life of all my family members threatened (not on Gather), I've been reported to the FBI for political statements (not by Gather members that I know of), I've had someone threaten to track me down and slit my throat (this one was on Gather), I've been called most every ugly name imaginable, I've had people suggest that I do or have done things that even I am not comfortable typing or repeating, and I have been stalked by a couple of people who were certifiable.
Death threats from someone who has the desire and means to carry them out are dangerous. Everything else is annoying. Comment removal, points, the ability to flag, and group participation have proven that some Gather members will abuse any feature given. It is impossible to have a 'real' conversation when people are allowed to either remove comments they don't like or orchestrate who is allowed to comment. For that reason, I think Gather is making a wise decision not to allow another means by which people can "stack the deck" to make it look as though their opinion or work is appreciated by all who read it.
I respectfully disagree with you.
Just recently, a member chose to leave adult photos and harassing remarks with crude language as comments to attack other members, and pings consisting of adult photos.
I suggested that the "Guarded Viewing" option needs modification to address this loophole, and MaryAnne agreed to look into it. No promises were made, but I am hopeful. This will not fix the problem, but it should reduce some of our exposure to some of it.
Have a nice weekend.
Thanks for commenting. I'd like to address your question about why some sites implement blocking while it would be very technically complicated to implement that feature on Gather (regardless of whether it adheres to Gather's vision of being a sharing community).
Gather's technical platform has been designed and built with sharing content as a major goal. The way we have developed the databases that store information and the way we display information on the site is built around sharing. When upgrades are performed, we keep our company vision in mind – “connecting people and ideas”. With this as our foundation we have designed features that provide a platform for diverse people to share diverse ideas in an open format.
As a balance to that open sharing, we have added the features outlined in the post above to provide members controls they can turn on or off, as they see fit. If Gather were to build a feature that allows blocking of member profiles and content, that would need to be done on an infrastructure that has been designed with the opposite in mind. That’s where the complexity lies. In addition to the technical complexity, there is the vision of Gather to connect people and ideas. This vision is achieved on an open platform.
Does that mean the discussion of privacy and controls is over? No, it does not. It means that there is not a switch that can be flipped to make this happen and there is an infrastructure and culture that make it complicated and goes somewhat against the company vision. We will continue to look into what blocking could mean on Gather and we will continue to look into other ways to offer members flexible controls.
If I don't want my content visible to everyone, I'll publish it to "friends only". If I publish it to "everyone" (and it's not flagged), anyone on the internet can see it. Blocking a member would then be meaningless, since the member could still see my content if they signed out. If content was visible to Gather members only, but all members, all those who use the site for net visibility would leave, while a blocked stalker would simply have to create a new account to see me. The only way to hide from such a stalker is to publish to connections only, which option is currently available.
I understand that some people received very disturbing messages or comments. But while clicking on a "block" button might give victims emotional satisfaction, it would do little else. It would not solve the problem of serious stalking, and it would create many other problems.
I concur with the remarks of Sandy.
I commented before reading the excellent remark by Janna.
I am amazed, surprised, and delighted.
You are very insightful, and you are correct just too often when it comes to what Gather is going to do.
It's disappointing news, but Gather has made their decision, and I certainly respect their right to do so.
JustMe (and I hope by embolding your name, that it is not seen as harassing you), there is yet another solution: you write beautifully. I'm speaking of the poems, and other posts you publish here on Gather.
My plan, (already doing it) is to continue to publish, but publish to a site where blocking is an option already in effect, and using the professional writing name I already use. There are some great advantages to this.
-- some sites pay you.
-- you may still enjoy Internet-wide viewing of your work.
-- you are empowered with the option of blocking, and how sweet it is.
Plus, if you do chose to post the same article on Gather -- perhaps at a later date, do just that -- publish to a select group of Friends/Connections, but definitely NOT to "Everyone".
As far as "Deleting" comments is concerned, I have not used that option frequently, but from here on out, I shall use it at the drop of a hat, and with no questions asked.
_______________________________________________
MaryAnne, you have laid out Gather's solution to the problems that so many frustrated Gatherers have faced. Alrighty then, and I thank you.
Doc, your $25 GC is on the way, and thank you for pointing me to this article. Just let me know, from what company I should purchase that GC. I've learned another lesson here, and it was worth far more than the $25 I'm putting out, because I've gained more out of this than the cost of $25 GC.
:=)
I DO NOT ACCEPT AT FACE VALUE THE REASONS THAT GATHER HAS GIVEN, AS ABSOLUTES.
THEY BEAR LOOKING INTO, TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT THESE REASONS ARE VALID.
Jumping on the righteous indignation bandwagon and getting the masses riled up over a run-in with a "monster entity" that occurred in 2006 to get attention is histrionic, in my book. You requested that I not give my opinion on the matter on your articles, so I am weighing in here, where it is allowed.
(Thanks to Aniko, for saying it better than I did.)
"I DO NOT ACCEPT AT FACE VALUE THE REASONS THAT GATHER HAS GIVEN, AS ABSOLUTES.
THEY BEAR LOOKING INTO, TO DETERMINE WHETHER OR NOT THESE REASONS ARE VALID."
This calls for some investigative journalism! And maybe the hiring of a Real Paid Lawyer and a trip to Internet Court!
I have no idea what occurred in 2006, but you said "recent histrionics", and it is to that I take offense. Furthermore, to insinuate that an issue of personal importance to me was used by me to garner attention is downright inappropriate. You don't know me.
Here is one thing for you to know - I would never make assumptions about anyone or behave in a passive-aggressive manner like you have, with your comment regarding me and now KEO, above.
I am very surprised, and dismayed, at what I am seeing here, but yes, Janna, you are right. This is the place to express opinion, but not to insult others. You have crossed the line.
I respect Sandy, Peter, Aniko, Doc and the others who have stated their opposite opinion on the issue.
Whether the reasons are valid, or not, Gather has reached their decision; it is their right to do so. You are talented, and your talents are appreciated here, and they shall be appreciated on other sites where the options you desire are available. Nothing prevents anyone from posting in the way they previously did. For me, the difference is that it caused me to seek other options -- a GOOD THING, a VERY GOOD thing with GREAT OUTCOME! It's how situations often turn out: out of turmoil and darkness comes a brighter day.
JustMe,
You are a very gifted poetess. You don't need to hear this from me. You write anywhere, and your talents shall be appreciated. Please don't expend the emotions here, where a decision has been made, and it is very obvious that the decision shall not change.
Again, there are some exciting sites out there, some that pay for talent such as yours. Let's talk about them, okay? As MaryAnne stated, the option of posting to "Friends" only and/or "Connections" only is available. We should all be thankful that there are so many other options out there. Consider the possibilities!
Consider the possibilities, especially for one with writing talents such as you!
I'm working on an Obama article, undoubtedly my best one yet, and after the unnecessary, petty foolishness here on Gather that has occurred, and all of the subsequent occurrences there is NO WAY that I would publish that piece to
"EVERYONE" here on Gather
I am just thankful that there are other options. Think about if there weren't other options. Don't sweat it. Let it go. Okay?
The righteous indignation over what some members encounter here, and the calls for more powerful weapons for members to point threateningly at each other, is a by-product of a human problem, not a Gather problem. We don't all have the same threshold for what we find intolerable in the societies of which we are part. We don't all agree on what is an acceptable response to that which we find intolerable. We don't all agree on what preventative measures are appropriate in the effort to prevent our exposure to that which we find intolerable. We never will find ourselves in full agreement on those things, ever. Period.
No company, community or society can set itself up in such a way that every member's experience is completely consistent with their personal vision of what is acceptable. There have been attempts throughout human history to create such island communities—thoroughly cleansed of anything which might offend the most easily offended, completely free of dissent, with rigid structures and harsh penalties for violations of the rules. In every case, they have proven to be dangerously unbalanced and toxic to that which humans need in order to thrive: freedom, diversity, tolerance, and broadness of experience.
The healthiest communities, those where the most members experience the most positive benefits of membership, are those which balance freedom and security the most mindfully. Too much freedom is chaos, and too much security is prison. The best any community can do is to find the middle, and only move it when there is credible evidence that both the community as a whole and the individual members of the community will benefit. Moving the middle in order to benefit individuals, to the detriment of the greater community, is a bad idea. The same is true in reverse.
In my opinion, Gather is already roughly in the middle on the security vs. freedom issue. They err on the side of freedom in the way the community is structured, and they err on the side of security when handling individual complaints. I think they have a history of caving in to the most hysterical members who raise the loudest complaints (not so much now as during the transition from writing site to social network). I consider it my personal responsibility to find a way to thrive in an environment which I feel panders too much to fear-driven bullying and histrionic claims of victimization. The price for my freedom is that I have to accept that not everyone sees things as I do. My freedom gives me the right to disagree openly with them when our contradictory values clash, but not to silence them or expel them from my community. No member of any community has the right to expect that they will never encounter anything which offends them, or that they will never experience anything which feels harmful to them. Life is offensive and harmful, painful and scary. Get over it.
Telling someone that you don't like them, or that you don't like something they've said or done, is not harassment. It's communication. Telling them more than once is not stalking. Failure to review every piece of content for proper viewing settings before allowing it to be posted is not negligence. Folks who are lawyering up over things they've encountered on Gather are only succeeding in poisoning the atmosphere. They may ultimately get their way, if the stink gets so bad that only the very small percentage of members who enjoy struggling to breathe stick around and those who prefer fresh air move on.
No, I don't. My second comment specifically referred to *one* of the several articles in the recent debacle, and it wasn't one of yours. Stop taking offense, and then go read Time Heals' brilliant comment. Everyone should.
I also register a formal defense of Janna’s comment. JustMe, I hope you will reconsider your position, since you admit you don’t know what went on in 2006. The incident that Kathryn rehashed was one of the funniest that has ever occurred on Gather (or any other site). She had posted several “the sky is falling, somebody picked on me or fooled all of us” articles and many people had told her she had misunderstood or missed brilliant satire and humor, or over-reacted. We brought proof. We spent hours/days, taking turns at trying to explain it to her. She insisted that “she knew” it was impossible for there to be more than one person with the same name. Someone created a new identity with her name and icon and, instead of admitting that she was wrong, she said her son must have used her account. It went on and on and on, and she cried that everyone was picking on her. Coming back now to post another “woe is me” article about that incident is nothing short of histrionics.
I was going to speak to the varying degrees in which people feel pain. Time Heals covered part of that, much better than I would. But I will offer a slightly different perspective.
I suffer chronic pain conditions that most people would rate 10 on that infamous 1-10 scale the doctors ask us to use. Because this is a way of life for me, I can reset dislocated joints and endure surgical procedures with no medications while other people want narcotics for stumped toes. I don’t consider those people wrong or weak, because I understand that if a stumped toe is the only pain that person has experienced that means it is probably a 10 on his or her scale. However, I know the doctor would be wrong to prescribe a narcotic for a stumped toe.
I think emotional pain is the same. If a person has never been insulted or threatened, “Your hair is a mess,” or “I hope your dinner burns,” will probably hurt. I am sad for that person whose feelings are hurt, or whose blood pressure has been raised for a few minutes. But I think it would be as wrong for Gather to allow that person to block or remove anyone whose presence s/he doesn’t like as it would be for the doctor above to prescribe narcotics.
Perception matters.
Again, just an observation and thinking out loud here; no horse in this race.
Take care.
The fact is, there were many who did not revere, support, or otherwise approve of W, and they came in all levels of attitude, from hostility to mere disrespect. Blocking them from protesting where he could see them did not make them cease to exist. It could have only *helped* this outgoing administration if it had stopped trying to pretend there were no opponents to their policies and instead listened and learned.
The same goes here: with a blocking mechanism, we might not see those who disagree with us, but that doesn't make us right, nor does it enable us to understand their reactions and perhaps learn to defend ourselves from them. Think of the dodo bird and how it had learned not to distrust, after a life without predators
Gee. Do you think Amelia Earhart really came back from the dead just to comment on Gather? Quite an accomplishment for one of thousands of social networking sites. I've noticed that character is connected to Jimmy Hoffa and a vampire, too.
All sarcasm aside, that one comment brings up the use of aliases here and anywhere. It's a first line of defense for anyone active on the internet -- the minute we found a way to use the internet socially, we gave those same tools and practices to those who would use the internet for antisocial activities. It goes with the territory.
I haven't been here as long as Sandy and Lloyd, but it's been more than 2 years, and I've watched the site change to accommodate the needs of the members as it grows. I will admit that I wish I had not used my real name here, and that having done so, I learned quickly to choose my words carefully and even to be cautious about where I leave any words at all. We learn caution, and that caution serves us well here and anywhere else.
Blocking people who aren't nice is like putting blinders on a horse: it won't learn to shy away from an oncoming vehicle that way.
In response to her comment: "All sarcasm aside, that one comment brings up the use of aliases here and anywhere. It's a first line of defense for anyone active on the internet --" I offer this little story for thought.
Some of these individuals want all the points they can get (and as such, publish to everyone) but want to keep people who disagree with them out of their party. Now, some of the smarter ones have elected to restrict comments to friends only, but publish to everyone (which Gather, I wish that in the future if someone selects 'friends only can comment, then the post, by default should be posted to friends only, not the entire site). This keeps their Gather Cash cow flowing (because people will click hysterically titled articles) but keeps the mean ole haters from saying anything.
Now, sometimes people are genuinely harassed (or at least pestered) by people on here. Such as people who won't accept no as an answer RE: friends requests and creepy people who leave threatening messages.
If you're naive enough to post your full name, where you live and geo tag your kids pictures. .. well you should just honestly expect such things to happen. You brought it on yourself.
Be smart or grow thicker skin.
Thanks for keeping one less censorship feature off Gather MaryAnne.
There is a huge loop hole in the myspace blocking feature ,which allows you to block an individual from viewing your page. It only blocks a member's ID # or IP addie.. if that person opens another account under a different ID# or uses another computer your page is still viewable to them. If your page is public, they can post and continue to harass under several accounts. It's a false sense of security.
Use discretion if you are worried about threats online.
Suffice it to say, it comes down to who is responsible for personal safety, anywhere. We can't hand off responsibility for ourselves.
Gather takes threats seriously. I know. I made an offhanded comment about using a sledge hammer once.. and got slapped for it. I didn't mean for the comment to be "threatening".. it was meant as a figure of speech. None the less... I had to respect Gather's stance to protect their site.
Can you understand my perspective? I am not the type to hide from another whose position, or opinion, is different than mine. And perhaps blocking is a false sense of security. I can see that as possible.
However, it does send a clear message that threats, harassment, and inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated. It is a line of defense.
I have been open to your point-of-view. I hope you have at least been open to mine. I have enjoyed this dialogue and welcome any of you as friends, here on Gather.
I could not agree more. Most of the claims of victimization I've seen on Gather are entirely the result of disastrous thinking and a victim mentality, seasoned with narcissism. Somebody says something stupid and gets called out for it. They're a little embarrassed. They escalate their own feelings of humiliation until they believe that their suffering is equal to the worst suffering a human has ever inflicted on another through humiliation. They identify someone to blame, and demand that their tormentor be punished in the harshest way possible. In reality, their suffering never was greater than what everyone experiences from time to time, when we make an all-too-human gaffe and get caught. And if they really must blame someone, they ought to blame themselves for speaking or acting without thinking it through first.
The self-victimization is so thick around here sometimes you could cut it with a knife. Someone says something that another person doesn't like. The person who doesn't like it imagines a world where everyone can say and do anything they want to one another, without fear of consequences. It's a horrible and brutal imagined world. By being forced to hear something they didn't like, they believe they have been forcefully transported into that world. Only the severest of punishments and most draconian of crackdowns can prevent all of society from crumbling into chaos. "Dogs and cats living together! MASS HYSTERIA!" In fact, we all hear and see things we don't like every day. We each have to be okay despite that. The alternative is to isolate ourselves in armed encampments, one person per razor-wire enclosure please, and start writing our manifestos.
Someone sent out a bunch of private messages with unwanted sexual content to women on Gather. Member Services looked into it and deleted the sender's account. Case closed. Gather cannot create an environment for you where this sort of thing couldn't possibly happen. They can't flay the violator, or place their severed head on a pike. And by the way, it's vanishingly unlikely that you narrowly escaped a mind-shattering experience at the hands of an evil entity. You got spammed. It was unacceptable, but not a life-changing experience. If you stay here, it will happen again. Prepare yourselves to simply report it and move on.
'Time' I am astounded to say this but I'd never seen you before.
THANK YOU FOR cutting thru the bullshit!
I'm afraid that I don't, although a lot may have been going on that I was unaware of. What I saw was an article by Selene about a nasty message she received. The demand for blocking capability was made and snowballed into petitions, more articles, righteous indignation and a whole buncha outrage and demands, seemingly before Gather was even given a chance to address the issue.
JustMe 0307 continued: "However, it [blocking] does send a clear message that threats, harassment, and inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated. It is a line of defense."
In my experience, Gather has a decent (although somewhat uneven; see TH's first comment) record of fairly addressing complaints of threats, harassment, slander and other internet nastiness. They do investigate complaints and take action. I don't see the need for making it a big public deal and getting everyone all worked up before other avenues are pursued and an investigation has been started.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on this.
Just one more thing I want to share with you. I received many, many emails from other women, telling me of their experiences with harassment, once I opened the discussion, which is what really disturbed me. It was not just because of what happened to Selene, but "nasty" is an understatement.
We are a public "community" and I brought the issue to the community. It has, at least, created dialogue and discussion. I don't see that as a negative.
However, posting articles detailing instances in which a member feels their rights have been violated is a double-edged sword, and should be reserved only for times when other avenues of redressing grievances have been exhausted. Such articles do open up discussions, but they also encourage people to start passing judgments and making demands in a one-sided manner. In cases where Gather has yet to decide on a resolution, that can be a problem. If they start receiving multiple letters expressing opinions about a case they're working on, they have to read them. An investigation which might have taken a couple of hours could easily stretch out much longer if the messages keep rolling in. If none of the supporting messages contain any new and pertinent information, that is time wasted on unnecessary delays. Let them do what they need to do, and if you don't like their decision then appeal it to them personally and privately.
Further, there is a tendency—when comparing stories of mistreatment which contain similarities—to conflate the details into one big story of suffering, both real and potential. The case at hand begins to look like just the first step, which will inevitably lead to all sorts of other abuses if not handled with immediate drastic action. This escalates the fear and anxiety levels, making it more difficult to wait for a thorough review followed by reasonable action, and making any actions Gather might take seem woefully inadequate.
Anyway, if you ever wonder why it takes so long for Member services to get around to a resolution of your case, don't forget about all the petty, ridiculous complaints they're forced to deal with on a regular basis. I'm sure they could operate more efficiently and act more swiftly on valid complaints if they didn't have to deal with so much whining by people who ought to get over themselves.
If you bring a complaint of harrassment at work, chances are the investigation will begin right away. But, it'll probably be days or weeks before an investigation is completed and a decision to resolve it is made. There are protocols to be followed in order to assure that no one's rights are trampled. Without those protocols, the investigatory process itself could be used as a weapon by unscrupulous people. Patience.
A member accuses men who disagree with her (four or five different men, one of whom is your friend and only joined Gather two days before by your invitation) of being her real life stalker. She makes the accusations in comments and articles, alerts her connections, and sends emails to new members to warn them about these guys, who she insists are really one very dangerous guy. You know that isn’t true, so when you see her make these accusations in public, you link to the places where she has made these accusations and explain that you know two of these guys and she is wrong.
And then she gets upset with you for blowing her cover and spreads all sorts of ugly rumors about you. And she and her friends send out more letters, sometimes to your own family and friends, because she and her friends don’t know you well enough to know that they are connected to your family and friends. And they create groups and ask others to “do whatever it takes to get you kicked off Gather”. Soon, there are multiple articles published about you, daily. And Gather receives hundreds of complaints about you, when all you’ve done is try to protect the men this woman falsely accused of being her personal stalker, the people she is scaring for no reason, yourself, and eventually all of your friends, because those groups blackball anyone who defends you . . .
And a couple other people get jealous of the attention this woman gets, so they start doing the same – sending out letters to new people to warn them against you and the men she doesn’t like. People send these letters to you, and publish these letters, but it doesn’t shame or stop the people who are sending them because they have thousands of friends who will believe them without trying to find out the truth.
Suppose those people, and everyone they have influenced have the ability to block you. And they all publish articles about how horrible you are. And you have no way to respond to those articles.
I’ve been there. I know the dangerous side of this debate.
I hear you.
That is just crazy for anyone to go to that extent to hurt another person. Wow! I guess there are some real pieces of work when it comes to people. I was totally unaware of this.
I am totally lost. What is currently happening to get everyone so fired up? We all knew what the rules were when we joined Gather and we accepted them as they were written so now someone wants to change them??? Is that what this is all about?
Good point. Sandy's comment reminded me of an episode that happened here over a year ago. Someone published an article about Joe Biden being a plagiarist. I pointed out the irony* of an article accusing someone of plagiarism containing a large portion of unquoted and improperly cited material from another source. I was immediately accused of harassment on that article and multiple other articles all over Gather. Two attempts to defend myself in subsequent comments snowballed into more hysteric claims of harassment, slander, and threats of a lawsuit (I kid you not) until finally Kevin V. (and possibly Gather) was able to get through to the accuser and make her understand that I had done nothing of the sort and *she* was in fact more of a harasser for slandering me all over the place. Had this person been able to block me, I wouldn't have known half of the lies she was spreading about me all over the place.
My point is--I really do think that claims of harassment (and worse) should be left to rational, impartial people like Member Support to deal with. I'm not saying that all claims of harassment are made by irrational people but in my experience here, many are. Just ask all the folks who have had their material improperly flagged for "harassment".
*Here's the first comment I left. My words begin with "If that is indeed...". I'll let you decide if it's harassment, slander, and worthy of a lawsuit:
""I think plagiarists are one of the lowest forms of life. "
If that is indeed the case, you'd do well to put the chunk of article you've taken from here [link to source] in quotation marks, so you're not accused of not giving proper attribution like Biden was."
My experience (staring December 2005) has been that people join Gather, don't like what they see, and demand that it change. In 2005, it was billed as a site for writers and intelligent interaction. Tom Gerace interacted with members quite often then, via live threads. He repeatedly told us that he wanted the members to "shape" what the site would become. So, those of us who came here believing that it was a site for writing and discussion, fought to keep it what it was.
New people came in and wanted the site to be a game and chat room, and started posting ten or more "Good Morning", "Name words that start with letters", or "Here's a coupon for 10 cents off your next pack of gum" articles. We complained, they said if we didn't like it we should find another site that we did like.
We used the tools given - ratings and comments - to express our displeasure. Gather said to use the rating scale (1 - 10) to indicate what we liked, with 10 being the best we'd seen. As writers, a one-sentence post asking us to name a word that starts with the letter A or an item found at a birthday party (often with a word or two misspelled in that one sentence) did not deserve a rating above 1. Some of us left 1 ratings and explained why. That made the "authors" of the games furious, so they came to our work and rated it 1 - because they were angry, not because we deserved that rating.
It got ugly, people who didn't want any criticism or critique of their posts demanded that Gather allow us to remove comments if we didn't like them. Gather added that feature. It destroyed political discussions, took away our ability to correct misinformation (see Janna' comment above) or to protect ourselves.
Now, people are asking for the ability to block other members which will make it even worse. People would be able to lie about others, insult others, etc., in public - except to the person they are talking about and have blocked.
So, to answer your question, yes, changing what is here is what this is about.
then there are those who have unusually kind views of themselves and don't want ANYTHING that could contradict this strange mental image viewable by anybody, or failing that by themselves...
Gather is a family complete with strange people, you have to kind of watch...
So the rest of us should suffer those who don't take responsibility for their own actions? That's seems to be what the people who keep posting to incorrect groups think too, that the rest of us are responsible for babysitting their content because they don't want to be bothered.
I joined in Aug 2006 when the the controversy over writing vs. words that contain the letter "s" was in full swing. The content was a lot more interesting then. Oddly enough I stuck around because I met some interesting people. A lot of the interesting people left though.
A summary of this discussion and the link itself has been shared with all staff members.