Thoughts on the New People Page

i like it! however the first entry seems to change very fast which is maybe the point?  If you want to catch it tho you have to be quick!

Thanks, Diana!  The speed of the page changes based on how busy the conversation on Gather is at any given time.  It will move more slowly at 4 am than at 4pm, to be sure!

I just went and looked. It's sort of hypnotic. You could just sit there and stare at it. It's very different. It does show articles that I might be interested in. Where do they go when they scroll off the bottom? I'm not sure I could react fast enough to catch one!

Hi Barb- the page is meant to show some of the conversation happening right now on Gather.  We don't actually preserve the stream anywhere (but we could, I suppose).  We just wanted an easy way to show the community where people on Gather were spending their time and what they were discussing.

It looks like you're only scrolling comments with real content. No "Thanks for posting" or "You're welcomes"  ... that's very cool if it's true.

BTW, I love the new features for comments.

I think this Real People page is one of the most interesting things you guys have come up with in a while. I like that it just keeps moving.

Barb- we do try to focus on the more substantive comments.  I am glad you like that and will let the team know.

That is way cool. I love the follow thread stuff, and I'm impressed with the "substantive comment" idea. Very cool.

I don't think I will be using the page. I don't really have a use for it but I am sure it will be beneficial to others.

Chris,

I don't think I will be using it either.

Thanks, Chris and Connie.  That's good feedback for us.

I like it!!

I never liked to see who got how many page views etc. i was just not intrested.

But i like to see who has responded and to what:)

Great upgrade!!

Sweet, thanks.  It should prove a lot more dynamic than the old page was.  The prior people page had a self-perpetuating nature that left it mostly static.  This one shows the life the whole community creates here.

Yes, it did cause static.

I like that i can find intresting things to respond to with out haveing to search for them, there are more members out there than just the connections i have now. I also like the little updates section on the right.

That makes it easier to find new connections:)

I am so liking the new upgrades!

To me, it makes it truely a community now:)

Tom,

I really have had no reason to use that part of the upgrade yet.

I agree with Connie.  I don't care what other people are talking about unless they're on my friends list.   To me, it just seems like a site filler rather than a unique aspect.

Same here.

okay now i see what it does.. great upgrade!

Thanks Diana!

 do like how it updates automatically instead of having to refresh the page.

Chris- would you like it if comments on the article pages did this (automatically update when new information was added)?

I think it updates too fast. I can't keep up with it. Before I get one comment read there is another one in it's place

No Way Tom! Not if you are talking about the actual articles we post. It moves so fast. I would never be able to keep up with article comments. If you are talking about the explore tab whee articles, pictures and videos are then I would not mind it.

To tell you the truth, I checked it out early today along with everything else, and it kind of drove me crazy. Because it updates constantly, it keeps shifting as I try to read anything and one time a comment/post disappeared off the screen before I could click on it... so I soon lost interest. It might be easier to deal with during slower times?

Hi John- the page does speed-up during busier times and slows down during slower times.  We will be looking for feedback on the speed once people are used to the experience.  We might also consider adding a pause button or a speed control (a brake of some sort) if most people find it too fast.

That might help, it was just moving too fast for me to keep up earlier. If it paused while the mouse cursor was over it or something, that would be much better. For me at least... I can't read that fast on a moving target, LOL.

I like that idea, John.  I'll pass it on to our team.  Thanks!

The same thing happened to me (disappeared before I was through reading) so I lost interest in it.......

Yes, a pause button might help. I won't use it the way it is now. Too distracting.

To be perfectly honest, I probaly won't use it the way it is now.  I liked the old way because I could look at a whole page of 100 photos and when one caught my eye it was very easy to look at it and comment on it.

Hi Sandra.  You can still see those photos on the Explore page (instead of the People Page that I think to above).

Tom, I went to the explore page and clicked on photos.  I then clicked on flowers and it brought up a page of beautiful recent flower photos.  When I clicked on next page, I did not get flowers I got quite a few photos of topless women......don't think I'll use the explore anymore!

Great to hear, Darlene, thanks!  If you are willing, please circle back after you have used it for a while and let me know what you think?

The new people page just pops odd to me~comment after comment slipping in~it's totally zombifying~I sat and watched the comment flow for the better part of a half hour~simply mesmerized by. . . .well, we'll just say we shan't be using that page anytime soon ;)

Ha!  I am picturing thousands of Gatherers staring blankly at the People page, as the comments pour slowly down the page.  I appreciate the feedback Purrrrrrrrrr

=O  I'm getting a Clockwork Orange vibe here~    ;)

Totally useless from my perspective. I click on new people I have not heard of before on my notifications.

Whenever I click onto a people page, you can bet your last red penny I am connected to 80 t0 90 percent of the people already there.

Most of the enhancements today, if not all of them, Tom, are useless time wasters for members.

I personally think Gather loses MUCH more with each upgrade than it gains, Tom.

People have been emailing me since Hawthorne with the sheer number of people they are connected to who no longer even check in, because they are so disgusted with these so-called changes.

These changes do NOT bring new people, they steer away the go

I am sorry to hear it isn't your cup of tea, Kathryn.  I do appreciate the feedback, though, and recognize that any change will have people who like it and people who do not.

What do you miss from the old people page?

I'm sorry but I don't like it. I probably won't use it.

No need to apologize, Brenda.  I am grateful for the honest feedback; it's the only way we will approve.  What else might you like to see there?

It just goes to fast sometimes. At 3 this morning, it was easy to keep up with.

I kind of miss seeing the people with the popular content. Maybe you could spotlight different people each day but give everyone a chance to  be up there. Or spotlight  some of the newer members who might be looking for new friends.

I think it's kind of neat!  Although I'm not sure that I'll ever remember to use it.  :)

Tom,

Can you honestly tell me why you all make these changes with the upgrades?

The people page is very blocky and I never look at People Pages anywho.

Most of the changes have deterred people.

I really think Gather management needs to get Valuable Feedback from certain key members PRIOR to making these changes.

As far as I can see, these changes only bring frustration and more time wasting to members and many people just walk out.

I am not inclined to use the HTML button for HTML because I do not have the extra seconds it requires.

Why tinker with things that are not broke?

Having worked in computer/business publications for a number of years, NUMBER ONE concern among businesses was making sure their installed base was satisfied.

That does not seem to be the case here on Gather with these upgrades since Hawthorne and Ice.

Hi Kathryn- Sure, I would be happy to honestly tell you why we make these changes: we are working to create an improved experience over time for members, new and more experienced.

Threaded comments and learning about comment responses were features we had heard about from dozens of members.  Interest in this feature set has been growing as the length of conversations has grown over time (in short, it was increasingly broken from the perspective of many members).

We reviewed a lot of industry alternatives, discussed options with members, and built what we believed to be a simple, easy to use solution.

We do track the impact on repeat member visits and usage of our upgrades over time.  Our repeat members and time on site have been growing consistently over the last year.

That's not to say we always get it right.  Pasting HTML directly into the comment window may make sense; I can inquire with the team.  And there are a number of other suggestions we have received this week that we may want to include.

In the end, the old adage will prove true: You can't please all of the people all of the time.  There are some changes that some people may not like, that others will like a lot (this thread today is good evidence of that).  When we encounter those features, I make a judgment call about what I think will best serve the long term interests of the community.  I hope to get at least half of those calls right...

Gather staff Gather in very different ways from Gather members.

This is absolutely true and something we are very conscious of when we design products.

Gosh I posted a long reply here, complete with HTML, but for the 5th time today, Gather ate it.

What I said was,I've only been here 6 months and I have 170 PAGES of comments. Try writing 150 pages without an editor and maybe you'll understand why a comment editor is so important.

I rarely used the people page before and just checked it out briefly.  I like the the way it automatically updates but it does go quickly.  I wish the comments on a page would update in this manner it would make it easy to follow along in a chat instead of having to hit refresh constantly.  Going to have to play with these new features for a while before I can give a better opinon.

Thanks for the first impression, Linda!  Please let me know what you think when you have explored it for a little longer?

Hmmm, interesting.  I never used the people page before, but this seems different.  I may use it once in a while afterall.

That's great to hear, Darlene!  Please let me know what you think.

I honestly hadn't even looked at it until I clicked your link. I guess it's alright. My connection feeds usually keep me busy enough that I don't have to stray off my own home page for anything. Once and awhile if I run out of stuff, I hit a group and run through the photos.  I don't forsee any real use for this unless I'm looking for a discussion on a certain topic.

Thanks Marianne. I appreciate the feedback.

I do agree, though, that it is a little fast.

On other changes to today's Upgrade, visually, the blocky look is artistically the worst idea a designer could ever conceive of.

Soft, fluid lines is ALWAYS preferable to blocky looks.

I have no idea what prompted this change, but it is horrible.

And I have been here since Jan 15, 2006, long enough to see MANY ideas that failed to be replaced by OTHER ideas that failed.

Consider the half-baked idea of Recommended Artilces, back in early 2006, based on articles that got a lot of views, for example, which were nearly always the most controversial articles and which were placed front and center of every one's page, to the embarassment of all members, who ceased inviting their friends to come.

I do NOT find any hint of a clear vision, either technically, user-friendly-wise, or financially.

I therefore have little hope that Gather will survive financially, given last year's and this year's staff layoffs.

If Gather mangement simply puts all its eggs in one basket to garner as much seed money as possible and to LISTEN to what KEY Gather members are saying, instead of going for the latest in so-called improvements, such as these comment threading features present on NING sites, REPLY TO COMMENT - which I never use on the NING sites, either - then maybe Gather has a chance.

But I see SO MUCH backpedaling here that I do not have faith in Gather's ability to survive.

TOO Many great members have left.

Tom, I saw that you replied to my post comment from my Gmail notifications, but I do not have time to find it on this page.

sry.

the Gmail notification does NOT take the reader to the actual place where the comment was left, but to the page. For long threads, ....................or even short ones...that is too much time....

That's something we would like to add in the future.  With some comment threads growing toward 1,000 comments, we want to provide access to members to continue a conversation inside a thread directly.  This isn't a trivial change, but I think it's an important suggestion.

Thanks for bringing this up, Kathryn!

No page with 1000 comments is like to contain any worth following.

Kathryn, you're right. Hopefully Gather can add that feature soon.

I agree with the others who think it changes too fast.  Can you slow it down some way so it's not changing so fast?

Hi Brian- thanks.  I'll chat with the team about the speed at which the page moves/updates.  I appreciate the feedback.

wow this does seem to move quite quickly! I like it

Thanks Beth!

I do not have the extra seconds it requires to answer your question.

Again, Tom, I cannot find the reply, but Gather does not have many members left, and with comments of more than even 50 or 100, it is just too much trouble.

I have no faith left in Gather, Tom.

These so called improvements are NOT.

No offense, but I won't be using it.  You have to sit staring at it non-stop to be able to catch something that might interest you before it disappears and is repleaced by new.  I get publication notifications and always have the feed on my page to be able to take my time to make sure I see everything that's offered if I want to check something out at my pace.  Using this, you'd have to sit glued to the page 24/7 in order to be able to look at everything that rolls through.  I'll stick to what I know and works for me.

None taken, Rob.  Thanks for the honest feedback.

This is one of the changes I do not particularly care for.

Is there something you miss from the old People page, Katie?

 The old "people" page always had the same o, same o. I am hoping the new way gets more new people exposed. get kind of tired of the usual crowd getting on all the "most" lists. :)

Signed:

 penni d ((( iwanna get read, i wanna get read ))

Thanks, Penni. We saw that same problem.  Showing a variety of things that are happening RIGHT NOW on the site was our goal.  Let me know what you think once you are used to the page a bit?

 i can scroll faster than it changes, lol (( doing an ol' lady Victory dance))

Not interested.  I find new people by following interesting comments or ping-stalking my friends.  Just to check on this, I did a few rounds with the new people page, by interest.  Didn't find a soul I wanted to contact.  There are a bazillion people on Gather.  I don't have time for all of them.

Thanks Sarah.   It's helpful to hear the last two sentences in particular.  Our goal is to help you sort through the thousands of people that are here every day to find ones you might be interested in knowing.  This page doesn't sound like the right method for us to do that for you.  We'll keep working on others.

Actually, I don't keed others.  The way I do it works fine.  Put your energies into a comment editor instead.

I don't think I'll use it.

Me neither.  But LOOK !!! I used THIS !!!

I took a look at it. I won't use it. I have my group of connections plus a few others that I read at times. I comment stalk interesting people to interesting content. Actually, that's how I ended up over here; I followed Penni.

I'll try not to be hurt by the fact that you aren't comment stalking me as well, Heather :-)

I like all the changes so far Tom, especially the comment reply feature. now I get an e-mail when I get replies to my comments, that's a real improvement!

Thanks, Matthew!  Comment response notification (we are all about sexy naming conventions here at Gather) is one of my favorite features as well.

I'm with SarahA.

I can't be bothered looking for 'new' people... I comment stalk those I enjoy reading OR those who post something on a topic I find of interest.  I have to be frank, most of the stuff is of absolutely NO interst to me.

Good to know, Ishbel.  Thanks for the feedback.

Ditto to what Sarah and Ishbel said: comment-stalking has always been the best way to get a sense of outlook and attitude for someone here.

I can't decide what I think. I experimented with it, and it's not clear how it can benefit me. So I doubt that I'll use it. It looks to me like just another way to perform a search, and that's fine if you have all day to click on different profiles, I guess.

I see watching the People page as the equivalent of channel surfing, myself.  It's a way to look at what is happening and decide whether or not you want to dive in.  I would be grateful if you let me know what you think once you experience it a little more, Elizabeth.  Thanks!

Lol, heather... that is the way I have been finding reads too...comment stalking my friends.... ( laughing). that way, one doesn't need the nasty "notify" button at all...

Penni- that's actually a very common method of discovery.  We call it social discovery (something I wrote about six months ago).  It's natural to learn by observing your friends and what they do.  We do it every day.

 true, Tom, but the new "people" page will make it soooo much easier to comment stalk and find the good stuff... IF you are a FAST reader and can Scroll even faster, ha,ha....

 The "people" page makes it WAYYY easier to see photos as they are posted, then one can "click" and Be there...WOW!

ha! glad you are enjoying that, Penni.

I thought <i>"...comment threating,..."<i> was against TOS, Tom.  Aside from that, your new "people" gizmo is just the latest in a long series of PITAs.  Any comment longer than three words vanishes before a normal person can finish reading it, much less follow it to its source.  Just once, wouldn't it be worth your while to ASK us what we want before implementing all the stuff we don't want or need?  We've been screaming for a comment editor for months, for instance, yet the voices in your head were evidently urging a migraine-inducing stream of information on what little Louie had for breakfast today.  You guys keep force-feeding us garbage when all we ask for is reasonable sustenance.  Please?

And what the hell is the point of the extra HTML thingie when the above format always worked just fine?

I second that emotion.  Again.

Dame, please read my response to Kathryn above.  Most of this release was motivated by ongoing member feedback.  Members wanted the ability to respond to specific comments and know when others were responding to them.  Members also wanted to see what people were discussing most recently (thus the change to the people page).

You make a good point about the change to the HTML box (despite the tone of that note, which I think is unhelpful).   The ability to simply paste HTML into the comment box without opening a window makes sense to me and I'll raise it with our product team.

a simple rich text editor in the comment box would have made this a lot easier to use.  you have it in the articles section, but not in the comment box.  that would be the best way to make this work better.

Tom;

when I went to the link I saw familiar faces like Peter and Roger Kiser... where are the NEW faces? Did I miss the page?

Doc- this page is meant to show any members, long standing or new, that are active on Gather.

The "HTML editor" bit isn't just one unnecessary step, it's several. It's like building your bathroom on the roof of your neighbor's house so you have to access it from the outside by a separate stairway, when there was NOTHING AT ALL the matter with the old way of doing it. I cannot imagine anyone had difficulties with the plain old <i>italics</i>, so to speak -- I'm completely computer-challenged and even I could do it.

But I'll tell you what bothers me more -- the existence of this post. If we learned nothing else from the entire Hawthorne train wreck last year, it's that you guys absolutely refuse to say "we shouldn't have done that" and even more steadfastly refuse to do anything about it when your entire site hates an upgrade. Why are you asking? We all know this isn't going to be addressed or fixed.

Kris, we changed the format of the comment box to permit members to add links to the comments (for references or to refer to other posts) more easily.  Most members are not comfortable with forming HTML links on their own and this permits them to add links.

The HTML box may be an unnecessary piece.  As I mentioned to Dame Ruth above, I will look at that with the team.

I agree 100% about the link. That's a great feature and very helpful (although it's a glitch that if the link opens in a new window, the post doesn't show up on the comment feed). I just don't see that a problematic feature has to be married to it.

Kris, I should also have mentioned that you can still bold/italicize/underline text in the comments box without using HTML. We actually made that easier.  When typing a comment, use ctrl+b to turn on/off bold, ctrl+i for italics, or ctrl+u for underlining.  None of that requires HTML knowledge anymore.

It appears that a lot of people are not noticing that and we may need to call it out with buttons, but it works well right now.  I promise.

"We actually made that easier."

With all due respect, that's an individual perspective. What's wrong with returning the option of HTML without the box to your many users who preferred it? I'm not sure it was thoughtful to make us type comments into a box that you have to click another box to access. Once again, see the bathroom-on-the-roof analogy above.

I really do like the links, once again. But the baggage that accompanies them does not seem necessary.

In short, this didn't fix what wasn't broken, it BROKE what wasn't broken.

And yet again, the silence is deafening.

Yep...no answers, just crickets.

Ladies, I am grateful that you came here to share your thoughts today.  As I hope you will understand, I did leave the office today to walk the dog and get dinner.  I am, however, still listening carefully to what you have to say.

I am very glad that Gather brought back the ability to view conversation across the community. I have always felt that it was an important aspect of Gather, and I was disappointed in the decision to remove this feature in an earlier release.

To answer your question, I will likely view this area occasionally (more often if changes were made).  In some ways, the former navigable list was more useful.

Also, there is an inconsistency with the current People page in that there are no people/members 'featured'.  The Explore and Group pages both feature content and groups prominently.  The "People" page does not feature anyone, which distances this page from the others, minimizing its potential.

Thanks for dropping by, Kevin.  I am glad that you enjoy the ability to survey the conversation across the site.  I think this is an important addition to the Gather experience as well.

I agree that the name of this page (People) may not reflect the content of the page as well as the Explore or Groups pages do.  I'd love your thoughts on the macro navigation of the site and what we might do to make it more useful to members.

To be honest, I don't care for it much. I don't like digging through all the irrevelent stuff to to get to the relevent stuff. I would like to see a list of new articles, or snippets from selected articles, and perhaps short bios of new members, but not just random comments.

Hi Rhetta-  thanks for the feedback. You can see a list of articles (and images, and videos) on the Explore page on the site.  Is that what you were looking for?

I like it, I didn't no it was there, but now I do and it's cool.

I going back to check it out a bit more

Thanks Rita.  Please let me know what you think once you have explored the page more.

Tom, I just got a chance to check it out some more, I can really get use to it and It would of been cool as a homepage . I like the people search feature you can find people that share your interest by age, Music, Location ,etc. It's very well detailed .I like the fact The today on Gather has it's own spot so when I want to know something I can go right to it ,and not search through so many article to find out what's going on. Over all I can get use to it.  

What I said was,I've only been here 6 months and I have 170 PAGES of comments! Try writing 150 pages without an editor and maybe you'll understand why a comment editor is so important.

Because once was (apparently) not enough.

Sarah, I can tell from the repetition of this comment that this issue must be particularly important to you.  I will review it with our team, as I promised to do just a few hours ago.  I am not sure what else I might respond here, but I do appreciate the feedback.

I can honestly say I will not ever use the people page.  I found it to be just a trainwreck of a mess.  I did however used to use the top 100 posts of the day feature under explore, and hey guess what, it's not there now.  I don't want to see the most popular content from the site from 1, 2, or 3 years ago.  I wanted today's current stuff.

Another thing about the new people page (not that I really knew there was an old people page), is that I am usually on this site in the AM hours.  Usually there is not a whole lot happening at this time.  SO how much of a help is the new people page going to be?  Not a whole lot.

I've never used the people page for anything -- it's too much of a mess. I've always had better luck clicking through my friends' comments to get where I want to go. I don't see myself using it in the future, and if anyone else has ever successfully used it, it's nobody I know.

This is a page that is really not a priority for the site. I think attention would be better paid to the questions and glitches that have been asked all day long on the Help Desk etc. articles than a page that just doesn't figure greatly in anyone's day.

Jamie- thanks for raising this point.  The content on the Explore page should be limited to the last 7 days.  This would create an experience similar to the one you described, with the added ability to find recent content on a specific topic more easily.

Our team will fix this date range very soon and we apologize for the inconvenience in the meantime.

HELLO Here's a new one _ and this really really ticks me off!

Pings are now removing blank lines and spaces.  Do you people never read pings?  We do a lot of them in verse.  Verse - you know - the thing where line breaks MATTER!

This one may in fact do it for me.  For no reason whatsoever you've removed half the fun I have here. I'm going to go find my Facebook Account.

Damn.

Yup -- whatever happened to just being able to hit enter to get a blank line?  I'm going to find bracket BR bracket very tedious for my pings... ping poetry is thriving on Gather but this may kill it off.  Plus I'd like to be able to delete pings again.  That would be lovely.

However, I will never sink so low as to go entirely Facebook.  Ack.

Wait a... we can't delete pings any more? Why the heck not?

Sarah- that must be a formatting bug.  I will look into it right away.  Apologies for the inconvenience; we did not intend to make a change there.

You should still be able to delete pings (I can...I just did successfully).  Please check again and let me know if you don't see that option.

Glad to hear it.  We can't live if we can't ping in sonnet form.

Oh, I do hope it IS a formatting bug which is requiring me to use bracket BR bracket or bracket P bracket to get line breaks in pings and Gathermail, because that is really going to drive me completely, utterly bonkers.

As for deleting pings -- my page is still, a day later, showing me pings I deleted yesterday afternoon (as well as five minutes ago).  The pings disappear briefly but the ping count never changes, and when I go back to look, those "deleted" pings are back.