Give new members a fair go

Magi, perhaps another solution would be to have all, or most, of these items displayed every day. Through the use of content modules, like the 'sections' you see on Gather today, you could conceivably display all of the items you mentioned all of the time.

I like the idea of featuring the work of new members, as it provides support, and perhaps incentive, to become more involved in the community.

I am not sure more choice is a good thing for the front page. That would be roughly 5-7 content modules, which is a ton to take in. I like the idea of each day representing something (like above). I might do it as each weekday, and then a weekend edition . . . but I think the traffic states would dictate that.

Nicola.. I've been thinking a lot about what you said and I really do agree with the tenor of your argument. It's virtually impossible for newcomers to get going here. About the only way is to build up a network, which takes time. I would love to see new people up there on the homepage... maybe even a section that revolved or changhed every hour so we could be exposed to more new folks.

Kevin, Jim, Edward - any or all of the above. What I propose is some methodology to identify and promote newcomers and not well known members to Gather.

Your foundational thinking is excellent Nicola. This has been a personal frustration of mine, as a relatively obscure member. Even though I comment with some frequency and have publish works that people respond favorably too, I don't have a regular following due to my not being on the site often and not writing a lot. I don't need this to affirm who I am, but people just like me have published excellent work, better than some of the featured articles, and it is never noticed. Life, in general, isn't fair, but having a way to put these forward would be great. Thanks for speaking up.

I'd like to recommend Matthew Roe's writing. His newest, My Next Two Cards, in particular. He's a fairly new member, and a fairly new writer. He writes good stuff and is looking for honest critiques.

Thanks Gary - I share the frustration in that unless I spend hours searching for new and 'obscure' members, it's only occasionally by luck that I stumble on them. And then when I see an outstanding article with only a few comments, I can only shake my head - but do nothing to help that article (and author) become 'known'.

On a personal note, I also get disheartened because I'm an obscure writer. At times I've wondered about whether there really is much point continuing to be a member of Gather.

To illustrate the above points, I posted this article yesterday - only four people have found it (going by the number of comments). However, that could be due to the 12 hours or so time difference between the USA and Western Australia where I live.

Magi

Gary, Gather is hiccuping again. I'll go and have a look at Mathew's work right now.

Magi

I think even if the front page offered a way to view new writers, random authors rotation and a better way to search by tags.

I agree that the revamping of the front page could do wonders for exposing new and/or less recognized members work. I've gone out of my way for one fellow and he still falls unnoticed in his publishing. (1Lt Christopher Combest). And I must thank belatedly and humbly, Anita Dehghani, who was the very first commentator on my very first work here. I will never forget her!!!

Hi Faith! I think unless the current Gather system changes regarding the promotion of members, more and more unappreciated members will vote with their mouse and desert the site - me, probably, included.

Thanks for looking me up..

Magi

Hi Anita. I've tried searching by tags - that, too, needs revamping.

Magi

Nicola, we agree that much needs to be done to give visibility to newer members. We appreciate your suggestions & will consider them as we work on remedies. We don't think we will find a single "magic bullet" to fix the issue. Instead it wll be a number of changes that be introduced over a few site updates. The first of these updates, which will introduce significant changes in our site navigation, is tentitively planned for June. Once the contents of this release is locked down, I will open a discussion in this group to solicit additional comments & input for the next steps.

Hi Russ. Thank you for commenting - you give me hope. I've come very, very close to giving Gather away as fantastic idea gone dreadfully sour.

Please do carefully consider the suggestions by me and others - there should be a lot, lot more to Gather than promoting a handful of 'top members' and their flood of 'top articles'. I'll keep my fingers crossed that a fair go for all will prevail.

Magi

I had no comments on my stories for three days until someone offered me to join her network. I was surprised; I thought you had toknow someone to connect.I joined and people commented. I will never forget the person who offered me the first connection. And her name is Sadi. I will also never forget the first person to comment on my first story: Priscilla Anderson.

Thanks to you, Gretal. What a way out icon you have - I love it!.

Magi

Hi Kathryn! Yes connections are important, particularly the early ones. I regard them in the spirit of people being mutually supportive, which builds friendship and trust.

Nevertheless, there should be equality in the promotion of members, be they new or established ones. If there is apparent unfairness it breeds resentment, lack of trust and a 'them' and 'us' mentality - something which could sink Gather. People of good will, surely, would not want that.

Magi

I suspect that the rating system needs to be abolished....or revamped...so it cannot be abuused by the few who like to by rectums.

Donald, the rating system has been abused by 'poison' 1 stars and by 'here's a 10 stars for my friend' - much more so the latter.

Magi

Great ideas, Magi.

I think it might also help to organize the files a little better so new people can find their way around to something that might interest them. It might just be me, but I don't find the tags helpful. I think it be helpful to be able to click on poetry, essay, article, story - and then find categories under each. Alphabetizing the groups would also help.

Sandy, I don't find tags helpful, either. Alphabetizing the groups would prove helpful, but small and new groups also need publicity.

Magi

Nicola ... While I read through your article, I didn't really feel like going back through all the comments, so I apologize if I'm being redundant. You make a great point about promoting new writers, but I don't think that promotion has any bearing on whether or not there should be a rating system in place.

Look at how anything is promoted today. What or who determines which books get onto the Bestsellers List, or what songs makes it onto the Top #20 list? As I stated in the discussion forum earlier today, it's two-fold: 1.) People want to read it, or listen to it ... and 2.) It's been well marketed. The former speaks to quality or "value" as Kevin puts it, and the later speaks to "popularity".

New members should be promoted or featured, which is why I like Gary Scott's new group. And in time, if enough people like what they are writing, they too will gain popularity and perhaps surpass some of the regulars in readership. Some new members do a great job of marketing themselves, and they go out and connect with established writers who are avid commenter and thus they gain reciprocal readership. Once others flock there to see why Ed Nudelman, for example, commented on an obscure author's work, they will either like what they see and keep coming back, or stick with the writers they enjoy.

Keep in mind, the Kathryns, Eds and Hannahs didn't get to the top of the rankings because they were just popular people, or because they just market themselves well. They got there, and have stayed there because people enjoy their writing and look forward to seeing what they have to say -- AND they are excellent writers. They also write on diverse topics and submit a variety of work, from poetry, to stories to commentary. So someone who is an awesome poet may not be as popular because they only post deep profound poetic work, which appeals to a limited audience. The same thing with recipe writers, or those who only write about gardening. They may be terrific, but they won't be getting as much readership because their work is not as broadly appealing.

And I hope this doesn't come off in a bad way, because I'm saying it somewhat facetiously to make my point ... You can promote a new writer all day long and they could be broadly appealing ... but if I go check their work out and it's not entertaining or not well written, and I have over a 100 people in my network, why should I visit them as much as I would Kathryn or Ed? Again, I'm not saying I do that personally, my problem like most people is there is not enough time in the day to read all the great work that's out there.

If that sounds insensitive, think about movies as a good example ... A new movie might get all the hype in the world (you know the ones where you see a trailer every time you turn on the TV!) But if you go see it and hate it, or you hate the actors in it, you won't be running to see another movie by that same director, or one that features those same actors the next time they are featured. So you see, in some ways it does have a lot to do with ratings -- which does equate to a monetary gain. Why do you think a Steven Spielberg or Denzel Washington is paid more money for their films?

Bonnie, by and large I don't think we disagree at all. Given equality in promotion, the cream will rise to the top and readers will gravitate to them. It's a case of readers being afforded the easy opportunity of finding those good writers who currently languish unnoticed.

Magi

I've come late to this and I'm glad I saved it to read. You make good points. Thanks for going to the trouble of giving it so much thought. Moya

Yeah. Newbies. Gag orders for all the Oldies for a week. It'll give them a chance to write something.

Great brainstorming, NK.

Moya, it was a contribution to help try and make Gather better. But I don't know how much notice will be taken of it in the revamping of Gather.

Magi

Hi KR!

I can only hope that it has positive outcomes.

Magi