Miss Noetal Tells It Like It Is

Madame Noetal tells it like it is

Dear Madame Noetal,

I just joined Gather.com. Nobody's reading my articles. Should I send an personal message to all 20,000 members so some will come and read my stuff?

Signed-- Idaliek Fans

Dear Ida,

No, dearie. DO NOT send messages to all those people. It just looks like you're trying to get readers. In fact don't send any messages to our members unless it's a personal item. You want to try being a little more subtle.

Dear Mad Noet,

I want somebody to notice me. I love my writing.

Love --Ima Swell

Dear Ima,

Hey, try reading other people's writings and making some warm, friendly comments. People will get to recognize you and they'll come over to your site and read some of your posts. If an article pertains to something you wrote, give us a link in the comment so we can read it. Critical comments done in the Gathering spirit are welcome by most everyone. If you want pointed criticism there are even groups to join that will give you that.

Dear Noetal,

You know your name is very strange. Are you sure your mom didn't mean to have it start with a "k"? Anyway, In your last letter, you mentions Groups. Huh?

Yours, Wanda Beepart

Dear Wanda,

Oh my, the Groups are something that the Gather staff thought up a couple of months ago. They are fabulous! Let's say you've got a story about your dog complete with a picture. First thing you need to do is join a couple of groups about animals, ie "Animal Crackers". Then publish your article and when you get to the second page, there will be that group listed with a little circle to make an x in. When you mark that and publish the story, two things happen. 1. An email notice will go out around the world to all the Gather folks who belong to Animal Crackers that there's a new article. 2. When somebody is in the mood to read animal stories, they can go to Animal Crackers group and voila, there will be your story listed.

Dear Noet,

How many groups should I join? I like to write about everything. I seem to have a compulsion!

Love, Joyna Group

Dear Joy,

You should browse through all the groups and pick out some that you'd think you might like to post to. Now say you write a humorous poem about Fido getting into politics. Then I'd say be sure and join Animal Crackers, Random Humor, Poetry In Any Form, and World Events,--maybe a couple more and then publish to all four of those groups.

Speaking of compulsion, I think there may be a group forming concerning your compulsion--Kathryn is starting a Gather Anonymous group.

Dear Ms. Al,

Should I publish my articles to all my groups?

Yours truly, Alma Friends

Dear Alma,

NO! Sorry, I didn't mean to be harsh. It's just that some people are getting too many emails and their home boxes are piled high. I hear that a couple people belong to 40 groups, and have over 200 connections. Well, you can imagine how many notices that they get! I'm sure they are overwhelmed and we don't want to contribute to their Gather demise! Besides, if you post to too many, it's obvious you either don't know what it's about or you're trying too hard to get somebody to read it. Be specific, dearie.

Dear Miss Knowitall (sp?)

Can I disagree with somebody on Gather?

Sincerely, Duin Anabodi

Dear Duin,

We try to be very civil here on Gather, (except politics and religion). As your mother used to say, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything." We're great friends here, just join us and share the fun.

Dear ms. No,

You mentioned to Ima about making a link to one of our own articles. What the heck? I'm a total non-geek. I'm lucky to be able to turn on the computer.

Yours, Canna Doit

Dear Canna,

First of all, don't publish your whole article to somebody's email or even in their comments. Let's see, hmm. You could just give the title and the reader could go find it under your site. Or you could use this template here.

<a href=""> </a>

Put the address of your article site in between the "" and the title or word between ><. Why don't you copy this template into your word documents, and just have a whole page of them When you want to provide a link, go to that document and paste in the info. What info, you ask. You see that little box labeled "address" at the top of your web page? Go to the article you want read, copy that address and paste it between the "". When you write it in your comments it will look like gibberish, but when you push "post" it will be the underlined word people can link to. NO spaces in between ><. That's really important. Just the word.

Dear Knowitall,

I'm still not getting readers (sob, sob). My last article was titled My Door, and it started out "I have a front door……" Only one reader!

Sadly, Nona Howtabe-red

Dear Nona,

Try renaming your article "The Secret Behind the Green Door" and start out with maybe a sentence like "The incessant pounding on my door stopped when I shot both barrels at it." Title, catchy first lines, good tags, all lure readers too. It's subtle, Nona, it's subtle! You'll find your readership, but you've got to reach out! Be friendly, join in, and be sure and join Kathryn's new gather addiction group early on.