I wouldn't normally write an article whining about things going on with gather just because it gets exhausting reading the eight million Gather bitch-sessions. I'm not going to complain about crappy spelling and grammar and people who don't edit when they have a bunch of HTML mucking up their article. I'm not even going to complain about the completely rude and annoying habit of people to post articles in groups that have nothing to do with the article topic. But, I have to join in the whining this time because I'm really frustrated by a practice that is really driving me crazy.
Why do people have to repost the same stories over and over and over and why do people have to create four groups on the same topic???
Examples: How many articles do you think were posted about Steve Irwin? A boatload (or 20+). And of them how many do you think said the same thing? 90% How many of those were AP article copies? 50% (TOS Issue there!). What is the point of this? If someone wants to add to an article, thats what comments are for. If you have a different take on a story, that's a different situation, but re-posting the same thing over and over and over is pointless and annoying. How many times do we need the link for the free Crest Pro Health Toothpaste? Don't the people who post freebies read other freebies? If so, how come we get so many duplicate freebie posts?
The Group thing really gets to me. If you have one group on a topic, then everyone interested in that topic will join that group. You'll have a large group of people who can enjoy discussing the topic they have a shared interest in, but instead, people feel the need to create additional groups and now the people are spread out between them all. I don't want to join 5 scrapbooking groups. I don't want to join 4 Survivor groups. Why can't we all be in the same group? Are people so egocentric that they can't just join someone else's group - they have to create their own? Of course, I totally understand an area like Travel having many groups. That's because there is many types of travel. US Travel, European Travel, Weekend Getaways, Road Trips, etc. But for something where you don't have subcategories, there isn't a reason to create a new group.
Before I create a group or very often, before I post an article, I do a tag search to see if someone else has already done so. That's how I found the Survivor group. I thought of creating one since I love Survivor, so I did a tag search to see if one existed. It did, so I joined. Now there are four groups out there. It makes no sense. Now the fans are split between groups and the conversation won't be as interesting or involved because you have less of a member base to work with. Don't tell me to just join them all. I don't want to just join them all. I have a zillion groups already to wade through, I don't want to have to go to four different groups to read the same articles over and over. That is just a waste of my time.
I REALLY am not trying to be my usual control freak self, I'm just asking people to take the time to try not to duplicate things that already exist so that we can all enjoy Gather just that much more.
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Comments: 17
The other thing I was thinking about is that I go to my group first to see if an article has already been posted. So, using the Survivor example again, if there is no current article in the Survivor Group I belong to, then I'm going to post my article in there - I'm excited about it and am dying to post or comment, you know? But maybe one of the other groups had an article posted in there that was similar to mine. I guess it's the group thing, more than the article thing that gets me going... I don't care if there is a couple of articles about the same thing, I just hate when there are 20+ articles about the same thing with the exact same content that was just copied from some other place.
I feel better now, I'll try to stop the whining. =)
BEsides being sick of seeing Steve Irwin articles that all said the same thing, on 9/11 everyone posted an article asking "Where were you?" It's like, I've already told the Gather community 50 million times where I was. Thanks.
It is time consuming to wade through so many articles about the same subjects, so I first go to the 'Articles for me' feature and just scan down the list to see what is new and if interested will click on articles........
Then if I have time, I follow comments and this has yielded several good contacts and new people to read.
And Jennifer, you didn't come across as condescending at all to me.
Simply because an article has already been written on a subject should never preclude me from writing one myself. The many articles on Steve Irwin are a good example of this. Writing is a form of expression, and writing about a loss is a good way of dealing with the pain and sadness of this event. Contributing to an already established conversation can be beneficial, but perhaps not as fulfilling as writing the words yourself, and expressing your own unique thoughts on a subject, especially when our writing involves emotional issues, such as the Steve Irwin tragedy, or 9/11.
This is a community driven by dialogue. Therefore, we should all be free to write on whatever we choose, without thought to what has come before, or will come after. We are all then free to choose which dialogue we take up, and which we leave for others.
As for the duplication of groups, I support any group that a member feels a need to create. I equate groups on Gather to clubs or organizations in the 'real world'. Again, simply because a club already exists, shouldn't be a barrier to forming another. As in the 'real' world, this can strengthen group membership through healthy competition, and provide alternatives for members who may not feel that one group is meeting their needs.
HOWEVER, much of the duplication on Gather is probably not due to the need for personal expression, especially when it comes to Gather Groups. Duplication is most likely due to an inadequate knowledge of Gather, principally in how to find stuff here, and how to label/tag things so that they can be found. For example, when creating a Gather Group for 'Grey's Anatomy' ...If the group creation process displayed a listing of similar groups (through tag or group name association) before the new group was actually created, I think that a significant amount of duplication could be avoided. This would have many benefits for the entire community. Although, any member should have the right to create a duplicate group if existing ones do not meet their needs in some way.
Sorry for the dissertation!
I totally support your right to that opinion and if people were TRULY writing articles about Steve Irwin (using that example again) to deal with their feelings I wouldn't have a problem. What was irritating was that people felt the need to copy and paste copyrighted news articles over and over and it happens all the time. There were definitely some people who expressed themselves as you are talking about and I agree with you that of course if you want to write your take on it, that is cool - I'm sure there will be topics that I want to write about that have been written about before me. I just don't like when people post the same news articles over and over. It just seems rude... and illegal. Same thing for anything like that whether it's a news article or a joke or a email forward or... well, you get the picture. I love original content and would zip my lip if these folks were writing their won article, but they just copy stuff that we have all already read - it makes me say "gr". On the other hand, I'm sure there are people who are here for the great fiction, who hate my articles, so we can't please everyone... but I can write about it! =)
As for groups, I come to gather to discuss common interests with people. If I want some "healthy competition", I would be joining something competitive. While I can see your view and respect that, I think that having more people interested in a topic being within a single group creates a more effective and fun atmosphere for talking about that which you are interested in. You are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT CORRECT about the members not understanding the tagging system though. I get that from a lot of the friends and family that I have invited to join me here. The most common complaint is not understanding how to navigate and find things. I don't really have an idea to solve that except Gather sending people to some sort of information page when they first sign up, but even that may not work because, c'mon, most people skip right over any of that boring TOS stuff, why would "helpful info" be any different!?!
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on some of these issues!
You are a HUGE help on Gather, I have noticed. Your helpful information is a huge benefit and I'm not sucking up here, but your posts with suggestions and how-to's have been really valuable to me, so THANKS!
I really don't think we are that far apart here. I agree that pasting copyrighted work from another source is a detriment to Gather, as well as just 'wrong'. That is probably a separate issue though, and hopefully will be addressed as a part of a new content flagging system on Gather.
I also agree with you about larger, more active groups making discussions and sharing more fun. However, unless Gather takes over ownership of groups (which I don't think they will), reducing the number of groups will provide unfair advantage for a few group owners, at the expense of others.
However, I do believe that things will get better as the technology for searching (finding stuff) improves.
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Other times, I just don't have the time to look for other similar posts, so I just go ahead with my own without checking first.
Perhaps some Gather members just want to rake in some of the Gather Points™ that the other post would bring in - for them.