The following quote must be attributed to Travis and Lori Cee, via another thread here at Gather. It's as good a starting point as any.
"by the lazy and inept'
(Lori Cee Quotes Travis And Responds)
travis, what about the members who really dont know anything about writing but want to be a part of the gather community?
There's NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT!!! AND WHO CARES IF THEY ARE LAZY AND INEPT?
Gather is supposedly a "Gathering." It doesn't MATTER what kind of content you are interested in. It doesn't MATTER what you want to publish or what you want to read. You should have a way to GATHER unto yourself, content that is meaningful to YOU!
The problem is THAT YOU DON'T!
TAGS were meant to do that. But abuse of them and technical problems in the system cause searches by tag to fail every time. (Lack of infrastructure to deal with complaints and violations on this compound the issue.) Have you really tried to limit content, find members or groups by using tags? Then you know what I mean.
GROUPS were meant to do that, but too many owners don't kick out content that is irrelevant. Why? Who knows! Maybe because it gets them more points to leave it? Maybe because they are too busy wading through stuff to deal? Maybe they are lazy and inept? Maybe they just don't care? Maybe they don't know they should because Gather never backed that idea?
GROUPS with TAGS were meant to do that, but there is no catalog of them, no way to see what is already out there, no way to combine groups, eliminate the inactive, or even find out at a glance what they are all about...except for tag search, which we ALL know does NOT work! Sure there are descriptions in the group lists. But too many people don’t state the purpose there and you waste time trying to find out the truth.
Yeah, I HATE unoriginal content. That's me. It may not be you.
So why can't Gather segregate content by our groups? I don't belong to "Words that Start with O." You don't belong to "Say it in Three Sentences." Why should I have to read YOUR most popular articles in my list of the whatever? Why should YOU have to read mine? Um. No reason at all. I love Sci-Fi, but you think it's a waste of time. I think recipes are a waste of time because my darling husband does all the cooking, you don't and you're bored with the everyday repeats of salad and sandwiches.
And yet, because I find SOME of your writing to be cool, and have accepted a CONNECTION from you, I have to see every single thing you say on every single topic that interests you. Even if that bores me to tears.
Worse, I'm missing out on a lot of new and interesting people that I'm NOT connected to because their work stays at the top of the "Most Recent" list for about 20 seconds before being buried in things that aren't relevent to me at all.
BRILLIANT PLANNING!
But, Gather can separate the "Most Read," "Most Viewed," and "Most Commented On" tabs into drop down categories for us rather easily. It might take 100 categories, but you would NEVER, EVER miss out on something that interested you again. Two clicks away, you've found material that is exactly up your alley at the moment.
In that process Group owners deliminate their groups by pre-determined category. Choose ONE. A classification system, if you will. That simple. Any group that doesn't comply in say, 90 days, is obviously inactive and without a leader. Drop it and make room for someone who cares. Owners, moderate your content to see that it stays on topic.
Simply put, for the hard of reading: We have only to classify our groups by category. We have only to have Gather list those groups by category, and allow us the "sorting" of content by those classificiations.
SEPARATE the content, Gather!!!
It's NOT that damned hard!
Problem on CONTENT solved.
And even better, Gather edits their alogorithms to include those categories and rates/awards accordingly. (Yeah, I'm of the opinion that a piece that took me weeks to write should weigh more heavily than one that is a c/p of an email I already saw in my box yesterday.)
Both Content and Points Fairness problems are now SOLVED for both sides, without bloodshed and with very, very little pain.
Now let's get real and deal with Copyrights, Plagarists and the real foulers of Gather.
We can do that, now that we're not wading through volumes of content we don't care about, and infighting over it right?
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Comments: 35
And yet....
???
We haven't even begun to put a dent in it.
And apparently Gather, as Liz noted, prefers the advertising click throughs to a site that inspires and maintains a loyal following that could expand in the same way.
And no, nothing will come of it.
But I have to live up to the "I Tried" part, right? ;)
Damned shame. 'Cause some of them DON'T, but we'll never know it.
I wish I could offer you some hope that Gather Inc is listening. But I published a version of this back in September. (Note my join date) I posted different versions and took part in several efforts to alleviate the problem in other ways. And I should also say, I'm not the ONLY ONE BY ANY MEANS to advocate this idea.
I even sent the idea "upstairs" along with an offer of FREE help coming up with categories and logging the groups.
Kevin V noticed and asked if I'd like to help in one of his coming projects to categorize groups ourselves for easy reference. I gave him a resounding yes and a list I'd begun to compile on my own. He liked it. But I never heard another word on the subject again.
No, I haven't been heard and don't hold out any hope that I will be.
I honestly think that the unseen "rule" like posting 25 chat articles or jokes per day would fade into history if something like this were implemented.
If we all slow down for a second when reading these arguments, it becomes apparent that the REAL complaint is NOT the lack of "elite" writing in the vast majority of articles. It's the inability to find anything else.
On the other side, the complaint is NOT about "elite grammar police." It's about not wanting a whole bunch of rules to limit and disclude.
There may never be total peace and harmony, it's too big a site for that. but, you have just proven, BOTH SIDES of this issue could live with this solution. If only the Gather Gods heard the prayers. The war would be over, and there would only be minor border skirmishes to deal with.
Instead, it's become this huge overblown continuous battle of words and personalities.
It didn't have to, and Gather is the ultimate loser.
I also agree with Debra. Making fun of Gather and calling the staff names does not endear one to the Gather Corp. Belittling others efforts is not good either. Gather has come a loooong way since I first became a member many months ago.
I think if we look at the improvements and are patient, our patience will be awarded. We need folders in our email, groups with more control on content, separation of sections, (as you surmised, Webbie), and more surveillance of tags related to the article. I, for one, have never tried the tag search, but I have seen tags listed on the article that had nothing to do with the content.
Good article, Webbie, and one that I think Gather will probably take note of.
.
When members cannot regulate their own content some rules need to come about.
If some fluffer wants to publish 100 articles in 10 minutes that contain one line...and people wanna see it, they CAN. But for those of us who don't want to spend 20 minutes scrolling through page after page of the stuff, well, we won't HAVE to.
We don't have to change the rules. We just have to expand the system. A little bit, simply.
It's not that hard!
I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who would JUMP at the chance to help work it out, for free, fast, like TODAY!
Webbie, excellent article(s). But is there a chance Gather will listen? I doubt it.