Voice Your Feedback on Gather's Upgrade

I'm just getting things ready for tonight's upgrade. Can't wait to hear what you think about it!

Gotta wait and check it out tomorrow, MaryAnne. For those with old, slow, or dial-up, don't forget to sign out before the upgrade. it helps to keep you unstuck for some reason.

It looks good just hope it works well !! :D

I like change, but I also like to keep boring stuff the same so that I don't have to think about it, I just have to do it. Redesigns are, to me, er, boring. So I probably would prefer it as before.

But I didn't check a couple of irritations. Maybe you've addressed those. Let me go see....

...well, no, the thing I wanted to see changed, isn't.

A while ago you'd talked about the amount of space that Gather took up, specifically the space that each member squated on. I decided to get rid of old stuff that I didn't want, but since I can only page through old posts and mail one page at a time, it's a laborious process to delete selected items.

I was hoping that I could skip back to page #12, for instance and view it then delete three or four off of that page. But it doesn't work easily like that. Same with mail.

I'd clean up my room, Ma, if you'd give me the tools to do it efficiently. :-)

Yuck so far.

On the old page, it appears we cannot access posts from anyone except ourselves, our groups and our friends? Is that right?

And with the new look, the print is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too small. I don't like having to change my computer's settings just for one site.

Hi Marilyn,

To access posts from everyone please do the following:

Go to your My Gather page
In the gray box where is asks you to "Try the new Page" click on "Try the new Page". On the bottom left click on "g All of Gather Feed".

By "trying" the new page you are brought to all of the content. This will not be your default unless you update your account settings.

Hope this helps. Please stop by today's Help Post if you have other questions.

EXACTLY.

Big, big time difficulty. Major thumb's-down on that snag.

So far no fun!
IF Iclick on any of the choices on top the ad will overlap so not good.

EXACTLY.

Exactly. I am off for the day.

Hi Loving - we've adjusted the ads. Please let me know if you're still running into problems.

To view "Recent Posts," you have to click "People" at the bottom of the page, then click the orange "Search People" button, then click "posts," then click "Advanced Search," then type today's date, like this "11/03/2009," in both the "created between" boxes (or whatever date you want), then click "Search".......

Too many 'forced' clicks...

EXACTLY.

The ads were adjusted this morning. Should be easier to navigate now.

Navagation bars drop behind the adds, font is too small...

It is harder on people with vision issues.

Not a user friendly design either...

Hi Dan,
The ads have been adjusted so navigation should be easier.
The font can be adjusted via your browser. If you use Firefox click on View in the browser nav and then click on Zoom.

In IE click on View in the browser nav and then click on Text size.

Hope that helps! Please feel free to stop by today's help post if you have other questions.

It would have been much easier, if you al had just left it alone.
It ran ok last time, not as good as when I first came here, but ok, it just get worse and worse after every "fix" you all do.

I agree on the ad issue with the drop down buttons

EXACTLY.

Okay, I went to my account settings to choose the new gather page, but when I got back to my home page, there was no way to view recent comments from everyone.... it was just posts, pics and videos.... AND most of them weren't even my friends!!! How did this happen?

I went back to classic view(which I like better anyway), but the whole top half of my page is blocked by your notification to try the new page, and I can't get to my mail, friend requests, or anything....

Hi Ferosh-
When you have a chance try reviewing this intro post and see if it helps.

The ads were adjusted this morning and you should now have access to the top navigation area.

Thanks!!!!

For those that have a hard time with tiney print, you'll have to go through all your old posts and resize the font. This downgrade went and reduced the size of everything....

I was shocked when the first post I viewed - Berf's - that the print was so small that I were to guess I'd say the font size was 6 or even 4. It was so small that the words looked more like a black line than words.

Dan and Marilyn,

I'm not seeing any change in font size. So, you're seeing a change in the font size on posts? Was all text affected? Which browsers are you two using?

No text size change was intended, and I'm not seeing that effect here.

Dan and Marilyn - I've seen a few comments from you and a few other members, that the font size has decreased for you.

We didn't make any across the board change in font size and I'm not experiencing this using IE or Firefox. I'd love it if we could get some additional info from you to investigate what could be causing this.

Can you give me URL's to content that you're seeing that is smaller?

Yes all our old posts are tiny script now, I went through this morning and changed one to a larger font. I changed it to this sized font, while it was half this size, my older posts are all in about 6-8 font size.

I'll get you a url in just a second.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977869263

All posts, MaryAnne - mine and those of others as well.

And it doesn't matter if I use Firefox or IE7.

The fonts are definitely smaller, whether changes were made or not.

I checked this out on more than one computer, different screen sizes, etc.
Still small fonts. Hope that can get resolved soon.

This is only affecting a small number of people. We're puzzled about what could be causing this. Thanks for your patience as we investigate further. Here's a temporary work around:

Firefox browser: click on 'View' in the browser nav bar, then click on 'zoom'.

IE broswer: click on 'View' in the browser nav bar, then click on 'text size'.

I joined here two years ago, and the site worked just fine. Every time you all mess with it, the site get worse and worse. You know when I was a kid, we had a saying, that too many have forgotten. "If it ain't broke, Don't fix it"
You all keep trying to fix something that was never broke...

I have to increase the screen size of every page I am on because i have rather poor vision. I have had to increase it even more from my previous settings.

having to make an extra click to get to MY PROFILE is a waste of time, frankly. I click to go to my gather, then I have to click my profile. It was so much easier to have my profile, my posts, my photos right under my name. I really do not understand why you changed this - it was a useless change.

The new My Gather page looks ridiculous. I don't understand why these changes were made.

I do like knowing how many mail pieces i have if any. Removing that a few months ago was a useless change, so I am glad to have it back.

I like the way your page looks - profile, posts, photos, etc. It seems ridiculous that my page does not look like that. I have even less time to spend here than before, and anything that causes extra clicks is a real time waster.

I really think you need to restore profile, posts, etc. under our own page. Srsly.

Listen to this suggestion. I echo it.

srlsy.

The pulldown menu on our page looks ridiculous. Why DID you folks remove our profile, posts, photos, etc? and put it in a pulldown?

I don't like it at all, just got used to the other way, this looks really messed up to me, hope you can straighten it out, soon....

EXACTLY.

NO DESIGN SENSE in this upgrade. I do not understand - except for having our mail and tasks listed on a page - which is VERY helpful and I do NOT understand why you removed that months ago - but otherwise I do NOT understand why you changed things.....

When FB made changes a few months ago, my daughter hated the new FB page because she'd been a member of FB for 3 years. I didn't mind.

But really..............when you piss people off, they leave. Frankly. And apart from the economy sucking people's time with having to look for work or new customers or making people depressed, the changes in these upgrade that piss people off are a MAJOR reason why there is about 1 percent of the people active on Gather, compared to 08, 07, etc.

In January, and previous months, I had about 4,000 notifciations in 24 hours.

By February, I had about 2,000 notifications in 24 hours.

Now, it is about 1,000 notifications in 24 hours. Or less.


This place is a ghost town.

A HUGE REASON FOR NEEDING TO CHANGE THE MY PROFILE, MY POSTS, etc. back to the way it was is that the BANNER ADS INTERFERE WITH THE new pulldown menu. This is a huge reason. Please change it back THIS WEEK.

When people see changes they don't like, they stop coming here.

I got to the New MY Gather then switched back to the old, but there is no way to switch back to toggle to the New MY Gather. ....

Kathryn - you can go back and forth by changing your this in your Account Setting.

My Gather Home Page
- Use the new and improved My Gather home page
- Use the classic My Gather home page

I don't understand why the font was reduced.... there are many of us here over 40 and over 50, unlike Gather staffers themselves. People over 40 and esp. over 50 have to wear reading glasses, and some of us have very strong prescriptions. I remember in the beginning, the font size was about 8 or 6 points.

Reducing font was not a good idea here. I have had to increase the screen size even more.

OK, I thought it was me because I'm up late. It is smaller. Yes, it should be bigger

YES!

I'm not in the 40+ crowd and I instantly noticed the smaller font and am finding it difficult for my eyes.

Kathryn, others,

There was no intentional reduction in font size anywhere on the site, and we're not seeing that effect here. We're investigating...

Took a look again at the new MY Gather.

It is UGLY. NO design sense. Why??????

Good thing I am a 'veteran' and can use the old My Gather.

Btw, what length of time determines who is new and who is a veteran? 6 months? What is your cut off?

Everybody should have the choice, otherwise newbies will feel unfairly singled out.

I agree, Kathryn. I had someone I know with experience in human factors look at the pages and he said that the whole thing goes against common sense, but that the new pages look like someone's first attempt at page design.

We agree on something. That is a good thing.

Design is so important; design matters more than ever, with more and more retail outlets focusing on fashion and with Tarjay bringing design sense at a bargain,which did not happen with Sears and KMart, back in the day.

Design is everywhere. The Euro influence has brought great improvements in our food, travel, culture and in design, from notebooks to computers, to software to fashion.

I don't plan on using the new My Gather layout. So I have no comments there.

One glitch is that certain banner ads fall over the pulldown navigation. Specifically I have had this issue with the Hallmark banner. Don't know if there are others that have the same issues. I know not all of them effect navigation, but Hallmark definitely does.

The font size on my existing posts is exactly the same size as it was yesterday. So not sure what the others are seeing. Perhaps it's a glitch in certain browser versions?

Marianne the banner ads are driving me crazy with the pull down bar...arrggghhhhh !!!!

If you sign out of Gather and visit the site as a prospective member would, the new design engages me far less than the former one...and the former one wasn't as effective as it could be. Thus, from that perspective, this is a big step backward.

I like the change.

It'll take a while to get used to however after that moving around I think will be smother.

Thanks for the work that you all put into this, it looks great.

Thanks for the feedback, Richard.

So far I do not like the upgrade Maryann.

When I click on the My Gather link, 1/2 of the drop down bar falls in behind the ad, I clicked the drop down bar & went to the advertisers site.

Was this done on purpose, or is this a Gather glitch that will be fixed?

Hi Elaine- This is an issue that we are working-on.

Thank you for your comment Tom, I am happy to hear it is being worked on ;-)

I used the explore feature and recent posts before and now can't find it. Does this mean I have to join every group to be able to see everyone's posts? This is a major discouragement to ever viewing anyone's posts unless you are already connected.

On the new left navigation bar, the last entry says "All of Gather Feed". Click those words to see recent posts.

Thanks for how to find them.

Perhaps you could pick up a copy of this book and require your developers to read it?

Or at least sign them up for Alertbox?

I just found another thing that's not good. When I created my Daily Whine Shine, I could not cut and paste something from the body of the post into the window for tags. I tried using the cut/paste icons on the page, but that didn't work. Neither did using DOS commands. I have always been able to cut and paste into the tags window...until this morning. I don't like that at all.

Please try again and let me know what happens, Marilyn. No changes were made to this feature and I'm about to cut/paste in both IE and Firefox.

If you are still having the problem please include the browser you're using and the version of the browser. Thanks!

I tried with both Firefox and IE7. Can't cut and paste into the tag window.

Thanks for your reply. It sounds like you should open a case with us because your publishing problems sound unique. Please include each of the functions that are not working for you, include the version of firefox you use, as well as your anti-virus software. Thanks!

I haven't had a lot of time to explore the changes this morning but I do have a couple of comments:

--THANK YOU for bringing drop-down navigation back (as long as the top banner ad doesn't conflict with it).

--I don't really care for the new My Gather page -- it reminds me of the mess that Hawthorne was, before you neatly split the feeds into Content, Comments, and Friend Updates on one page. Maybe I'll get used to it and eventually like it. In the meantime, I appreciate that you let us keep our old view.

Hi Janna,
When you have chance to check out the new My Gather page again, you can adjust what is coming into your feeds. For instance when you're looking at your Friend Feed, you can choose to see only comments, only posts, only pics, only videos, only member updates - or any combination of those items.

EXACTLY.

The new page doesn't offer much unless you don't want to have separate views of various sub-categories of content. I find having separate lists of comments and posts available on the same screen useful. I think aggregating stuff and offering filters is not the answer. It's like mainframe screen design. You know, To filter by comment only, press F5.

I have to restart Firefox every day or it crashes and I have to sign in again - I sign in at least once a day - it is a Firefox or maybe a Norton thing on my end and not a Gather thing, but the first thing I saw at 3 a.m. was the New Gather page. Horrible. I would never join based on what I saw. WAY TOO BIG and crowded....

You guys are making it really easy for me to to continue to be away from here.

Looks like another hot steaming mess of an 'update' with nothing useful.

I am thankful for the old view still being here but my question is will it stay?

Hi Heather,

We will maintain the two views for existing members for the time being, but not forever. We don't currently have a timetable for implementing just one. We are using this phase to gather feedback from members about the new My Gather page, and make any necessary adjustments before we eliminate the old My Gather view.

That's encouraging--that our feedback will have an impact.

Also, the USA is a supposedly egalitarian place, that places a value on everybody being equal. If I were new, I would feel 'second place, second rate, a second-class citizen' where others have privileges that I do not have. The mere CHOICE of being able to choose between views for us oldtimers - is a choice that should be available to everybody.

The view is elitist.

I think I know why it was done. To allow it for everybody would take too much space on your servers, so you made a choice to give it to old timers who might tend NOT to like upgrade features.

But it sends a message to your newer members I don't think you want:

They are not as valued as oldtimers simply because they do not have the CHOICE.

well...... we is stuck with it, so I 'spect we'd better figger it out.

Like~ extremely effortless navigation of posts

Dislike~ the people page is still extremely impersonal and flickeringly schizophrenic~
the da** Associate press content showing up and shoving out personal posts

Staff Picks Confuses me~ contests and pets and recepies? where is the cerebral and satirical good stuff~ guess it caters mostly to those topics most viewed eh? Too bad~

Thank you for the feedback Purrrrrrrrr. The main Friends page (formerly "People") didn't get touched up much with this upgrade, but we welcome any suggestions you have about it for the future.

We're also open to suggestions for picks, so please send us yours and we'll be happy to consider them!

Thanks Chuck~ I know the main friends page didn't get touched~ I haven't cared for it since the switch from the PEOPLE page at the beginning of the year~ it's convoluted with commentary flickering every second into being~
I would love to see it revert back to what it was~

OHHH SUGGESTIONS!!!~ =D I likey~ where do I sen them?

Please send your suggestions to me!

THANKS! You got it!~ =)

When the page was changed, I stopped going there. PERIOD. It has zero interest for me.

My Opinion

Thanks for the link, Nancy. I left you some comments on your post.

The navigation changes are fine the rest the upgrade is horrible and a major step backwards.

Hi Kat - if there's anything I can help you with please let me know. I published a shorter post on changes to the My Gather page that may be helpful.

If you just don't like it, thanks for the feedback.

I with Kat on this!

The Reason why I stay away from this site and don't use it as much as I'd possibly like to is because of all of these constant changes and upgrades ("Downgrades" in some instances in my honest opinion.)

I really wish the staff of this fine site would just go with a format and stick with it, trying to navigate a new layout every few months or so really becomes a migraine.

if it ain't broke don't fix it is what I always say.

Just some honest feedback for y'all to sift through.

I agree.

While I understand that changes often are an improvement, if they could be made with as little "change" as possible, that'd be best, imo. As I said earlier, I *really* don't like to have to relearn how to navigate a site. My goal in participating at Gather isn't to spend time learning how to move around optimally at the site, but to write and read others' writing and respond to them.

Changes are an obstruction to my goal.

Paul and Susan - thanks for your honest feedback! We have gone through several major changes over the past year and several minor ones. We can certainly appreciate the fact that future changes should be minor so we don't disrupt what's working. Thanks again.

I find the gymnastics required to get a view of all recent posts more than taxing. I don't want to be encysted in my own little area of Gather. I want to see what's going on.

Hi Nippy.

The quickest way to get to all recent posts is to click on the last feed on the left on your My Gather page. Click on the bold "all of Gather Feed" next to the small "g" and above "most popular". That feed is all the recent content and can be adjusted so you receive only posts or photos or videos or any combination of the 3 content types in your feed.

What do you think about the order that the feeds are presented on your My Gather page? They are presented from most focused to broadest view of Gather.

We discussed how the various feeds should be presented quite a bit when designing the page. We'd love your feedback on this.

MaryAnne... IMHO, alot of people like to look at the recent posts from all of Gather frequently to catch new people and posts that they miss that are not in their own feeds. With the upgrade, we now have to scroll clear to the bottom of our home page to get to that link. Therefore, I would suggest that the "all of Gather Feed" be placed just under our own feed and before the interest and group feeds.

Thanks Sue. I appreciate your thought on the placement of the 'all of Gather feed.'

I don't look at feeds either here or on FB. I look at my profile and my notifications. PERIOD. Feeds are a waste of time. They are perceived as valuable, but that is a false perception.

KEO says: "Feeds are a waste of time."

I do all my navigating from my feeds. Guess I'm wasting my time. Why didn't anyone tell me that before?

YOU TRICKED ME, GATHER, WITH YOUR FEEDS THAT ARE PERCEIVED AS VALUABLE!

Now that I know it's a false perception, I'm off to look at my lovely profile.

Well, sheesh, Janna. The feeds work for you because you barely have any friends. It was designed for the nerds, apparently, not the popular kids!

One positive thing. It looks like ratings are gone.

One negative thing, the end of ratings is the end of the "Site for Writers" GatherPersona™ some of us signed up for.

Don't know how I missed the "Rate" icon. I'm wrong. Ratings are still here. Darn.

Well I truly havent liked anything since you got rid of the home page but I will stop bitching about it cause obviously we arent going to get it back.

I like the points and mail and tasks displayed all the time.

I like the drop down boxes.

I think its easier to "share" now.

Thanks for your feedback, Lori.

I really HATE the new look. It is too Facebookie. Gather's strength lies in providing a space for people to share stories, ideas, articles, debates, etc. while earning a little bit of money for the content they provide. I think it has lost some members since the adjustment in point earnings, which now requires more content to earn the same amount.

Also, the most popular tab needs to be fixed. It used to be, that articles were ranked by the highest views and comments, now it takes into accounts keywords, which means a terrible article with only a few views and hardly any comments can get ranked in the most popular section.

From the posts I've seen, People on Gather want 2 things: 1) They want to provide content of value with a fair compensation and a free exchange of ideas. 2)They want the "False Flaggers" to have ramifications for flagging content for the simple reason of disagreement. These are people, predominantly on the Left of the political spectrum, who flag content just because they disagree with the author, while at the same time leaving the most vile personal attacks and slander against the author.

It would be nice to flag an individual comment, instead of the entire article. Some people are really vile and sometimes vicious in their personal attacks.

Hi Poliwonk - I appreciate your input.

I think Gather's publishing platform is one of our best strengths too. Thanks for sharing what you think the 2 biggest weaknesses are. Flagging comments would be an improvement over flagging a post since many of the flags are actually meant to report problem comments.

I am using the new gather upgrade.
It's like being a new member all over again and learning so much about gather.

Darlene - are you enjoying the discoveries you're learning about on Gather today? Or are you frustrated that you have to learn something new?

MaryAnne, I am not at all the least frustrated. I love that I am learning something new. I have not always been an active member, especially times when I don't have the internet. I don't post photos or videos so just posting writing articles is working just fine for me. Keep the updates coming as technology changes. Thanks, for the hard work you do for Gather.

For what it is worth, I found the old "Explore" tab for surfing "recent photos" etc. far easier to use, as well as being more pleasing to the eye. I give the new change to that function replacing Explore a big thumbs down.
I also don't like having to check and un-check boxes and then "update" to get around on the new pages.

Thanks John. Sounds like you'd prefer seeing the Explore tab remain a top navigation element. Is that correct?

The item I keep hoping will be considered for removal is the ratings.

Thanks for your input Mary.

I second that!

I am confused, how to I get the new page to display only my friends stuff?? i think i have to be in group mode cause there are peoples post who i am not even friends with...

Hi Anne,
Please click on 'My Friend Feed' (color coded blue) on your My Gather page. The content, comments and updates showing to the right should all be from people you are friends with on Gather. And there should be a blue bar along the top of that feed.

If you are in your 'My Group Feed" (color coded purple) on your My Gather page you'll see content from your groups that you have chosen to keep up with.

Let me know if that makes sense or if you have other questions. I'm happy to help.

i think i got it thank you

Gather upgrade, it's interesting to learn new stuff.

Well, some things I am kinda liking and some things I am not sure I like. For one, I like that the main page seems to load a lot faster than the old page. I also like the ease of navigation to my groups and other feeds.

One thing I don't like is that if I want to see my friends comments and pings, I have to have it mixed in with links to my friends content. I like see those pings and comments when they were separate from the links to content so that I can see posts more clearly, but comments and pings at a glance.

I've also noticed that if I click the "next" link to go to the next set of links and I find a post that I want to comment on, when I click "My Gather", I go to the first page of those links and have to click forward to find the place I was last at. This makes it hard to browse back to older posts and comment on them without having to start again at the beginning. I don't know if I am confusing you on what I mean by this.

Hi Desert Darlene. Thanks for stopping by with your input.

If you want to see your friends comments and pings you can see them separately (rather than mixed in with content).

In your My Friend feed you can customize just what you want your feed to show you. For example, if you want to see the photos by your friends and the member updates by your friends then only check off those two choices. If you want to see the posts, photos and comments, check off those three choices. If you want to only see comments and pings then only check the comment and member update choices. If you never want to see member updates, don't check that off. You are able to completely customize this area to see as little or as much as you want to see.

Regarding the "next" link - that is a problem that we're working to resolve. We hope to have that fixed over the next few days.

That's fine, but on the old way, you can see comments and pings at the same time as the content links, but separated into their own little groups. Now, they're all mixed together if you want to see them all at the same time.

MaryAnne, I think I spoke too soon on your other 2 "upgrade" posts. Now that I've had a chance to play with the new features...It's taking a lot longer & I have to figure out a whole new way of Gathering!

Hi Mari,

The changes will take some getting used to. You might want to try it again later and have a look at the following short post and the longer overview post.

I've found some new members whose content I really like that I wouldn't have found without the options I have with the new feeds.

Also, I switched back to my "old" home page.

That's what's nice about this upgrade. You have the choice to gather either way.

I do think it is discriminatory to offer the old MY GATHER only to veteran members, because it makes a class system out of Gather, wheras the US is an egalitarian society. When FB made changes, people had a choice to use the new or old, for a period of time. It was not restricted to 'veteran FB members.'

it's hard to navigate, I think