Gather Update Makes Me Cry Like A Little Girl

Rich, you pose some excellent questions. I have asked Gather to tell me if they changed from "total hits viewed" to "unique views".

I have not heard back from Gather. I did email David Cooperstein as to what changed about the pionts sytem and he did reply to me in an email that he didn't think anything changed about the pionts system, and that he forwarded my comment to Ben Stephens.

I emailed Ben Stephens separately about the following point: I think the views are "unique views" resulting in a lot fewer points for everybody.

I have not heard back. I do think they (Gather) are overwhelmed, but I would like to know.

Points are slower. Unless people have not been accumulating points before now.

Maybe most people are reading from their network, I don't know. I am chronically underslept and behind in everything in my life.

Thanks KEO. I am finding even within my network, which is growing, I am not getting good return. You read most of my pieces, and I thank you for that. I don't know if you read the Insurance one, yu didn't comment, but this is a critical issue that needs to be tackled politically. I think the lack of response to this well-researched and thought-provocing piece is what really set me off. I saw someone call H. Clinton "Silly Hilly". Ms Clinton happens to have some of the best ideas I have ever heard on solving this insurance/medical care crisis. I welcome the opinions that differ from mine. I open to even changing my mind. I just would like something more then apathy. Our lives may depend on it.

Thanks for commenting. I know the chronically underslept feeling. I should be calling it a night now...

I'll get to them soon. I'm on a 6 day work week. And my husband has ebay auctions usually until midnight.

I should add that I didn't mean to dis the articles that are pure fun. I love those arricles too. I love the light hearted stuff as well as the "serious" writing. I try to visit the articles by my network as read someone knew, then invite them to netowk with me. I love the whole Gather concept experiince and it was very satisfying util the Carl is Satan release. I am not clear on how it changed the way readers read the systems. It did not seem to change the notification email (G*d knows I get dozens a day). Sometimes I triage articles when time is tight, but I try to find the time to say something supoortive and provide some feedback (good or bad)l

Let's just get back to where we were. We were all gett used to it.

Actually, Rich, I think you might have some of this backwards. Early on, many of us tried to promote serious writing. Others were very upset with us, said they were not and did not want to be serious writers, or even good writers about non-serious topics. Things sort of broke into cliques then, with those who objected to the cry for attention to detail and topic calling others elitists, masked men, etc. and rating friends high and foes low, regardless of the quality of the work. If you look around, you'll see articles written today that address issues like who has the right to determine what is good and what is not. Some think spelling, punctuation, format, POV, is not criteria by which to make those determinations.

I promise you, it was not the Gozers or masked men who caused this. I'm not sure who you consider the 'psycho troops', or I'd address that. I would like to point you to the serious writers (that's what I used to do), but hanging with them will only get you lots of 'one' ratings so you probably don't want to be 'seen' with the wrong crowd.

Of course, these are my personal opinions. Probably not worth much, so do with them what you want.

How ironic. I got notice that you sent another comment KEO, but now the article loads but there are NO comments. I guess is the retailiation I'd been warned of. Oh, the conspiracy theories we could formulate....

p.s. I like the new format, other than the orange boxes. Still hate those. Otherwise, it works well for me and I have not noticed a drop in points of comments. And I'd be having as much fun as ever if Johnny5000 came back.

Rich, when you get notification of a comment and then it isn't showing on the screen, that usually means the author of that comment deleted it.

Oh Sandy you are so wrong. I read your comments. I read your articles. Your words mean more to me than nearly any other user. You are one my Gather heroes!

So we're back to where does a person seeking serious discussion on topical issues go to spur said discussion? I am clinging to hope that my investment of time into Gather has not been in vain.

Rich, wow. I almost signed off and went to bed. I'm so glad I saw this first. Thank you, so much. I don't know the answer. If you've been following me, you probably know I have spent more time playing lately than doing anything serious. I try to divide my time (I spend a great deal of time here) between serious discussions (some political, some social issues), playing around, and writing, with writing being on the short end of the others. I enjoy the mix, very much. I don't believe every article has to be about something serious, I just believe every article should be heartfelt and have purpose. I think of Gather as being the same as my real life (think I still have one). Some days I get together with my politically active friends and hash out the ills and solutions of the world. Other days I play with different friends. And some times I sit around and watch my family grow and reflect on life and get all sentimental. I like to do the same here. How we find those things we want on particular days is a very tough question. I would love to articles divided into categories - political, personal essay, poetry, recipes, links to other sites, blogs, slide shows, etc. I think that would help me find what I'm looking for easier. For now, I suggest making a folder of 'favorites' where you can drop links to people whose work you know you will always enjoy, without regard for any 'obligations'. Take care of YOU first, because if you read what you like first, you're more likely to hang around and catch-up on what you might consider obligtions (although there really should be none).

Sometimes Sandy, it means the author has deleted it. But often it is just Gather's way of reminding how useless my ultra fast Internet connection is. The way Gather build dynamic pages can make for some annoying and humourous sites. Pages build frames then indicate DONE on the bottom. Then minutes lates, somcetimes many minutes later the dynamically build page begins piopulating the fields. It just happened. I loead this page and instantly it ccame back with a mostly empty page and a browser status message of DONE. I went to get my maple oatmeal. When I returned it was filling in the comments one by one then later drawing the boxes as it retrieved the graphics assets. I just checked the speed tests on dslreports. My home network is flying tonight with speeds WAY above the advertised rate. So why the slowness of paiting. Given it's 2am., I'd guess database replication jobs are running and they slow down a server quite a bit. Buiiding these web thingys is hard work. I complain like its easy, but I know the challenges Gather faces too. They have some giant tech issue to resolve.

Good night. It's 2am. Sleepy time. Thanks for the commentsa

I thought all th3 apache error messages adn files not found messages just indicated that the downgrade had indeed got functional and decided to show us how utterly dysfunctional it is


as for points for good writing or content--forget it. fgather is into cliques and the more you suck up, the more you get.

I am reading fewer articles and offering fewer comments since the redesign. I used to be able to leave gather up on my laptop while I did other things. There would be 25 or 30 articles on the front page and every once in a while I would hit refresh and about a third of the page would turn over. Also, by choosing my own "tags" in the recent articles window, I could filter out much of what I didn't want to read thereby seeing more of what I did want to read. In other words, I didn't have to search for content, the content I was interested in came to me.

Add in the fact that every page loads slower, over a cable modem connection, I logged on just as much but interacting much less.

For three days last week, every time I changed pages I got a pop-up asking if I wanted to load some Adobe flashplayer plugin. As far as I can tell, there is no content on gather that requires a flashplayer, just ads! Talk about annoying.

WOW. I feel like we are on two different "Gather" sites. My connections have increased. I don't get a lot of comments or ratings but they are steady. I don't use flashy titles or anything like that. On the whole point issue, I feel they are coming in faster.

Maybe it's not your writing at all, maybe your articles are pushed down on the article list by other people posting. By the time I am done reading the first page of articles, it's time for me to do something else. Maybe some of your connections are not here anymore, so they are not reading.

Thanks all. I have seen several good comments. Indeed, on a cable modem it loads slower now so I can get less read in the same amoutn of time. I went and measured my throughput last night. Very high download, about 4 time DSL. but there are so many tiny item and i imagine there is a latency on tiny items explaining the slow down.

Two, Sara said what I suspected. So much new content is pushing me too far down. I do like the accessibility of the new design to new articles.

Wihelmine, sorry to hear about your insurance hassle. I guess there is no perfect answer. I'd still like to search for a good answer.

It's ba...ack!. Just after I commented last night I started seeing that damn Adobe Flash Player pop-up again.

wm h nailed it. as welll, it is summer - i am busy with lillie outside, and not reading as much. the orange boxes definitely stop me from being on too much - they give me a headache.

and it is hard to find articles. i am so sick of these game articles, that people just put up silly stuff. it is ok for them, but i have to scroll through pages of articles 'for me' to find serious ones. and, i don't have the time or energy to read everything. sigh.

i liked your article on the insurance, rich. (and the comments!)

I wonder if the Amazon Shorts Contest has occupied readers.

I also think the new formatting is less efficient. My "My Gather" is annoying and wastes valuable space. I really don't care who has signed-on. I can usually surmise as much from reading recent comments.

I've had difficulty disconnecting with people. I've tried purging my connections, and yet they remain in my queue just as before.

Rich, you mentioned that your network has grown since the update. That's great in that your articles will show up on the network listings for more members, potentially bringing more people to read them. However, if the people you're connected to have huge networks, your articles will disappear very quickly from their My Network's Activity page. Incidentally, you're supposed to be able to page through your network's activity over the past 14 days, but I've never been able to see more than the one most recent page - the pagination links just give me a 'you have no activity' message. So, connecting to people with huge networks doesn't really bring you more readers.

In addition, if you're connected to a lot of people and some of them comment a lot, your My Network Activity page will be mainly populated with a lot of meaningless comments. Some members comment on as many things as they possibly can, just for the points. Seeing what they're commenting on won't help you find things you might enjoy reading, because they're commenting on everything. If, like me, you can only see the one most recent page of your network's activity, all those pointless comments will render your network activity page useless, unless you change it with the drop-down menu to 'articles only' listings.

I've found it very helpful to only connect with people who have a good eye for finding the stuff I might also like. I prefer to only connect with people who comment on things they're really interested in, instead of bulk commenting for the points. When I check what they've been commenting on, I tend to find more articles I like without having to spend as much time looking for them. This works in reverse, too. If the people you're connected to have more or less the same philosophy, they'll read and comment on almost everything you publish. They'll join in the conversations that you've joined in, in the comment threads of other members' articles.

One last thing, I dislike the navigation tools in the new gather. Instead of using them, I created a gather bookmark folder in Firefox (my browser of choice), and literally bookmarked every feature of gather that I use with any regularity. Then, I just move around within the site using my own bookmarks. I like it.

Rich, I have no clue why people read my stuff so much...and it's often my most inane crap that gets the most read...one of the latest was an article of mine that was really a dummy article where people could post comments on my other articles that had broken comments. It was one of the top articles on Gather!

I will tell you this, however. Even though someone dinged me on it, I think it helps: In a lot of my articles I use a larger font (kind of by accident, don't tell me how it does that), and the articles are often shorter in length.

I went to one of your articles and was overwhelmed by small type and the huge, long paragraphs. It's not that I can't handle reading complex stuff, but when I'm online, I want it to be brief, to the point, and very easy on the eyes.

Loooong paragraphs in particular are hard to scan in an online article. I will often try to scan the article first to see if it's interesting. People will take some time to get to the point and if the article doesn't grab me right away, I'll often skip it.

So make sure your first paragraph or two is as engaging as possible.

Beyond that, pick a controversial topic, write a snazzy outrageous headline, and you're good to go.

I actually like the "My Gather" page, but I'd like to customize it a bit more...e.g., I'd like to see more than the three most recent articles from my network.

They just take up way too much screenspace for basic things...the font is WAYYYYY too big (even though I think a slightly larger font is better for articles sometimes).

I use email notifications to find out who is doing what. I use Network Activity and Comments not at all. I use the main articles page, most read, most commented, then go back to main (recent) articles page, and back to email notifications.

I'm commenting less because the pages load slower. And I'm on Firefox.

I do use Bookmarks.

The left margin was great. I do miss it a lot.

Steph has a point about long paragraphs.

The reason my paragraphs are the sie they are is that in newspaper columns, it was determined by who? what? a long time ago that people only liked to read short graphs in newspaper columns.

My graphs are short for that reason. It helps. A Word Times Roman 12 or so helps the eyes.

The average age on Gather is about 44.

the point about connecting to people is that the email notification of comments or publshing will be in a lot of email notification inboxes.

But a lot of Gatehrers are inactive currently, as compared to a few weeks ago. Contacts need to be updated to reflect the changning membership.

Thanks everyone for the great comments. There are lots of things here that offer explanations that make sense. I especially appreciate Steph's comments about my LONG articles and long paragraphs. On the web, her advice makes good sense (or in any newspaper style venue). I get too verbose trying to give many details and I know that less is more in many cases. Good advice Steph and KEO.

Also, the summer thing held true. Since I wrote the piece I've been running around like crazy with summer stuff and this is first chance i've had to sit down, and on;y for a minute before running around today.

I just started a new job & haven't beena ble to log on & read as much as I would like to, I've been posting even less, except for some pictures yesterday (1 or 2 comments if I was lucky!) So I know how you feel!

There is DEFINITELY less traffic recently. I usually get 3,000 email notifications. The last few days I've been getting only 2,000 notifications. That means either fewer articles are being published or fewer comments are being made. I will track the number of articles for the next two days and see how it compared to right after the new gather upgrade.

Right after, there were 600 published the first 24 hours, then 200 the next two days.

I think most of the slowdown is due to summer vacation, though it could be Gather, too, I suppose.

Kathryn, we went over this the last time you made that claim. You compared different days of the week, but when we went back and looked at the same days of the week in the past, the pattern was the same, and the total number for the days you stated was great than the same period in the past. Also, are you sure your email is indicative of the overall totals? Wouldn't that only reflect what is happening with your connections, which may or may not be the same as what is happening site-wide?

Hmmm... perhaps I made a mistake joining gather to begin with.

Seems kinda funny... the invitation I received said that it was "MySpace for Grown-Ups" yet here I am, less than twelve hours after joining, listening to some guy cry because he's not getting enough comments.

Gather "Might" be for grown-ups, but I haven't found any real network of Actors and Filmmakers here... At the same time, the "Kids" on MySpace don't whine and complain when I read what they have to say without leaving any comments.

I enjoy reading what others have to say, without feeling obligated to comment. Learning something new, or being entertained is far more worthwhile to me than any "Points" I might gain by adding useless comments.

I agree, I find myself a lot less gather obsessed then I once was

I often find that articles with over a hundred comments are inane and poorly written but they have a title that draws people in. Sometimes it makes me want to throw up since a lot of serious writers only get 3-4 comments. Write a title like: Do Gather Men Think Women Should Have Threesomes and I guarantee you will get tons of comments. Or write about whether gather men think women should wear makeup - that's a hot topic. Sometimes I feel like doing it just for the pure pleasure of seeing how many comments I could rack up. C'mon, let's think of some good titles: Gather Men, Does Size Matter? Gather Women, Does the Earth Move if He's Just a Friend and You Sleep With Him Because You're Bored? I guarantee good results with any of these.

You are so right about that Clare!