Some tips for problem solving in the latest Gather upgrade

For my fellow Gatherers: I believe we're all frustrated by the problems the latest Gather upgrade has caused. I've seen numerous articles venting on the many issues that have come up and I share many of the same frustrations. I want Gather back to normal just as badly as you do. Although our many venting articles help us blow off steam, they don't often provide the technical staff with Gather the appropriate information to help fix the problem, nor does it place problem reports in the appropriate place.

What's the appropriate information, you ask? Well, I'll tell you the basic common information a computer technician or Web developer needs to know to address a problem. Please, report:

• which operating system your computer runs on (i.e. Windows Vista, Windows XP, Linux, Mac OS X)
• which browser you use with the version number (i.e. Mozilla Firefox 3.0, Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, Safari 3.1)
• the URL of the page where the problem is occurring
  
• the exact actions you took in the order you took them
• the resulting issue.
  

First, please check the Gather Help Desk (help.gather.com). It's an underused but valuable tool to finding solutions to your problems. (It's horrid that they've only 681 members while Gather Food has more than 17,000!) It's updated on a daily basis and solutions to many of the problems I've read about in the past few days have been posted there. The techs do get the weekend off, but a few of them still pop in to answer questions. (Please, don't expect an immediate answer to a new post or comment on the weekend.) If you do post a new question or glitch, please, include all the information in the bullet points above in it.

Second, if you don't find the answer there, or you see that you're having the same problem as someone else and the solution has not yet been posted, please report it using the formal Contact Member Support Form (http://www.gather.com/submitCase.action). Please, include all the information in the bullet points above in the "Details" area.

Third, vent where the powers that be at Gather are sure to it. They have an official feedback thread (http://tinyurl.com/official-thread) just for this upgrade. Believe it or not, at this writing there were only 30 comments to it! It's in Director of Member Support MaryAnne Flynn's Gather blog. Although I know frustrations are high, although I encourage you all to go comment, I also encourage you all to be ladies and gentlemen when doing so. There's really no need for rudeness or yelling (no all caps, please). What may do some good is a few hundred or thousand comments from folks who are really frustrated that the photo uploader doesn't work in some browsers, the photos are duplicated in groups/albums, the points aren't updating at all or at a snail's pace, the e-mail notifications are a mess, etc. With tens of thousands of members, but a mere 30 comments, Gather Member Support might get the erroneous idea that there's really nothing wrong and the upgrade was no big deal to us all.

For Gather: You need to sink way more time and effort into alpha and beta testing future upgrades on all currently available browsers and operating systems. Don't be like Microsoft and rush to get a product out just to say its out. Test it fully first, fix the problems as they're discovered, then (and only then) release the "upgrade". Your prior performance in this area has been abysmal and the current problems are only indicative of what seems to be an overarching and overwhelming lack of consideration for your users, without whom you would not have a company, jobs, or paychecks.