First, why would anyone post to this many groups?
But the real question is which of these groups would an older-than-dirt story that has been through the email-forward circuit about five hundred times already NOT BELONG IN? And what kind of person would delete my comment in which I pointed out that she had published to the wrong group, and then leave it in the wrong group?
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Comments: 91
Ina, she didn't post to any of my groups, either. Thanks for pointing out the silver lining.
Unfortunately, they do post to my groups. One would think a group called foodvideo wouldn't get articles or photos, or my Everythingaboutnewyorkstate group wouldn't get Yosemite photos. I suppose I should have said IF one would think . . . .
Hang in there Sandy
It's a self-appointment. You are welcome to join me. I'm so tired of receiving notices that someone has published to a writing group, only to get there and discover that it is either someone like the girl I'm complaining about in this article, or Kathryn EO, who removes every word of criticism.
I moderate most of my groups. When a group member consistently publishes the wrong things, and I waste my time (and click) opening articles to discover they don't belong, I leave a comment explaining why I didn't accept the article. That doesn't stop some of them. Others tell me I'm rude.
Oh good, I can say Happy Birthday again tomorrow. I'm usually late, so this is fun.
Oh, Wurdzy, light of my life! (Are the tips of my ears actually burning or does it just feel like that?)
Also, it takes a single click to remove a comment from an article (or maybe two, if they ask for confirmation--I've never done it). In order to remove the article from a group, you have to go into "edit", find the group on a long list, click again to remove it, and then republish the article. Surely, the kind of VIP member who selflessly contributes quality email forwards to the site cannot be expected to waste time with that just because some grippers and whinners complain!
Chunky. I'll have to think about that (and see if I'm still in the group).
Sometimes I accidentally click groups as I'm going down the list.
My 2 simple groups are moderated. I get one email announcing the publish to my group, one that the article was published, and one telling me that they just published an article.
I still have to go see the group post and save or delete - it's too much work ARGH!
whining today wining tonight - I'll be better in the AM. or I won't.
Wurdz, John's jealous.
Mistakes are forgivable, but what you're describing here, Sandy, is not a mistake -- this person probably click on all the group names and happily leaves it to the Group owner/moderators to boot what does not fit.
As such, this is exactly why the Groups make little or no worthwhile impact here.
I wouldn't have published this if she had made a 'mistake'. She does this consistently, and deleted my comments where I brought it to her attention.
Sure thing. Let me change the settings to adult language.
Richard, I'm sure you've watched me take a beating for my role on the Grammar Police Force, and the Plagiarism Police Force, and the Good Morning Police Force. The "answer" everyone suggested to those problems was for us to just stay in our own little corner and subscribe to the groups we wanted to see. Well, that doesn't work if the group owners don't moderate. And we can 't enjoy our experience here if we have to spend all of our time "moderating" people who are too selfish and/or ignorant to do the right things. Gather made a choice to recruit people who care about NOTHING other than gathering points. Those of us who stay here until there's something better are between a rock and a hard place.
I say we stick together in a relentless attempt to clean up the group problem, or there will be nothing left for us here.
It bother me also that the groups aren't categorized and don't include a description. On the personal responsibility side of that complaint, I wonder if I belong to too many groups when I can't remember the purpose of them.
I try to plan the article I will write for that group. If I have one, I join. If I don't think of something that would fit, I keep the group on my pending list for a while and watch to see what others publish there. If I like what I see enough to receive notifications of what is going in there, I join as a reader.
Amen. That's a complaint I've had with this site for as long as I've been a member. I didn't join groups at first because they made no sense. Later, I joined some because it appeared that friends would earn points if I joined their groups. I probably belong to a dozen or so groups for which I will never produce content, and to which I have never submitted any images or articles.
It was an idea for this site that was never fully developed because it would require firm, clear rules and the willingness to enforce them. We've already seen that these qualities are absent except where group owners are willing to moderate their own groups.
I absolutely do not see the reason for publishing to hundreds of the same groups, or hundreds of any groups for that matter. I thought the change in group selection on the publishing page would cut down on this but apparently it didn't. There are still people who obviously spend more time selecting all of their groups than they did writing their article.
Regarding public and private groups, there's an interesting exchange on this article by Jim Bostick:
Kathryn:
"I like it - but I have a private group among my several publich groups and group members are not taking the extra step to edit then publish again to the private group - so people are not using my group."
Kathryn Esplin-Oleski, Nov 21, 2007, 11:10am EST
Jim:
"Hi Kathryn,
Since one of our recent site upgrades, Gather members can only publish to either public groups or private groups, but not both at the same time. The reason for this change to selecting public groups seperated from private groups is because anything that is published to private groups should remain private, and not visible to all members. Private groups are not meant to be included when publishing content that you want to make publicly visible to everyone on Gather. Prior to this change, content published to private groups was often visible to everyone, and content published to everyone that included only private groups was made in effect strictly private. The process has been changed so that what is meant to be public stays public, and what is meant to be private stays private.
If you feel the need to publish something to both public and private groups, you will need to publish that piece of content twice. You may need to rethink why you made your group private to begin with."
Jim Bostick, Nov 21, 2007, 11:21am EST
And then, two weeks later, the same question from Kathryn:
"Can you publish the SAME article to PUBLIC and PRIVATE groups now? I have a private group and people CANNOT publish to that group AND the public groups.
Kathryn Esplin-Oleski, Dec 6, 2007, 9:05pm EST
And again, a response from Jim:
"Hi Kathryn, We'll be taking another look at selecting groups to publish content to. We made the current change to separate public and private groups because when you choose to share something with both public and private groups then the private group isn't really private anymore. I must admit that I am having difficulty understanding the desire to make a group private and still allow it to contain public content but I am learning. You and a few other valued members have made good points so while I admit that I don't know the answer at this point I promise to take another look at this aspect of sharing your work with groups.
To address a few other comments made here about the lack of an option to simply select all your groups, this is another area where I'm not getting the reason for this need. Selecting groups to share your content with should be a thoughtful process where you carefully select individual groups that align well with your content subject matter. Simply publishing everything you post to every group isn't typically an appropriate thing to do. Around Gather this is referred to a "Group Spamming". We do understand that sometime you may have several groups around a similar topic and that's fine to share with several related groups. We are working on a feature to organize your groups in to sets. This will allow you to post a new recipe, for example, to all your food related groups. We hope to introduce this new feature sometime in the spring.
Thanks for all your feedback. Remember that you can always submit your ideas and thoughts to the group Building A Better Gather".
Jim Bostick, Director of User Experience at Gather"
Jim Bostick, Dec 7, 2007, 10:01am EST
The important word is "should" in his statement. I wish "should" was more powerful.
But Janna, there must be over 20 various Suzy/Souxie Articlewriter groups alone.
A fitting response from the Director of User Experience
The important word is "should" in his statement. I wish "should" was more powerful. The problem with should is that it requires personal responsibility. Not only do I suspect that a number of Gather members lack that trait, some publish articles in which they announce (brag about) their deficiency.
I subscribe to groups that I enjoy and that are monitored.
There is a way to keep it all straight - CARE.
The fact the list of groups you published to is longer than the article you wrote tells most of us that you probably post to every group, every time, and nobody came down on you for a "simple mistake".
Sandy (stood up at the alter) Knauer, Jan 27, 2008, 2:32pm EST
First of all Sandy, thank you for you thoughts, You are intitled to your opinion, I as a member of gather am a member of multiple groups as you have listed in you article. Thank you for so much attention since I am "selfish, rude, lazy, and inappropriate" . But you better than I made my point and for that I say thank you... I hope you truly have a blessed day...
Betty DeRamus, Jan 27, 2008, 4:51pm EST
I don't have a problem with moderated groups, but sometimes I click one, mind you not on purpose, I think we should all have a voice. But not in recipes, or politics, especially if it is a blonde joke. I do not write books, but love to read them, I am not a poet but I read them. That is why I am on gather. I would not, I repeat purposely offend anyone on gather, they have my respect.
Betty DeRamus, Jan 27, 2008, 4:54pm EST
I don't understand how you could say (in your article) that you would not purposely offend anyone, and in the same conversation admit that you don't want to take the time to be considerate, and those you don't consider can "get over it". That doesn't make sense to me. Moderation should not be a factor. We should care about doing the right thing even when the group owner does not choose to monitor. Why do you think people create groups with specific topics?
I'm confused.
I am guessing that the person who is complaining about this has not fully comprehended that "private" groups are those that are visible *only* to group members. I bet that she has this confused with "moderated" groups, where content is approved by moderators.
After all, if anyone publishes to "Everyone" here, that's enough. We tend to forget that non-members of this site can read everything we publish here as easily as members. The difference is simply that those readers cannot comment or rate what they see. Once we publish here, we can Google our articles. What larger audience is accessible through a "private" group that would be shielded from a Google search?
I was just thinking that I hope Bostwick only said they were "rethinking" this to be polite, as making the separation was a very wise move.
I had an experience in the past where one member of a private group was unhappy that only the few members in the group could see his work. Since he didn't care if the world saw his work or our comments, he published simultaneously to other groups, making his articles not private. That was unfair to some of the other group members who did not want the world to see their honest critiques and call them names or low rate them as a result. I had to remove the member who refused to respect the privacy of the group.
I might have brought that experience into my reading of the exchange with Jim, and assumed that Kathryn also wanted her work to be seen by everyone, and she was unhappy that she could no longer click in those private groups on the original publication.
non-members of this site can read everything we publish here as easily as members unless they are flagged for adult content.
She doesn't want to respect that privacy is sought and desired by some members and has some sort of anxiety at not submitting content across the board. If Jim Bostwick cannot see that her reasoning is selfish and flawed, we run the risk of yet another change that is no benefit whatsoever.
I remember -- reported and flagged articles become invisible to some degree. Still, it isn't as if submitting articles to groups does anything whatsoever to magnify visibility.
It wouldn't be the first time...
(P.S. It's "Bostick".)
I need to think of a way to disconnect from KEO, without attracting the attention of the fan club. I'm already being mass downrated by angry CR violators and their fan girls.
Sandy, the reason I am here right now is to say..... I am sorry for my offensive comment about """getting over it"""", yes it was rude. I am not the type of person that goes around acting like a child. This battle of words between us is over. I admit when I am wrong. I wish you nothing but health and love and life. So please accept my appoligy. Oh and your right about the spelling, I will try to do better. Thank you.
Betty....God Bless.
I hope seeing that some people create and join groups for specific purposes helps you understand the problem, from both the group owner's and reader's perspective, and that our complaints aren't personal. I belong to a few anything goes groups, and I know if I go to those groups or subscribe to those groups, I have no business complaining about what I see there. I don't monitor the ones I own and don't complain about what goes in them. Groups with specific topics are a different story.
Heather, I think 'name a word' gamers believe their stuff (can't call them articles) belongs everywhere because every topic contains their letters.
Tiffany, you make an excellent point. I've monitored carefully. People who publish to fifty groups, have thousands of connections, or publish to the groups with thousands of members, don't get significantly (if any) more original comments than those who carefully choose groups and connections. What seems to matter most is finding a few like-minded people who enjoy what you do enough to come back. Whatever made you stop by here, I'm glad you did.
If only people joined groups that were actually about something.
Posting stuff to a huge list of random groups doesn't help earn points. We actually refer to this as group spamming. Post Anything groups are...well...pointless.
These people should try joining some groups that actually have a purpose!
I've seen many people advise others that creating, joining, and posting to many groups is the way to "make points" on Gather. And winning (not earning) points seems to be the only reason a large group of people are here. As you can see, this is extremely frustrating to those of us who came here thinking good work would be rewarded with points, and were advised we should create writing groups and stay in our own little corners if we didn't want to see the pointing games.
Are you saying that:
Posting to a huge list or random groups is spamming?
Posting to inappropriate groups is spamming?
If so, is it appropriate to flag those articles? And if we do, will Gather react appropriately to the problem?
Now that things are so out of hand, the simplest solution would probably be to do as others suggested in this thread - limit the number of groups an article may be published in. But, the abusers would probably publish the same article ten times on the same day, which would be equally annoying.
Regarding: These people should try joining some groups that actually have a purpose! They do. They just publish articles without a purpose to those groups.
"Posting stuff to a huge list of random groups doesn't help earn points. We actually refer to this as group spamming. Post Anything groups are...well...pointless."
How can groups hope to maintain their purpose, without a lot of work on the part of the group owner ("post anything" and "point whore" groups aside), if people continue to post inappropriately?
I have all but given up on one of my groups. Currently, it has 227 pending articles with titles that don't help much. If I want to keep that group clean (which I do), that means I have to open 227 articles and read, probably 200, articles that are not what I'm looking for. That is a BURDEN. If I understand correctly, the people who abused my time will receive points for my view, and I get nothing for rejecting them.
Trust me, Heather--with 6,840 connections, she'll never know. She'll might realize you're not connected at some point and request another one; just don't accept or deny.
Sorry if that offends anyone but I am just a product of the packaging.
Nan, I think the big misconception is that any group that is not monitored is fair game for anything.
I almost have enough points with them for a Barnes & Noble Gift Card. On Gather, I currently have 3,044 Gather Points™.
This "rewards" site is how I found Gather; creating a profile on Gather was one of the offers from one of these emails. I suspect that's where a lot of the "point whores" came from, as the main drive is to accumulate the points.
I actually found the practice of sitting at the computer, clicking on a bunch of links to accumulate points, to be wasteful but sometimes I find myself with apparently nothing better to do, so I go for it.