This is such an exciting time to be a part of Gather!
Our community is growing and evolving at a mind bending pace. We want to make sure the site is tapping into your interests, passions and desires.
We’re thrilled to announce that we will be unveiling several new Essential groups throughout the year. One of them will focus solely on Writing and Writers. But we want to know, what other topics do you consider Essential? We’re listening! Please comment below on what you think our next Essential groups should be and why!
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Comments: 69
Religion
Family
Sports
I'd like to add to Vicky's list one more category for writing: journalism (non-fiction news, features and other journalistic endeavers), with stories both covering how journalists are covering today's stories and how-to piece like breaking into magazines.
I agree with Penny that a broad "Entertainment" channel seems the best way to encompass movies, TV and, everyone's favorite, Hollywood gossip.
Mr. Bill brings up the Religion topic, and I have read posts addressing the desire for a channel on this. Perhaps this could also be a broader topic, that could include things like ethics and family values (in a non-Republican sense ; ).
We're also missing a technology/IT channel that could cover real issues Gather members are dealing with related to technology -- everything from posting photos on Gather, to new software products that help screenwriters, to making money online.
I'd also love to see, perhaps included in the History channel, at least one correspondent addressing Gather history. Could be a fun go-to post.
It does seem that a desire for creative writing is large within the community as well.
Just a start - I'll keep thinking...
Mr Bill, can you expand on "family" - I think I'd second the motion but it's a broad term...
I could see "Entertainment" becoming a parent of movies, tv, and whatever else.
Will the new "Writers and Writing" channel have the current Books channel in it as well as user-original things like poetry, journalism, and so on?
While I have seen some call for a Religion channel (and even someone who created their own pseudo-essential on the subject), I've also seen people saying there is too much religion as it is. Probably means that, by and large, you're striking the right balance. If a religion/spirituality channel is created, I'd like to see it as part of a larger set of issues around 'society' or something.
Then again, we could take all the existing channels, write their names on pieces of paper, put them in a hat... (sorry you asked yet, Pam? grin)
I would like to see something like an Essential group for original writing with subgroups for poetry, fiction, writing advice, etc.
An Entertainment essential could contain subgroups for Movies, TV, live events, etc
We love the idea of sub groups and are working hard to make them a reality at Gather... So... in an effort to expand the conversation... feel free to sound off on what you'd like to see as new "main essentials" as well as "sub groups" within!!!! This is great feedback everyone... thanks for participating!
An essential part of what I do as a journo/writer is that I do interviews..... and I have podcasts.. I even have some videos from NYFW that I can provide though I am not in them, I made the "connections" for them to happen.
It's about providing a full media experience.. and Gather is missing out on the best of stuff because there is not audio or video channels.....
and that was discussed specifically with me and the Gather team back in 2005
I mean all of us, for the most part are part of SOME kind of family.
If you peruse articles and photos alike, many MANY have to do with this category.
I also moderate a Gifted Kids group, and it probably would fit under "health" if you stretched that meaning really far...but it doesn't, it would be best in Family.
If there were icons that indicated what genre it is, it would be MUCH more user friendly
Different kind of writers (ficton, business, erotica, mystery, etc.)
Poets
Different kinds of images (landscapes, photoshopped, paintings, sculptures, wildlife, kids, pets, etc.)
Health (execsizing, weightloss, diabetes, nutrition, living with disease, etc)
Sports (all)
Recipes
home and garden
Entertainment (including movies, tv, etc.)
How to group (handiman, martha stewart, etc)
This may confuse people because a number of members and employees of gather have known that i have been pushing for a limit on the number of groups that one post can be published to. But I also believe in lots of groups. Making groups as distinctive as possible. A work of art miht overlap a few groups but the limitation forces the author to pick the most appropiate one. Then readers gan by actually having groups that deliver the content they seek.
You bring up a good point... but I feel I should clarify a little more about Gather groups and specifically Essentials. Users tell us the groups (especially the essentials) are really helpful in organizing all the great content on the site. You don't need to visit a group to see that content... but they do act as topically driven clearing houses for information. I hope that clarifies. And thanks to everyone for participating in this conversation. We're learning a lot.
Pam
Arts (Studio / Gallery; painting, sculpture)
Religion
Science (and Technology)
Cultural and Social Commentary
Hobbies (crafters, collectors and DIY'ers)
Family
A sports channel would not be important to me.
"Essentials; Books" has already been featuring articles on writing.
I'd agree that the Movies channel could be or should be broadened to embrace the broader scope of stage and other sized screens.
Although the architecture might prove a bit unwieldy, the idea of creating sub groups for the Essentials seems stellar. It would go along way in helping to provide a more navigable indexing of the site's articles and images.
Thanks for asking for input.
Although it could be noted that the scientists are not engaging in shouting matches.
Memoir is very hot now in the publishing world.
I think that we do need a Science Essential.
I also see a need for a Parenting or Mother Essential.
I also see a need for Technology Essential.
I have noticed that we are starting to attract some teens and I would love to see something that would appeal more toward this group such as a Teen Essential
I also think a Faith and Belief essential would be cool, and I'd hope the featured articles and correspondents in it would reflect the diversity of Gather. That said, the whole idea of a correspondent for each faith someone mentioned earlier? Hard to do! Religion is BIG. That said, I'd love to see columnists at least representing each of the Abrahamic faiths (Christianity, Judasim, Islam) as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, Athiesm and (as much as I hate the catch all) Pagan and Earth-based religions.
I think DYI content is a cool idea, but I think it should bw a subcategory under fashion and style.
A Family essential would be better than a parenting essential that I had previously suggested but maybe it could be broken down into sub essentials also.
First and probably most frustrating is to see in the Movies essential feature "can you guess what movie" as the feature was sad and extremely frustrating. I am a person that goes to the front page several times daily to see articles, and to see what new information I can find, and that was not what I expected.
When the "feature groups" email came to me about one of my groups, the description was to highlight the group, get more members, and to highlight specialty groups. What I am seeing are groups with 400 members, do you think they need more members when you have wonderful specialty groups that have 10 to 50 members that hit a niche better, but you do not feature them?
Thank God I had purchased the movie A night at the museum prior to this week. You first had it as a feature in movies, then there was a similar article in the featured article, now it is a feature in books. Did this movie pay for advertising?
And in the news section, we see many of the same articles, but when a breaking story comes out, and someone writes an article concerning it, you wait until the news is old, and talked about so much that it is now in tattered clothing. By the way, does the world stop and nothing occur on Sundays?
The above to me shows a lack of those in charge taking the time to truly read, and think through, as well as communicate with other editors concerning articles to feature. With 225,000 plus members, I cannot believe that there has to be the same article in three categories in one week. Can we try some originality and stop with so much mundane?
We have some great Members that do so much for Gather, and get so little back, and they never get featured for what they do. I know this person has so many great things that help so many people, but do you somehow repay him by at least featuring something about him? I am talking about Kevin"just another member like you"V, and I know there are several others who do likewise. Where is the ability to feature these people? I see some like Kevin spending more time to help gather grow, and be a positive place than those who are making the decisions on the featured articles appear to take, and he is not being paid...
I know, you are newer Pam, and this is truly a challenge with 225,000 plus members, but we should probably start by fixing some of the broken communication paths, and then figuring out the true outline of each section, and then adding more. A job half done is also a job not finished.
There is truly a need to fix the broken comment section on the threads that stops many articles from seeing true light of day because those who hijack some of those articles, and then you have the drive by raters that may rate a 1 on an article. I have been told it means nothing to gather on the ratings, and been told, do not worry about it. Great, but, there is one group who will not see it, for it is rated low, or has very few comments, and that are those newer members expecting more comments or a rating above a 3 or 4 on articles they will read. We have been told that both situations will be fixed. I would like to see these put in place.
The above are all essential to me, to help make my gather experience better. If Gather truly wants to make Gather more enjoyable, then fix what it has, before tossing more on a plate that has no sideboards, and has a huge hole in it.
I hope this gives you just a small amount of information on what I see as legitimate concerns that many have been mentioned 100s of times, and to this date, have not seen much in differences. IT is essential to keep what you have to grow correctly, and not to forget the walls when building your doors and windows.
Thank you.
Here are my thoughts:
1. There needs to be control at some level higher than "moderator" for group content management. People want to get as many points as possible as fast as possible, so one sees articles on recipes posted to groups whose topic is politics.
Moderators don't have the time to manage this, so the "meaning" of groups has been essentially erased.
2. The "drive by" issue simply MUST be addressed. If ratings didn't matter, the rating system would not exist.
3. I agree with many others that topic areas like science, etc. need to be created and expanded.
4. I get WWWWAAAYYYYYY too many notifications in email about new articles simply because I get them both for the individual who writes them and also for every group they publish to. I tried dealing with that in my settings, but found that "either/or" meant I missed some articles from people I really wanted to read just because I either joined or dropped certain groups. I'm not sure what to propose to fix this, but I would appreciate some better structure on this.
5. You need a "religion" channel, I think. I get daily notes from one person (who I'm not connected to but who is a member of a group I'm in) who sends out Bible quotes and passages. I want to get the other mail from the group, but not that, and there is no way to turn it off.
Thanks for checking in with us :)
May I suggest that consideration be given to a group featuring subjects like human rights, social activism, charity/volunteer work, and other social issues/concerns (racism, genocide/ethnic cleansing, human trafficking, child labor, poverty, and the like)?
Also, I concur with consolidating movies, music, TV, and "professional" wrestling, into an Entertainment group. And I would like to second (or third, fourth....) the ideas of a sports group, and Jennifer's "DITY" idea (perhaps combined with hobbies, in a "Passtimes" group--including, as a subgroup, Mindless and Insipid Games).
Other than that, I'd most like for there to be a place to corral all of the radical, rabid, right-wing, evangelical neo-cons--preferably behind razor wire. (Perhaps my personal bias is showing here just a little. Forgive me.)
Finally, I would like to suggest that Gather institute some kind of quality control where its Official Gather Correspondants Corps is concerned. The material produced by some of these people Gather is sponsoring/subsidizing is utterly pathetic and bereft of any socially-redeeming value (case in point--"Shallow Marty" Sallo). Thank you.
My idea, (suggestion), would be to alphabetize our groups and our connections. Even if we had to scroll through to find the group or connection we are looking for, it would still be easier than to have to scroll and look at each page separately.
Of course it would be great to have them alphabetized with the ability to click on the letter that corresponds to the name.
I agree with Randy that there are more important issues that need to be addressed before Gather expands further. The expansion will just add more headaches that will need fixing. Please talk to Gather about fixing some of these problems before adding to the ones that already exist.
I apologize if this is off topic, however, I think it ties in with all the other issues.
I'd say truth in advertising.....
I'd say sincerity.....
I'd say honesty.....
I'd say integrity.......
But I, and I think most people, would settle for:
1)Totally transparent voting on everything.....ids/names show up like comments do.
2) No more contests....to salvage whats left of Gather's reputation.
3) Zero content management (and a written policy to re-affirm that)
Mary Anne forwarded all the information to you on writers groups before FirstChapters 1st round ended.....so you wouldn't lose about 1,500 writers. Its a month later?? People are now beyond upset, burned out, & cynical. The only conclusion that anyone can come up with is that you don't really want any of the Firstchapters authors to stay...unless they agree with everything that is presented, and check their brains at the door. (BTW, Randy, no one believes the 200,000+ number)
Pam,
There are a number of qualified, caring, and yes fairly clever/bright folks that want Gather to be what it is promised to be. AND, we will help. BUT, you have to stop spinning polly-anna-isms and face what needs to be fixed. If these things are fixed(and they are all really, really, easy ) I will bet you $1,000.00 that folks will give it a second chance. If not? Gather becomes La,la, land.
No wonderful marketing plans, denial, pretending, advertisers, investors, or spin control can salvage a bad reputation. Its time to walk the talk; and stick to it. For everyone's sake.
Sorry so blunt, but jeezz... Are you guys just re-affirming each other's views without any outside input? Perceptions don't make reality.....they might influence it, but reality is reality...hidden or not.
Please see these suggestions for what they are: SOLID SUGGESTIONS/ACTIONS FOR RE-AFFIRMING MEMBER'S CONFIDENCE IN GATHER.
Also, I think a Home & Garden or Living Essential would garner a lot of interest as well.
As for Tonia's idea about a "Home & Garden" channel, I of course second that. But I came back here to suggest a general "Hobbies" essential that could encompass home, garden, photography, and so on.
Just my two cents....
One on computers and technology.
Suggestions:
DROP DOWN LIST - to organize certain Essentials in categories
FADE & CHANGE - Essentials tab
So that many subjects & topics can be cover within minimal space on the front page.
Additional Essentials:
Arts
Faith / Spirituality
Science / Technology / Computers
Cultural / Social Commentary
Crafts / Hobbies
Family / Parenting
Entertainment / TV
Authors / Writers
There is so so much advertising going on that it tends to make one dizzy ...
Also too much mass emailings ...
Plus Gather Members should be able to 'Delete' anything within their OWN settings ...