Talk:Gather.com

Article edits
Just want to say thanks to those who contributed much better material and sources than my initial efforts. Article looks great. Hope my efforts were somewhat useful as well. thanks. --Sm8900 18:24, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Article Suggestions Edit
The original money for Gather is running out or has run out. They had to get new investors in June 2009 - including Tom's parents. Here's a link to the story - http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977705968

Also, noteworthy is they've hired people (freelancers for $500 a month) to write fluff articles to bring more people to the site. (SEO stuff for their site, although they teach members that it's SEO for the members.)

Might also be interesting to add that management does read PMs ("private messages,") so privacy is an issue.

And finally, something I think is noteworthy, but for nettiquette reasons do not want to add myself (I let you judge if it's worth mentioning, since I'm biased), you might want to check out the reviews for the site. It seems like users like it when they start, however there is a protected element of their users, who tend to dictate new TOS "rules" (ones not in the Terms of Service, yet invented when the folks at Gather get tired of people who complain about that same element to terminate their accounts or, at least, warn them of doing so.) The reputation of Gather includes an element of bullies that scare many people away or get people terminated.

It is a good site IF people can avoid those bullies (cyberstalkers, since they attack people over the age of 18), a task not always easy to do, especially if the user likes to submit writing to the site's main writing group. One thing for sure, management has no intention of doing anything with that mob. They control the site with Gather's acceptance, and are the ones who contribute the most to the complaining of Gather's lack of enforcement of TOS by anyone else but them. (Check out Tom's blog, read the comments, and once you start seeing the ones complaining the most about lack of enforcement, check out their comments to other's posts to see that they are the ones attacking others. They hide it by adding lots of benign comments or comments to their friends, but a thorough search does show the pattern - usually veiled. Sometimes they write "articles" to attack others, but it is so veiled, you'll never know who they are attacking without much effort. Gather management has been given the explanation, but ignores that.)

There's a dark side to Gather that has caused many people pain. Tom's blog talks about how his group discovered the purpose for people joining - to combat lonliness, but he negates the price for making "friends" on the site. And this isn't just about "some people were mean to me." They were, but they are nasty to many, many people, and nothing is done, so it's one of the main reasons many people leave. (I was terminated because I got nothing from management when I requested some reasonable action against these people - usually not even answers to my PMs directly to them, and when I went after the problem people - in the proper "use no names" manner require - even thought I was logical and didn't use emotional displays - suddenly it was not allowed "to bait" people. It's a site that talks about politics, religion, and writing. No baiting? A significant percentage of the articles are baiting. All I did was let everyone - the nasty people and others - know I had written articles to answer comments they, and others, made to one of my innocent articles that was brutally attacked. No where in the TOS does it say you cannot notify people when you upload an article. Matter of fact, that would be contrary to one of the main things that happens on that site.)

Might want to update this one. Atwhatcost (talk) 07:23, 5 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for sharing the information, very interesting stuff. However, isn't this page up for potential deletion?? NCSS (talk) 22:07, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Update, but second-hand news: Tom Gerace says he sold Gather.com. (He still owns the fluff article part.) This comes out after people asked him why the site is down. 71.185.45.208 (talk) 03:15, 5 May 2013 (UTC)

Derelict Spam Site? Perhaps delete article.
The Gather.com site appears to be derelict. All the news appears to be at least a year old. Perhaps this article should be deleted altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abjad Hawaz Hutti (talk • contribs) 02:25, 5 September 2014 (UTC)