Groups

Groups represent all the various collections of members in your community, including committees, teams, clubs, and so on.

Group membership can be open, closed, or a special ‘everybody’ setting which automatically includes all adult members of the community.

Users can join, leave, or opt out of groups themselves, and users can also be added or removed by group managers. The groups user interface is simple and approachable.

Gather offers two world class solutions for communication within your groups and community…

Email Lists

Gather groups are integrated with Mailman, one of the most popular email list platforms.

Email lists can be attached to groups. A corresponding list will then be created on the Gather Mailman server, and the members of the Gather group will be kept in sync with the Mailman list.

Use Gather instead of Google Groups or other similar solutions. The benefits are several:

• Information about individual members and about groups is housed in the same place: Gather.
• Group membership and email address changes are kept in sync with Mailman automatically.
• You can create ‘Everybody’-type groups to include all adults in the community. New members are added automatically to the group, and deactivated members are removed automatically as well, for smoother onboarding and offboarding experiences.
• Group membership can be easily edited by group managers within Gather. This allows committee conveners to add their own members, for example.
• For moderators or list administrators who want to edit Mailman settings, accessing the Mailman UI is easy with single-sign on.
• Users also don’t need to sign in to a separate system to see list archives.
• It’s easy for community members to see who is in what group and on what list. Viewing a user’s profile also shows what groups they are in.
• Your private message data is housed at Gather, which is fully accountable to you, unlike major ad-supported corporations like Google. Your data stays private and is not sold or analyzed.

Discourse Forums

You can also use Discourse, the popular and fully featured forum platform, for communicating with your community.

Like Mailman, Gather hosts its own Discourse instance, so that all your data remains under one roof.

Signing in to Discourse is completely automatic if you are already signed in to Gather. No more passwords to remember. User accounts are synchronized transparently.

Gather Groups will also soon be synchronized with Discourse groups for deeper integration. That feature is under development.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I send an email out to the email list?

Simply send an email to the list address listed on the group page using your normal email provider.

When I reply to an email list message, who does it go to?

If you simply reply, it will go to the sender only. If you reply-all, it will go to the full list.

Why does an email I got say it’s from “(Name of Sender) via (Name of Group)”?

Some email providers (notably Gmail) will do this if the sender is sending from Yahoo Mail or other providers. It has to do with anti-spam measures. You can safely ignore it.

Should I be getting a copy of an email I send to an email list that I’m on?

It depends on your email provider. Gmail notably does not show copies of messages that you send. Most other providers will show copies. You can always check the list archive to see if your message was distributed.

How do I create a new group with an associated email list for my book club, discussion group, project, or other purpose?

Please get in touch with your Gather Admin. They can create a group for you and make you manager of the group so you can then add other members to it.

Can external addresses be added to an email list for a group?

Yes, this is possible via the Mailman admin panel if you have administrator privileges on the list in question. If you can’t make the change yourself, ask your Gather Admin.

How do I get into our Discourse Forum?

There should be a ‘Forum’ in your Gather main menu. If your community doesn’t have a Discourse forum setup yet, please contact us.

How do I use Discourse?

Check out this new user guide.