gather guide 

Credit: Our friends at Pat the Dog made a stellar Gather guide for their Femme Folks Fest and were kind enough to let us adapt their work.  Thanks to Fest's Digital Catalyst Team, Rebecca Ballarin and Laurel Green for originating this guide, and Shanae Sodhi for adapting.  

Thanks to Milton Lim and the Cultch Digital Storytelling Team for their guidance in room design and user accessibility.

ACCESS

Gather is a virtual world that allows participants to move their avatars around to interact via chat or video with those nearby. There is also a text chat function. Think Legend of Zelda meets social media.

Gather can be accessed only by computer (not phone or tablet, sorry) using Chrome or Firefox (not Safari). You can access the public Gather Walkthrough Demo HERE.

the basics

• To get started, just type in your FIRST and LAST name. Add your pronouns to your ‘name tag’ as you like.

• Enable your camera and audio (microphone and speaker) settings, we recommend wearing headphones.

• Choose an Avatar from a menu of characters located at the bottom of your screen next to your name.

• Once inside the Space, explore using your arrow keys to move around.

• Interact with objects that are glowing by hitting the ‘X’ key

• Hold ‘G’ to become a ghost and pass through people if you’re stuck

• When you come into contact with another person, your video and audio will switch on so you can talk to each other.

• There is a chat option on the side bar where you can send messages to people.

• You can find someone by clicking on their name and using the participants list and selecting “locate”. It will draw a map to them for you.

• If you get stuck simply exit your screen and click the link again to reload the page and come back in.

• And most importantly, press Z to dance and celebrate!

FULL PRIMER / HUMAN ASSISTANCE

• Check out Gather’s welcome guide.

• Screen readers tested in Gather provided no verbal feedback regarding the avatars location nor what virtual spaces or other avatars were nearby. It was possible to navigate to the chat and “chat to all” to facilitate wayfinding or asking for help, but chatting with a specific user in the space was not possible.

• You are able to have your avatar automatically follow another to facilitate wayfinding. If you would like to use this function with either a Forum staff member or someone attending events with you, please let us know please contact shanae.sodhi6@gmail.com

• Gather does not support captioning. Interactions with other attendees happens through video chat and chat box text.

• To make an appointment to tour the Gather space in advance please contact shanae.sodhi6@gmail.com

To contact Gather’s team with questions about the platform please contact: support@gather.town

Privacy: Gather does its best to make sure your data is safe and that your privacy is respected. To read Gather’s privacy statement visit: https://gather.town/privacy-policy

Need technical support to attend #SolidaritySundays?

Email Shanae Sodhi at shanae.sodhi6@gmail.com

SOLIDARITY SUNDAY - IMMEDIATE ACTION TOOLS (scroll through images)

"How to Write A Letter" (tips from Amnesty International)

SOME SAMPLE LETTERS (adapt/personalize)

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