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*** UPDATED x2 *** Fun with websites
Friday, Jan 13, 2012 - Posted by Rich Miller * The Illinois State Board of Elections has changed its website address from http://www.elections.state.il.us to http://www.elections.il.gov. That’s no big deal, except that the Board is not auto-forwarding links from the old URL to the new one. In order to make my life a little easier (actually, a lot easier), I’ve bookmarked almost 200 Board of Elections links to candidate contribution reports and other pages within the site that I use quite often. But now, because the Board doesn’t auto-forward to its new URL, all my links are dead (click here for an example). So, I have to go back and change every single one of those links. Ugh. I am not a happy camper. *** UPDATE 1 *** The old URL appears to be working now. Squeaky wheel, grease, etc. Thanks to whoever changed it back. *** UPDATE 2 *** I just got off the phone with the State Board of Elections’ executive director and the top tech guy. They explained that they didn’t realize that people were using the old URL (little did I know that they changed their URL five years ago). They also vowed cooperation on whatever they could cooperate on. We talked about some things that I’ve wanted for years, like RSS feeds for various categories and a separate link to latest petition challenges that have been overruled. It was the most positive conversation I’ve had with the State Board of Elections since they launched their first website in the late 1990s. Things got extremely heated back then for reasons I don’t need to dredge up again, and the relationship kinda went downhill ever since. Hopefully, things are about to get better. * And speaking of websites that make me unhappy, Gatehouse has found a way around my browsers’ popup blockers so it can load one of those irritating “pop-under” pages every time I visit their newspaper sites. I hate pop-unders and I despise any company that uses them. Stop it, please. * Do you have any website beefs? Please share.
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- Liberty First - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:29 am:
Website beefs: FLASH! (flash has always been overused) AUTOPLAY VIDEOS and AUDIO, spinning ads (yuk) and overlays that won’t go away. GOOGLE (no longer the best search engine because they control priority - they sucked you in and now have you)
If it doesn’t load fast or wants to charge - I’m gone…. I don’t think newspaper advertising depts have figured out how to sell web target advertising or how to provide multilayered experiences.
Rich, you do well with your site.
- Homer J. Simpson - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:30 am:
I’m with you on the Gatehouse thing. The pops have got to stop!
- Cincinnatus - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:32 am:
When you open a website page and a video with sound blaring automatically plays.
- Jak Tichenor - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:32 am:
Well, that explains why I got the spinning circle of death this morning when I tried to check some local races. Thanks for letting the rest of know what the heck’s going on.
- Shore - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:33 am:
this is the part of government that should work if only because politicians and their staffs actually really really really need it to work and use it a lot. You’d think they say this is kind of a big deal and take it super seriously. too bad.
- Bob and Weave - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:36 am:
When you print an article that’s four sentences, you get another piece of paper filled with ads. The Gatehouse websites are particularly bad about this too. Killing trees and wasting ink, Grrr.
- TimBerners-LeeHatesThis - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:37 am:
1. That thing they do where your back btn doesn’t work.
2. Comic Sans.
3. redirecting to ‘mobile’ site when they find you are on a phone.
4. then, not having the article you were trying to get on the mobile site- that’s why i was going to the FULL site inthe first place!
5. PDF, or other file downloads, wrapped in js or other code that keeps you from doing Rt-click-SaveAs.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:39 am:
===3. redirecting to ‘mobile’ site when they find you are on a phone.
4. then, not having the article you were trying to get on the mobile site- that’s why i was going to the FULL site inthe first place!===
I hate that as much as I hate death. I have personally called editors at newspapers who do that stupid thing and railed at them on the phone. More people should do it.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:42 am:
One day, maybe we’ll get an executive director at the State Board of Elections who appreciates the importance of the Internet. So far, that hasn’t happened. I’ve been complaining about that website since they had a website. While I admit that my life is much easier than it used to be back in the days when we had to go to the office and read through pages of microfiche, there is just no excuse for how stupid their Internet approach is and has always been. They are freaking clueless, and I’m beyond sick of it.
- Bill - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:49 am:
Rich, if you have the ability to view the set of ‘now dead’ URLs in Word or Excel, use the ‘Replace’ function to replace “.state.il.us” with “.il.gov”; merely a suggestion.
- Cincinnatus - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:50 am:
I especially share your sorrow about the Elections website, Rich. Like you, I have bookmarked several pages (although I am luckier than you that my bookmarks already pointed to the new addresses) simply because the website IS A NIGHTMARE TO NAVIGATE.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:54 am:
Unfortunately, Bill, the browser I use for the BoE website doesn’t allow me to do that.
- dave - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 10:56 am:
**===3. redirecting to ‘mobile’ site when they find you are on a phone.**
Amen. And the NW Herald’s inability for their facebook links to work on an iPad.
- Smitty Irving - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 11:07 am:
Websites that only work with Internet Explorer. Use Firefox and / or Chrome to avoid various “issues” with Internet Explorer (too numerous to list here, and this isn’t an IT complaint site, anyway).
- amalia - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 11:13 am:
website beefs. oh so many. pop ups. video instead of writing, all the time lately. flash.glitches because a design does not work with my beloved Mac. (I still prefer it cause fewer virus issues.) so many things on screen that one can barely figure out what is where which leads me to hate that business/government entity. lack of parallel construction between print and web versions of a publication so it’s hard to find the link to what you saw in print. touchy navigation that anticipates vs. let’s me decide…jumpy. links to no where. shopping sites that bump me all the way back to selection start vs. just back to the entire page of shoes I’m oggling. I’m talking to you, Barneys. government sites that do not provide quick finds for staff contacts. Illinois Elections….the black hole of websites.
- Don't Worry, Be Happy - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 11:39 am:
Automatic redirection to the mobile site when on my phone, especially when there is no link to the full site provided, and especially when the mobile site has a fraction of the utility of the full site (are you listening Chase Bank?).
I have trouble with my bookmarks for Crain’s when used on my phone - their site won’t give me the bookmarked page.
My latest peeve is the Sun-Times site limiting access to 20 articles per month. I’d tell you what the work-around is except they’d probably read this and fix it.
- Behind The Scenes - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 11:40 am:
Avoid Google whenever possible. “AllTheWeb” looks at more sites, is quicker, and rarely shows ads.
- Bill F - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 11:46 am:
In addition to many of those mentioned, I am not a fan of when sites, like the Tribune, require a surgeon’s precision to click a link far off to ones side within a drop-down menu, dumping you from the drop-down menu if your cursor should stray outside of the menu area.
[If that explanation doesn’t make sense, go to the Trib’s web site. Click home, and try to go to “Help”]
- Ghost of John Brown - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 11:49 am:
Thanks for the explanation, Rich. I have been trying to get on their site (old one) but couldn’t load. I figured that they were incompetent and the site was down. Now I realize they are just stupid.
- What planet is he from again? - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 12:03 pm:
I agree with every beef posted so far. My beef are websites that use grey text on a white background. I’m not sure who thought that was a good idea and how so many others believed it, but that has to stop too.
- Lincoln Parker - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 12:34 pm:
When relatively short articles are separated onto multiple pages. Tribune does this all the time.
Don’t mind so much for longer articles, but still annoying.
- Bill - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 12:37 pm:
======= Unfortunately, Bill, the browser I use for the BoE website doesn’t allow me to do that. ========
Bummer.
- Retired Non-Union Guy - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 1:16 pm:
Major gripes with some web sites are pretty much the same as others: autoplay, pop-up, pop-under, poor menu design and poor background wallpaper.
The one or two sites that really tick me off open 3 or 4 pop-ups when you land on their page.
The most frustrating are the sites that put busy wallpaper behind the text; not only is it hard to read but also takes longer to load.
Next gripe is poor menu design; some of them are so bad they don’t end have a search for the site. When I encounter one of those, I back out and use one of the internet search engines and target it just at their site so I can find what I need.
- Danny - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 1:25 pm:
When pop-up ads on the website block what you were trying to read and then you can’t figure out for the life of you how to close it! Realclearpolitics was doing this for awhile. they seem to have stopped.
- RMWStanford - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 1:54 pm:
Autoplay, I hate going to a website and being hit with sounds/video I dont care to listen or see.
Part of the reason I tend to keep my computer’s sound set to mute unless I am playing on listening to something.
- Just Observing - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 1:56 pm:
I hate the web address of the Secretary of State:
http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/
It’s such a stupid name and the SoS does a lot more than driver’s licenses.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 2:06 pm:
Regarding the update: I’m quite relieved. I drove home from lunch humming “If I had a Rocket Launcher” by Bruce Cockburn and was thinking about posting it this afternoon as our play-out tune.
Doing so probably would’ve gotten me in a lot of trouble, even though I would never, ever use such a weapon. That just ain’t me. But, man, was I angry.
I want to raise every voice — at least I’ve got to try
Every time I think about it water rises to my eyes.
- Wensicia - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 2:11 pm:
“The old URL appears to be working now.”
Getting called out on Rich’s blog will produce better results than a press conference.
The Power of the Fax!
- Peter Snarker - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 2:19 pm:
Some good ones covered here already - I’ll add I dont enjoy having to “name” my device when using FB from some non-routine location.
- reformer - Friday, Jan 13, 12 @ 2:55 pm:
The Daily Herald doesn’t police its blogs the way it does the newspaper message board. Consequently, there are long commercial messages posted in the blog comment area that have crowded out genuine comments.
- NIref - Sunday, Jan 15, 12 @ 3:06 pm:
1. Newspaper online comment sections are a small glimpse into the depths of hell.
2. Re: State websites bury important reports like budget reports and other GA mandated reports. Stuff like this needs to be three clicks or less away from the main page.