Somerville News web site becomes nearly useless

[ron_newman]

The Somerville News has made a big deal about converting from Typepad to their own custom website, but .... geez:

- There is no obvious way to find articles older than four days ago
- There is no indication of which articles have recent comments
- Clicking on "Contact Us" results in "There are currently no articles in the section"
- Clicking on "Write Letter to Editor" results in "There are currently no articles in the section"
- Clicking on "Submit Calendar Item" results in "There are currently no articles in the section"
- Clicking on "Advertise" results in "There are currently no articles in the section"
- Clicking on "Legal Ads" results in "No Display Ads Found"
- If you submit a comment, they now require your e-mail address and phone number

I gotta wonder who approved this change, and why.

Comments

[jamesnorton.livejournal.com]

hey tricky -

well, the website company just informed me that no, i can't do something like that, which is the problem when you deal with companies that supposedly "cater" to an industry. the salesperson told me all my concerns could be worked out with the programmers and we would have the same attributes - of course, after the multi year contract is signed and we are four months into the process, then you get the "oh no, we can't do that..." from the programmers.

i just two seconds ago asked them to look into it seriously, because quite frankly, if this thing doesnt make a turnaround soon, i may pull the plug and just go back to typepad...

[somertricky.livejournal.com]

Best of luck working this out, JN.

I don't know what I can recommend for perseverance on your end: some good bourbon, maybe?

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

Good luck. It sounds immensely frustrating, but I suspect in the end, everything will work out.

[ron_newman]

I'm curious what your plans are for the new "Citizen Journalist/Blogging" feature.

[jamesnorton.livejournal.com]

i don't have any set plans for it - other than to see if people like it...and we can instill some of the purity of the original typepad site we had - without a lot of the harsh, rudeness that came along later.