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

[pearlythebunny.livejournal.com]

One thing I find a little disconcerting about the new News site is that articles keep disappearing. For example, on Monday there was a column written by the mayor. But then the column disappeared. Eventually I figured out that it had just been moved to a different tab (Opinions), but I find that I hardly ever click on tabs. If the material isn’t on the first page, I don’t spend a lot of time searching for it. I’m much more likely to scroll down a long column looking at the articles than I am to start clicking on tabs to find articles.

So my personal opinion is that you should keep all of the articles on the home page for at least a week. Then you can start moving them around if you want. But I really don’t mind having everything in one long column, so that you can scroll down and see everything that has been posted for the past month or more.

[jamesnorton.livejournal.com]

looking back, i should have paid more attention to the stuff i was going to have to personally do to get the site right - because if i had, instead of the pingpong i went through today, i would have seen the flaws that i couldnt have had anything to do with.

a learning process for certain - now i remember why i didnt stick with a computer industry related job 15 or so years ago...

[ron_newman]

One thing you definitely need is for Google News to find your new site and start indexing it again. They drive a lot of traffic to a newspaper site, and right now they don't know where you are.

[ron_newman]

Use this link .