Makeover

[somjournal.livejournal.com]

The Somerville Journal has gotten a much needed makeover. Let us know what you think as our tech department is still updating the new look and fixing problems.

ron_newman already asked about accessing the blog, which is located right here. You can also get to the blog by clicking on the "News" tab. A link to a whole page of blogs pops up.

Comments

comments...

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

- If you change the font size (easy in Firefox; dunno about other web browsers), the layout totally falls apart.

- News section is blank. No news is good news? Oh, wait, I have to click on a subcategory, and hope there's some content for that category. Blank section aside, that's too much clicking.

- Is there a way to make it show new stories on top, with older ones scrolling off the bottom, rather than just having them pop into where ever on the page they might belong were this a print journal that only came out once a week? For example, under "News|Business", the top story is from mid-January -- kind of pushing the definition of "news".

- still no RSS?

Re: comments...

[somjournal.livejournal.com]

I will pass your comments along. FYI, we can now rank stories so newer things can be put on top. Also, a newly posted story has a little icon next to it that says "new."

Re: comments...

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

New since what, though? Since I last looked? Since another story was posted? Since this morning? Plus, scrolling around looking for icon easter eggs is more of a game than I want to play when my goal is to read news. Is there a reason you need to specially rank stories in a way other than putting a publish-date on them?

I know I sound really negative, but this is the major reason I don't look at the site very often. It's like it's designed to waste your time if you look at it more than once every couple of weeks.

Also note that every time I load the page, my CPU fan kicks into overdrive. Some of the scripting could maybe be dialed back a bit?

Re: comments...

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

Also, the front page is basically useless, since new stories apparently can appear on the "More Top Stories" page, which isn't just more, but also the front page articles. I think. And presumably, there's non-top stories around somewhere which are still interesting. This has basically the same point as the other issues: too much hunting to find what's useful.

[ron_newman]

The front page really should have a direct link to your blog (not to a page listing every Town Online blog). A lot of people don't know your blog exists -- it needs much more promotion.

[somjournal.livejournal.com]

I've heard they are going to do something about the blog, but I will still pass along the comment.

[ron_newman]

When I click on "Opinion" or "Lifestyle" I get a blank page (same as with "News")

[kjc.livejournal.com]

It would be great if you'd include an option for how to submit press releases and announcement of local events. I'm pleased with the infinitely improved "Contact Us" page otherwise.

And I agree with the other folks, the blog should be more clearly labeled and should come up when I click on it - clicking on a sub-category is non-intuitive.

Plus, an RSS feed would be fabulous.

Thanks for the revamping!

[davedwig.livejournal.com]

I second the request for RSS feeds -- far more chance I'd actually read the stories if they popped into my feed reader with all the other stuff I monitor.

missing from Google News

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

I've noticed the Journal hasnt been indexed by Google News in a while; any reason? ( I made a separate post about it here: http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/821592.html )