Sunday, December 21, 2014

Please stand by....


     This being my own personal blog, I've tried to tread lightly and be respectful when it comes to matters involving the mothership, the Chicago Sun-Times. They pay my salary, and so I try to be dutiful about not simply posting my entire columns here, but instead sharing only a portion, then linking back to the paper's website for the rest. Clicks are important, in setting advertising rates and such, and I don't want to bite the hand that feeds me.
     Which has worked fine, up to now. I feel bad asking readers to click on a new site 1/4 way into a post, but nobody has ever complained, which I take as an endorsement. 
      The first glitch occurred yesterday when the paper, which is in the midst of jazzing up its computer site, somehow cut many of the links that I've inserted to columns on the Sun-Times web site. Some work, but if you click on others, you are routed to the Sun-Times home page but not the article you're trying to finish. 
      My apologies to all readers who have been frustrated—were this problem in my own hands, I'd be moving heaven and earth to fix it. But it's not, so all I can do is wait, like you. My bosses at the paper assure me it's going to be remedied soon, and I am passing that assurance on to you. Both the Sun-Times and I value our readers—that's why the paper is trying to build a better on-line experience, and why I'm pushing to have those links back up as soon as possible—and appreciate your bearing with us during these awkward moments. Thanks again for patronizing my blog, and everything should be back to normal shortly.  

                                                                                  The management

3 comments:

  1. The problem is, didn't they test it out before they decided to go live?
    Obviously they didn't.

    But more importantly, why fix what wasn't broken? The ST was never perfect, far from it, but at least you could find columns & articles. Now you can't find anything without a series of multiple clicks.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I do computer work for a living, so I feel for those that planned / tested (?) / implemented / etc. those changes on the ST website. Sometimes things gets missed when short-handed and under pressure (which I'm sure they were). I those sorts of things worked perfectly, there would be no need for I.T. types.

    So....you've got to tell us the story behind the picture of all the frying and aluminum foil and tasty looking frying food.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are moderated, and posted at the discretion of the proprietor.