oe by oe
I have a few suggestions that might improve the Oped site (Rob suggested I post them as a diary, so here they are). My perspective and ideas come as a long term Oped follower, who finds this site invaluable, and as one who greatly appreciates the openness that Rob and others have developed.
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Tags seem to be counterproductive. It may be my lack of brain power, but I don't see their purpose, unless it is to somehow find articles as arbitrarily categorized by the author or poster. Even there, I often find Oped articles quicker by Googling rather than searching directly on Oped. Also, you can easily set Google so it searches just the site; anyone using key terms can likely find what they're interested in instantaneously. Better, faster, automatic, no monkeying with tags.
The "pop-ups" or I think more technically, "roll overs," with short summaries of articles are wonderful. But at least with Google Chrome, none show up for articles below the main headliners. Roll-overs for all articles would be helpful for busy people, which I suspect most readers are. I see many headlines I want to check out but don't have time (I am talking about the short blurbs that tell more than the headline what the article is about).
Why not give quotes in their entirety without having to click on them? It is a nuisance to click and wait to see a few more words. I tend to avoid them for this reason, but in fact consider them valuable food for thought and inspiration.
The flow of articles is in places too fast. Some disappear in such a short span that when I go back to look, they're gone. Yes, I can find them, but why not have the page longer and the articles just move down further, so one can scroll down to them for a longer time? I don't know if the loading of longer pages slows down many computers these days, but on many sites I see longer pages that load just as fast, or faster, than Oped.
Some streams are painstakingly slow. How long will we have to read from Michael Moore that "Madoff spreads blame to banks in jail interview," to cite one example?
When posting a link, there seems to be no way to choose between Best Op Eds and Op Eds. Nor is there a Progressive Web check box. It is questionable whether all these categories are needed at all, except maybe as selected from a small number of category tags that an author could choose (such as the topics in grey across the top of the page). Drudge Report, for example, has no categories, but is easy to skim for headlines of interest (should one be so inclined, or find them interesting). The tag system doesn't work well even as intended, insofar as finding what I'm looking to label a post. Making a new category is a mini-nightmare and rarely does posting a quick link pull up the actual topic of the article. Many unnecessary clicks and much time wasted here.
The comments would be better modeled after Disqus or Common Dreams, imho. Readers see a blank box first when they scroll down to read the comments. I prefer to get a sense of what others are saying before I comment, or oftentimes just read what others say, but without that annoying blank box. I'm no artist, but it is unaesthetic even to me. Even just putting the open box inviting comments at the bottom ought to be more functional for any thoughtful reader.
Regarding streams, the polls could be a separate link. They are slow movers, often non-movers, and other items, such as diaries, deserve longer standing time. Ditto events column. This would be related to page length and number of categories.
Given that comments can be seen on articles, why have the separate column for them? A good goal seems to me to simplify the page in general and make it more comprehensible at a glance.
I'm not trying to overwhelm or sound Mussolinish here, merely make suggestions for consideration. If there is any indication that these ideas prove even a little helpful, I'll attempt to rustle some of my other thoughts together.
My last idea for now would be for web designers to consider the site overall and obtain some sample possibilities, from different progressive folks who work on these things for a living.
