Category: Pointless Ramblings

A note to all web journalists

Posted on by Nimgimli

Warning, incoming rant.

I was reading an article at an online magazine today and noticed a glaring and really embarrassing typo where one of the editors had just (inadvertently) dissed his own product. So being a nice guy, I figured I’d point that out to them. Turns out contacting the editors of this “magazine” isn’t easy.

Here’s how my thought process went:

1) I’ll leave my feedback as a comment

  • I have to register or sign in to comment? Annoying
  • Oh, they support openid, I’ll use that!
  • Wait, they post my openid as my name if I use openid? That’s insane. Skip that.

2) I’ll email the author then. Click on his name.

  • OK here’s a profile, what’s his email address? Not listed. Yes, I know it’ll get you spam but you’re setting yourselves up as journalists. Being contactable is part of that process.
  • OK click on Contacts
  • OK here’s a contact email address. I’ll click that.
  • Oops, it isn’t a link. Highlight and copy it then
  • Nope, they used an image so I can’t cut and paste the email address

So finally I type out the email address and send them an email, but not to tell them about the typo. Rather, to tell them how this process was so frustrating that I’m unsubscribing from their RSS feed and won’t give them my eyeballs again.

We’re talking about a site with advertising on it, so my page views = revenue for them. If you want to put on your journalist suit and collect an income from my visits, then you damned well better treat me, the reader, as a customer. Yes, I understand spam is a huge problem. But its part of the cost of doing business if you’re going to set yourself up as a business, which the ads tell me these people are (that opinion is bolstered by the name and format of the site).

OK, end of rant. I know I shouldn’t get so worked up about such things but, well, I do. And I can’t be the only one!

A counter to over-protective parents

Posted on by Nimgimli

This lady is my new hero:

Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone | The New York Sun

My friends and I often spend time talking about what life was like when we were kids; how we’d run around unsupervised and how none of us died, y’know? We didn’t have “play dates,” we just shouted “I’m going over to Billy’s!” as we tore out the door. These days I just wonder when kids have a chance to be kids? Henry Jenkins has suggested that kids are so drawn to video games these days because those are the only places they can go to, y’know, get away from the parental units and be themselves, so to speak. That makes sense to me.

Now I should state that I have no kids, so to a certain extent, talk is cheap for me.

Anyway, Lenore Skenazy, the author of the article above, has started a blog called FreeRange Kids. How about that for a blog title!!? I love it.

The blogosphere does some good

Posted on by Nimgimli

I often rant (ironically enough) about the blogosphere and what an awful place it can be when it comes to propogating (sometimes harmful) rumors. Usually because everyone copies other blogs (yup, myself included).

But here’s some good news. Wal-Mart: Brain-damaged former employee can keep money If you hadn’t read this story, some poor woman who worked at Wal-Mart and paid for their health & disability plan was in a bad car accident that left her brain damaged. Thanks to her Wal-Mart disability program her health care was being paid for. But the woman and her husband sued the trucking company that hit her, and won $1 million US, of which they got $417,000 (pause for ranting about how much lawyers and the legal system took). Wal-Mart turned around and sued the couple for $470,000 to recoup her healthcare costs. Apparently in the fine print of the Wal-Mart health care policy it says you have to turn over any lawsuit settlement to Wal-Mart.

Anyway you can read the details in the story. The good news is, after CNN ran the story, the blogosphere went wild with vitriol towards Wal-Mart, including calling for boycotts. Yes, everything Wal-Mart did was legal, but it still stank of corporate greed. Faced with this, Wal-Mart did the smart thing and relented, and dropped the lawsuit.

One moral of the story would be to read the fine print on the healthcare package your employee offers, but really, what good does that do? It isn’t like most of us have an alternative. Paying for healthcare out-of-pocket is beyond the means of many of us, and I’m sure particularly so of those who work for Wal-Mart wages.

But the better moral is that the blogosphere has a voice, and it can be used for good. Let’s hope we see more of that, and less petty squabbling and ugly rumor-mongering.