Home page hilarity

[Feta]

Just for the record, if anyone sees this, people who have had their posts moderated off the BBC Internet Page discussion on the rather unpopular Beta page can post them here instead (guest posting is permitted), and we can judge if the moderation was justified. In my experience it almost never is. Don't disappoint me, people...

Here's the latest link for the old page, by the way. I wonder if the page was never deleted, they just changed the url..?

www.bbc.co.uk/cityspace/

[Feta]

First one caught...

803.
At 09:39 8th Dec 2011, Dreyfuss wrote:

I should acknowledge the (7 word) headline writers have improved since last week. We haven't had a repeat of the "GB team loses match overseas" debacle which was prevalent over the weekend.

At least the concept that the user might want to know the sport, which team, and which country before clicking on random headlines has been accepted in part...

Nevertheless it's strange that the worst journalists were given a role on the most popular on-line page.

A page that, every day, gets higher viewing figures than all but one TV programme.

Terribly abusive...

[Feta]

And another...

839.
At 13:57 8th Dec 2011, size9 wrote:

We've paid the piper but cannot call the tune.

It seems we have a product manager with neither the courage or the decency to address our complaints, an accountability executive not worthy of the title and a corporation now without credibility.

....how very sad

Reprehensible...

[Feta]

Just missed Donaldgranuk's comment, but caught this one...

876.
At 17:50 8th Dec 2011, sparklemidnightblue wrote:

How long I wonder, did James keep his new comments on hold before publishing them above. If I were in his shoes I would have waited until the last bitter minute, posted my comments and then do a runner out of the office before the flak started. Did you James?

I think most of us on here are wise enough to know that this is what we expected him to say. Pride comes before a fall James and I cannot express the outrage I feel about your comments. It is arrogance to the extreme.

You state, " Referrals to the rest of BBC Online are more evenly spread across all of our products which is a key measure of success for the new homepage". Of course they *^%£$$ are! No-one can find anything.

"it was clear that some users wanted clearer access" - Some? How many is 'some'? which brings me on to the next point, why have you not quoted actual figures/numbers?

"However, the sum total of all responses to the beta told us that this new homepage was on track to succeed with our strategy and so we have proceeded with the launch". - Oh, whoopee-dee!

It pains me to go on, and you obviously don't give a (*&%$%^ - I wish I could take back my MY MONEY for the TV Licence - the BBC does not deserve it.

Steady on, sparkleblue...

[Feta]

931.
At 22:04 8th Dec 2011, sterac wrote:

@929 MADJAN122

Some people do like it, look who voted that they love it here www.facebook.com/questions/10150393373322373/?qa_ref=qts

[Feta]

983.
At 13:24 9th Dec 2011, Mike wrote:

"There are a number of reasons why we are not going to run two different homepages side by side but among them developing, hosting, serving, and editorially managing two simultaneous pages is not cost effective."

None of those reasons are factually accurate.

1. It requires no further development. At worst you could remove two tabs from the features bar at the top and just leave a link to the new homepage. That would take a couple of hours.

2 & 3. Hosting & Serving for that page would not cost anything more than you already have. The BBC no doubt have an excellent server network with 1000s of servers and plenty of extra capacity: I have never seen the BBC site down due to excess load. Loading a few feeds puts virtually no load on the server. I would estimate that the new homepage puts more load on the server and uses more bandwidth, per page load.

In terms of using up server space the old homepage was probablly 200KB of code. One of my servers has 272GB of space, or 272,000,000 KB. So you could store the homepage code 1.35 million times on my own poxy server.

Hang on, I just thought of something. Saving people's preferences does require use of a database. 900,000 entries in a database would be around... hmmmm. 150mb maybe?

4. The old site requires zero editorial input - it is feed based.

These 4 points are just fancy words that most people don't understand but using them as justification is a lie.

-----

So as James isn't going to answer Athena2's question honestly, I'll do it for him.

1. The bit about it not fitting a strategy isn't a lie like the first 4 points.

2. Having two homepages would downgrade the importance/ranking of the main homepage on search engines, if you split the traffic between the two. This in turn may bring in less organic search traffic and makes the site less prestigious. If many more people used the old homepage, it might even come in higher on the search engines.

3. Having to put up the old page makes them look like they got it wrong and they don't want that.

4. If there was a "classic" version of the homepage linked from the new homepage and most people used classic, it would be unequivocal statistical evidence for senior management and would call into question the team's decision making ability.


I believe Athena2's question was actually more rhetorical anyway and they are already fully aware of the real reasons, just like most people reading this blog!

Big mistake, Nick. Huge, huge mistake...

[Feta]

Very nearly missed this...

1084.
At 15:14 10th Dec 2011, Fulmar wrote:

Here is an example of a piece of design that was created n 1965. It is a design classic, like the old homepage, (though I musn't really call it the 'old' homepage, that implies defeat, perhaps the 'real' homepage). It was not replaced in 1967 by someone who thought we needed a change. It is true that it replaced an earlier design, but it was a once only decision to suit changed circumstances.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15990443

[Feta]

Coming fast and furious now...

1098.
At 17:41 10th Dec 2011, Cramps wrote:

Surprised James uses Twitter, after seeing the New Home Page I thought he was computer illiterate. Maybe jokes like this are ok after all James joked about the Sun spoof.

[Feta]

1100.
At 18:59 10th Dec 2011, Wheelbarrowclock wrote:

As a former BBC staffer I'm saddened but not surprised at the arrogant response to the complaints about the Homepage. I regularly listened to fellow BBC managers describe the viewing and listening public as 'uninformed', 'unqualified' or simply 'stupid'. This was shorthand for anyone who didn't agree with them, or held different political views. The BBC is too big, too smug, too distant from the viewer, and seemingly too well-protected to be held truly accountable to the BBC Trust, a Government, or the people who pay the license fee. It's one of the reasons why I left the BBC to get a job in the real world.

[Feta]

1116.
At 23:06 10th Dec 2011, Latitude23 wrote:

Sorry this new front page is crap. My wife made this comment from her study tonight and I suddenly realised that it was true! I had thought my opinion (the same as her's) was a bit churlish, but no, it's not. This new front page is a big mistake. Clear space is does not help comunication. The links are obscured by the layout, not aided by it. What you need to realise is that change for the sake of it is not necesarily a good thing. Now I can't wait to 'click' away from the main screen to get back to familiar surroundings. Stop wasting our money. Please put it back to what we had before

[Feta]

Note: I can't be around to see every comment before it comes a cropper at the hands of Nick Reynolds. If anyone reading this has had a comment 'removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules', feel free to copy it from the 'donotreplyto...' email notification. Guest posting is enabled

[Feta]

LB makes a very valid point at 1147, which bears expanding on.

Nick Reynolds and his ilk often say dismissively that a small percentage of users are responsible for a large percentage of grumbling, but they're also almost certainly responsible for a large amount of 'content', which is very much prized by the corporation. Doesn't this count for anything?.

I should add that I can't contribute to the Blog directly because, although I was responsible for quite a lot of content myself, largely on the Archers' boards for my sins, when I queried a rather two-face comment by Nick, I was banned. I don't have his attitude to criticism, though.

[Feta]

1159.
At 14:08 11th Dec 2011, latinda wrote:

Nick Reynolds..You fail to answer my question.. In relation to returning to the old home page you quote Thornett saying that is not being considered..Why?
Also when you say the survey is confidential do you blush with embarrassment?
And posters, Nick Reynolds acts as a "discussion vandal". He arrives, posts abrupt unhelpful replies which then become the focus of discussion which he then removes as off topic. Shameful really.

[Feta]

1168.
At 14:45 11th Dec 2011, latinda wrote:

#1166 when the BBC destroyed the 606/fans forum hundreds of posters oficially complained...no mention of the complaints ever appeared in the monthly complaint summaries...when pushed Nick Reynolds and his pal Chris Russell admitted they had "lost" hundreds of complaints...so i do hope they have kept the survey results safe.

[Feta]

Sorry, I didn't catch 1173, but judging by Latinda's previous comments, it was probably just as innocuous, and Nick Reynolds' deletion of it just as preposterous...