Rant: Post-Dispatch

[Cheddar Tom]

I've always been annoyed at how much attention dumb [expletive] like high school sports gets from the P-D. And if I had my druthers, the Rams would barely get any ink and their coverage would go to the Cardinals and Blues.

agreed. Even if only 7k people care about the Blues, that's a hell of a lot higher than the number of people who care about St Joes volleyball or whatever.

this is really true.

[Freed Roger]

Finally figured out how to activate the digital subscription I get with my print subscription.

This is going to be great.

[Freed Roger]

STLTODAY has the month's mug shots on their main page. What's the point -and where's the asshat attorneys with DUIs and white collar criminals*?

I would expect this from the local newspages like in my old hometown. Doesn't the P-D have anything newsworthy to put on their main page?

At least we can look at the poor heathens and feel better about ourselves.

Seems like the dystopian future is now.

*they are a rarity in the mugshot version of the legal system perhaps

[Gashouse]

The PD website sucks, and I usually actively avoid clicking on links that I know will direct me to the PD website. I hate how they want to make me answer a stupid question before I can read an article. Endless pop-ups and worthless flashy things in the periphery. Every time I accidentally click on a link to a PD article, I wonder what new internet tracking software ended up on my computer in the time it took for the stupid survey to load.

[JL21]

The PD website sucks, and I usually actively avoid clicking on links that I know will direct me to the PD website. I hate how they want to make me answer a stupid question before I can read an article. Endless pop-ups and worthless flashy things in the periphery. Every time I accidentally click on a link to a PD article, I wonder what new internet tracking software ended up on my computer in the time it took for the stupid survey to load.

Pro tip: there's a Post-Dispatch baseball app that will help you avoid those pratfalls, as long as you're only reading the baseball (and mostly Cardinals) articles from the P-D. I read it pretty much daily. It's given me a few issues from time to time, but it's a thousand times better than the experience of actually visiting their website.

[Cheddar Tom]

Those horrible surveys are a necessary evil and actually aren't the worst thing about the site....the overload of javascript ads and video players that wreck load times are far worse. The web development team at Lee or whoever owns the P-D should be fired.


Fresh rant....Cardinals coverage in the post-Bernie/post-Strauss world has seen a significant decline. Derrick Goold has been terrific...but Rick Hummel should've been pushed out the door many years ago, Ben Frederickson has neither the reporting chops or writing skills and Benjamin Hochman's best columns aren't Cardinal related. I think the new guy from the Houston Chronicle starts in a couple weeks so hopefully he provides a boost.

[Jocephus]

Those horrible surveys are a necessary evil and actually aren't the worst thing about the site....the overload of javascript ads and video players that wreck load times are far worse. The web development team at Lee or whoever owns the P-D should be fired.

i agree with this. i accept the surveys to read (goold mainly). plus, i never give accurate answers, so i win. but those [expletive] ads and video players are the scum of the earth and make me pause before going to the site every time. i absolutely hate bloated websites.

[Gashouse]

I disagree that the surveys are a necessary evil. There aren't any other websites I frequent that use that tactic. My local paper (Mpls StarTribune) limits the number of free articles I can read each month without a subscription. The ads can be annoying, but not nearly to the same extent as the PD.

Completely agree about the rest of the bloated PD website. The whole website is just horrible.

I haven't tried JL's recommended app yet.

[Freed Roger]

Yeah, you instinctively want to jab that x to close the pop-up, but they make it tricky so you hit something else. I'm a subscriber, and one time tried to ask how to log-in and maybe avoid the ads but didn't get anywhere. not sure what email account this thing is under.

With subscription, they doubled my rate when they advertise a significantly cheaper rate online. So had to go thru the whole cancel my subscription spiel to get the lower rate.

I don't get a good vibe on P-D as a going concern-which is sad because I like having a paper.

[Cheddar Tom]

I disagree that the surveys are a necessary evil. There aren't any other websites I frequent that use that tactic. My local paper (Mpls StarTribune) limits the number of free articles I can read each month without a subscription. The ads can be annoying, but not nearly to the same extent as the PD.

Yeah...but the surveys keep the copy free. I'd rather click thru a dumb survey rather than have my access put behind a firewall. When the season ramps I'm guessing the P-D sports section gets hundreds of thousands of unique views a day. People would blow through the number of articles they can view in about a week.