Posted On: Tuesday - October 2nd 2018 7:50AM MST
In Topics: Websites
(I'd somehow lost some other screenshots of the site, but I am now too worried about ZH shutting down my browser to even go there right now!)
Hey, one of the only 4 sites on the Peak Stupidity blogroll (to the right) has been "new and improved" very recently. The use of the quote marks here is to indicate that Zerohedge has been, in actuality, "changed to suck more", if that was even possible. Why I am mentioning it, and even keeping it for now on the blogroll, is that it's site usability, not content, that this complaint is about. Yeah, I've written 5 or more times before about this, and people have told me it works fine for them. Good on ya, in that case. In my updated Firefox, it is still a 1 out of 10 on usability, with 0 meaning "DON'T GO THERE".
PLEASE NOTE: I've used adblock and tried other browsers on another of my devices - still bad! Additionally, I am not always on my own computer/device. Oftentimes, it's a work or hotel computer, and I can't exactly go downloading ad-blockers considering I may never be on that computer again.
Anyway, on one computer on which ZH was fairly usable, I noticed a new change to the site. The comments now take 30 seconds to 1 minute to load, and all cuss-words have been defaced with asterisks. That pretty much does it for me. The comments had been the BEST PART of Zerohedge.com, especially back 5 years ago. Some of these people just used the bad words when they needed them. Comments will NOT be the same without that, uh, feature.
Here at Peak Stupidity we don't have a lot of conversation yet, but we sure welcome it*. On lots of websites, though, the comments are more enjoyable than the articles. If one can write in, it changes drastically the amount of time one will spend on the site too. Think of the page view numbers for the site once people start arguing not just with the post but with each other too**. I would think the number of views would go up very non-linearly. You would think that the site-owners would understand this stuff. No, on Zerohedge now, it's all about downloading all sorts of scripts, graying-out the screen until you hit something, jerking the text back-and-forth before it settles down, and shutting down your browser. Fight Club is gone - it's Script Club now over there. I urge Tyler Durden to pick himself up, throw a few hard punches at his own head***, and do some hard thinking about whether it's all about the bucks or the ideas.
* PLEASE REMEMBER: You MUST put the two letters "PS" together at the beginning of your comment, or it WILL be just plain gone! That was a quick way to thwart THE RUSSKIES (I kid you not.) It was that or going to "Capcha", which to me is more of a pain in the ass. I apologize on behalf of lame-o would-be viagra-advertisers for the slight bit of hassle.
** To me, depending on the average length of comments (ZH used to have short, concise ones), 20 to 300 comments is an ideal range for getting me to read them. Below 20 oftentimes, there's not much interesting, and above 300 is daunting to me, as I have a sort of obsession with finishing them once I start. I guess on PeakStupidity right now, it's not daunting, so you've gotta give us that ;-}
*** That's kind of the movie, oh, ... SPOILER ALERT!
Comments:
BernCar
Wednesday - October 3rd 2018 6:18AM MST
PS Yeah, ZH used to be one of the first sites I hit every day, but not so much now. And amen to the idea of comments being part of the attraction of many blogs. The commenters at ZH many times would expand on the articles in a way that was very helpful. That happens often at Sailer's thing at Unz.com and used to be the case at TakiMag. Taki doesn't allow comments now, except a few "curated" as letters to the editor, and I don't go there as often as a result. Z-man's blog has some good comments, and has really grown the past year.
The Takimag change reminded me of the reverse of that a long while ago on The American Spectator. It went from just a page/post each day of emailed-in remarks from readers to a good non-DISQUS commenting system, and I used to stay on the site lots after that. I haven't looked at that site in years.
I'll have to check out Z-man. John Derbyshire recommends him.
Yes, in my day of reading ZH, say 4 to 7 years back, the commenters were a lot of fun. I never did register to allow myself to write in, as I knew it would take up lots of my time!