Stuff You Hate

My most recent column, on things I hate online, brought plenty of responses, which I share below. Please e-mail me your items, starting with the sentence “I HATE…” and include specific examples in addition to your name, affiliation (if any) and contact information (just for verification purposes; it will not be shared). I will compile them for future columns. Or you can add the material in the FEEDBACK SECTION of this column.

I HATE… “when designers put names/addresses/phone numbers on graphics so I can’t copy and paste the info into whatever I need it in. I have to type it out by hand.” — Larry Larsen, Poynter multimedia editor
This is a very common problem and applies to all kinds of information that sites display only in graphics or Flash. Larry has this suggestion for all webmasters in love with Flash: “You can make text selectable in Flash so people can copy and paste out of your Flash movie, but you have to check the ‘selectable text’ box in Flash.”

I HATE… “newspaper Web sites that don’t indicate where in the universe their community is located. Is the Podunk News in New York? Missouri? Wyoming? Mars? I had a professor request I send a hometowner to the small paper where he grew up. After much searching, I thought I found the right paper. I e-mailed the press release and photo, with a cc to the prof. He informed me I had sent the information to the wrong state. Give us public relations folks a break! Put the name of paper, address, and phone number on each page. (By the way, I am amazed at how many colleges and universities also fail to let prospective students or visitors know where their campuses are located.)” — Gemma McLuckie, communications director College of Education, The Ohio State University
Gemma’s right — and this isn’t a problem just for PR folks.

I hate… “going to a newspaper Web page and not being able to figure out where the paper is located. Many papers do not have a city in their name: Gazette/Times/Sludge & Slime all the Time. Some stories do have a city included following the headline. Many stories don’t indicate city with byline. Many pages do not even give a hint of what state the paper is located in. –– Larry Albert.

I hate… “sites that pitch products but don’t sell them online. A friend of mine bought this cool jacket from a store in another city. Our city doesn’t have the store so I looked them up online. Nice site, decent stuff but I couldn’t buy anything unless I visited the store.” — Eric Shows, 7 News Assignments Editor, KSWO, Lawton, OK (says so right on the front page of KSWO.com, Gemma and Larry). 

I hate… “registering. I especially hate to register to use a site when I have to make up a password according to their rules — ‘password must be 5 to 7 characters long and include at least one number and one symbol.’ “

I hate…

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  “sites that play some tinny music as soon as you go there.”


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  “sites with long, pointless Flash intros.”


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  “sites that make you download some software (Flash, Shockwave, whatever) to even use them.”


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  “complex sites with no site map.” 


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  All of the above from Sue Davis.