22 August 2008

My 21 (actually six) demands

Not to abuse my ghettoizing power as a blogger, but while I have the fleeting attention of a certain critic, I wonder if it would be out of bounds for me to present to him my Wishlist for the SF Chron. He can ignore me if he wishes, but I can't not try. :) I've made these requests before, but here is the reader's digest version (I don't want to push my luck that far):

1. I would like to find the music reviews in under 5 clicks from the sfgate homepage. (Last time, it took 12 clicks to find the review I was looking for, because I couldn't spell "Rheingold" properly and I didn't know whether an opera review would fit under "performance", "music and nightlife" or "art".)
2. If I click on the author of a music review, I want to find a page of more reviews by him, instead of his email address (besides which, why would you want to give your readers such easy access to the writers?). You already list their email addresses, replete with a helpful hyperlink, at the bottom, so linking the author attribution at the top of the article to an email address is redundant.
3. Instead of classical music reviews being hidden under "entertainment", I'd like a separate tab--perhaps "arts" or "fine arts"? (Classical music would be even better, but I understand it's out of vogue to give classical music its own heading.)
4. All of those photos of performances you put up to pander to some reader who wants visual stimulation to entice them? Well, I'm a Tufte disciple, so I'm not enticed. More graphics means less content and more scrolling for me. A pretty picture is not going to make me want to read a review more. Thus, off with its head.
5. In lieu of all of the flashy graphics, I'd prefer it if you list the author of the article, since there is usually only one reason I'm ever on the Chron website.
6. When I go to the "Performances" section, currently, the reviews are on the right, with opera way at the bottom, below theatre and dance. If I click on the "more" link, instead of taking me to this empty search page, resulting in more clicks, I would like it to lead to more opera reviews. (This is usually why one clicks on a "more" link--because we want to see more reviews or articles by someone; not because we want to be led to a search page.)

That is all.
Now, back to my usual program. . .

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