For the past few years, newspapers have tinkered with their Web sites, trying new ways to get readers information quickly and to get them involved.
The Alligator is no different.
As you might have noticed, we redesigned our Web site in the fall. It has a slew of new features and just plain looks better.
But it has come with its share of speed bumps.
Recently, though, we've run into more of a roadblock. Over the weekend, we're going to have to erase all of the comments posted on the site in order to improve our comments system.
Currently, when a reader comments on a story and we need to go into the file to append a correction or change a misspelled word in a headline, the comments are erased on that story.
The Web is a tricky thing. When we put a story online, it's pretty much going to be there forever - or until Al Gore pulls the plug on the Internet. And if a Googler comes across an Alligator article in a few years, we want to make sure the story they read is as accurate as possible. To do that, we're going to have to sacrifice the current comments. Trust me, our online staff members loathe the thought of it, but it's a necessary evil.
When they have gone into stories and made changes, thus deleting comments, we've been accused of censoring reader participation. That's a tough pill for a newspaper to swallow. Then we had to explain to the readers what happened.
As you might have noticed at the bottom of this page, we've also had a few glitches with our polling system. Every day we post news and sports polls to gauge readers' views on current events, but for some reason, they aren't showing up.
So I apologize if you've gone to our Web site to reply, only to find out that we aren't really asking that question that day.
Our managing editor for online, who consumes her fair share of energy drinks to make it through these dilemmas, can usually be found yelling somewhere in our newsroom about these problems.
But when she isn't doing that, she and her staff are working on several new features, including a feed you can subscribe to that will deliver all of the Alligator's content right to you, including a University Police crime log. So if someone gets arrested for public urination near the stadium, you'll know about it as soon as UPD logs it. This semester, we launched a feature called Gainesville Explorer, a weekly look at the interesting places in and around town through multimedia.
There are also several blogs on our site, including one that I contribute to called Letters from the Editors. (See what we did there?) It's designed to give you a look at the inner workings of the Alligator. We also have blogs about science, multicultural affairs and several about sports.
For all the hiccups we've endured with the new site, it has come a long way. So please bear with us while we continue to clog up Sen. Ted Stevens' Internet tubes with more and more content.
We promise we'll get it all working soon.
Chad Smith is a journalism senior and the editor of the Alligator. His views represent the Alligator's.
