The Daily Press website is getting a makeover – one that will hopefully be even more user-friendly than the one we have now.
Over the past week, a couple of our editorial staff members have been practicing uploads to the new site. Online readers, at this point, won’t have noticed any changes, as the old site is still up and running. We expect to go “live” on the new site the first part of next week.
Some newspapers with CNHI, our parent company, have already made the switch. To get an idea of how the Press site will look, go to enidnews.com.
Of course, this is a bigger newspaper than the Press, so several more “categories” are on this site, but you can get a general idea of the new format.
The main difference will be a series of category listings down the left side of the homepage. Photographs are much crisper, and we have more flexibility with headlines and other formatting issues.
Another thing long-time online readers will notice is the return of what was once a very popular feature when we first went on the web.
Readers will once again be able to comment on individual stories. That feature went by the wayside when we initially changed website providers, but now it’s available again.
A year or so ago, the Press and many other newspapers tried to offer online forums, wherein readers could post their own comments in general, though they weren’t attached to any particular story.
The problem was that newspaper staffs had very little control over the posted material, and as a result, potentially libelous and inflammatory material sometimes made it onto the websites.
Indeed, one or two particular individuals are largely responsible for our decision to remove the forum from our website. Subsequently, almost all other newspapers have removed their forums (one sister paper because of the same troublemakers that plagued our site).
Now, only the larger papers have these free-for-all forums, because only they have the staffs large enough to “police” the sites.
The story comment posting section is different in that we have the ability to accept or reject comments before they are posted, and thus, we can prevent the sort of vicious attacks that were launched in the forums against other readers, businesses, groups, and the Press itself.
We can also make sure in this way that the ongoing dialogue is actually related to the topic in question, rather than the perpetually grinding of personal axes.
We welcome your comments and suggestions, as always, and look forward to making the move.
We are always striving to improve our service to readers, and this is just one more way of doing that.
