I've been away from TV.com for 24 hours... this blog is in response to the Gone Dark user community initiative to send a message to TV.com about the problems and issues that we the users are having with the site since the new layout was introduced.
1. The look - Replace the white background with a more soothing colour so I don't have to wear my sunnies when reading this site and make the font a little bigger and darker so it's easier to read.
2. TV show scores - Restore the ability to rate shows in tenths of a point (such as 9.9 etc.)
3. Localised content - Give users a choice between US and localised content, don't force everyone into localised content.
4. Formatting - Make the emoticons work in comments again and allow the B and I html tags to be used (the site can always programmatically replace them with strong and em tags on save if you want to use strict XHTML rules).
5. Fix the bugs - The standard functionality of the site has been compromised for a new look. That's not cool! The top annoyance for me right now is that the text field used for 'Quick' forum posts doesn't have scrollbars enabled which makes it very difficult to use for long posts as you have to use the arrow keys to scroll down to see what your typing.
And finally, please consult with the user community before making these kind of changes in future; and better yet ask them to opt into beta testing the changes before they are released to the general public.
Thanks for your consideration.
Comments
I checked out your tip, I'll keep that in mind, but it sounds very tedious... hopefully TV.com will listen to us and restore the tenths rating facility.
No. 4 and grey no. 5 annoy me the most, gaah!
electricpeppers: I hear ya! They've added a link to the bottom of all pages which goes to http://us.tv.com/ Unfortunately this doesn't stick when you click a link so all subsequent pages go back to localised tv.com
1, 4 & 5 are my biggest gripes ATM.It seems the white skin is on almost everyone's list. I wonder how long it will take for them to address this?
In any event, my sincere thanks again. Please check my blogs in the coming days to see what response we get and where we go from here.
I am very touched by how many of us got together to fight for our community here on tv.com. Thanks again for being part of it!!
Finally, it has been suggested by tuckgraph that my latest blog came off as a bit terse and like I was issuing orders. I sincerely apologize to anyone I gave that impression to. It is the furthest thing from my intent.
I have been trying to get to everyone's blogs, cover the issues in the ways requested by the staff to best get attention and action to our cause and I have never done anything like this before.
So if I seemed heavy-handed in any way, please forgive me. Thanks to tuckgraph for pointing it out.
12678