ONTD changes layout, members revolt

[charmian]

http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/50338351.html#cutid1

So it seems that the reason the layout needed to be changed was to conform to 'web standards'? What does this really mean?

Anyway, the weird thing is that Brenden is actually fairly transparent, by social media standards. He pretty much lays it out on the line why things are happening. I also wonder who the former CEO of LJ is. (Er, which one they're referring to)

http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/50338351.html?thread=8606170159#t8606170159 <--Brenden's train of thought

Comments

[flourish]

Typically, when someone says "conform to web standards," they mean "make the layout W3C compliant." At least in my experience. Sometimes it also implies some aspect of making it more accessible (which W3C compliance helps with) but not with that motivation.

[flourish]

Though looking at the changes, it seems like they were much more drastic than anything needed to make ONTD W3C compliant (and I wonder whether ANY LJ can be compliant - certainly the posts on ONTD couldn't be unless they're doing way more extensive moderation/rewriting than I think they are).

[foxfirefey]

No, I think it's more about standard industry practices for web advertising (see later post in thought process comment)--better ad placements, and the same page layout on the comment pages as on the main page (which is causing most of the brouhaha, it seems, since it doesn't function as well as the standard LJ ones).

[flourish]

Yes, that makes so much more sense.

[(Anonymous)]

http://community.livejournal.com/ohnotheydidnt/50338351.html?thread=8607504431#t8607504431

[synecdochic]

I love the people who are like "dude, you should've asked us for money, we'd've contributed." yeah, like even ONTD is going to be able to raise a few million dollars on request ...

[matgb]

Plus, from a logged in user. The number of "pay us some money" prompts I see on LJ these days is depressing, it's not like the site doesn't ask for money regularly in various forms.

I know some people can ignore clippy and similar, but they're asked for money to support the site constantly. Ah well.

[charmian]

Really? Don't see those at all... Are those ads? I use adblock, so maybe that's why I don't see them. However, isn't the site advertising its own services rather than asking for a handout? I wouldn't say that they are 'asked for money to support the site' rather than 'the site tries to sell additional services to them.'

[charmian]

Damn, is it really that much money? I had thought more in the hundreds of thousands for some reason. I wonder if Buzznet can really bring in that much though.