Letters to the Editor
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Another perspective on online manners
While I was reading this article, or trying to, Salon.com directed me to no less than three external pages, plus two or three popup windows. The external windows were ads, which opened full browswer windows, so just figuring out which was the extraneous window and how to get back to the article took some doing (I work on user interfaces for a living by the way, so hold your cries of inept non-techy newbie etc etc.)
I hadn't clicked on anything except the initial link to read the article, yet suddenly I was in a sea of Buick ads and god knows what. Salon is becoming like one of those traps you hesitate to visit, for fear of being innudated with flashing windows urging you "is your computer safe?".
I would submit, as politely as possible, that this represents another kind of bad manners, just as annoying as what the author mentions. No, worse, actually. And yes, I could subscribe (I used to but simply can't pay for something that publishes the right wing rantings of Paglia) but this really isn't the point. If the presentation is: "annoying rather iffy second-rate site that makes you feel like you're getting infested with spyware just by visiting-- unless you subscribe", well, I'm not sure that's what you wanted. Just guessing.