Letters to the Editor
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Yes, it sucks
What is this current obsession with highlighting reader supplied content? I go to Dilbert.com because I want to read Dilbert strips. You know? Those things that Scott Adams draws and writes? I don't care which strips are most popular. I don't care how many stars other readers might give a particular strip. I have no interest in wading through a bunch of alternate punchlines supplied by readers.
What I would like to be able to do, and used to be able to do relatively easily until the site was redesigned, is read the strips in published order. There tends to be something of a storyline that develops each week and I often visit on Fridays in order to read that week's strips. It used to be that you could click on "Read Past Strips", click on a date in the calendar and then read through the strips in order. Now it's: click on "Strips" (and hope that the date on which you want to start reading is listed on that page or you're forced to do a date based search), click on a particular strip, wait for it to load, enjoy said strip, click the back button to get to the list of strips, click on the next one, wait for it to load, etc.
Lately it seems to me that every web redesign I come across makes it harder to do the thing that I visit that page to do and/or buries the unique asset that the site provides (e.g., the writing of Scott Adams) and spotlights the contribution and comments of the site's readers. Comment sections and blogs (and, yes, letter pages where I'm typing this rant) abound. Why do publishers think that providing more of what's already abundant is going to attract more readers?
(Note to the LA Times: there are approximately 4,397,214 places on the web I can go to read other diner's reviews of local restaurants. There is only one place I can go to read the the opinion of your professional critics. Why do you make it so hard to find the latter and so easy to find the former? Why bury your unique assets? Why should I bother to visit?)