Stuff website and that goofy animated purple "S"

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#3183668 18-Jan-2024 20:39

I can't access the new website easily either. I use ad blocking on the network, pi hole, and when it's enabled I can't see the website. When I disable pi hole it works.

They either really want to show advertising and it's deliberate, or it's not well built.

gzt

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#3183672 18-Jan-2024 20:42

Mobile minor problems. I tried it first time today on desktop. Instant error message. Fine after page refresh.

It looks ok on my desktop gear. I'm not understanding the anti for that side. Colours clash on high end mobile. Designwise on desktop it's ok. On the front page the ads change after a short period to get attention and all that. Not pleasant I might get used to it.

On the many previous pages nice to see some of the previous 'lazy journalism' detractors complaining they can't access their favourite and obviously well used news service after a few seconds without it. Take a moment to appreciate and feel the love : ).

Qazzy03

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#3183726 18-Jan-2024 21:22

tdgeek:

So peeps will be distanced from the real news

I didn't know Stuff was the bastion of real news...

like no joke maybe visited the website for the stuff quizz twice a week in the last year because co-workers wanted to do the quiz as team bonding.

Other than that never visited stuff for news, the change doesn't impact me.

gzt

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#3183746 19-Jan-2024 00:04

The tragic part is the number of error messages will cause unsophisticated users to believe their computer is playing up. It's a challenge to design good user messages.

quickymart

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#3183748 19-Jan-2024 00:07

I did see one comment from someone who said they had actually donated to Stuff previously, "and now I'm wondering why".

They were always hawking for donations but I wonder if this will cause that income stream to drop off if most people can't even view the site!

gzt

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#3183749 19-Jan-2024 00:08

I have some sympathy for the team implementing this. Once you're in it you're in it. If they are getting a good night's sleep tonight someone is doing the right thing.

tdgeek

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#3183771 19-Jan-2024 07:32

Qazzy03:

tdgeek:

So peeps will be distanced from the real news

I didn't know Stuff was the bastion of real news...

like no joke maybe visited the website for the stuff quizz twice a week in the last year because co-workers wanted to do the quiz as team bonding.

Other than that never visited stuff for news, the change doesn't impact me.

Stuff always has the real news, as does the others. It depends how much non real news is sprinkled on it. Newshub is a shocker like that, half the site has articles that have been there for months. I find Stuff fine for the real news and the modern day excess extra fluff is acceptable.

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quickymart

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#3183775 19-Jan-2024 07:56

Since I got dinged for not doing this in the Golriz thread: https://archive.ph/yg0iG

The Herald has a piece on Stuff's new page this morning, but their angle is more about plagiarism, as opposed to the colour scheme...or complaints...or God-awful functionality (or lack thereof).

jonathan18

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#3183782 19-Jan-2024 08:10

Qazzy03:

I didn't know Stuff was the bastion of real news...

Man, this is such an over-repeated trope here on GZ and more widely.

Like all such websites, the quality and depth of content is variable. And, I would admit, their previous website design and story placement, and increasing use of paid filler (a la NZH and other sites) has made it difficult to find the worthwhile material. (And this new design seems to have made this worse.)

But, the reality is that they (and their newspapers like the Dom Post and Chch Press) do still have quality journalists producing quality content.

To dismiss the whole site and reject reading any of its content is somewhat over the top, and also misses the point that NZ simply doesn't have one site where one can rely on getting decent coverage of all topics (if that was even a desirable situation) - it's a matter of accessing content across several sites (for me, my main NZ sources are RNZ, Newsroom, The Spinoff and - yep - Stuff).

I'm not an apologist for Stuff - I'm unimpressed with this site redesign, and haven't been comfortable with many of other changes made recently by management - but I'm thankful it is there and for the decent quality content it does produce amongst the dross of stuff that doesn't interest me...

jonathan18

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#3183810 19-Jan-2024 09:03

mrdrifter:

caffynz:

I noticed on new website that article pages had the photos slightly blurry/pixelated.
Once I created and logged into my account, the photos now load at full quality. Coincidence?

This is specifically not a coincidence, it's part of the stuff business strategy...

I'm not sure that's the reason (or at least sole reason) image quality improved - I noticed the poor-quality images in an article I was reading yesterday suddenly improved when I refreshed the page - on neither occasion was I logged in.

So I did a test today when I found the same thing, this time saving the image before and after refreshing. It went from 17KB to 53KB, and was noticeably better (but still not particularly good!) quality. As on the website both images were scaled to the same size, despite the lower quality one also being smaller pixel wise (hence exaggerating the decrease in quality), I've made a screenshot of the images at a similar size to demo the real-world difference as presented on the site:

Why would the site be set up to do this? I get it if someone wanted to minimise data on a mobile connection, but surely that should be a user choice?

JimmyH

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#3184578 20-Jan-2024 22:33

jonathan18:

Man, this is such an over-repeated trope here on GZ and more widely.

It is indeed a recurring theme, but an entirely justified one as far as I can see. If you take out the celebrity gossip, the wall of opinion columns (and opinions aren't news). A whole bunch of sections that aren't remotely news:

Travel - largely repackaged old overseas stories and clickbait filler
Homed - clicky filler with no news content
Wellbeing - utter fluff
Entertainment - the Harry & Meghan daily, blended with and repackaged promo material masquerading as information;
Ensemble - what is this even supposed to be for?
Style - Fluff
Food & Drink - fluff, including such hard-hitting in-depth news stories as "Yeah Nah would you eat pizza shapes hot cross buns" - yes this was today's actual lead story when I looked at the new layout out of curiosity after hearing about the changes
Pou Tiaki - advocacy, not really news
Brand stories - all seem to be sponsored promotional adverts loosely masquerading as readable articles
Motoring - mostly advertorials for car companies, presumably paid placement?

Take this out, and you are left with a small remainder that could perhaps be termed news. But then take out:

material more than 48 hours old (this is "olds" not news)
reprinted material from overseas newspapers (Washington Post, Telegraph, New York Times, Sydney Morning Herald etc) that is both days old, and something I probably read days earlier on the original website.

And you aren't left with much. Which is why I hardly ever go to Stuff nowadays. For domestic news I use RNZ and Newsroom Pro. For world news I use the New York Times, the Washington Post, the BBC, the Telegraph, CNN, and the Guardian. Except we do the quiz once a week at work - that's basically the only utility it has.

I can report that it loads fine on Chrome and Firefox for me. But on Edge it just sticks at a big purple "S" and goes no further. I don't think it's an adblock thing - my Firefox install is ad blocked to the max, whereas edge isn't.

quickymart

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#3184582 20-Jan-2024 22:42

I think the majority of those sections were not carried over to the "new, improved" site.

I just tried it again myself, stuck in the neverending loop on Firefox.

Oblivian

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#3184586 20-Jan-2024 23:01

quickymart:

I think the majority of those sections were not carried over to the "new, improved" site.

They are the current sections on the initial load page.

gzt

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#3184588 20-Jan-2024 23:17

JimmyH: A whole bunch of sections that aren't remotely news:

Your list sounds almost identical to the contents of the weekend edition of the NZ Herald newspaper last time I saw one. The weekday edition is a lot smaller. This is a reality of the small size of the NZ market. The big players must cover all bases and get the biggest audience possible and cover a large number of demographics.

quickymart

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#3184589 20-Jan-2024 23:18

Oblivian:

They are the current sections on the initial load page.

If only I could see it 😄

I was basing my comment on something Stuff themselves said about a number of features (eg, the search engine) and sections not being carried over to the new site. I believe some have since been reinstated following feedback, though.

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