Pet Peeve Time

Their are a couple of news sites I like, but I am seriously thinking of avoiding from now on. Now before you think this is about ideologies, it’s not. For that reason, I am not naming the news services. This is totally about my aggravation levels and sanity. These are professional services and I feel they should live up to that mark.

It drives me insane when a news website can’t maintain a consistent link structure.

It drives me insane when any form of media loads without my consent. I mean, really, is it that hard to put up media with the default on false when it comes to autoplay? No, it is not, to answer my own question.

I really only ask two things of a news website, and these two things have to do with the way I consume my news. I go to the site and scan the headlines, which I then open several at a time in separate tabs. This way I get my browsing done at once and then I can read each piece in turn.

Well, one site I visit everyday can’t get their link structure together. Most of their links are set to open in another window or tab when clicked. I like that as it feeds into the way I read news stories. So, it really irks me when they occasionally don’t set the target to blank and I get shuttled off to another site, which then means I have to go back to the original page, find my place again, and then right click and chose another tab.

I know that seems like a silly thing to get worked up about, but I read a lot of news. As such, I came up with my system to help me get through it quickly. By not keeping a set standard, they eat up my minutes, and it drives me nuts.

Now, looking at the way I read news, you can probably guess why my second peeve gets to me. When loading multiple windows, and then one starts to play music or a video, it is aggravating. Heaven forbid it happens on a day where I was watching a movie online or something the night before and the volume is up. Nothing says morning like a blaring news story, which you don’t even know where it is coming from.

It gets worse, who ever had the great idea of embedding ads with sound and video was an idiot. When those start, and you have multiple tabs open, it often seems impossible to find the culprit as the ads are small and often far down on a page. Heaven forbid there may be more than one tab with autoplay content.

Haven’t we just about reached a consensus as web users and developers that autoplay is pretty much akin to murder? The murder in this case is against my sanity.

Just had to vent. I really wonder when people will start to get it. Everything online is a choice. You take my choice away, to play or not to play media in this case, I will choose not to visit your site. Fair enough?

Oh yeah, and fix the links as well.

Cheers!