I really miss the old News page layout, and especially the way the news items were automatically linked to the forums. Just another Facebook portal now
We're all the Doom Patrol!!!
Opinions come in all shapes and sizes.
But they're still just opinions yo
I absolutely echo everything that has been mentioned on this site. I'm a longtime CBR reader from the 90s and ever since the change over in ownership, this site has slowly gotten worse and worse. I was willing to give it a chance, but not sure anymore. Issues:
1. Writing quality has dropped dramatically. With the exception of Brian Cronin's articles (hard to find) everything on this site (every article or piece of content) has become endless "15 lists", "List of 8 things we like 7 we don't", "Top 10 lists" lists lists lists, etc etc. Its RIDICULOUS! What happened to real journalistic articles and columns? Interviews, analysis, actual news, opinion pieces, history lessons etc? At least Brian still does articles relating to history, comic legends/myths, rumors, etc which are fascinating and educational, but everything else on your site is a joke.
Lists are something that should be used every so often, to mix things up and if written right with some meaningful subject matter can be fun and informative. But it seems not only is the site being overtaken with lists many of them are pretty lame and crass/cheap at that (15 times a robot got lucky?, 15 times heroes did the nasty with villains) Really? Who's writing this stuff junior high boys?
Here is another example:
What happened at SDCC Comicon 2017? There used to always be great summaries and roundups for things that occurred and announced at Comicon. Great for folks who did not attend, but a week out things are now trickling in? I had to hear about the major Captain America creative team announcement of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee from another site! Comics, games, movies, tv, etc were always covered and nicely summarized from SDCC but not this time it seems unless i missed something.
2. The shift to mobile while understandable in this day and age is not without issues. The HUGE images for things like articles or solicitations make reading and consuming NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE whether i'm on a laptop browser or mobile. Pages often times load slow, crash, and frankly are impossible to read given the size the images take in terms of presentation and real estate. This is especially egregious in the monthly publisher solicitations. I often times try CBR and give up and go to other places like Newsarama or others as they make things easier to read and consume regardless of platform. How about shrinking the images a bit and/or perhaps have large and small thumbnail popups to allow users to view and choose vs throwing it all in their face?
3. As mentioned all the intrusive ads/videos that popup or play at the worse times. I am not against them as i know you need them to operate but the way they are working now is severely impacting the user experience of this site.
4. Presentation: Other sites whether it be on mobile or laptop/desktop have been able to not only grow and succeed but thrive as well with well executed modern design. This whole "endless feed only" style of presentation is awkward, cumbersome and limiting. We can have feeds AND categorizations that help users stay informed very quickly AND allow us to find and navigate to things of interest.
As a longtime reader I want CBR to succeed while evolving with the times, but it seems like its doing the exact opposite. Quality of writing, content, presentation, and usability are all taking a hit IMHO and it seems with others as well. CBR has always been a great site with great content and coverage and good industry name recognition. As it is, I fear it's losing everything that made it so great in the past and recent years, but i hope I'm wrong. I care enough about the survival and quality of CBR to actually register and provide feedback (I'm not much of a forum guy but i felt strongly enough about this to register).
Please consider some of the points shared above. If things continue to head the wrong direction, I.m afraid I'll be looking elsewhere for my comicbook related news, information and stories.
Thanks
I'm very much annoyed with the new article format that splits the content to second pages -- forcing you to click the link to get the next page. Generating site hits 2 times for every article is annoying.
I only go on the forums now
My solicits news I get thru facebook
The structure of the rest of the site has degraded badly imo
I see they are now trying to get us to whitelist the site so we can be assaulted by videos and pop-ups every time we come here.
I understand the need for revenue but there's a better way. Design ads that don't pop up, more akin to a print ad. Those pop ups are the internet version of magazine subscription cards that fall out.
The Gypsies had no home. The Doors had no bass.
Does our reality determine our fiction or does our fiction determine our reality?
Whenever the question comes up about who some mysterious person is or who is behind something the answer will always be Frank Stallone.
"This isn't a locking the barn doors after the horses ran way situation this is a burn the barn down after the horses ran away situation."
Ad blockers work better than anti-viruses these days. I will not disable mine, not until the folks in charge start spending some time going through each advert for malicious content instead of just accepting a paycheck from whoever the hell wants to pay them to run their ads. There is also an issue of rebuilding trust with any advertisements even if they do.
Honestly, I don't blame you. I myself haven't noticed such 'in your face' ads on CBR so I've never been bothered here but I have elsewhere. No, my ad blocker is in place to prevent malvertisements from rolling through. Hijacked malicious ads are an epidemic right now and you can get one even from browsing mainstream news websites.
If a site is good enough and I peruse it daily I will pay them to run an ad-free experience. I cannot however (and hopefully someone at CBR is reading this) justify spending money when a good portion of the front page is pushing a certain political/progressive agenda, on top of that, usually crapping on the X-Men (see recent article on how full of fail the X-Men Animated Series was despite being hugely popular).
Yeeah, think I'm done here too. The political spin on the articles really turned me off but the ad blocker shut-out did me in completely. Probably won't be missed but that's ok I'm not hurt over it. To each their own and have a good one.
Well, this blows.
A site I've visited daily for years, and it's just become user-unfriendly.
I resent being forced to either pay or whitelist a site in such a fashion.
Meh.