Henry Farrell writes today at Crooked Timber:
I'm one of those people who find the new New York Times 'helpful' feature of pulling up a dictionary when you click on a random word, really annoying
Emphasis his, and I share his frustration. I bet you do too, you, reader, who has seen through my HTML ruse; I bet some of you were clickring before you had begun to read and never noticed the blanked-out text at all. For you, clickrer, clickring facilitates reading, and that's why you find the Times's purportedly populist property preposterous.
What's to be done? The Times has ignored the cries of the very readership it intends to enlighten with its barrage of pop-ups; also, all my telephone calls and e-mails. Many of you noted technological workarounds, but I refuse to add unnecessary tools to block unwanted features. Rather I ask the New York Times to come to its senses and return usability to the user. So I can only hope that you like-minded readers will raise ever higher the banner and echo ever louder the refrain: Bring Back Free Clicking! We won't be cowed by ad clutter!
is your text white in this post?
Posted by: matty at May 23, 2007 11:08 PMYeah. Um. Get it?
Posted by: Kriston at May 24, 2007 9:29 AMWhenever I see blank spots on a browser screen, I immediately hit "Crtl A" (select all), so I was able to read the post, but no, I don't get it. I'm annoyed by the NYT's thing too, but don't see the connection to this post. Are you saying that, if I had used my mouse to select the text in this post, I would have "facilitated my reading" of it? So in this case, mouse selection is important to the post itself? Um. OK. "A" for Effort, I guess. The solution to the NYT is to stop double-clicking on individual words, and get into the habit of clicking-and-dragging with a single click. It's a little less convenient than double-clicking, and you have to remember to do it when you're on the NYT, but it works just fine.
Posted by: at May 29, 2007 9:51 AM