Linking news stories to subscribers-only sites

[Whitewater_419]

I know that the headlines are there for us to be informed about FF related stories, but it's a little frustrating to click on a link to get the rest of a story from the headlines section, only to be confronted with a "You must pay to read this story" message on a news site.

A minor suggestion would be to link to news sources where the full story is available, else we'd all need to subscribe to about 47 different newspapers :(

[mikeeps]

No kidding! False alarm must think we make big bucks like him!

Michael

[iamvff]

Originally posted by mikeeps
No kidding! False alarm must think we make big bucks like him!

Michael

Careful now...don't piss off the gods :D ;)

Be safe
iamvff

[five_alarm]

There is a copyright issue here that little thing they call the law.
In an ideal world we would be able to post anything we wish with no thought of such pesky details as royalties or infringement. We at Firehall.com hope some day to have a staff of reporters and writers so that we may do our own expose, sadly that day is not upon us....YET!

Firehall.com attempts to bring you all the news we can find daily and link you to it. There are occasions when a story is not made available with out subscription and that leaves us with a nasty decision. Do we ignore the story, pretend it did not happen or do we give you what we can so that you may find the answers your self.

In most cases once a story has been broken other publications make it available. We will do our best to get you that information in a manner that payment is not required.

All constructive suggestions regarding this are welcome.


PS Was that... big bucks with little doe?

[Whitewater_419]

Fair enough - Might be a good idea to add "Subscription required" next to the link to "rest of story", to save the aggravation of clicking on what ends up being a dead end.

(Don't get me wrong - I love the headlines service - It's just the links to the paid sites that gets irksome :)

[bestcoast]

I feel your pain, that 5 seconds it takes to click the mouse to get out of the subscription sites is brutal....:rolleyes: ;) ....BC....

[Whitewater_419]

Nice try :)

I do this kind of stuff for a living (data path optimization, usability enhancement, UI improvement, etc) - Trust me - the "five seconds" it takes to back out of *any* site that causes frustration or lack-of-intended use costs you users/visitors/user loyalty.

It's often the excuse of the lazy webmaster (I'm not referring to Firehall.com's admin here - I'm speaking generally) to say "Aw, it only takes 3 seconds to click back or cancel or whatever" - but when you multiply that not only by the thousands of users wasting that 3 seconds, but the thousands of users who simply stop using a feature because they "know" it's broken, it ends up costing you traffic, users, visibility, branding, revenue opportunities and so on, like you wouldn't believe.

I've done some work on sites that literally saved a single mouse-click in a process and seen results in the form of user feedback where there are hundreds of customers writing in to exclaim how much better/user-friendly an application is, etc, etc.

Imagine, for example, putting all your hose nozzles on the top of the truck, at the back, instead of the side compartments ?

"Aww, come on, it only takes an extra ten seconds to climb on top to get at them!" - Skipping the "seconds save lives" bit, those extra seconds add up and up and up over the life time of the task ;p

[bestcoast]

Wow, you should put computer dude under your user name!!! Just stirring the pot Whitewater;) But comparing seconds on the computer and "seconds save lives" on the fireground...C'mon.......BC.......

[mikeeps]

Hey BC what if that computer user was a 911 dispatcher!

Ya I know I'm reaching! But you know!

Michael

[Whitewater_419]

Originally posted by bestcoast
Wow, you should put computer dude under your user name!!! Just stirring the pot Whitewater;) But comparing seconds on the computer and "seconds save lives" on the fireground...C'mon.......BC.......

LOL that's why I added the "skipping the seconds saves lives" :) I was just using something we can all relate to :)

As for 'computer dude' - yep, that's me, geek o' Beachburg :)

Although, I've had a pretty varied career over the last twenty years or so;

I can run any piece of heavy equipment short of a grader or asphalt layer, I've done more sales crap than I care to count, pushed brooms and mops galore, and, of course, tons and tons of computer stuff. (Which job is my favourite? Firefighter, of course! :)