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Comment by mikecmpbll | Hacker News Reader

Christ, so much hatred.

I like the desktop site, I like the mobile site, and I like and appreciate that you're giving us an insight in to your tech stack and how content is published.

Cheers beeb.

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There are always mudslingers following change - its so easy to hate.

I for one think it is fantastic the BBC are sharing this information and am liking the direction they are taking. It might not be perfect - I too have experienced some issues with the site over the past few months - but I'd much rather a BBC that looks to refresh itself and attempt to improve the experience for their users. Glitches happen - as long as they are fixed then it is all good with me.

Of course it's easy to hate, when something that used to work is now broken and useless. It's not about glitches, it's a thoroughly broken design.

Seems fine to me, if only there was a different site for you to visit

I'm mostly complaining about their new Android app, which was rolled out alongside with the new backend site.

As a pretty typical London commuter, I expected this thing to be usable offline, just like the old app. But no, it's broken now, useless for me. Not reading any news any more.

And I totally hate that they're wasting taxpayers money on all this crap.

Subtle. The alternative is biased commercial TV which prefers ad-spattered sensation over what the BBC produces. But I'm sure you prefer that.

Besides, the BBC amasses fortunes selling their programs abroad; Top Gear in its original form and in the formula license is shown in over 150 countries worldwide. And that's just one of their productions.

I'm not against the licence fees. I'm not comfortable with the money being wasted on a project so obviously broken by design.

I for one don't mind that they use tax payers money - because for all its many and varied biases* (national & cultural blindspots, party political) - its output is valuable and often of benefit/interest beyond Blighty.

* BBCs insistence that it is unbiased is unrealistic imo (but not as outlandish as Fox's 'fair and balanced'). Its more of an ideal rather than something anyone/org can achieve. I admire their attempts to achieve some kind of balance, although sometimes the BBC can filter too much thats not 'centre-ground' (but less so than US networks).

I'm ok with their coverage. They've just made it less accessible. Just another one in a long line of over-funded IT failures.

Does anyone know how much of this development is paid for by the UK tax payer vs BBC worldwide profits from DVDs etc?

I'm not sure website development should be paid by UK tax payers TBH...

Maybe at least some of the reason for hate.

My main hate is the idiotic cookie policy which makes everything look ugly, but I guess the EU is to blame there.

you mean by license fee payers.

Given the bbc is the 7th most popular site in the UK, and a clear leader over other news sites, I don't see why it shouldn't be paid for by the license. It fulfils its requirements outstandingly well.

(There are questions about whether given the move away from a tv based model the bbc should be paid for by tax payers, and that's fair)

It's ok they're building a new site. It's totally not ok that they created a steaming pile of crap, again.

Yeah but every few years they seem to reprogram the entire website in "whatever is most fashionable at the moment". I'm not sure that's a good use of the publics money.

You'd rather we kept with outdated layouts like this[0], forever? Part of rebuilding the website is updating the layout and usability of the website. In order to keep the website usable, the people administering it have to have better tools to organise content on it (as we all know, UX isn't just design, you can't just write a new template over a site with bad UX to make it perfect).

Developers use whatever is most reasonable to use at the time with an eye on it hopefully lasting 5-10 years into the future - much of the BBC website still runs on legacy, unmaintainable Perl, and they've learned their lesson from that.

[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/december/4/...

I'm happy with that "outdated" layout yeah. It's pretty narrow on my screen - but so's the new one. The information is clear and accessible - more so than on the new one, actually. And I'd bet the filesize is smaller and the render time shorter as well.

Fine - but don't be surprised when a decade after letting their website rot, everyone's reading Murdoch's newspapers and the BBC has no reach.

The BBC was never supposed to compete in the race to the bottom. If anything I would think the opposite - a plain site becomes the voice of authority. Certainly in the print-newspaper world, the eyecatching, flashy designs are the domain of the tabloids; the more serious newspapers are more restrained, and the public trusts them more.

Either the BBCs "content" is good enough to win out, or it's not. The way that content is presented is of little concern. The BBC website of years ago works just fine.

You've really shown your biases in that statement...

You are clearly not representative of the target market. If preference were tested, I'm sure the vast majority of readers prefer more recent sites to that old style.

A dominant news site has an obligation to try to look good to it's readers.

Per their 2013-14 financial report, the BBC's income was 3.7b pounds from license fees and 1.3b pounds from commercial activities (= largely BBC worldwide profits).

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/pdf/2013-14/BBC_Fina...

And the BBC's mission is "to enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain". Building a website to better distribute the content they've already paid for seems like a no-brainer.

Disclaimer: I used to work for a subsidiary of BBC Worldwide. Plenty of bureaucratic nuttiness in there, but this seems like one of their more sensible moves.

> I'm not sure website development should be paid by UK tax payers TBH...

We pay for it mostly via the TV license fee. The BBC is not allowed to make money off UK citizens for any of its core services (TV, radio, news) - hence why some BBC links for the rest of the world are blocked for us, as they contain advertisements.

BBC News is primarily intended for a UK audience, so it makes sense that it's paid for by UK taxpayers. It's distribution infrastructure, just like the Freeview transmitters and the Freesat satellite - why wouldn't it be paid for by the taxpayer, who overwhelmingly demands online access to news and TV catch-up?

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