| Am I the only person for whom pages at Television Without Pity take for-FREAKING-ever to load, now? Before, it was just visually unattractive - that header with the TVs would be OK on its own, but the overlapping banner ads look terrible, and the pages look cluttered and no longer have the unique feeling that they used to, and I think the drop-down lists are clumsier. Now, it's got this added irritation of being slow - it's even freezing my computer up. And it's been doing it for several days, so I'm guessing it's caused by a new feature/new coding, rather than being an issue that will be changed.
For three years, TWoP was a daily destination for me. I found writers whose work I loved, and read recaps of shows I didn't watch because they were written by people who I knew were witty, capable writers. I never would have become a Veronica Mars fan, or a Heroes fan, if it weren't for Couch Baron and Erin's hilariously bitchy yet thoughtful recaps. And I've met a lot of fun users - I never would have met all you lovely people, if it hadn't been for TWoPers urging me to come over to LJ.
Now, though? I can't even remember when I last read a recap there. The last couple that I read, I remember being surprised that they were up so quickly after the episodes aired...and then thinking that the writers weren't nearly as funny as they used to be, which makes me feel that quality is being sacrificed for speed. I've tried some of the new features, like the video week in review, and didn't really find those amusing either.
Sadly, I think I may be done with TWoP. I've got my forum control panel bookmarked, so that I can pop in to see if anyone's posted in the forums without having to put up massively long loading times on the other pages. But at this point, it's stopped being a fun site to visit. And that makes me sad.
- Tags:twop
- Feeling:listless

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I may have to check out Adblock Plus. For the most part, I'm good at tuning out ads. But it's so visually unattractive, the way the ads are displayed at TWoP now, that it's not the ads themselves that bother me, but the ugly way they're plopped on top of the TV header. If that makes sense.
In any case, I hope you don't stop posting on the Heroes threads - especially the Sylar and HoYay ones - because I've always found your posts very insightful and hilarious.
They keep adding "user-based-content" stuff, like the wikis. But...you can find wikis all over the place. The recaps were the fun and unique thing that they had to offer, that made me want to come every day when I normally ignore entertainment websites. Sigh. Oh well.
Recently, I haven't had a loading problem. I've been having serious login problems. It signs me out every time I go to another page within the site. It isn't worth the effort anymore to go through singing in literally three times just to post. I can't even complain because I keep getting logged out when I try to post in the complaint threads.
I'm off the site, too, especially since I only ever posted about Heroes. I hope you come back in the fall for just a couple of threads though! Like the Hoyay thread and the Sylar thread and the photo contest thread. :(
I'll definitely be sticking around the threads I'm normally in! (At least as long as other fun people are posting too, at any rate.) But I think my general disatisfaction with the site is why I don't bother to try other threads, like the Mohinder thread or Mafia.
I used to really like Omar G's Smallville recaps, but haven't read any this season. If you're ever looking for vicious late-night entertainment in the archives, I recommend the recaps for 7th Heaven and for Sex In The City. 7th Heaven has the distinction of being the only show that I have had to turn off because I was furiously screaming obscenities at it, and the recappers all shared that opinion. And SitC...man, the descriptions of her outfits alone send me into hysterics.
Yeah, the site's layout has gone to hell, too. There's that ginormous TV banner graphic that bumps all the forum content down (I can't even see the first post of any given thread without scrolling down past the clutter), the annoying drop-down menus (placed in a spot where it's easy to accidentally mouse-over them), the visually unappealing front page (whatever happened to the cute little graphics?), all those damn video links and things cluttering up the review pages, the load times... And probably a ton of ads that I can't see thanks to AdBlock Plus.
That's it, exactly. I liked that they had recappers who could like a show but yet mock it at the same time. Now, though, they're either rushing and not taking the time to make it funny, or possibly have been defanged by TPTB.
I could block out the ads if they were just sitting there - I used to, with the old design. But they sit right at the top of that TV screen header, and it's just UGLY. And I react quicker to visual cues than to anything else.
I think what bothers me the most is that before, the site was unique. There are other sites where people would mock bad shows, but never with a cleverness that made me want to stick around. And the look of the site meant that it stuck in your mind. Now, though, there's nothing to set it apart. Ooh, they've added a wiki? Yeah, they're only several years behind Wikipedia and 18 months behind Heroes Wiki. I hate to place too much blame on corporate ownership, but at the same time, it feels like whoever's making the decisions now really doesn't understand what drew people in and is making the decisions based on what other sites are doing and what focus groups show people like. Before, it felt like something that had grown up organically.
Adblock Plus should at least make the forum browsing more bearable. This is what it looks like to me. Still cluttered as hell (you can't even see the first thread!), but no ads. And if you really want to clear up the clutter, there's a Greasemonkey script you can run with Firefox that will make it look like this.
I get the feeling you may get tempted to return when the new series of Heroes starts, though...