I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

Shane, Austin Tx — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 16:44:15 GMT

Nice post, and the explanation sounds sufficient enough for me. Atleast you are aknowledging everything. What's better is I actually learned alot by reading this post. I never took into consideration how long a site has been alive, and how old info still is stuck in the archive and is ready and willing to be unearthed again when someone wants to dig up the past.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

David Guthrie, Boise Idaho — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:15:18 GMT

More informantive to me than anything I've ever read.

And I know zip, zero, totally uninformed.

We'll count entirely on you succeeding.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

Gregory A. Perez — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:28:34 GMT

You sir, are a nerd. But I await your updates! Thanks for the (very) detailed explanation.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

D. Eden, Portland, Oregon — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 00:13:09 GMT

I can live without the DOCTYPE declaration. But, as someone who MUST make the text larger in order to be able to read your site (can YOU read the teeny, tiny type that the site uses by default?), I must say that your new design leaves a lot to be desired. Try increasing the text size just a little, then view your Community page. Your new design quickly falls apart.

Is this a W3C-compliant issue? You tell me. The previous design was passable. This one, frankly, sucks. But, thanks for the opportunity to express my opinion.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

WhoodaThunkIt — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 02:51:30 GMT

I like the fact you will admit to everything, and that you are going to fix whatever you think is still misssing. The explanation helps alot. Thanks.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

Jade Rauenzahn, New York, NY — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 03:26:02 GMT

Jim,

Thanks for taking the time to comment on my blog post. Sorry I implied you were 'Microsoft', I seemed to have touched a nerve there. That being said, Microsoft *does* own MSNBC.com, and it's all the same in the boardroom. The DNS for msnbc.com does point to Redmond, after all.

I commend you and the team for working with such legacy software - I've been there, although not to your team's extent, and it can be a real headache. Working around old code and programming isn't fun. However, I must wonder about the stability of any system which requires extensive work to throw in a HTML transitional doctype. If you guys are dealing with 11 year old legacy code, msnbc needs to overhaul that CMS next. Like, immediately, because there's no reason for it if it's causing your team to develop in quirks mode.

Good luck with this project going forward, I do hope everything works out.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

Gareth Hougham — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 16:57:32 GMT

Thanks for the explanation. Good one.
I run a small nonprofit with a website (www.HVAS.org) Hudson Valley Arts and Science, inc. and we have site links going back 10 years to when we started. Some use HTML from that time and look true to that era. Our philosphy is that it's better to have the archival info available, even if it looks bad, than not. I hope you feel the same way about your archival pages. I don't care how they look but I value their accessibility. thanks.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

Sandy Biloxi, MS — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 03:06:48 GMT

Don't know about all you geeks/nerds but personally I like the fact that it seems to render much better in FireFox than in the past.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

Char James-Tanny, Lynn, MA — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 17:40:16 GMT

Thanks for the blog entry and the response :-) I agree with the others who have said that we don't care how old pages look if the content actually displays (and is accessible), but I certainly don't envy you and your 11 years of archives!

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

Chris Wilson, Seattle, WA — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 17:07:24 GMT

I don't know if my issue is due to being on a Mac, but the sidebar menus are way too sensitive--it's impossible to move my cursor across them w/o the popup menus exploding, no matter how fast I move my cursor. To get to articles in the center of the page, I have to navigate around the sidebar menus like I'm in a maze.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

Coral, Denver — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:58:50 GMT

I appreciate how old the information is and I appreciate access to it. Thanks for the info. I didn't know I needed to know it.

I find your lack of DOCTYPE disturbing

TP — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 13:31:15 GMT

I liked the old design better, it was more clearly laid out and you could use the side navbar to find everything.

There is differentiation between the different areas on the main webpage.
They bleed into each other making it harder to look at or find anything

Thanks for the Star Wars reference though :D