Tuesday, June 2, 2009

WHERE'S R/R THIS WEEK?

I've had this problem before and I know some others have also. There's no sign of RR anywhere in the paper, usually it's on page one in the 'comment is free' section, if it's not there it's usually in the music section. This week it's in neither nor is it in the blog section. I saw it briefly on Friday in the blog section but since then it's gone. I don't understand how this can happen, I can get all the other blogs, anyone else having problems?

27 comments:

Chris said...

gf: if you mean the physical paper, then the RR column only appears in the Film & Music section of Friday's paper. (For 'foreigners, I've no idea)
The blog can always be found in the music blog section of guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog), by scrolling back to the last Friday.

ShivSidecar said...

It's recently become very difficult to find the RR blog on the Grauniad web site _if_ you don't know what you're looking for - even the "Most commented Culture blogs" listing drops it after a day or two, despite the fact that the number of comments is often 200-300% greater than the next most successful blog. If you're an RR neophyte hoping to contribute, you're going to have to dig deep to find it.

Students of the Beeching cuts may wish to consider what the implications of this are for a successful and long-running blog... change the timetable, don't publicise it and tear up the tracks when nobody travels on the railway. I believe that this is why most of the Isle Of Wight is now inaccessible by train...

Abahachi said...

Someone - can't remember who - some time in the last fortnight observed that the previous week's RR was still featured on the front page under 'most commented' even though it had closed several days before and the new one was up and running. It was suggested that the GU people should be more proactive in deciding which blogs should be featured, rather than leaving it to the automatic symptoms, and clearly that's what they've done. As Shiv says, it is there in the Music Blogs section. Personally I just have http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog+series/readersrecommend bookmarked, and that gets me there every time.

Abahachi said...

That's automatic systems...

debbym said...

@gf: I click on the pink culture button at the top of the page, then music, and on the right-hand side of the music page is an A to Z of the site. Scroll down and click on readers recommend and you get both playlist and blog (at the top of a list of previous RRs). Then I bookmark the last page of comments!

Daddy Pig posted an email address for Grauniad techy complaints - I think it's on the Mothership, possibly *future* week - maybe we should all drop them a line...

BalearicBeat said...

How sad am I?? Only three weeks in and I've already got it saved as a desktop icon!
I'm finding it ever more difficult to load the comments though. Takes me three or four attempts sometimes to get past the candy stripes.

goneforeign said...

OK, i tried Chris's link and it does work, I also tried Aba's and it also works but if I click on 'Culture' then 'Music' or 'Blogs' it's nowhere to be seen! I think Shiv's got a point re. Beeching cuts. One reason I lost interest in RR was the ongoing lack of response from the so called techies re regular problems. But none of this answers the question 'Why the hell is this continually happening? Also why does last week's topic stay on page one whilst this weeks is supposedly off and running but is invisible, and the overlap is often lasting for days.

goneforeign said...

And while we're talking about this how about Maddy, she took a short term leave of absence and is now back and she's doesn't get her job back, instead they install a new bloke the week she returns.

BalearicBeat said...

Agreed with Abahachi, this is the link I've got on my desktop:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/series/readersrecommend

goneforeign said...

Maybe I didn't ask the question properly, am I the only one who can't find it on the front page or music page or is everyone having the same problem? Is everyone finding it with a stored URL? If it's just me I'm going to consider becoming paranoid.

Abahachi said...

It does seem to have disappeared from the front page; as suggested above, perhaps because the techies did respond to something that one of us said. It appears briefly in the Music section on Fridays, but tends to get pushed out quite quickly by new postings, which is why I've always used the Bookmark - it's normally quicker.

debbym said...

@gf Regarding Maddy, isn't she freelance? I would think she's just dipping her toes in the pool of back-to-work-while-still-new-at-double-motherhooding just now (you *chaps* have no idea how hard that can be), and could well imagine that RR is too big a commitment for her to return to this early. I really hope she'll return to the fold eventually though (but I did like paulmac's start this week - it'll be interesting to see where he goes with the playlist)!

Chris said...

FWIW, my early Friday morning routine is:
1. Use the drop-down box at the top right of every Graun webpage to find 'The Guardian'. This links to the day's paper and hence, via the Film&Music page, to the column.
2. Using the normal music blog address (which I quoted above), find the latest blogs, which should include RR. Once I've found the current RR blog, I use my browser's History log to find it next time I want it, as the address is unique to each week.

However, it has happened that the blog takes a while to appear on the music page on Friday and then I have found it via the Readers Recommend link.

There is obviously a limit to what the techies can/will do. The most aggravating thing IMHO is the comment loading process, which does far more work than it should have to. No-one will change that because they've spent money on it already and couldn't justify spending more money on it.

steenbeck said...

I was going to say just what DebbyM said! It's likely that Maddy could return to RR if she wanted to, but it might be too big of a time/emotional commitment at the moment. She did put her heart and soul into it. And freelance journalists aren't usually paid by the hour--so she's not paid for all the hours and hours of listening we put her through. I hope she'll be back someday, but I wouldn't assume they offered her job to somebody else.

And Goneforeign--you're on a Mac, right? Do you use safari? Because I always get to readers recommend via my history. It always opens it exactly as I looked at it last--so all comments on one page, and it shoots right down to the last comment. One click, very quick. And to find the new one just go in your history to the last one, and click on the guru's name, or Readers REcommend, and it will take you to the new one.

ToffeeBoy said...

I have a folder in my Firefox bookmarks menu called Readers Recommend. It has links to:

The 'SpillThe extraordinarily inactive RR Last.fm Group page
Marconius7's genius-like RR Index site and
The latest RR blog, in 'show all comments' mode

I generally open all four in individual tabs and check the 'Spill while the RR blog is loading. Oh, I've got it all sorted, believe me ...

goneforeign said...

Steen et al; Thanks for all the suggestions, it seems I'm not alone. I'll try all of them, bookmarking the sites and giving History a go.
I thought that Maddy was great, especially since she was on here fairly regularly, she was one of us. I hope she returns though Paul is a big improvement over Rob but I wasn't impressed with his first topic.

BalearicBeat said...

Gone quiet on there though, hasn't it? Have we got to the end of the shopping list and reached the checkout? I'm stumped for anything else, I have to say.

tincanman said...

@ Balerwhatever Beat
Not having anything important to say hasn't stopped you posting yet BA DOOM BAH

(nor me, for that matter)

BalearicBeat said...

I'm here all week. Try the veal.

B-Boom....Tish ;-)

tincanman said...

ok, you can have ther last word

ToffeeBoy said...

Zyrian (ha, I got the last word)

debbym said...

ZYX, no you didn't! (It's a german record lable, so totally appropriate for a music blog). And now I MUST go & read Lola, or we'll never achieve zzzzzzz...

Abahachi said...

I miss Maddy too.

cauliflower said...

Late as usual, but I thought I should mention that because I often use public computers and therefore don't have bookmarks, I always use the main website navigation...

From the home page, you go to blogs, then pick Music in the left hand menu, which takes you to the Music Blogs page. Then scroll down to find Readers Recommend down on the right hand side under the heading
On this sitebelow which there's a long list, like this:
- Awards and prizes
- Behind the music
- Classical and opera
- Electronic
- Festivals
- Folk
- Fresh links
- Jazz
- McGee on music
- Moore confessions
- Music Weekly
- New music on Wednesday
- Pop and rock
- Readers recommend- School of rock
- True tales
- Urban
- World
It has never not been there for me.

Clearly, this is a grand palaver (at least 4 clicks and a long wait to get to the 'All comments' page) and the Guardian would do well to put RR much higher up. I gave them a piece of my mind when it took an hour to live last week... I feel another attack-dog moment coming on ;-)

But yes, bookmarks are the thing!

DaddyPig said...

Yes, although we're clearly the best blog, we can't expect to have the direct link from the home-page all the time. I'd much rather they put up different things of interest than always had RR there. As others have said, navigate there the first time each week, then some variety of bookmarking does the trick.

As steenbeck and debbym have said, I can't see how Maddy could possibly do RR with a part-time return to work, small child & baby, even if she changed the total-immersion approach that I think we all loved. At least we have a journalist who reads what we write and works on it until it's a playlist, most blogs don't have that, we're high-maintenance in that regard.

One interesting difference with Paul, is that up to the last few weeks, you could read the main article & playlist in Film & Music without knowing it was a blog; the conversation with us was kept for the blog & its header article. With Rob we started to see the blog being more explicitly referred to, and Paul's first Film & Music RR column mentioned an individual blogger's name. I really preferred the old way, but I don't want to be too reactionary - we'll see.

treefrogdemon said...

I have

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/series/readersrecommend

bookmarked - works for me!

treefrogdemon said...

oh and...since I switched to Chrome for RR, I find the comments load very quickly.