Slashdot Mirror
Site Review: 2002 Olympics
Andy King writes: "If Olympic Web sites were an event, Salt Lake wouldn't even
take the bronze. Our review reveals some gnarly accessibility
moguls." There's another review of the site which mentions the many accessibility problems that the Sydney Olympics had with its website. The site doesn't appear to work at all with konqueror.
And yet, amazingly, it renders perfectly in Mozilla. Go figure.
Oops, that's not very PC.
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
The biggest accessibility mogul in my mind, though it really doesn't have to do with the usability of the site per se, is the restrictive conditions put on independent Web media reporting on the games. I believe the IOC did not give credentials to most Web media and have been very active in shutting down and censoring both pro-athlete fan sites and anti-IOC sites. (In fact, wasn't there an athlete who was enjoined from posting even an Olympic diary, Weblog style, for fear of IOC reprisals? Someone refresh me on the details if this rings a bell.)
Anyway, expect the only thing on the Web related to Olympic results of stories is the officially santioned site and NBC and the big media outlets who paid out their butts to cover the games. Everyone else is shut out. That's my accessibility mogul. (Gah--can we fire whoever came up with that expression?)
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
http://www.saltlake2002.com/
It looks fine to me. It's basically MSN/MSNBC affiliated news. It's not much worst than other sites such as CNN, BBC, MSNBC, etc etc.
Is it just me or was this a stupid story to get posted to slashdot anyway?
*yawn*
Heres the address: http://www.saltlake2002.com/
Look at who the "official sponsers" are for online content. MS and NBC!
Of course they're not going to be compliant. They're going to use this as YET another forumn in which to push IE/MSN as de-facto standard.
The web site is as dirty as the IOC itself.
Man, it's not like this is for the Special Olympics.
http://www.webreference.com/new/020117.html
r ch ive.shtml#8746539
r ch ive.shtml#8746539
http://www.brainstormsandraves.com/2002_01_13_a
Complete with frames and fully dependent on JavaScript for display,
this site does at least feature ALT tags for images, unlike last
time when IBM had to add them later at great cost.
Beyond the fact that folks who turn off JavaScript are locked out,
there are some other glaring, yet common usability problems.
* Performance Problems
Frames are used throughout the site. These should be banished as
they slow down the display and clutter up our screens. The frames
are written with JavaScript document.writes, with no
alternative, ouch. View sourcing a few frames shows the site's
been Akamaized which is good, but it's overspecified with
font tags? This is the year 2002 people, anyone heard of CSS?
Switching to CSS here would save mucho bandwidth.
* Black Links
How do users tell these are links? How can we tell the difference
between black text and black links? They are not even underlined,
further exacerbating the problem. Users expect blue or colored
links, and that they at least be underlined. Some links spawn new
windows, and some even require JavaScript to work, an
accessibility no-no. At least the visited color is different.
* JavaScript Bugs
I know Shirley covered the dependence on JavaScript on her blog
but on my Mac running IE5, *every page* spawns a JavaScript
error. Unsupported objects, syntax errors, this does not engender
confidence in a site. So if you are a Mac user, you might turn
off JavaScript to get rid of the errors right? Guess what. Gotta
have JavaScript enabled to use the site. See my problem here? I
see this is a Microsoft ASP site, could be a sign....
"This site requires javascript enabled on your browser."
If you're going to require JavaScript at least test the site on
PC and Mac platforms with recent browsers. But, I digress.
* META/TITLE Tags
The site doesn't use META tags. Guess they think this is a one-
time thing and traffic won't be a problem.
Here are some sample titles:
Olympics
Frame Top
SLOC - Cover Front Page 3:11 PM ET Thursday, January 17, 2002
This is useful if I happen to not know the current date and time.
The site looks good, but I expect better for such a high profile
site. The main TITLE says just "Olympics." Um, which one? 1924
where Harold Abrahams won the 100 and Eric Liddell the 400? Can't
you just hear Vangelis in the background? A more descriptive title
tag wouldn't hurt here. Try it for yourself below, but be sure to
have JavaScript enabled and don't use a Mac.
http://www.saltlake2002.com/
---------
http://www.brainstormsandraves.com/2002_01_13_a
Accessibility Lockout for Olympics 2002 Site -- Again?!
After the lawsuit, resulting decision, and huge scandal over the lack of alt tags for the Sydney 2000 Olympics site, I had to go see how the Salt Lake 2002 site fares for accessibility. With Opera in hand to easily turn off images, I checked it out. Whew. This time they use alt tags on the main page, and most of them have decent description text, with just a few having a pointless "image" for the alt tag text. Not bad.
Turning off JavaScript, though, doesn't fare so well. In fact, it makes the site totally inaccessible, as shown in the screenshot below. Uh-oh. "Javascript must be enabled to view this site" pops onto the screen, and there are no links and no alternative means of entering the site. Unbelievable.
They could have easily included the NOSCRIPT element with a hyperlink to access the site without JavaScript.
I must admit to being totally shocked that there's an outright accessibility block like this. Lots of people turn off JavaScript, don't have JavaScript capability, use screen readers and other alternative viewers. To totally prevent these users from using the site is not only poor form for creating a worldwide site to be accessed by anyone but especially nuts in view of their lawsuit for alt tags two years ago.
Unbelievably, though, the above is just the beginning of the story!
I clicked into the Spectator page. Down in the lower left of the Spectator page is this message: "Plug-ins needed for certain content: Flash, Adobe Acrobat Reader." Potential uh-oh again if accessible alternatives aren't provided.
Making note of that, I continued on, clicking the Games Programs link in the navigation. On that page are links to a wide range of programs, including the Paralympic Winter Games. Each of these links, however, are accessible ONLY with JavaScript popup windows (without including hyperlinks within the JavaScript, which is simple to do). As another check, I disabled JavaScript in Opera, then reloaded this page. Guess what?! I got the message again about not being able to access the page without JavaScript. Amazing that I can't even access the Paralympics information. Unbelievable.
On to the Venues page. The good news is that I could access the page without JavaScript turned on. The bad news is that some of the "Important Venue Spectator Information" is only accessible via downloadable PDF files or JavaScript popup windows, once again blocking or potentially blocking accessibility without JavaScript or without the special plug-ins for screen readers that convert the PDF files to readable text.
To top it off, the Paralympics Venue map is a PDF document that isn't accessible friendly.
Another factor is that the site is done in frames. Frames can have accessible alternatives with the NOFRAMES element; however, they didn't use them. When I turned off frames in Opera to try to view this new 2002 Olympics site, there was only a blank white screen with no alternative means to enter the site and no instructions. Nothing.
I suspect I could go from page to page with lots more, and it appears that I've only scratched the surface here of some major blunders with their site's accessibility.
I wonder how long it will take before the you-know-what hits the fan.
Final Thoughts
What bothers me the most is that the developers didn't make use of the Accessibility Guidelines. I have no problem with sites using frames as long as they also provide accessibility alternatives. And of course I have no problem with JavaScript, with Flash, with PDF files. Appropriate alternatives can be provided to allow anyone in the world to access this major worldwide event that represents most of the world, including the Paralympics for the disabled. This is certainly one site that demands the widest range of accessibility as possible.
It renders fine in Mozzy, but at the bottom of the homepage:
;).
Plug-ins needed:
Flash
Windows Media
QuickTime
Adobe Acrobat
Not very viewable with Lynx
just what I was thinking... well well.. watch that karma burn now.. ;-) ..
Really considering how absoltely corrupt and half assed their preparations appear to be.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
What do you expect. If you make a product that competes agressively, and you spent money to buy the rights to show the olympics online, are you going to cater to your product or to all?
Sure, your conscience says "To all, because that's what the olympics stand for!" But in capitalists minds, its "Crush the competition"
In the end, its both legal, and the way of our economy. So, basically, "tough sh*t".
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
One of the greatest features of the Sydney 2000 website, was the "... By Country" - So I could select my country (Denmark) and I would get access to all the information that involved the danish athletes.
"Fuck the blind!"
*sarcasm on*
Yeah it's their fault that they can't see when born of get sick.
"If their seeing eye dog or red tipped cane can't get them around a website, why the hell is it our problem."
A little thing called being nice and a little set of laws called the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act).
"You know, there used to be a time when defective children where drowned right off the bat and tossed in a hole in the ground."
That was most likely a widespread thing in what? The 13th century.
"If a person is defective, what good are they?"
You sound like the commendant of Belzec really quite sad.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
I was in Nevada on an extended vacation when they were hiring for the lead on this project, I thought well if they pay over 120k ill live in SLC with my family for a year. I sent in a resume for kicks and grins, we discussed pay and they said with my experience that wouldnt be a problem and was promtly called in for an interview. It wasnt in the door 60 seconds when I realized they dont have a clue . It was a NIGHTMARE of politics and group confusion. I left and thought yeah a cold day in hell before Id do that, I told them I wasnt interested and was still called back several times. POLITICS reighn supreme in SLC when it has ANYTHING to do with the Olympics, Mormons were running the show, no ifs and or buts, the labor for everything was based on nepotism. My family has ins out there and told me what was actually happening behind the scence, I didnt belive it UNTIL I went to the interview.
A camel is a racehorse built by a commitee, On guy says, it needs big feet for traction, another sys, it needs long legs so it can run fast, another says it need big nostrils so it can breathe well while sprinting, You END up with a CAMEL, The olympic web site is no different....
Sig went tro...aahemmm.....fishing........
And praytell, what browser are you using? You should see this thing in Netscape, Konqueror, or IE on a Mac, where it errors out something awful on every single page.
It Forces Javascript, uses font tags instead of CSS, and the links are the same color as the text, along with not being underlined. Big no-no. It might not be a problem for most of us, but if you have an older machine, you have vision problems, etc., this site is going to suck.
Oh well, at least they did the ALT tags the first time around this time, unlike the last site done by IBM.
Actually, I hear that every 50th page served by their website shows two young men in suites carrying the Book of Mormon and asking if you like to discuss your religion with a virtual representative...
Of course, I shall be watching closely as my three wives are competing in the synchronized swimming competition.
The site doesn't appear to work at all with konqueror.
When the amount of money that konqueror users are going to spend at the games starts to match the amount of money that Windows users are going to spend at the games, you'll see some changes. Whining about entitlements will get you nowhere. I'm willing to bet that they feel they don't have time to worry about piddling issues like whether or not their website is w3c compliant or whatever.
Now, the Mac users have a legitimate gripe. But konqueror/galleon/mozilla/etc. users? I'm an open-source fanatic, but even I'm not going to get pissy that someone else's business plan doesn't involve catering to people in one of the smallest market demographics.
-------------------------------------------------
charlton heston is more of a man than yo
'Eberharter wins at Kitzbuehel'
Man, I have been routing Eberharter for years, it's great that he finally sprung into the mainstream skiing community with his win at the Kitzbuehel slopes.
I can't wait to read his bio, and I hear the even have a section where he rates his favorite kind of snow!
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
They're not even making any money off the site AFAIK, unlike some sites that don't work (airline sites mostly) without IE5.5 and a lot of good luck.
IMHO it could be a lot worse, as well as a lot better. Usability nuts seem to forget how businesses actually work (which is to say, barely, on most days).
I run Linux full-time at home on my laptop, and use Windows full-time at work (mostly because Windows Media doesn't run natively in Linux, and Real is not representative under Linux of how it runs in Windows -- and our streaming media clients are the biggest source of support calls). Normally I just expect incompetent web design. By my standards, the SLOC website is not half bad, just wickedly slow.
YMMV...
Remember that what's inside of you doesn't matter because nobody can see it.
The modern Olympic games are just a friggin' waste of TV time, and just one more thing in human culture that has been taken over, lock, stock and barrel by megacorporations and their sponsorships. Yeah-- like these athletes really got that way by sucking down Big Macs. Riiiiiiight.
The last time the games really mattered was in 1936, when Jesse Owens beat out Hitler's alleged Master Race competitors. It's been all downhill since then. All that's left now is a corporate-sponsored hollow shell. I'm surprised they haven't destroyed the last bastion of tradition and redone the torch to look like a big Bic or Zippo.
Face it, the most Olympic-related fun you can have nowadays is by dusting off your old Commodore 64/Atari/Apple II/what-have-you and loading up the old Epyx "[season] Games" titles.
~Philly
This is the first year that IBM didn't do the site, so it's not suprising that these probems exist.
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
But is it really newsworthy? I mean, how many sites are there out there that have similar problems?
(Hint: lots.)
I think there's a broader problem here.
mark
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
Argh! I notice the URLs end in ".asp", which means it's running Microsoft stuff! Why is it that practcally every *big* site that uses Microsoft technologies feels compelled to add a whole whack of content that is unsupported by non-IE browsers? (I think I just asked a rhetorical question here.)
... the part that should tell them there are other bowsers out there, and in a world where not everyone has a 1.6 GHz Pentium or an AMD 1800 CPU, half a gig of RAM, 20 GB of hard disk, the latest copy of Windows, and a partial T1 connection to the internet, they should make allowances for people at the lower end of the spectrum ... perhaps text mode only with lynx or w3m.
It appears that when people start developing web sites with MS technologies, a crucial part of their bran turns off
Or is that going too low?
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on a CD-R somewhere
I find it funny that the reviewer's site uses one of those annoying and browser-crushing floating backgrounds that doesn't scroll when you go through the page....
when salmon are outlawed, only outlaws will have salmon
As an American, as a citizen, it is your duty to report (and possibly sue if no action is taken) any problems with site accessibility.
Think of all those people in China with Linux running non-MSFT browsers! Think of those handicapped people who have perl-scripts that turn their screens into speech.
We must all pull to together and make sure the site works with all Linux/BSD browsers.
And let's hope the script kiddies make it bulletproof from the bin Ladens of the world - where is the testing?
By the way, does it work in Urdu?
-
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Tell this to the near blind guy that can't tell what is a link and what isn't, because the site had to look "jazzy".
The site looks fine in Mozilla, but it isn't possible to click any of the menu bar links. That is, to put it mildly, a pain in the ass. You'd think they could have bothered to test it with multiple browsers.
I do some web design for high schools, student organizations, little stuff like that. I ALWAYS check compatibility, because a lot of schools still use Netscape over IE, believe it or not.
That's my two cents anyway.
No statement is true, not even this one.
I looks fine on my Mac under OS X with both IE 5.1 and Mozilla 0.9.7.
Maybe the problem is on older browsers. I have never been a big fan of frames, but I think they're used fairly tastefully on that site.
.:diatonic:.
1. A most excellent business magnate in charge of enforcing the Americans with Disabilities act.
2. A old, twisted central-Asian warlord concerned with copyright law.
3. A combination of (1) and (2). Possibly resembling Jack Valenti.
If this site crashes when a bunch of geeks reading slashdot hit it at once, what will happen when the browsers of the world are focussed on it?
I haven't lost my mind; it's backed up on a CD-R somewhere
The comment criticizing non-explicit links {"How do users tell these are links? How can we tell the difference between black text and black links?"} makes perfect sense in the eyes of those who are worried about code and not visual aesthetics. However, from a visual design perspective, I bloody-well hate explicit links; they pre-empt the intuitiveness/intelligence of the viewer.
This is not to say that I Officially Support the Olympic Site, but rather to say that I find Falken's critique in this area narrowly drawn.
This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it. - Dorothy Parker
No. The "games" are now just a low rent adjuct to the corporate sponsored corruption of professional sport, which is an ever running sewer. As uplifting as an enema.
(And I was a jock in highschool...no not the one that tormented you, but all the same...)
Their site is inacessable? Good! May they and their site both rot in obscurity.
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Not only do I question the "Site Review" category as "Stuff that matters," but the article seems overly nitpicky to me.
Come on folks, Frames are not only accepted and common, but part of the w3 spec since 1997. JavaScript? The DOM has been standardized for at least as long and JavaScript support has been available (funky, but basically available) since 2.0 browsers... PDF? Well, a fine solution for encapsulated, printable documents (like maps?!!)
I'm all for accessibilty, but this site doesn't seem to be unfairly limiting to me... unless you're using lynx...
Guvegrra?
I went there with konqueror. The page was visible for a breif moment, then it looked like it decided that my browser wasn't supported and forwarded me to a blank page. I
Let them shoot themselves in the foot. I didn't even know that the olympics were coming because I don't visit or view "major" media sites or channels.
Is that many people don't have broadband at home yet. Heck, the recent slashdot poll had 19% of slashdotters using dialup. That number has to higher for the Jane Imacs and the Allen Oscar Littles. Now between the Flash, Video (Quicktime and Windows Media?), and Actobat files this has got to be a bandwith hungry sight. Unless they feel most people will be viewing this at home they are probably shutting people out.
Sean.OutaHere()
The reviews say the site gives errors on IE5 on Mac. I'm getting script errors in IE6 on Win2000. On every single page. The menus do not work with Mozilla (the latest nightly build, so not sure whose fault it is). And yes, the black 'links' sure do suck. I would say this is worse than IBM's Olympics site, although my memory may be fading.
.css file included via the link tag would be much more economical.
There are a lot of font tags too, and inline JavaScript. Also I found inline CSS (on the main page no less), which isn't a bad thnkg by itself, but the definition is almost a page long, surely a
To me it makes perfect sense for the spec to be developed in partnership with the experts, as well as the deliverable since most people who write specs for large IT projects don't really know what they want.
"The new wave is not value-added; it's garbage-subtracted" - Esther Dyson, Dec 1994
My favorite bit looking at it is the "Shop the Official Olympic Store" link in the upper right (image link) which is actually a link to... http://www.msnbc.com from which there is no obvious connection to any "Official Olympic Store."
*sigh*
-Frums
I can't get that excited about "accessability" issues for what's basically promotion for a TV program.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Usability issues aside - with the Olympics being, you know, an international event, you'd expect translations of the page in at least the common European languages plus Japanese and a few others, right?
Whoever had the foresight to exclude all languages other than English and French is a complete moron, and stands to further propogate the idea of the self-serving American (i.e.: "everybody should speak English!"). To make matters worse, the French site follows none of the English site's design conventions (perhaps a good thing!) and has the personality of a dehydrated camel - there are no images on the site's content pages, for example.
Also, not to be troll, but honestly, guys... when the top story on the front page is a lambasting of the usability of a website, it's a good thing to provide a link of some sort to the site, ya know?
Operations: Technology of the Games contains the following paragraph regarding the website:
Internet: Visitors to www.saltlake2002.com or www.olympics.com will reach the official website for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, where they'll find the latest news and sports information (including the most comprehensive Games results) as well as important business applications. Olympic fans can also visit the website to purchase event tickets via Tickets.com as well as buy official 2002 Olympics merchandise. This site is being produced, hosted and distributed by MSNBC.com and MSN. As the official online content supplier for the Games, MSN will provide consumers with simple access to exclusive Games content and standings. MSN will also use its advertising products and promotions to market the website across MSN. Behind the scenes, broadcasters, press, and other accredited visitors to the Games can place online orders for mobile phones, PCs and other equipment and services for use during their stay in Salt Lake City. SchlumbergerSema is supplying the website with a variety of Games and results information from the competition venues. Qwest will continue its provision of Internet access services and web-based applications. Other contributors to the website include Monster.com, eBay, and Harris Interactive.
I Heart Sorting Networks
and the olympics are on the other side of the globe? the only way we could watch them is by staying up till 3:00 in the morning?
2 25 4&mode=thread
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/18/074
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I wonder if there's a blue medal of death for systems that freeze up.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...why not buy one of their Unix Servers or Cisco Routers.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Too commercial
Too much hype
Haven't watched the last three or four of the stupid things.
Ok, netcraft shows us this, so we can expect the site to change it's content quite soon.
Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect. -- Linus Torvalds
With all the hub-ub that has been made about electronic security on the Olymipic network and how paranoid they are, it's a shame that the site itself looks so rank because what is the point of a site staying up if no-one wants to look at it?
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
Free as in beer, indeed. I love it.
I didn't mine the entire site but on the front page and on the site map page I didn't see any link at all to send email to the site author/owners. I just wanted to send them a polite 'piss off'...
OTOH, that could be why there isn't such a link.
The Sydney games were at inconvenient times like that, and NBC just showed an extremeley american-biased set of highlights. It flat out sucked; no amount of Bob Costas' good anchoring skills could cover up the fact that there was a whole bunch of stuff they weren't showing us. . .
http://www.winterolympics.com/. this is the one with the javascripted frames.
go get it
Olympic web designer's viewpoint:
The site can be viewed with Internet Explorer? Good. The site can ONLY be viewed with Internet Explorer? Who cares - see 1)
My viewpoint:
The site can only be viewed with Internet Explorer? Who cares- I don't give a fetid rodent's rectal tissue about the Olympics.
Since the Olymics has degenerated into a professional athlete hawking commercial interests adfest rather than a celebration of what people can do, I've lost interest. Does it suprise anyone that they cannot make a good web site?
www.eFax.com are spammers
Anybody have any information on this? I would try and load slc2002.com in "Blazer" on my Handspring, but I would be here all day and it would look like crap (too much javascript and pop-up menu's etc.).
Of course, that's because they're using javascript to redirect from http://www.saltlake2002.com/ to http://www.saltlake2002.com/news/slocmain_front.as p
Apparently they couldn't figure out how to change the default index setting. Or maybe 303 is beyond them.
Here's the reason the page doesn't display in Konqueror (part of page source follows - don't worry, it's short).
<script language=javascript src=/x/inc/get_guid.asp></script>9 fa989/www.saltlake2002.com/x/js/xtd_funct.js">& lt;/script> e 98dbd/www.saltlake2002.com/x/js/stdframe.js">&l t;/script>
<script language=javascript src="http://a799.ms.akamai.net/3/799/388/aa532497
<script language=javascript src="http://a799.ms.akamai.net/3/799/388/cf806351
<noscript>Javascript must be enabled to view this site.</noscript>
Note that this is almost ENTIRELY the content of the page. So, in short, it's a combination of hideous web design and one of the handful of javascript-related features (loading javascript from an alternate location via "src=") that isn't yet implemented in Konqueror.
Whatever happed to the "KISS" principle?...
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
And mentioning BBC??? Their website is brilliant; it even works with lynx.
could ever make curling an interesting sport.
"Isn't that the sweetest little well-balanced undergraduate-level philosophy of life."
It is really sad that the IOC couldn't hire an independant site builder to create the site here.
I was fortunate to be part of the creative team behind the Nagano Olympics website, and while it was a lot of fun working on such a high-profile site, the combination of the IOC and the sponsors (IBM, in our case) as clients was grueling. The IOC had to approve every element on the site, the content was often cobbled from badly-translated Japanese tourist brochures, and the sheer number of regulations was a task. I pity the design firm who had to put this years' site together. Oh, and in my opinion, it's a pretty poor piece of work.
...all the sponsor links in the top and bottom frames? It seems to me that the main reason for the frameset is to ensure that this advertising is always onscreen, along the same lines as the Geocities logo. Notice how all the navigation elements are on the content pages (center frame), except for the token Home, Site Map and French translation links that are barely noticeable above the Office Depot banner. Also note that they always dump you into a frameset, even if you open a link in its own window.
The idiotic javascript and other design issues, I can't explain.
Everyone knows that the Olympics are completely borked this year. Everyone should just go home - you aren't wanted here in Utah and the last thing that we would do is create a friendly webpage to bring more people here.
After attempting to get W3.org's HTML validator to check the entire page, I finally just checked the main frame. Notice that I had to force HTML 4.01 Frameset, since the document does not include its own DOCTYPE.
Results can be found at this link. Needless to say, the site failed miserably, even with Frameset set.
iCab's built in HTML checker found 238 errors in the main frame alone, not to mention the dozens of errors in the surrounding frames.
Note that I am not suggesting that the writers are ever going to write strict HTML or XHTML (although they should for accessability), but that writing *such bad* HTML that some browsers choke on it is simply unacceptable *for anyone*, especially a web page like the Winter Olympics site.
- (c) 2018 Hank Zimmerman
Maybe you should try a browser with some history of working.
Seems to work perfectly with the current CVS
We should meet for Coffee to discuss this... oh, wait... how about beer? ... oh, yeah... Well, maybe we could just go dancing... Doh!
Hmmm... Tell ya what, I'll talk to yer sister/wife and set up an appointment.
I am become Troll, destroyer of threads
The content producers will probably let you watch them tape delayed on pay per view the next day.
Same thing here, with konqueror 2.2.2 (the latest stable)
News for Nerds
Stuff that Matters.
At least the first one is true.
The article makes valid points, but thats not my question.
Isn't the point of HTML to do formatting? couldn't we of gotten -some- formatting in that article? It's just plain text. I feel like I'm on a BBS.
I live life on the edge
In prior years, the olympics.com sites were handled by IBM. They did a great job, considering the way that the web and the Internet were growing through those years. Here's a report they created discussing the their "User-Centered" design approach. For a cool example of a portion of the site targeted for the people at the events, check out the details of the regional weather site they did.
They broke several Internet world-records each year (most hits in a day, hits per minute, etc) they ran the technology using the Lotus Notes Domino servers on RS/6000. The story I heard was that IBM had faced all the tech challenges it wanted to, and that the inter-personal challenges were making their involvement in upcoming olympics less attractive (ie NBC being a pain). I remember at the time that I chuckled to myself "lets see who else thinks they can pull this one off!"
Now that Microsoft is involved (remember when they blocked non-IE browsers from their MSN site?) I'm not surprised at the results so far.
p.s. The fact that the site is not international, here in the year 2002, is an absolute shame! Hell, the 1998 site was at least in English French AND Japanese !
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Konqueror isn't an offical sponsor of the IOC -- thus it is supposed to break it, it is a feature.
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
If i try this site with lynx via a braille device i get the you need a javascriptcapable browser etc.....
so how should my VERY shorstsighted mother get any information about the olympics via the net ?
Are there any programs for rendering wecontent in this form via audio?
... whenever a text is transmitted, variation occurs. This is because human beings are careless, fallible, and occasiona
Use the source, Luke. It's lame to use Javash*t to redirect to www.saltlake2002.com/news/slocmain_front.asp.
Some of the content is accessible but you cannot buy tickets. And then there's this gem:
Everyone must have a ticket to enter a venue, including infants of any age(!). Fsckers.
"Slashdot is about legos and staplers." -Cmdr. Taco
using netscape 4.78 on the mac, the "2002" page yields only a grey field and:
Microsoft VBScript runtime error '800a000d'
Type mismatch: '[string: ""]'
/x/inc/get_guid.asp, line 10
now that's useful.
I follow rowing. Rowing is still an entirely amateur sport. It is an athletic endeavour requiring great skill, strength and endurance. It fits the olympic ideal in every way. Yet every olympics since LA84 has attempted to reduce the number of crews attending, or eliminate some events entirely, to make way for new "sports" such as synchronized swimming.
Only fools train all their lives for one shot at olympic glory. You do it for the fun inherent in the sport, or for the competition, or whatever. But when the IOC can simply eliminate your event because it's not telegenic enough, you have to focus on something else.
--
E_NOSIG
You can't bookmark framesets. I personally like them for some things, but you can't bookmark them. You may be able to bookmark individual parts but not the entire frameset. And by using Javascript to write the frames, well, gheeez, how in the heck are you going to bookmark that? Just plain lame.
As for Javascript, it's a memory leak, it allows popup ads, it is a security risk, and it eats up my processor time. Sometimes I'll have 20 windows open at once. Animated GIFs are bad enough, but javascript mouseovers are atrocious and do nothing to enhance any web site. All style and no substance. 99% of javascript use is strictly for mouseover flash and does nothing for usability. Parameter checking on forms submission is ok, but until I click that submit button, pah!
Popups for some links, I have no problem with that, but you don't need javascript for it, TARGET does fine, unless you think it's important to specify the size, but then you'll get that wrong unless you know my browser font settings.
Infuriate left and right
After a few seconds, it mysteriously redirects to http://www.saltlake2002.com/x/f/frame.htm?u=%2Fx%2 Ff%2Fframe.htm%3Fu%3D%252F, which doesn't render.
My guess is that their validation and testing process was limited to MSIE. We must remember, though, that the site is intended to promote the reliability of MS Windows 2000.
Anybody want to bet on how long it will take until 1)The media notices that the site has died under the load, and 2) the site is hacked?
"Eddie the Eagle wins gold!"
I poke your eyes out for mentioning a subject for Katz to write about
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
If you are wondering, "How the hell did a web site this crappy get built?" then the good news is... you too can be a web designer.
I have a friends who made web development their successful career after getting frustrated by bloated, unfocused motion picture (and other corporate) web sites. Their thought process went something like this... "Someone made a load of dough building this site. I know nothing, but I could still run circles around this design. Damn, I'm changing careers."
hehehe
Best Slashdot comment ever
A quite interesting contrast is the site of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. There are quite a lot of interesting technical info on those pages.
This page was not the official site, in fact there were no official site at all. But some Norwegian computer and news companies built the site. IBM, the "official information provider", was not happy with the unofficial site (or the connection with Sun), but they provided none themselves.
I must say that as a resident of Salt Lake City and student who lives in student (married) housing, I must say that I am not surprised. I have been very much involved in certain unmentionable musical aspects of the games and I have been abhored by the amount of incompetence that seem to go around. For the amount of money that I will be spending (yea right, *this* olympics will not go over budget), I figured that they would get some professionals to run this thing. But, alas, no, we've known about this thing for 7 years and the schedules are not even finalized for many things. And it's a few weeks before the games. WTF!
Mad Software: Rantings on Developing So
Poor accessibility for browsers with .5% market share?!?! Something must be done!
Ok, I'm a web designer, but not a LinuxHead. (I know, I know)
So I test my pages on IE 5 & 6, Netscape 4.x - 6, Opera, OmniWeb, iCab & that's all. So now do I have to find a box to install Linux on, install KDE, install Konqueror, to find out that it renders everything fine?
I guess my question is, is it possible to make a site which renders fine in all these browsers but somehow dies a horrible death in Konqueror? Thanks for your wisdom.
Yes, it's a blog. Sorry if that offends you.
I've looked at everything from porn sites to corporate news sites in Konqueror, and this one takes the cake. It's the first web page that's completely invisible in Konqueror. Kudos to the nimrods responsible, I've never seen something so completely broken on the web in my life.
speed masturbating
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Have you noticed the website has a French version?
- Oh yes, great!
- Not so fast.
A link at the very upper-right corner (almost invisible)will get you to the on-line shop (in English) and link at the bottom will eventually get you to some pages en Fran?ais, but they are so poor
that looks more like a joke.
Olympics is supposed to be international event, isn't it?
How can you NOT KNOW the Olymics are coming? They've been on a 4 year schedule for only the last couple of millenia.
sorry this site requires IE, Flash, Real Player and Adobe Acrobat PDF
Whats the point of Showing the same thing which is on TV, on the web?? I couldn't get ANY tae kwon do last olympics At ALL except for some small info in canada... Im sick of this hsit. Forget the olympics. Its just a propaganda event , the people are all "overclocked". What a mess.
The site doesn't appear to work at all with konqueror.
That's not a problem with the website, that's a problem with the program. If Netscape and IE work, konqueror developers should be able to make their browser work.... or at least stop bitching about it.
This post is brought to you by the letters T and A, and the number 69
mogul(n). A small mound on a ski slope.
It's an event in the winter olympics, mogul skiing. Duh.
As you know, our President has put us on High Alert, and that means more security, and naturally, that's going to affect accessibility. Vigilance is the price we Americans must pay for liberty, and if that makes the web site less accessible, then deal with it.
The Olympics are as sick as any military operation (another ridiculous subject to feature on Slashdot) since in their wake they create debt, job loss, environmental damage, social rights abuses, and make many TV companies (who we hate because of HDTV copy protection, but now that they show the Olympics, we love them) and developers rich at the expense of working class and poor people in the communities that the Olympics infiltrate!
Check out the Burn the Olympics Page, and then please consider a change in your attitude toward the money-making politics of the Olympics!
This is from:
Burn the Olympics page
Ten reasons to BURN the Olympics: A call to action
The Olympics are about money
The Games are "given" to the city that shells out the biggest bribes, tax money that could be better spent on community programs to help those who need it the most. While big business profits from increased tourism, the public is stuck with a bill for 1.3 billion.
The Olympics are for the rich
The IOC feeds us lies about bringing growth and sporting arenas for the citizens of Salt Lake. However, the venues built for the games are later only used by the super-elite and wealthy. The Olympics squander public funds to host an event that most people can't even afford to attend.
The Olympics are sexist
Baron de Courbertin, founder of the IOC, was a French chauvinist who hated women. He felt that "The Olympic Games must be reserved for men." Since then (1896), women have slowly been included in more events, but there are still far more men's competitions.
The Olympics promote spectatorship
The Games do not help aspiring athletes, but instead get us to watch TV. The Olympics want people glued to their televisions so they can absorb advertisements. By placing athletes on pedestals, people are disempowered by being convinced that they must buy things to get closer to the gold.
The Olympics are about corporate sponsorship
Corporate sponsors and the media make billions from selling people worthless consumer junk, and they are salivating over this opportunity to pitch their products to billions worldwide. The Games are no longer about sports, but just another medium for marketing.
The Olympics destroy the environment
With the massive temporary influx of people coming to Utah this February, and Salt Lake's lousy public transit, the roads will be packed with cars. Ski resorts and other outdoor event sites are built in places where trees
and animals should be living, not swarming with yuppies.
The Olympics fuel nationalism
The image of the Games that is being pushed by the IOC of countries getting together in times of peace is completely false. The actual dynamic perpetuates nationalistic feelings and bitterness. What the people need is worldwide solidarity, not worldwide competition.
The Olympics celebrate globalization
Like the WTO or FTAA, the Olympics place private interests above all other concerns. Public money is diverted to generate profit for multinationals. Protecting people and the environment are second to investment dollars in the eyes of state officials. Not only this, but the Olympics turn it into a celebration.
The Olympics create a police state
The Utah Olympic Public Safety Command (UOPSC) and the Olympic Joint Terrorism Task Force (OJTTF) are in place to take away your right to free speech, expression, and movement. They are already working to stop legal protests through new laws and arrests. With the actions against the World Trade Center and Pentagon, we will now be seeing a police state of the nature that most activists in North American have never witnessed.
The Olympics drive out "undesirables"
The homeless will be swept off the streets and kept out of the city where they might bother shoppers. SLOC's plans for the homeless include housing them in the State Fair horse barns or letting them "camp" in freezing weather on Antelope Island. Protesters will also be out of view from tourists.
Come to Salt Lake City
Join tens of thousands of undesirables to take a stand against the 2002 Winter Games. Activists will be converging in Utah to expose and oppose the true capitalistic nature of the Olympics. Housing and ride shares are being compiled, if you need or can offer either, contact us.
Who we are and what we do
This information is provided by Build Underground Resistance Not the Olympics (BURN the Olympics). We are working to educate, agitate, and organize for the Salt Lake City Olympics in February of 2002. BURN the Olympics has been initiated by radicals who are not resigned to sit back and watch our city turn into a playground for the rich. We plan on using diverse tactics to tackle the multinational death machine that is killing the planet.
Contact us
Email: olympics@anarchist.co.uk Our PGP key can be be found here
Mailing address:
Subvert
PO Box 1112
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
2 milennia ago, they had the REAL olympics, on Olympia.
Yet when looking at the site in Konqueror it shows perfectly until the point where it is all loaded then I get a blank page.
I'm glad some people are being allowed to view the site. I am on a 10 Mbs connection running Windows 2000 Professional. I tried viewing it in Internet Explorer 6.0 with all the patches and it loaded up with crap and is still loading after 15 minutes. (At first I didn't allow cookies and the site wouldn't load at all just a big blank screen and then I got a Javascript error in line 1.) Next was Netscape 4.79.. well 45 minutes later it is still trying to load the first page. Mozilla build ID: 2002011803 and it loaded quickly (30 seconds) but like IE it was the same garbled mess with no images. (Again I disallowed cookies and was presented with a blank screen.) Opera (I am identifying it as MSIE 5.0) performed the best with rendering the front page in 30 seconds with all the images and text.
In other words the site is useless to me and I for one won't go to the site again for updates or medal tallies.
The way that many of these outsourced projects work is that the look and feel is outsourced to one company that focuses entirely on the graphics and the layout. Once that is done, it is sent to a implementation and backend development company. Often, these two companies are separated, but the look company has greater control because the group that hired the two is part of marketting. This often creates a problem because the looks company is coming from a paper media background and expect the web to function the same way. They often ignore web standards, such as NEVER USE FRAMES, so that it would look "nice." When it does finally hit the web, it loses a lot of the expected functionality that typical web users look for.
Secondly, to cut costs, the implementation companies often take templated code for the project. Depending on the code, it is rather inefficient and troublesome on other browsers than the ones that they focus on.
Lastly, while I was typing this, I had to exit out of the website. The javascript was taking up 40-70% of my resources (running P2 233).
example of inefficient code (from the Olympics site): [Note: I've replaced the > and
If I were a company hiring someone to do a website, I would focus on their technical know-how rather than their artistic experience. Artistic experience is important up to and until implementation. If a site is poorly implemented that decreases the value of the artistic experience. If it is highly implemented, it often hides and shields the lack of "prettiness"
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
:(
hawk
Aside fromthat,every single use of javascript I've seen simply should not have occured. THey're either lazy, incompetent, showing off, or downright anti-user.
and yes, I do *prefer* lynx; I like my information straight, not gussied up with eye-candy.
hawk
Anyone with a better memory or a shortwave radio?
fencepost
just a little off
from the 100-click-dash dept...
As opposed to the 100-klick-dash dept., which would be interesting...
"Make it ten--I am only a poor corrupt official."
--Captain Louis Renault (Claude Rains), Casablanca
salt lake it nothing but an inbred hick town.
...but they weren't hiring illiterates that day? That's gotta be it.
and You can't even Spell or Type Right, you should be Ashamed of yourSelf, especially because you don't seem to Understand what our Issue is...
Uh, has anyone ever TRIED developing a massive site WITHOUT the use of JS and MILLIONS of $ in tow? The word impossible comes to mind.
Using frames and javascript in stupid and unecessary ways has nothing to do with a server-side scripting model. Just cause its written in ASP it must suck, not that the people who wrote it were morons. ASP has no effect on the end-user, it spits out plain HTML.
Mozilla? Nah, Opera's a better choice. It requires less than a half gig of ram and processors under 1.5GHz can run it's interface without it lagging.
You guys should have put the site's link in the headline so that this atrocity would get properly slashdotted at least, no?
*We* can certainly tell from that, that *you* are not lame!
No, sir, not you...
But wait!
Shouldn't that be:
Or was that bit of 'l33tn3ss already taken by some other creative young soul?
heh... Kids these days... They say the darnd'est things!
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
How about a link? Duh?
Bitching? Who's bitching? I just made an observation...
Right, and I completely forgot that they switched to a 2 year schedule... That and it's just not something I give much thought to.
The CBC usually does an excellent job of covering the Olympics... I remember that some of my American friends near the border actually tuned in to CBC for the Nagano games...
And their page is much more standards compliant.
CBC Olympics Front Page
I don't need proof of any Mormon conspiracy. I also live here. But unlike you (obviously) I am not Mormon. Poor me.
For anyone considering moving here: don't. The most important parts of the downtown area are speech-restricted (Really! With guards and everything!) because entire city blocks were bought from the city by the Mormon church in a back-room deal a few years back that generated tons of controversy. The ACLU has taken up the cause, but as of today, if you were to go downtown and say "I'm having a HELL of a bad day!" under your breath, you would likely be accosted by a guard. Don't even try to light up a cigarette or drink coffee downtown!
Over 95% of all government (local, city, county, state, plus senators and congressmen sent to DC) of Utah are Mormon. Good luck getting any kind of progressive or diversity-oriented discussion going on in Utah politics; all non-Mormons have no voice in Utah government.
At job interviews for private industry in Utah, you will be asked what (Mormon) ward you belong to, and whether you have gone on a Mormon (i.e. conversion) mission to another country yet. You will be asked if you smoke, drink, or have coffee. If you don't give the right answers, you won't get the job. You soon learn to judge immediately in your dealings whether the person you're talking to is Mormon or non-Mormon. If they're Mormon and you're non, you mentally give up and move on to the next task of the day because you realize that they've figured out you're a non and are ignoring whatever you say because it's coming from "someone with different [i.e. lesser] values."
In most of Utah, you cannot buy real beer, but must by "special" beer with limited alcohol content, and then only on weekdays, because it's illegal to sell on weekends. When Salt Lake mayor Rocky Anderson recently campaigned to relax some of the alcohol-related laws in Salt Lake City in anticipation of the Olympics, the radio waves and print industry were loaded down with Mormon-church-sponsored controversy about how "we should show the world just what moral living is" -- a kind of "we'll convert those nasty French drunks" mentality. They took out billboards and paid for commercials. People made public service announcements explaining how "there is no such thing as responsible drinking."
If you have children, they will have no friends in school because the Mormon parents will not let your children play with them, because "they don't have the same values we have." It doesn't matter if you are Catholic, Anglican, Baptist, Buddhist, or Hare-Krishna, you and your children are considered to be under Satan's influence if you are not Mormon. God help you if you and your children are (*gasp*) agnostics, atheists, or simply not religious. You children may even be graded down in school or sent to the principal's office for refusing to participate in religious activity during school hours.
The only local independent paper of repute (The Salt Lake Tribune) is in the grips of battle right now with the Mormon church, which already owns the other major media outlets (including the most popular television stations in the area and the other major newspaper) and have worked out a back-room leverage deal to own the Tribune also, though there are (thank god) lawsuits going on here as well to try to keep the Tribune independent. Outcries from local non-Mormons are growing more and more faint as the Mormon church tightents its grasp on all public forums (even at the street-level, as mentioned at the very beginning of this post).
Of course, The Church[TM] says that the 2002 olympics will *not* be the "Mormon Olympics" but everyong living in Salt Lake City knows otherwise, and the media exclusivity of the olympic games fits perfectly with the track record of Bonneville International, owned by the church, owner of most local (discussion+competition verboten) media outlets.
Proof indeed. I live here. I don't need proof.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
I was told that the idea of the Olympic and the charter is to ensure that sport is available to everyone, or as many people as possible. By limiting the sources of information, the accessibility of sport is decreased and this is therefore against the olympic charter.
This was what I was told around 5 years ago.
The fact that the website runs IIS and is incompatible with Lynx says nothing about the character of the people who live in the state. Not everyone is an incompetent MCSE (I, for example, have written several useful projects).
Surely I will get moderated down for this post.
-nitrogen
A solution to the problem with music today
Don't take me too literally. While I think it is better than US coverage, that isn't saying much!
One thing I will personally never forgive Don McClean (a principle CBC sports personality) for is when he wasn't agressive enough (perhaps too Canadian?) to get the first interview with Donovan Bailey after the 100m 1996 Olympic final.
That, and the fact that while they might be less biased, doesn't mean that they aren't biased at all...
The site looks fine in Opera too, although it doesn't natively run if FreeBSD (although FreeBSD can run Linux executables, so that isn't really a problem). Also, I don't like running any program that I can't compile myself, and I especially don't like that built-in banner ad that is there all the time. Does it go away if I register my copy?
The oldest machine I have ever used Mozilla on is a Pentium II, but it ran decently on that, and you can pick those up for around US$100 these days. I don't know how well it handles on anything slower from personal experience. On my Pentium III 500MHz with 192MB of RAM (a good system, but by no means the fastest around anymore) it runs with no noticable delay.
Best Slashdot comment ever
Perhaps that was a bit over the top on my part, but I do get tired of hearing ``Site foo.com doesn't work on such-and-such browser! There is a whole 200 people using such-and-such browser! Sure, we could use something that would work, but we shouldn't have to!'' The site looks fine in Mozilla, it looks fine in Opera, and frankly that is a lot more cross-browser compatibility than many corporate websites today.
Best Slashdot comment ever
parent comment contains an indirect goatse.cx... test it, and then moderate accordingly.
Always been a two-year schedule since the Winter Olympics were started, as far as I know. Only stopped for the war(s). Of course, the Summer-to-Summer is still four years, but there's a Winter Games in between...
"The weak are always anxious for justice and equality. The strong pay no heed to either." - Aristotle
I tend to have Konq and mozilla open at the same time. Though I tend to perfer konq most of the time because mozilla leaves horizontal artifacts when you scroll and it crashes more... I don't have time to be religous about my browser.
After turning them back on, I decided that I would check how well the page works on my cell phone (WAP, baby yeah!). And again, it is shocking. There are millions of poor people in the third world whose only internet access is through cell phones. How are they to find out the glittery goings on on the website?
Again, to reiterate this: Frankly, im shocked.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
I thought that was +5 funny to be quite honest. That is some of the most entertaining drivel i have seen in a while.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
If I recall correctly, at inet2001 there was a panel about web site catering for disable people. The Sydney Olympic web site was named for going against IOC rules and Australian laws that specify that such public web site should cater for people with disabilities. I think some associations sued the IOC on the subject but it was too late.
The issue was particulary bad knowing that after the olympics there are the para-olympics
I don't know where the Salt Lake 2002 web site stands on this issue and if it goes against IOC rules and US laws...
Franck