Frequently asked questions about the new STLtoday
Thanks for visiting our FAQ about the new STLtoday. We hope the answers below help clear up any questions you have about the site. But if not, there’s contact info listed below — and we encourage you to post your comments on the bottom of this page. And don’t forget to see the video tour of the news site here.
UPDATE: Here’s an update on the progress we made today on addressing some the concerns you raised (and we noticed) on the site redesign. Now, back to your regularly scheduld FAQ….
Why did you redesign STLtoday?
Frankly, we had some spring cleaning to do. STLtoday has grown a lot in the past few years, with lots of new features, more content and more interactivity. We had to reorganize, dust off some hidden gems and get rid of some junk. The time was right. Our last major redesign was in late 2002. Subsequent upgrades and improvements helped - but we needed a major change.
The reasons? There were several.
1) Ease of reading and navigating. With so much content on STLtoday, we needed to rethink how readers navigate the site — and we needed to make it easier. We’ve added several features to improve the navigation. We also wanted to air out the pages a little to make them a little easier on the eyes and to help establish a better hierarchy of information.
2) Highlight the community. We’re amping up the opportunities for you to voice your opinion, share your photos, videos and ideas throughout our entire site. We want to make it easier for people like you to tell us what you think about the latest news, our coverage and to share your interests and life with us and the St. Louis community.
3) Breaking news. With this redesign of the website, we’re also redesigning how our newsroom works — even how it’s physically arranged — to make the web a higher priority. We’ll be posting more updates throughout the day, around the clock and earlier than ever before. So be sure to check back regularly throughout the day because the stories and features will be constantly updating and changing. We are going to focus on, not only the most important breaking news, but also looking out for your interests — for instance, leading up to the weekends, we’ll be highlighting the best events you can go and enjoy; around lunchtime we’ll showcase cool places to eat; and when major news breaks, we’ll blow out the entire top of our homepage to give you the fastest, most engaging and comprehensive information about our local community.
4) Expanded content. STLtoday has grown a lot in the past few years — and so has our audience. We produce, and you expect, more video, more audio, more slideshows and more interactivity. We were busting our britches trying to squeeze in all the new features. Now, we can better display it, and more easily help you find it.
What are the most important changes in this redesign?
1) Better navigation. We’ve improved the navigation throughout the site. You may have already noticed the “drop-down” navigation across the top of every page of the site. Point your mouse at “news,” for example, and and entire menu of options from the news channel will pop before your eyes. From there, you can easily scoot directly to Bill McClellan’s column, or to your favorite blog or news section. You may also notice that there are several ways to get to different topics; we’re doing our best to let you get around with as few barriers as possible.
2) Improved readability. We’ve softened the colors and opened up more white space on most of the pages. We’ve also changed the fonts for our headline and body type to make them easier to read.
3) “The Belt.” Scroll about halfway down most of our section fronts and the STLtoday home page and you’ll see a feature we fondly refer to as “The Belt.” It’s a strip of 12 “online extras,” special features we want our readers to able to find easily. Watch for those to change regularly.
4) Today’s paper. Toward the top of every page on the site you’ll find these words: “Find it in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.” That link will take you to a list of stories from the current day’s newspaper. So, for instance, if you want to send a story to a friend, just click on that and you’ll find the entire contents of the print paper organized by section and page.
5) New channels. Regular readers may notice the new “Multimedia” and “Interact” channels on STLtoday. We hope that’ll help you find some of the web-specific content we’re producing in the Post-Dispatch newsroom — and that you’re sharing with fellow readers.
What’s the best way to navigate STLtoday now?
Get to know the drop-down navigation across the top of every page on the site. Mouse over a channel name (i.e. news or sports, etc.) and a menu of options will pop up. You’ll be able to go directly to another section of the site, or zip directly to a specific column, blog, forum or other feature on the site.
Play around with the tabs that you’ll find on many of the pages. You’ll see on the sports pages, for example, that you may be able to flip quickly from Bernie Miklasz’s latest column to Bryan Burwell’s.
Note the “most popular” boxes that you’ll find on many of our pages, including the home page. That gives you a peek inside the mind of readers: Which stories did they click on the most, or e-mail to a friend most often?
You’ll find those boxes on most of our story pages, too.
I love/hate the design; who will listen?
Change can be difficult. We get it. So if there’s something we’ve just completely missed, we want to hear about it. You can comment on here (see the comment form at the bottom of this page) and read other readers’ comments; or send an e-mail to sitehelp@stltoday.com.
And, hey, if you like the changes, you’re welcome to tell us that, too!
Something just doesn’t….uh, look right about the new site. What’s up?
You know, it’s absolutely possible that some things in your browser look a little, shall we say, askew. We’re happy to hear about those, of course, so please let us know. But another thing to consider is this: Our site is designed to look best when you’re using Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 2 as your web browser. Those are the most current version of those browsers. If you want to download them, click the links.
How do I find stories that ran in the Post-Dispatch newspaper?
Toward the top of every page on the site you’ll find these words: “Find it in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.” That link will take you to a list of stories from the current day’s newspaper.
Where are funeral notices and news obituaries?
Obits are available in the top navigation if you roll your mouse over news, then select “Obits.” Also, At the bottom of every page on the site you’ll find quick links to some important and popular features. There’s a link to “obituaries” there. That takes you to the page of paid funeral notices from the Post-Dispatch. From that page, you’ll also find a link to the news obituaries written by reporters in the Post-Dispatch newsroom and the Associated Press.
What hasn’t changed?
There’s a lot that’s the same. We haven’t taken away any of the content we did the day before the site was redesigned. All the features you’re used to finding in news, sports, entertainment, lifestyle and business are still available.
Where’s the stuff that was in earlier editions of the newspaper?
Remember that link we talked about earlier, the one that says “Find it in today’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.” Well, you can find links to the stories in the previous seven day’s worth of the Post-Dispatch, too. Look for the list of previous days in the top right column of that page.
How about searching the Post-Dispatch archives?
Check the bottom of every page for a list of quick links. You’ll find it there.
What’s the “Interact” channel all about?
Interact is a new channel on STLtoday designed to highlight your photos, videos, thoughts on news stories and community participation. For example, hundreds of readers contribute new captions to each week’s Punch Line cartoon by R.J. Matson. We wanted to be able to highlight R.J.’s cartoons and your contributions better.
Interact is also the new home of the editorial page features — editorials, letters, and commentaries. Why? Because those opinion-based features lend themselves well to reader interaction — and we want to encourage the dialog between our staff and all the readers.
What’s the “Multimedia” channel all about?
Increasingly, the Post-Dispatch’s journalists are using more video, audio, photo slideshows, games, animations and interactive databases and maps to report the news. The Multimedia channel gives us a place to showcase some of the best of that work — from serious, multi-day multimedia projects such as Free to Flee — a project investigating felons ability to evade the law — to fun and entertaining multimedia pieces such as “The Dead Quiz” — about scary movies. This channel takes reporting and storytelling to a new level.
What’s that big orange logo at the bottom of all the pages?
That big orange logo can save you lots of time if you surf the web often — it’s the universal logo for RSS. You’d know a stop sign without the words, right? Well, this is a universal symbol for “RSS feeds.” RSS stands for “really simple syndication” and gives readers the chance to subscribe to specific types of stories that interest you as soon as their published. You won’t need to check the website everyday, we’ll let you know when we publish new content! Click the icon and read more about RSS or watch this video.
What’s the deal with the strip of pictures in the middle of the home page?
Scroll about halfway down most of our section fronts (and the STLtoday home page) and you’ll see a feature we fondly refer to as “The Belt.” It’s a strip of 12 “online extras,” special features we want our readers to able to find easily. Watch for those to change regularly. Click the arrows on either side of The Belt to scroll to the next set of four items.
What happened to religion coverage?
All our top-flight religion coverage is still there. Technically, we’ve moved it from “news” to “life & style,” but you can find it from either section, using that spiffy drop-down navigation we mentioned earlier. Don’t forget to check out our new blog (we just started it a couple of weeks ago) called “Civil Religion,” featuring voices from a variety of faith traditions around the St. Louis area.
What happened to the world and national news pages?
Over the years, we’ve noticed that STLtoday.com readers respond mostly to local news — but we know national and world news is also important to readers. We consolidated the coverage of national and world news onto one page, pointing to the top headlines around the globe. We’ve also added a new feature by creating regular photo galleries of images from around the world and national news events.
Why are there so many photos?
If an image is worth a thousand words, we have a gazillion — because they’re peppered all over the site. With this redesign, we’ve reworked how we create and share photo galleries. We’re going to be producing many, many more photo galleries on a daily basis.
We’re also going to be regularly creating new photo galleries from:
- iParty event and party photos from the social scene around town.
- News photos from around the world.
- Sports photos from around the world.
- Celebrity and entertainment photos from around the world.
And we’ll still keep producing photo galleries from events like Cards games to May Day, as we always have.
With the new galleries, there’s also of new functionality you might appreciate — from the ability to quickly e-mail photos to friends, to the ability to purchase prints on every Post-Dispatch staff produced image.
We’ve know there’s many of you out there who love viewing photos as much as we do and we have a new photo blog called PICTURES where the Post-Dispatch’s photo staff will talk about and share stories behind the visuals in the paper and on the web site.
There’s a lot of you who also enjoy taking photos as much as we do, so we’ve highlighted our iWitness photo galleries throughout the entire site so you can more easily view and share your photos.
Why didn’t you fix your site search?
Good question. We know it needs work. Fixing it is harder than you might think, but we’re working on it. Thanks for your patience.
Why would I want to register with your site?
There’s a bunch of reasons. Maybe you frequent our blogs and love to comment on them. Registering means you don’t have to deal with typing random letters and numbers from that pesky “anti-spam” image that’s required if you’re not registered. Posting comments in the forums requires registering. You’ll have easier access to our contests and you can sign up for our newsletters, including the popular 3 O’Clock Stir, the daily Cardinals Update and more.
Where is weather?
That hasn’t changed! You can still find a link to the weather in the upper right corner of the page. Or go directly to STLtoday.com/weather.
What is the Marketplace?
It’s a great place to buy stuff. Visit the Marketplace to see Post-Dispatch newspaper ads, review special advertising sections, get ideas about local professional services and buy Post-Dispatch photos and other merchandise.
Where are Classified Ads/Bargain Box?
The classified index is now at the top of the new Marketplace page. From that index, you can click on Bargain Box as well as other categories of classified ads.
How do I contact a reporter?
Look at the “Contact Us” link in the bottom of every page. That’ll drive you to our help page, where you can find contact information for STLtoday, the Post-Dispatch and the Suburban Journals.
How do I write a letter to the editor?
There’s links on the Letters to the Editor page, the Editorial page and the Interact page. But honestly, here’s a tip: Just e-mail letters@post-dispatch.com.
I want to place a classified ad/a display ad on STLtoday/an ad in the Post-Dispatch. How do I do that?
Check out the bottom of every page again. You’ll find a “help” link. On that page, you’ll find a big, bold header that says “Advertising.” That’s links to all the information you’ll need.
(4 votes, average: 2 out of 5)
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I read STLtoday every day from my new home in NYC. I have to say - the new layout is NOT a good thing. Its unnattractive to the eye, looks more like People magazine than a news site. I am very disappointed, and might discontinue my reading. I can’t stand how it looks