NY Times says: Stop Clicking!

I've mentioned before (Give Me Back My Mouse) that I have some sort of obsessive clicking/mousing disorder when I read text on the web, and how it irritates me when newfangled ajax-y sites pop up stuff unexpectedly when you idly mouse around.  This week the New York Times has taken a big leap forward in irritating its web readers.  Now if you double-click on any word in an article it (slowly) brings up a big honking window with a definition (and some ads -- probably the real reason for this "feature").

The good news (for me) is that it appears I'm far from the only person with this problem.  The Grammar Police blog is heading up the campaign, with a spiffy graphic and an excellent rant:

Okay, nytimes.com, we need to have a talk. The "contextual dictionary," if that's what you're calling it, isn't cute or clever. It's not helpful. It's just a pain. The New York Times may be the paper of record, but I'm not putting up with a pop-up record for every word I double click.

Oh, I double-click words—and how. I'm a habitual screensifter. When I'm reading something on the screen, I click, double-click, drag, and highlight words. Any and all words, whole blocs of text, I don't care. Idly but mercilessly, and according to rules of symmetry and aesthetics so sure and precise I won't detail them now, I highlight and grab and drag sentences, even whole paragraphs, anywhere I damn well please. If I want to just nervously click on words, that's what I do.

But the NYT wants to ruin my games—and worse still, prevent me from reading at all. I'll be the first to admit that screensifting is an obsessive–compulsive disorder (and probably a genetically inherited trait for which I'm not to blame), but nevertheless, there it is, absolutely unavoidable and necessary to the process of reading the digital fishwrap.

Read the rest here: Grammar.police.

(via Get Satisfaction)

Comments

[annoyed reader]

So I am not the only one! God Damn nytimes...as much as I like the paper, I think I am going to stop going to their web-site...with that annoying mini-screen on the top asking me to register and that pompus question-mark every time I highlight..STOP IT NYTIMES