I am happy to see the Western Carolinian online. I wrote for the paper from ’87-90 and was an editor from 89-90, so it was with a sense of nostalgia that I tried to check it out.
Unfortunately virtually everything I tried to click on resulted in a request for me to register. Bad move. Most alumni will want to cruise in, read a few items and cruise out. They do not want to take the time and effort to give up personal info.
Yes, I am a grumpy curmudgeon, but I don’t like giving up personal info needlessly. I certainly don’t like to take the time to login and try to remember an oh-so-secret, randomly-generated, mixed-case, not-in-the-dictionary, alpha-AND-numeric, oh-my-God-I-can’t-even-change-it password.
The absolute ONLY time I’m willing to hand over my personal information is if I am getting something worthwhile in return. For instance, my.yahoo.com lets me have a customized view of their content in exchange for logging in. That’s fine. Simply getting access to read articles is not good enough.
I finally relented and registered simply so I could have access to the letter to the editor page… I couldn’t even write in to complain without registering. Ouch.
I tried the “Contact Us” menu item at the top of the page, but that just took me to a “General Info” page that did not include an email address.
Looks like you guys are doing a good job with the paper, but I do wish you would ease up on the Big Brother aspects of the website.
Jeff AmmonsClass of ’90
