Changes to international pages (3)
Post categories: BBC News website
| 15:56 UK time, Friday, 19 June 2009
It's taken a little while to go through your comments and questions about the way we present content for audiences inside and outside the UK (see previous posts here and here). Our project team has helped me by answering a number of them below.
On the wider issue of being able to choose access to the UK/international front pages, we're continuing to look into possible options to address the concerns that so many of you have expressed.
Regarding the other issues raised, then:
Individual sections and features
We have added a UK Your Money section and a link through to the index on the international Business page after listening to the feedback of Geoff K and others. In addition, we have included Economy and Companies sections with headlines.
Some of you said that you want to see UK topics in the Have Your Say section, and we will be adding more top UK debates to the international index.
There was some feedback about fewer Entertainment and Sport stories on the international pages. The BBC Sport pages are still your main destination for all the coverage you could access before, and more UK-focused entertainment stories can be found on our international Entertainment index.
We had some comments from people who could no longer find UK political coverage on the international news pages. Our political coverage from the UK, and all the same stories, can be found in the UK section of the navigation bar on the left, under the UK Politics subcategory.
On a problem raised by "mikedbrit" of not being able to access video that was available before, via the audio/video section on the UK version of the site: unfortunately, we are unable to use the licence fee to fund distribution of full programmes in high-quality video to international users (we do of course offer many news clips across all sections, as well as live coverage during special events), or to sustain the existing narrowband offering that some of you may have been accessing. This means that the narrowband access - in particular to the One, Six and Ten O'Clock news bulletins - is being withdrawn.
"Giant_of_Nancledra" raised the issue of wanting to view a live parliamentary video stream. This coverage is available via the iPlayer and as such is not accessible outside the UK. However, we plan to later in the year launch Democracy Live which will offer live and on-demand video from all the main UK institutions and the European parliament. Users - both in the UK and around the world - will be able to search the video for representatives and issues that are relevant to them. These changes are not related to the editions switch we made last week.
"LadderEdge" asked where s/he could find BBC coverage of the Digital Britain report. You can find a summary of the report and links to other BBC stories here: At a glance: Digital Britain.
Mobile users
We are aware that there are problems affecting Blackberry business subscribers seeing the wrong edition and we are working to try to resolve this issue. There is an ongoing issue with the Opera mini-browser which we are also investigating with our technical team.
AOL UK subscribers
Some of you who use the AOL browser are being routed through international servers and are therefore being served the international edition. We are working with AOL to resolve this issue and expect it to be fixed shortly.
Advertising revenue
There has been some response that this is about serving more advertising. While commercial placements were a consideration in this switch, the changes are not about directing readers to pages with more advertising or targeting adverts at expats as "BootsDaRov" suggested. Adverts were displayed on the UK version of news viewed by the international audience before the change.
Access to the UK headlines page
Some users, including "crosbycat", said that they were unable to click through to the UK news page. We presume that this refers to the link at the top of the News From The UK headlines box, which for a short time was not clickable, but now is.
Postcode field on the feedback form
A small number of people found problems entering their postcode into the feedback form. The form appears to be working correctly, but if you are still experiencing problems with this, please send an email to SiteVersionsFeedback@bbc.co.uk with the subject field "Postcode error", and we will investigate further.
Thanks again for all your comments, and just to reiterate the beginning of this post, we're continuing to look into possible options regarding the wider issues you've discussed.
Update (17:40, 3 July): There's a new post answering some of your concerns here.Steve Herrmann is editor of the BBC News website.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~52~RS~)
Comments
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Dear Steven
Stop this utter nonsense and give us the option to switch between editions.
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Nothing new then...
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Trying to think of something constructive to say, but all I can come up with is a sigh of utter despair.
Bye then Beeb, it's been long time coming, but you've finally pushed me away.
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I thought something had finally happened when I logged on to the website just before Steve posted above and got the UK front page which as an AOL user I have been barred from for a week. About time.
However I do still have a few problems which may or may not be connected to AOL, I'm not sure. Random pages which I try to open present me with a white screen and a server error message. So at present my site is not fully functional, better, but not perfect which it once was.
I know the pages are there since I can access them via Internet Explorer (which I detest using) so I suspect it's connected to AOL.
A fix for these and you will have a contented subscriber back again Steve, pretty please :)
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"On the wider issue of being able to choose access to the UK/international front pages, we're continuing to look into possible options to address the concerns that so many of you have expressed."
I have an idea. A possible option is to return the site to the way it was before - with an option to access the UK version or the international version on the front page.
I appreciate the time you have eventually taken to address the other problems (other posters will have to comment on whether or not these involve more clicks) but to my mind you have STILL not given a satisfactory answer as to why it is not possible to choose between versions. Why is it taking so long to address this? It is the main point addressed in over 800 posts after all. You have the technology! Or did you bin it completely when you made the changes the other week?
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Personally, sir, you have totally missed my point. I never EVER referred to Digital Britain.
Above, you write.
""LadderEdge" asked where s/he could find BBC coverage of the Digital Britain report."
No I didn't.
Get your facts right.
I can get every piece of information regarding "Digital Britain" from other sources, should I wish so to do.
I did ask one question, about a specific story, merely giving it as an example of a story that was available elsewhere, but no longer available to 'international' readers.
But you got it wrong.
You assumed something- which is very dangerous.
By its very nature you are creating a problem.
Open it up. Let US decided what to see.
What I want to be able to see is exactly that which the UK population sees. This is so I can decided upon what facts they are making their decisions.
Haven't you made an awful lot of work, needlessly?
Haven't you made an awful lot of people (who used to be pro-BBC) very unhappy?
Keep it simple. Simply publish the stories, let us decide what to see when and HOW? (Rights limitations excepted).
I now note that UK readers are now 'number 1'. (we are "/2/"). So what can they no longer see, that they could, once?
DO they know that they are second-class citizens, who can't be trusted to make their own minds up?
DO they realize that they might not be able to read everything?
This is pathetic.
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Whilst it's nice to finally read a response and to see that some of the issues raised are being addressed, some of the fundamentals remain.
The big one, in my mind, is the clear editorial difference between how UK news is presented to 'UK' and 'international' audiences and how the ability for users to choose their preference is gone.
And judging by the comments here, there's a sizeable number of people (like me) who live and work in the UK but get the International version on their office PC because their companies' web access is routed by international servers.
These may be bigger and more complicated to solve - but while you work out a solution for these issues that also fits with your long-term direction for the site, why not listen to the 1,000-or-so unhappy customers who feel strongly enough about this to say so on these pages, and roll back to the radio button options?
Just a thought...
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I agree it seems like they are doing a lot of unnecessary work just to avoid the main SIMPLE issue.
Let the users choose which home page they see, like it was before the change.
This request from 100's of users still has not been addressed, what is he problem?
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#5 stuham
"but to my mind you have STILL not given a satisfactory answer as to why it is not possible to choose between versions"
Nor to mine. The BBC now have a list [imperfect, but they're obviously working on it] of IP adresses which are to be considered "onshore" and thus qualify to receive iPlayer video and no advertising. This is fair enough, but having myself developed multi-lingual "wrappers" for international websites, there is no valid reason to confuse the wrapper with the page content and the refusal to re-introduce the radio button to switch between editions is either plain cussedness on the part of the BBC web developers or for some other reason we've still not been told.
Also, re Mr Herrmann's "we are unable to use the licence fee to fund distribution of full programmes in high-quality video to international users (we do of course offer many news clips across all sections, as well as live coverage during special events), or to sustain the existing narrowband offering that some of you may have been accessing", nobody I'm aware of was suggesting provision of high-quality video for expats other than on payment of a fee or the licence. What was being suggested is that the existing narrowband offering provided an essential lifeline to and window on the polity of the UK. Furthermore, with the current UK government only now coming to terms with the provision of "broadband for all" the withdrawal of narrowband services is a dimunition of service for some of the most remote and poorest "onshore" licence payers, who probably cannot spare the bandwidth to participate in these threads.
Version 2 of the changes are a little less awful than version 1, but all this could and should have been done in a public or "registered users only" beta with a great deal less anguish and loss of goodwill.
Post or reactive moderation for all except CBeebies, please!
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@7 Completely agree.
I do appreciate the time you're spending on this Steve, and that nothing is as simple it might seem, however the crux of the matter is that people want to be able to view the news using the British version to get a British perspective. It's an added bonus to be able choose between an internationally-focused (or perspective-based) news site and a British perspective-based news site.
We know that all the same material is available for both, but I would like to be able to have the articles organised and given due priority based on what's important to the UK based audience. And there is about 900 people who have taken the time to respond who agree. (International and UK based people).
As I've said previously - and I would imagine it is the same for the majority of foreign based users - I come to the BBC news site for a British perspective of the news, that is your Unique Selling Point - ok not unique, but certainly a distinction.
Therefore if choosing between the two versions is so difficult, then just get rid of the international version altogether. Of course I'd prefer to keep both views for the viewers who appreciate the International version (I don't personally use it - until forced upon) But the British view is much more important, and currently I don't have the option to view the site with it.
Please.
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Steve, I have to say I was impressed with the eventual detailed explanation of what is being done. This is a much better approach to address your customers' concerns, and it goes to show that you have read many, if maybe misinterpreted some, of the 1000 or so posts.
Having experience in forums and web-meetings, both socially and professionally, I know that this is representative, but only a percentage, of the audience that has likely sat up and taken notice of this, but so far avoided getting directly involved by writing or speaking out.
Following your response, and your assurance that some of the wider issues are being discussed with your project team, I look forward to the next update. We are the end users, and as such, stakeholders too. It's nice to see that you have redressed that; I think a lot of people here were starting to lose faith, myself included, that the BBC would even post a half decent response. Thank you, and keep up the momentum.
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I appreciate the amount of work in trying to work around so many issues (which in my mind would have been easily solved by putting back the button), but I still think you are missing the point.
The UK site is aimed at the UK public, the international site caters for those outside of the UK. BUT, a lot of those outside the UK actually prefer to see the news that is aimed at the UK audience. Simply because, that is the unique UK perspective of the news. Likewise, a lot of those inside the UK would like to see the international page, because of its wider scope.
Why don't you get this? Why can't you see that the button actually makes your site more attractive? Simply because of this national v international aspect.
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Steve, I hope that you have noted that we are all polite, "Please" appears many times.
We are not unreasonable people.
We are on your side.
"The British View is much more important".
Let us chose.
"Please"
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Still nothing for those in the UK who want to see the BBC's international take on the important news of the moment, yes we know that we can click-through to country/region pages but that doesn't give us a feel for what the BBC puts on it's 'Frontpage'. Surely it's not beyond the ability of the BBC to serve generic banners for BBC website content/services as a default 'place holder', serving adverts instead if the requesting IP is a non UK allocated number, other websites manage to do this after all.
It does just seem that the original charge, that the BBC has just opted for what is the easiest for them, still sticks...
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I wonder how many others have tried to post comments to these threads which have not appeared.
Some questions have been addressed, which is good, but several fundamental issues remain. For instance, what hope is there for those of us in the UK using "Johnny Foreigner" IP addresses? Why implement a change that removes choice and appears to discriminate against users based on assumed geographical location?
Why have they made a change which reduces the functionality for those with non-UK IP addresses who really are foreign residents? It seems that many come here specifically because of the UK content, denying them that seems to be a rather narrow-minded step.
And how would the BBC report this if it was implemented in China or Iran?
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I give up...I'll let my MP deal with it.
You just don't get it Steve, do you? I'm a Brit who lives abroad (Think of abroad as being proxied through a foreign server). I don't want an 'International' view of things whenever I visit the site, I want a 'British' view. I don't want/need you to tell me what view you think I should be seeing. I'm old enough and ugly enough to decide that for myself.
So continue to jump through hoops to offer us something less than what we have before, I'm afraid I won't be around to see it. Thanks for ruining a once great site.
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Still no reason WHY you alledgedly HAD to make the changes.
An explanation, please.
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Glad to see there is some progress.
But for me, in Denver Colorado, please let me see the UK perspective news front page like it always was, with ability to see the weather in Birmingham, the local news and the headlines for Aston Villa FC... as if I still lived in Birmingham. It is a really important link to (old) home.
I would hardly have known about the MP expenses scandal if it was set up as it is now. That's because those things aren't as important to a truly 'international' audience. To me, and the hundreds of other ex-pats who have responded, they are.
I mean, what I liked was UK news - top of the page where you can immediately see what's important in UK with your own chosen regional perspective. Not halfway down after Iran and China.
Please!
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To quote John Simpson reporting from Iran.
".....but If you want to get to the BBC on line site, which is very popular in Iran, this is all you get..
a notice to say it's been blocked."
Sounds horribly familiar.
Please, Steve. Fix it.
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Ah! - so we create a third Thread instead of continuing one of the others.
This will help to keep the number of complaints from individual threads down.
Don't believe in consiracy theories myself, and although I would love to see the original 'options' re-isnstated, I have just been lurking here to see how this matter was going to be handled by the BBC - pretty poorly so far.
BTW does anyone outside the UK know if you can access this RSS Feed ? :
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/front_page/rss.xml
Might be a useful way of knowing what is posted to the UK Front Page without actually accessing it.
For my 2d worth it IS about the adverts stupid..... but they prefer to 'redact' the reasons - sounds familiar - but then if you are outside the UK you might not appreciate to topicallity of the choice of verb due of course to the limit on access.
Best to all
Copy Kept
p.s. Just noticed I have broken one of the rules I was taught school - don't over use the same word - in this case "access" - but I guess that is what this is all about isn't it?
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I do miss the privilege of reading the british perspective of the news.
Over the years the BBC has been an icon in the news world that allowed us to get a glimmpse of the "british perspective".
It seems like we are slowly being forced to read what is now called "generic international news" or forced to read what someone decided is fit for outside comsumption.
I wish We could turn the tide back
Thank you
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17. At 6:26pm on 19 Jun 2009, Tengsted wrote:
"Still no reason WHY you alledgedly HAD to make the changes.
An explanation, please."
Sorry but that is incorrect, it's quite obvious from what Steve said that the problem is funding (it costs the BBC money, paying for bandwidth, to serve each and every request for a page or other content), I suspect that the problem would not be so serious if the BBC wasn't offering so much HQ audio and video content now. The BBC website is obviously not immune from the cuts that are sweeping other areas of the BBC more publicly...
Still don't accept the changes though, it's been a bit like throwing a hand-grenade into a lake to catch one fish for supper, far to much collateral damage has occurred!
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Dear Mr Herrmann,
Thanks very much for providing some answers to our many questions. I do appreciate that you have responded as I requested with specific answers to specific questions. I may not like the answers, but it does make this blog/comment deal actually worthwhile. I kind of figured that the news broadcasts were gone for the reasons you give, and that I would not be getting them back - what irked, and you have now fixed, was your previous statements that "all" the content we previously had access to was still available for the price of a few extra clicks, when this was clearly not true. Being told things you know not to be correct - no matter how valid the underlying reason for the change - rubs people very hard the wrong way. I guess I will just have to use a proxy server to get my news fix - Oops - hush my mouth!
A couple of questions you have yet to address, but which it would be great if you did, are:
1) How about some form of pay access to the Iplayer? I would be prepared to pay quite a lot for access to the programs that I miss like Panorama. There may be good reasons why this is not an option, but I would like to hear them.
2) I still don't understand why you cannot allow the folks in the UK a button to allow them to see the international page if that is what they would like? From the posts of others, it would seem that this would be valuable to them, and I don't see any potential licensing issues as you have explained them that would preclude that. No good for me, but it would at least make some folk happy...
Again, thanks for your post,
Mike
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As someone wrote in the last set of comments if you missed it, you can still get the UK version of the front page at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/default.stm
I currently have this one booked-marked, so please please please don't remove it BBC.
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JohnPrince, for your information, this post would appear to be about number 959
The subject has not changed.
Has it, Steve?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
As has previously been mentioned the URLs
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ifs_news/hi/ and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/
show the appropriate homepages.
Would it not be easier in the short term simply to have an extra "UK Front Page" and "International Front Page" link down the bottom of the navigation bar? Or is the removal of the switcher part of some major rejigging of CPS that we're not yet privvy to?
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why am I being pre-modded all of a sudden? I've had an account for 6 years and have left loads of comments on this blog :S
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Of course, the BBC complains bitterly when anyone blocks its signals or its website - as it should. Censorship is bad. Of course, thanks to these latest website changes, I now have to use a proxy server to access the proper BBC News website in English *or* in Chinese. Congratulations.
It looks like BBC News has switched its priorities away from serving the British public - ex pats or not, a lot of us are still British people, and ones for whom the BBC is an important lifeline, helping us feel connected to our home country.
If it's a matter of funds, well, non-UK site visitors already had advertisements, and we didn't get much in the way of rich media before. Maybe it's time to go asking the FCO for another handout?
Anyway, I thought the official excuse was "technical issues", or has that changed after people saw right through it? It's hard to keep up between three separate blog postings and probably pushing a thousand comments.
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Steve,
From reading your post, what it seems you have had to do is add lots of UK bits to the international site. Why not just return to what we had before, as UK focused site and an international focused site, and letting people choose which one they wanted? The change you made has been a disaster, and no amount of tinkering is changing that. I don't want to have to always view the BBC site using a proxy server as it's a pain, but if you don't change, I will have to and you will lose advertising revenue. As it is, I am having to go to newspaper websites to get decent UK news and sport and they (until recently) didn't provide as good a service as the BBC.
Please change this back.
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It is positive that attempts are gradually being made to sort out the problems.
@ 22: Yes, the issue is funding in respect of video content (shame Mr. Herrmann wasn't up front about this in the first place), but this is NOT an explanation for the removal of choice of versions.
Geolocation can certainly be used to block access to those video resources which the BBC wishes to specifically restrict to UK users (for funding and licensing reasons), even though some people actually in the UK will unfortunately still lose out.
The question which still remains to be answered though is why it is REALLY necessary to prevent non-UK users from accessing the full UK version. I hope that a solution (just put the radio button back?) will indeed be implemented very soon.
The links to the front pages posted here can be bookmarked but unfortunately as soon as you click on a link on the page you can't get back there easily.
Suggestion: Let people choose which version they want as before and introduce password protected access to the site for UK TV license holders abroad who can then see no ads and IPlayer content as well. Annoying adverts (yes, even the google ones - has anyone at the BBC actually checked to see what rubbish is being served via the adservers on the news pages) are a small price to pay for access if you are outside the UK and we have been used to these for a while. Most browsers can block them anyway if one is so inclined.
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Steve,
You're not related to Max Mosely, are you?
What both of you should remember is:
"If it ain't broke, leave it alone!"
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I'm an expat Brit, and I'm not happy with the changes; *I* want to control my experience and what I see. The old user-selectable 'UK' or 'International' versions were much more useful, IMHO.
I've been following the responses on the 'The Editors' pages, and I'm very disappointed to see that, neither there nor anywhere on the BBC site (that I can find), do you explain how VPN & proxies can be used to make any user appear as though they are located in the UK. It's not hard, and is the obvious solution for both expat Brits, and UK residents with 'overseas' IP address ranges. I've found this is the only way I can access iPlayer, for instance.
In fact, in my opinion, the whole concept of using IP address to attempt to determine geographical location is so broken & bletcherous that you shouldn't be using it at all!
Please consider this very seriously.
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Finally the UK Home Page is back :)
I hate the International Version.
So thanks for fixing it BUT there was no need to break it in the 1st place.
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@22
No, it's not the reason, as we've been told that the content is still all available for all users, UK, or International.
So if its still there, its costing the BBC bandwidth. Unless of course, the future improvements that need these changes are to reduce the content, and increase the advertising to maximise income.
Quite why they're relying on advertising, when more users are using ad-blocking software is another thing.
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If the UK-only content is reserved for licence fee payers, why not open the licence to anyone who wants to pay ita significant source of revenue. I would pay a full licence for the ability to use i-Player.
Please consider this source of funds!
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One big problem with this detailed explanation.
If the BBC are going to the trouble of adding things like a link to "Your Money" and "selected" HYS articles - it must mean they have NO intention of bringing back the radio button for international users wanting to access the UK site.
Otherwise why would they bother?
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@35 (Tengsted): "we've been told that the content is still all available for all users, UK, or International."
Well, yes, we've been told that. But it wasn't true, was it? The UK Money and HYS have had to be added back in. And anyway, the point is not the content but the presentation. The heirarchy of stories is different between UK and International versions, and many people like being able to choose which heirarchy they see.
What we *still* haven't been told is why it was necessary in the first place, and why such a cack-handed method like IP location was used. I do not believe that there are technical issues involved, and won't until those technical issues are explained in a technical fashion.
If advertising is not involved, then it should still be possible to change the hierarchy of news items to UK-centric or international. If you need to serve advertising, use geolocation to decide which ads (or blank space) to serve; and to display a message about not showing UK-only video.
For what it's worth, I get the UK version at home and international at work. All ads are blocked on both machines, so you've achieved is to infuriate a UK bod who happens to work for an American company (one who is intelligent enough not to be frustrated by restricting video!)
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The idea that many have floated here of paying a fee to view I-player outside of the UK is likely to remain just that.An Idea. The only way the BBC would agree to this is if it is restricted to current affairs programmes such as Panorama and Newsnight. And sports programmes such as Inside Sport. I would be happy to pay for that myself. As expats, we all miss the quality shows the BBC produces and perhaps took for granted while in the UK. I just can't see BBC dramas and comedy shows being available to those of us outside the UK. No other network does it, so I don't see why the exception should be the beeb.
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I sent an email about this sometime ago and got a 'standard' reply but I still find this absolutely irritating and devoid of any sense.
I am a UK resident, pay the TV license but travel to and from Asia and live here for months at a time. However, I need to use up massive data amounts on my datacard to watch a video because of the annoying and frankly pointless adverts at the start and the now annoying and waste of time loading etc of Google alerts and expensive watches.
Ironically the story on the BBC website of the missing Air France jet a couple of weeks ago over the Atlantic had an inappropriate advert. It was from Singapore Airlines which was very prominent on the top of the page almost next to the Air France picture stating that the A380 first to fly to Paris!
All about money eh? I travel to countries that rely on the BBC (world service or web) but more and more are moving to CNN...I feel embarrassed but find many ex-BBC staff on the CNN channel so perhaps are not alone.
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Thanks, Beeb, for wasting my time to set up a membership to tell you that your "new and improved" website has lost me as an international reader. I found that my previous comments concerning access to the Magazine, Caption Comp, etc. weren't addressed, which makes me even more annoyed. Signing off from Canada.
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unfortunately, we are unable to use the licence fee to fund distribution of full programmes in high-quality video to international users (we do of course offer many news clips across all sections, as well as live coverage during special events), or to sustain the existing narrowband offering that some of you may have been accessing. This means that the narrowband access - in particular to the One, Six and Ten O'Clock news bulletins - is being withdrawn.
Sorry, but this makes no sense to me. The license fee could be used to fund full programs such as news bulletins on narrowband but not high-quality video? Why? I can't believe there isn't a way to grant access only to certain programs such as news bulletins provided on the I-player in HQ for international viewers as has been done in narrow-band.
I used to live in the UK and I still value being able to watch the UK news bulletins. It was provided in the past. Why can't it still be provided? Sorry Steve, but this really isn't good enough!
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Whilst I'm glad the links to Your Money and Have Your Say are (sort of) being restored, it still doesn't deal with the fundamental issues: -
1. I'm a consumer of BBC output - indeed my enjoyment of what the BBC offered has been heightened by living abroad (Australia in my case). I'm British, however. I have a vote in UK and European elections. Therefore, what happens at home is important to me. International news is less relevant.
2. I understand that I'm not directly funding the BBC living in Australia. Therefore, random ads on the site are/were a necessary evil that I accepted. I also understand the restrictions on iPlayer given the output although the debate over its range is interesting. I would say that while BBC Worldwide makes money, the fact is that its output over here is pretty poor. The soaps are between six months to two years behind (not that I watch them) and BBC Knowledge is running with Series 3 of the Apprentice. In this day and age, I can go on to numerous sites and download the content, which is why I cannot understand why the BBC doesn't open up the licence fee to non-UK residents for iPlayer access. In my case, I'm not going to dump UKTV and BBC Knowledge, however I digress.
The point Steve misses is that because of these changes, I now use a VPN and/or a proxy server, depending on the speeds I'm getting. I can now access iPlayer and I can read the News website UK version. Who benefits here? Not the BBC, who miss out on the ad revenue. The end service is more of an irritation to me that I am having to pay but at the end of the day, I'm subscribing to the service. I would also add that my visits to the site have diminished as I have sought alternative sources to the output.
I think the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the BBC believe that users who dip in to the content will offset the regulars who visit. That's fair enough if they believe that but in my opinion they will be mistaken.
The sad thing is that the BBC, for all its faults, is one British institution that is still respected worldwide. Why it would wish to drive people away from it is beyond me.
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This page here is currently being linked from both the UK and International versions of the News homepage, it seems.
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Hope Needlewoman isn't too disappointed when she logs on again and finds she is back to the International version. My experience is that it is a lottery whether I shall be in the UK or overseas each time I sign on.
Steve you say the AOL problem will be sorted "shortly". What does this mean? Hours, days, months or what? I am not holding my breath if the speed of response to the 900+ comments you have received so far is an indicator.
I am another of those contributors who registered only to comment on this issue.
I still don't understand why you can't go back to the version that worked well for most of us till you have properly tested the new version
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I still prefer the British version. I get it on Yahoo with no probs.
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While it is good to see that Mr. Herrmann is still alive and well and I appreciate his cosmetic exercise in responding to our postings, the fact remains that the answer to my and countless others' questions - WHY has this been done and WHY can it not simply and easily be undone? - remain wholly unanswered.
The only reasons I can think of are (a) IT ineptitude, and/or (b) an attempt to increase ad revenue. If this/these are the reason(s), please be honest enough with us to say so. If not, then what?
As others have said, if the BBC can not or will not respond properly at an operational level we have no option but to take our grievances to the Trust (which purports to represent the public) and to our elected representatives. How ridiculous, though, that we should have to resort to that.
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Dear Steve
I would like to think that I am not unintelligent but I have still to understand why the changes were made
I will paraphrase my question from thread 2, do you think you deserve to win WEBBY awards for this decision?
I don't think that you do
Regards
Ged
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I totally agree with tim_birch. Incredibly annoying, regressive and disappointing. Having just come back from Malaysia where I viewed - I must say - the greatly improved international edition; why why why can't I have the option of viewing it from the UK? Please give us your reasons for this sudden change. The UK edition is now worse in my view; I'm not interested in petty home news, I want a global perspective, right up front. I will seriously consider switching to CNN.
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Simple question Mr Herrmann
Why cannot I choose which version of the site I see, which existed until last week?
The adverts never bothered me (and frankly I've never clicked on any so its just fancy decoration as far as I am concerned), and the lack of video as well wasn't a big issue. I can view all 4 BBC channels (via paid cable) and I also have a UK TV licence back home.
Yet you have deemed under your aparthied system a foreigner and therefore force me to view US-centric news. This isn't what I wish for, or want. At least with the old version I could choose.
Basically why should British people outside the UK (or in many cases inside) be forced to use an International version of the site which gives them news that they don't want?
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I am an Isle of Man resident and have always used and valued the international version of the BBC website as an access point to the BBC's global journalism. The Isle of Man isn't part of the UK and as a result I have no interest at all in domestic UK politics - but unfortunately for the Isle of Man, its IP addresses are currently indistinguishable from UK IP addresses, so we now see only the UK version. I suppose it's the same for people in the Channel Islands... who are no doubt also now thinking about getting their international news elsewhere.
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Steve - a very detailed reply and one that I thank you for even if there are plenty of people on here who are happy to flame you for it. Why the people above can't deal with change, I'll never understand.
Thanks for doing a good job and keep it up.
To the rest of you: if you don't like the changes, either put up or shut up - continuous moaning just bores people.
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I had a look at CNN's website. You can choose between US news or International webpages, but that is to be expected in a country where people are very proud and patriotic about being American. America comes first and the choice to be first clearly recognised by CNN. I doubt it would ever dare make such a change to its site that would compel its overseas citizens to put the USA in second place.
In contrast the BBC gives me the feeling that my home country is nothing more than a commodity for its web designers to play with.
We are also a proud and patriotic people and this how our public service broadcaster treats us.
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@52
People can deal with change when it's needed.
When this change was implemented in such an ill-thought out way, do you really expect them to sit back and do nothing, especially when they've been told clear mis-truths (lies in other words)?
There are still answers to be had, such as just how long will it take for Opera to be UK-ised. So far all we know is that they are working on it. How long will it take? How long is a piece of string seems to be the answer currently.
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#52 Jordan D: You are entitled to your opinion of course but do let others share their opinions too. You will notice that hardly anybody agrees with you so maybe they have a point? Or do you think that people should simply accept all changes for the worse without (justified) comment? It has NOTHING to do with "dealing with change" as you put it.
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Please put the International page back the way it was. On that page I could see at a glance:
Top international items
Top UK items
Top Science items
Top Technology items
etc
Now I can only see 1 item from each of the UK regions - what might be a top item for Scotland may be well down the list for the UK but it now displaces more important stories from other regions.
It also erroneously gives equal weight to a "top" item in Scotland to top item from the entire Americas. Ludicrous!
I'm Scottish, so please, no accusations of my doing down Scotland.
Please put it back! I want a real International page.
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I've just had a response about the complaint I made and it still doesn't seem to get the point. Just because someone is abroad, doesn't mean they want to see the international pages, in the same way that just because someone is in the UK, doesn't mean they want to see the UK page.
This really is not a good change. Please let us know when you will be fixing this issue as it is very annoying.
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How is it that Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox can determine that I am a UK resident and give me access to the UK version of BBC, but the BBC seem unable to do so. If they can, surely the BBC can as well
Or am I missing something?
I want to get straight to the BBC site not via several other clicks
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"Some of you said that you want to see UK topics in the Have Your Say section, and we will be adding more top UK debates to the international index."
Good god man, why do you try to speak like a politician? People did not say they want to see UK topics in Have Your Say, they said they wanted to see the UK version of Have Your Say. Stop trying to put words in people mouths!
I see you are saying that you will have the problem fixed for people who use AOL. So let me see. Since AOL routes it's UK users through the US for some reason, does that mean that all the US AOL users will get the UK version when the browse the BBC web pages? It appears that this idea is a total shambles.
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While it is appreciated that you are continuing to respond to the comments here, you are still not really answering the question most people are asking:
Are you intending to put back the feature which enables us to choose between the UK version and the international version of the site? If not, why not?
"Continuing to look at possible options..." doesn't really cover it as without knowing what the options are it could mean anything.
Why not set the options out here, and get some feedback? Asking the audience *before* making the changes this time might be a good idea and save time and money all round.
If it helps, personally I favour a small radio button on the LHS with options to choose between the "UK version" and the "International version"...
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I just read comment No27 Hymagumba with two URL's one of which is for the UK version and the other is the International version. I could see both of them quite happily. So the BBC has paid for some software that can detect where an IP address is located and tried to impress us with it, when all we want is a button (which was previously there) to allow us to flip between versions. I am no web page programmer, but even I can do that. In fact I have made a simple web page which I have put on my desktop that allows me to go to either versions (I don't like using the shortcut utility in browsers). If the BBC wants, I can send it to them.
I now can access the UK version of the front page and Have Your Say, the International version of the front page and Have Your Say. As I have said I have made a small web page to allow me to access all the information easily (something it seems the BBC is unwilling to do) and all the information for this came from users of the BBC, not the BBC itself despite my requests. The BBC is shameful in this matter!
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Somehow the BBC wants to stubbornly market itself as a source for international news when all what the world really wants is the BBC remaining itself.
Mr Herrmann, it is really, really simple: I am not an UK citizen, but I visit the BBC News website because I am interested in news articles seen from the UK viewpoint. If I want international news, I have plenty of choices on the web in my native language, I just do not need the BBC for that.
Why is it so difficult for your web team to accept they're on the wrong track? Too much time invested already, too much money, too much hassle to come up with a new philosophy for the site?
We (your audience!) do not want the changes you have introduced to the website, doesn't this get through to you?
A reader's physical location on this planet does not reflect what he or she wants or expects to see on the BBC's website, how did you come up with such a misconception in the first place?
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This is awful. I work for a company with a mainland Europe HQ and our internet traffic is routed via there first, so the ability to select editions was essential for me and my UK colleagues (numbering several hundred and I'm sure we're not alone). Please, please reconsider this decision.
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@52 (Jordan D): "if you don't like the changes, either put up or shut up"
Not sure I understand that. We can't *do* anything other than complain.
The silence on why it's necessary to force people into one version or the other is deafening. Why can't we choose the story hierarchy we prefer? If the price is getting links to video which I can't play because I have a foreign IP address, so what?
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Echoing @63 (FatRunner).
I too work in Berkshire, England (yup - part of the United Kingdom but, when in the office, I am routed through international servers... Like so many of the posters here, I fail to understand why it was necessary to remove the radio button. It seems to me that even if you wanted to serve me adverts to gain some revenue based on my perceived location (this seems reasonable in moderation for BBC digital services, with UK and international audiences, by the way), it surely wouldn't be so hard to allow me the freedom to choose whether I wanted to perceive myself to be where I really am, despite the reliance on the flawed IP location assumption.
I suppose that I could always find some UK based proxy, along with the true expats and others for whom the usability of this previously exemplary website has been diminished, or just use my phone...
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This does remind me of the occasion, many years ago, when some bright spark of an editor decided that, as all programmes have theme music, the Today programme should do likewise. The presenters hated it, the audience hated it, and anyone admitting to working for the BBC was rounded upon at parties by angry listeners. Within about six months the theme music had been dumped (not sure about the editor). Joy was unconfined.
Times have changed, and progress is much quicker. Now that Gordon Brown has perfected the art of announcing some fatuous proposal he had just dreamt up in the bath, being shouted at by all and sundry, and then backing down within 24 hours, the BBC should learn from all these postings, do the decent thing, and reverse this reduction in service with as much grace as it can muster.
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tomj777 wrote: ''I suppose that I could always find some UK based proxy''
That's the solution, if the Beeb wants to be n00bish, circumvent their restrictions! ;)
This used to be the No.1 website worldwide, but they obviously got embarrassed and decided to downplay their abilities...
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Well ... as was pointed out in the very first post made by Steve on this issue, a tiny minority of those who could choose to view the alternate page to the one geared to their location (within or without the UK) and it was therefore removed (as I read it) as it facilitated other changes the BBC are looking to make on the site.
Clearly members of that minority who did utilise the facility are now annoyed that the facility has been removed, but as far as I can most of those are people in other countries (whether ex-pats or otherwise) who do not contribute to the BBC and therefore this website.
Why shouldn't the needs of the UK, and those who pay the licence fee to fund the BBC be put ahead of those in other countries?
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@68 One of the problems is actually that UK based people are now not seeing the 'British' news page but the 'International' one.
And also providing a choice to all users (including those in the UK) about whether they view the British or International version does not adversely affect UK users who default to the British version so it isn't a case of putting those in the UK ahead of those outside of the UK.
Finally the point about foreign viewers not contributing [cash] to the BBC is no longer strictly true as with the advertisements being displayed for non-UK based visitors, they now do contribute cash to the BBC - just indirectly.
Just playing devil's advocate :)
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And minority?! I think 1000 odd posts complaining about this (which is about 95% of the total comments) prove that it is far from the minority.
I'm personally based in the UK (and obviously a licence-fee payer), but when I go abroad I would like the choice to look at the site as if I was in the UK so I can keep up to speed with what's going on back home.
It's far from just the ex-pats and other foreign-based viewers that are requesting the choice.
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Well I may be considered to be in a minority by some because I am outside of the UK at times and want to see the UK website.Although what is considered to be a minority as so far there have been over 1000 posts on this subject almost all negative!.
However to return to my main point .I also have a UK property and do pay my licence fee as I am sure do thousands of other non UK based website viewers so we do contribute to the BBC and therefore have as much right as anyone to complain !
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Hmm, sounds rather like 'the party members' are now appearing......
They tend to forget that our 'ad-clicking' helped pay for the pages we read.
We might actually BE licence -payers......
No matter, it is of no further importance. We were only trying to help.
I, for one, have got better things to do, (this is probably what 'the powers-that-be' hope for- keep quiet, they'll go away).
As of now, not only is my home 'UK' page no longer the BBC, I shall view any BBC news page far less frequently (if at all).
Those reading this in the UK don't know what you're missing - because you are no longer allowed to make up your own mind.
Those reading this outside the UK,
tough.
As of now, we might have
the CNN viewpoint,
the Euronews viewpoint,
the Al Jazeera viewpoint
The RT Today viewpoint
perhaps the removal of the FCO grant-in-aid would help concentrate the minds in W12 7RJ.
I'm off.
Goodbye BBC News.
"Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation"
no more.
It was nice knowing you... once.
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Dear Steven
Many ex-pats eventually return to the UK. I for one will not forget the way the BBC has treated me. On my return - I will definitely support any measure that eliminates or reduces the TV licence fee.
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"Well ... as was pointed out in the very first post made by Steve on this issue, a tiny minority of those who could choose to view the alternate page to the one geared to their location (within or without the UK) and it was therefore removed (as I read it) as it facilitated other changes the BBC are looking to make on the site."
I would like the BBC to provide evidence that a "tiny minority chose to view the alternative page to the one geared for their location" as I think that is total rubbish. The reason a lot of people come to the BBC web page is to read the news. A lot of them are probably Brits who are temporarily (like myself) or permanently living abroad, and they wish to see the news in the UK and around the world and as such would use the "button" to see both sites. I know for a fact that there is more then one British person living temporarily or permanently abroad and as such I find the "tiny minority" comment a load of poppycock and I should say that we should be insulted by this claim.
As I have said, show us the evidence of this claim.
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@ #68, dcacooper:
I'm afraid, dcacopper, your statement is not quite correct. The point is that most of us (i.e. those who I spoke to in person, and most on this blog here) had our respective homepages consciously set to either the UK or the International version, wherever in the world we were. The choice was ours, according to our own priorities.
It is this option that has now been hastily removed, and as it appears, quite unnecessarily (as the techies tell us).
If the button may have been rarely used, it was simply because the URL of both UK and International sites were well-known and bookmarked. This is in its entirety no longer possible, and a severe setback for hundreds, if not thousands of readers.
With the BBC long having been the most reliable, trustworthy and objective news site in the UK, and possibly even the world, this change is a dramatic turn towards censorship, especially as we are told this is only a first step in a new direction. If the BBC is not aware of the importance of its role in the UK and world, well..., what can we say; what else can we do than protest? If the BBC management hinders free access for its users (as before the recent changes), it apparently believes its users cannot be trusted anymore, so yes, indeed ... Houston, we have a problem.
Thus I am quite certain there is a breach of the BBC Charter, brought about by some rushed and utterly shortsighted decisions, and which need to be reversed.
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#68 dcacooper
"Well ... as was pointed out in the very first post made by Steve on this issue, a tiny minority of those who could choose to view the alternate page to the one geared to their location (within or without the UK) and it was therefore removed"
Not true. You confuse tiny minority with relatively few. They are not the same! Mr Herrmann claimed: "Because the option allowing you to choose "site versions" (which relatively few of you actually chose to use) has started to lead to some potentially frustrating experiences for you, as well as some significant technical complications for us."
We have no statistics to support this assertion, but even if we did I would not expect it to be huge in terms of daily clicks on the radio button because most of us only need to click the button once for each new PC. The one I'm typing on now has not had this setting changed in four years, despite my accessing the BBC site daily.
More importantly, we have repeatedly asked for details of the "technical complications" as many of us have significant web development skills and experience, being able to offer meaningful help if the BBC techies need it. These requests and offers have met with stony silence.
"Why shouldn't the needs of the UK, and those who pay the licence fee to fund the BBC be put ahead of those in other countries?"
Your post strongly implies that you are located in blighty, have an ISP other than AOL and only ever want to view the UK News Front Page [http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ifs_news/hi/default.stm]. Bully for you, but what about those of our compatriots in the same position - and quite a few have posted on these threads - who preferred to view the International News Front Page [http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ifs_news/hi/default.stm]? Should the BBC remove that choice from them, too?
And if the BBC actually desires to have multiple versions of it's pages for "home" and "foreign" consumption anyway, why limit the choice of your fellow licence payer?
Equally, if some of the "foreign" audience want to view the "home" version why should the BBC prevent them, particularly as the BBC know and themselves acknowledge that a fair number of the "foreigners" wanting this are UK residents whose IP addresses only "appear" foreign to the BBC's servers?
This is nothing to do with the advertising content and slashed video services us "foreigners" have been subjected to for some time and which was already handled via imperfect IP geolocation.
Oh, and by the way, bringing the UK to the world is part of the BBC's remit. If you don't like that, complain to your MP.
Finally, as others have said, how do you think this is playing in Tehran and Beijing and do you think the BBC would remain silent if such "separate development" was taking place in even more authoritarian parts of the world than the UK?
Post or reactive moderation for all except CBeebies, please!
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#73 tim_birch
"On my return - I will definitely support any measure that eliminates or reduces the TV licence fee."
You may not have that long to wait. You only need to look at the political blogs to see how many are up in arms at being fed pro-union and/or labour propaganda. There may soon be no need to separate us on the grounds of serving advertisements to us because broadcast advertisements may well become the norm.
Post or reactive moderation for all except CBeebies, please!
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#68. At 5:29pm on 20 Jun 2009, dcacooper wrote
"Why shouldn't the needs of the UK, and those who pay the licence fee to fund the BBC be put ahead of those in other countries?"
Because not all those affected are: a/. outside the UK b/. those who are outside the UK are not always none British c/. those British who are outside the UK are not all non licence fee payers, many are domicile within the UK and are only either working temporally or no holiday in another country d/. some UK domiciles want to access the international version of the site - all of which has been explained in the 800 plus comments over the last 10 days or so...
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I am not at all satisfied with the BC response to all of these very reasonable comments. I would like to know who is in charge, and how can we contact them.
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I'd recommend writing to NewsWatch but that just seems like a place for BBC editors to offer arrogant platitudes to the viewers because, apparently, we don't understand how the news is put together. I can't remember a time when one of them admitted they were wrong.
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Your payment of the license fee doesn't pay for YOU to recieve the BBC output, it pays for that location to recieve BBC output. That is why it is payable per residence, not per person.
If you are an expat / Britain living abroad, you do not have access to the full UK content. This shouldn't and won't change - it isn't part of the BBC's mandate.
If you are on British resident living within the boundaries of the United Kingdom, and are being cited as living outside, then I suggest you put a complaint in to the BBC.
If you are an expat, you can always click UK to find out the UK stories.
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@67
If people outside the UK do start to use a UK proxy service then on connecting to BBC IPlayer a UK IP address will be presented to the access software.
I am sure the BBC will have unlikely thought of the outcome of that anymore than they thought through their webpage changes
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I complained about the lack of access to "your money" and the Int "have your say" being populated by rather uninteresting "how dry is your mud hut" HYS'.
You have now modified the Int business to give me a link to "your money" and say that you will populate the Int HYS with more UK HYS'.
Thank you for listening and reacting.
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@81
"If you are an expat, you can always click UK to find out the UK stories."
Please dont make the assumption that internet speeds are as good world wide as they are in the UK.
Here in Malaysia the internet appears to be carried on wet string. It can take up to 2 minutes to load the Int page and another 2 to get to the UK page, two clicks in four mins is a real wind up.
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"If you are an expat / Britain living abroad, you do not have access to the full UK content. This shouldn't and won't change - it isn't part of the BBC's mandate."
This contradicts the mandate of the Internet. If is is not part of the BBC's mandate, then I suggest they remove all their Internet facilities.
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Steve, can you please let us choose to look at the international or the UK version? Just change it back. It wasn't broke.
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you could solve all the [self inflicted] issues by putting all the content behind a login screen that would be tied to the licence fee number.
that would be fair to the licence payer [who could then access from anywhere] and to other web content providers who don't get subsidy.
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@81
"Your payment of the license fee doesn't pay for YOU to recieve the BBC output, it pays for that location to recieve BBC output. That is why it is payable per residence, not per person."
this is not strictly correct as whilst the licence is issued for an address it is also issued to a licence holder who can use this licence for a second address ( eg holiday home/caravan) while away from the main residence providing no one is there viewing the TV at the same time.
This only of course applies and indeed only works in the UK,however it could be argued that a UK licence payer who is away from his UK residence
(which is also unoccupied by other persons) has as much right to watch the i player as anyone else and possibly more so than persons who just because they are in the UK can view programmes for free whether they are a licence payer or not.These programmes were after all originally financed from income generated by licence payers.
Surely it can't be a technical impossibility to come up with a system whereby licence payers are issued with an access code that would enable them to view BBC i player and other channels TV players no matter where they are located.
I am sure that other licence payers currently outside of the UK might agree with this
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#81. At 00:48am on 21 Jun 2009, richardwhiuk wrote:
"If you are an expat / Britain living abroad, you do not have access to the full UK content. This shouldn't and won't change - it isn't part of the BBC's mandate."
Yes it is, the Royal Charter specifically states that one of the BBC's duties is to connect the UK to the world and the world to the UK. There is no reason on earth why the editorial content on the whole "UK" site should not be accessible to the world and the whole of the "International" site should not be accessible to the UK.
If one really want to get pedantic about the licence fee it's actually irrelevant to the BBC website as the licence fee only relates to the reception of a television service, one doesn't actually need a licence to receive the radio service or access the website.
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#87. At 09:17am on 21 Jun 2009, bookhimdano wrote:
"you could solve all the [self inflicted] issues by putting all the content behind a login screen that would be tied to the licence fee number."
As there is no requirement for BBC radio listeners to have a TV licence, how would they access the BBC website?!...
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Dear Steve,
Maybe we could finally have a PLAUSIBLE explanation as to why the radio button solution is no longer possible. We need to be able to understand the true reasons why, otherwise this doesn't look good for the credibility of the BBC.
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When will you idiots get the message? - it was all perfectly fine before, but you just couldn't leave it well alone could you?? You whinge about not being able to use licence-payers' money to allow continued access to audio/video, but what about the waste of money spent making changes to the site which were unnecessary and which have made things worse?
Where's the accountability here? - you've patently p***ed off a large number of your 'customers', so whose head will roll for this? Just what does it take for any of you useless gits to take responsibility for your rampant incompetence?
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I can now get the UK homepage again!
Cool! Thanks!
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I would just like to say thanks to the BBC. Before this change I didnt really know much about proxy servers. Now, not only can I view the BBC web site as if I was in the UK, I can also get round the company firewall and look at pretty much anything I like!
Every cloud....
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@94
Well done! PiscesMac. The use of Proxy servers are certainly a way around the problem. I recommend all who have blogged here investigate this. Its quite easy to pick up on the technology as no doubt you easily did.
Mr Herrmann made the terrible changes and thought we would just accept it and carry on with our knitting. But Auntie BBC has no place anymore and people will take any step to circumvent these stupid restrictions.
Should we write right to the BBC trust and point out that if more overseas people learn how to use a proxy, then the BBC Iplayer will be compromised ???
Was that the goal?
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Nope - spoke too soon. Now I only get the mobile version! I suppose it means that someone is tinkering around in the background though.
Shame though - I was dead chuffed a while ago, as I thought that Stevie boy had listened to the opinion of the thousand or so people on here.
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#96. At 5:29pm on 21 Jun 2009, missymooabu wrote:
"Nope - spoke too soon. Now I only get the mobile version! I suppose it means that someone is tinkering around in the background though.
If you are with AOL it just means that you got routed through one of their UK servers, it's pot-luck basically!... This is the problem, IP detection doesn't actually determine were the person making the request (for the web content) is, just were the servers is.
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#95: I assume the BBC IT people just didn't think that their users would realise that there are easy ways to get around geolocation restrictions. Many wouldn't even have considered using proxies to access "UK-only" content but now that they know about them they will use them and so even if the change is reversed more people from outside the UK will be using Iplayer than did so before.
Somebody has shot themselves in the foot with this decision.
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90 ...As there is no requirement for BBC radio listeners to have a TV licence, how would they access the BBC website?!.....
again another self inflicted problem. why is there no requirement if it is funded by licence. this is the sort of turgid bbc thinking that creates all sorts of injustices.
if the radio would not exist without the licence then it is right to include it in package.
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Well, I didn't believe my anger with the BBC could increase but I think I could now give the leader writers of News International or Associated Newspapers a run for their money.
So UK licence payers are to have the service that was taken away from them and which they are entitled to "shortly". Is that as in 'the bus will be here soon' or 'it will be Christmas before you know it'?. Actually, at the moment I don't know now what I will get when I access the site: sometimes it is the UK version, sometimes the International and sometimes it will change from the UK version to the International version before my eyes. What a shambles; brought about by incompetence and a lack of professional project management. And what makes it even worse is the lack of any recognition from the BBC as to how it has got things wrong. In the last contribution from Mr Herrmann, is there the slightest sign of regret at the problems and inconvenience caused or the merest hint of an apology for withdrawing the UK site to UK residents and licence payers? Even when a TV or radio programme goes off air for the shortest of periods we get an immediate apology.
Also to reiterate, I am in total agreement with the massive majority on this subject that freedom of choice should be reinstated. I do not support the 'no pay, no say' standpoint. Everybody should have the choice, whether they are an ex-pat living or working abroad, world business people, foreign students or, should they be able to even access the web, the citizens of Iran, China, North Korea....
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Quite. Whenever I look at 'More from this blog...' at the bottom of the page, and check in 'Topical posts on this blog', I can see an entry called 'Stop the blocking now'... - well, it does make me wonder if that shouldn't be about our own grievances, which have been consistently expressed on these now 3 blogs.
And this is in fact post #1037, by the way.
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Many thanks for the detailed response, and the tinkering. I think you might have got me back to having BBC news as my homepage, for now at least.
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Thank you for giving us a response. Please do keep looking into finding a way for people to choose between whether we want to see a UK or International front page since it was the withdrawal of this choice that has caused so much disappointment amongst your readers. I fear that if this choice is not restored, many of your readers will choose to go elsewhere for their news. As I live in Dublin I am fortunate enough to get BBC News bulletins on BBC1 (which I pay for) but I really do feel for those website users who don't have this option and for whom removing the choice between a UK and an Interntional version has been so inconvenient and inconsiderate.
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Can you not give us the reason that you were given by your technical team as to why we can't have the radio button edition choice? Just copy the original email in here and let us have a look. That would be the quickest way of answering the vast majority of comments and criticisms posted here and in the previous two blogs - or was the reason given not a very good one?
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As I now live in France I have been using the BBC website to assist me with my language learning. On the UK version this was accessed via a link at the foot of the front page. The International version link is only to a 'Learn English' site. How can this be resolved?
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The BBC's purpose as set out by its Royal Charter is to serve the interests of British subjects. Where-ever they may be. Whether they pay the licence-fee or not .
What's more, the licence-fee payer/expat distinction is a spurious one in strictly legal terms. Section 57 of the Royal Charter specifically provides that the term is not to be taken literally as one who holds a licence but includes anyone who watches, listens to or uses a BBC service in the UK "or may do so or wish to do so in the future" - so although an expat, I fall within the definition of a licence-fee payer for the purposes of the Royal Charter.
(I'm talking here about the purely legal construction of the Charter. I accept that there is a valid practical point that UK residents fund the BBC services to a greater extent that expats - although, just remember, expats are paying indirectly through advertising and so are also stakeholders - but I am making the point that, legally speaking, the BBC may not be fulfilling its constitutional obligations to expat Brits)
If the BBC wants to head towards a judicial review of whether it is in breach of its Charter - which may call into question the way in which it places territorial restrictions on its services in general and may require a complete rethinking of its constitution (all of which will cost a great deal of taxpayers' money) - well, that can be arranged. But then again, it could just give us back the choice between UK and International pages and I guess we would all be satisfied. How much would that cost?
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For 1Driver.
go to A-Z at bottom of homepage and look under languages you'll find French courses there.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
The BBC is here to serve the UK licence fee payer (despite emjaydub's interpretation of the Royal Charter). If you don't fall in to that category, you have no right to comment, if you are unfortunate enough to have a TV licence in the UK, but have to work abroad, that's unlucky, but hardly the BBCs fault.
I'm going to the US in two day and I shall be using a VPN into my companies UK based network if I need to use the UK version of the site, but then again, I'm not really that bothered - its all still there to read.
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I've seen it all now! A post of mine from the weekend has been removed for being "off topic". The subject of my post? The lack of response from Mr Herrmann. Truly unbelievable! The BBC gets worse and worse. How long before this "off topic" post is removed?
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#109. What about licence fee payers who live and work in the UK but can't access the BBC's UK news page? Try reading all the posts before jumping to incorrect conclusions.
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#109: "The BBC is here to serve the UK licence fee payer".
Sorry, that is not true and emjaydub's interpretation of the Royal Charter is maybe a bit wide but not as wrong as you seem to suggest.
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#109. At 10:28am on 22 Jun 2009, SteveoBagins wrote:
"The BBC is here to serve the UK licence fee payer"
No, it is only funded by the licence fee, there are many services that the BBC have provided for years that require no licence to be held - namely radio - must be 30 years or more since the radio licence was abandoned...
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Great, so you have read the messages, but still you're not really going to listen to them. I've now found out that I can access the UK edition front page:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/default.stm
but how about the UK business pages? Right now (1200 BST), if i wasn't using daveproxy, then I woulnd't have a nice link to "Repossession risk 'overestimated'" on the Business Pages. Instead i'd have the international business pages.
You have rreally crippled this site. If i want international news i'd look at the international pages. You are the BBC - this isn't the BBC World website.
Oh, and I'm in the UK, but accessing it though work's network.
Atleast whoever runs daveporxy will be happy- they'll be getting loads more advertising revenue ;)
Grow up, listen to your customers and let me see the UK version of the BBC News Website.
I wonder if you'll be up for any awards this year?
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I think the issue of the TV/radio service and how that is provided is a slightly different issue even though, as I said, I would be happy to pay for full access to iPlayer.
The internet pages, however, are a completely different kettle of fish and we are still awaiting an explanation WHY the changes occurred. Can anyone point to one comment where a user actually SUPPORTS the change (this doesn't include people telling expats or non-UK residents to lump it).
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Many thanks for the detailed response, and the tinkering. I think you might have got me back to having BBC news as my homepage, for now at least.
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Another 48 hours on and another 48 hours of inaction.
I love the way that almost every non-fiction BBC programme beseeches viewer interactivity at every turn but, when hundreds of people are motivated to point out the error of the BBC's ways, they are met with silence and patronization.
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@steveobaggins #109 Apparently I do have the right to comment. As does my Bosnian friend who comes to my house to see the British perspective on news from her homeland, or visits the local library here in Italy to log on to the BBC. Look at the other blogs and see the valid contributions from all over the world. You see that list of languages on the left hand side of the front page? -that tells me that not only we Brits abroad and foreign language speakers like my students who find the BBC invaluable are valued and that's what makes the fight to keep up the very high level of service we know and love worthwhile.
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The BBC is in breach of its obligation under article 13 of the Framework Agreement with the UK government which provides:
"The BBC must not charge any person, either directly or indirectly, in respect of the
reception in the UK, by any means, of
(a) the UK Public Services;..." (those UK Public Services include the provision of online services)
insofar as UK residents are receiving the international pages complete with advertising (which amount to an indirect charge).
UK residents experiencing problems may want to bring a complaint on that basis...
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"Where's the accountability here? - you've patently p***ed off a large number of your 'customers'"
The only "customers" the BBC has are license fee payers, and the vast majority of those complaining here - certainly, the most vocal ones - don't fall into that category. And to answer GeoffK1874, if it saves money, I support it.
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#120. At 2:10pm on 22 Jun 2009, EvilMole wrote:
'The only "customers" the BBC has are license fee payers, and the vast majority of those complaining here - certainly, the most vocal ones - don't fall into that category.'
Not true!! If it were then you would have a point.
If you analyse the responses on this subject then you will find that the majority (certainly the most vocal ones) fall into one of two categories :-
1) License payers who actually are in the UK but are being misidentified.
2) License payers who spend some proportion of their time abroad.
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#120: I think you'll find that a significant number of those complaining are in fact license fee payers living or working outside the UK, many of them are actually in the UK though and are suffering from the major flaws in geolocation technology.
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As it appears that no-one will answer the original question of why I thought I would ask the question to the net about bbc iplayer usage. I should obviously refine my search but the initial impression is that people are abandoning their video recorders for the iplayer. Most of the information that I could find is over a year old. However one blog I found tended to support this idea.
http://community.plus.net/blogs/
June 21st, 2009 at 23:15 by Dave Tomlinson
The Stig unmasked tonight on the first episode of the new series of Top Gear only I dont think it was the real Stig. Certainly though the potential reveal has caused people to tune in to Top Gear in droves and the convenience of iPlayer has meant that many can enjoy an extra hour or two out in the evening sun on the longest day of the year. So many in fact its set a new Plusnet iPlayer record with 1.31Gbps of iPlayer streaming traffic being hit between 10pm and 11pm this evening.
Its a strange kind of job when you have to consult the TV guides every week to see what people will be watching and predict when they will be watching it. The energy companies have been doing it for years,I wonder if they are now seeing spikes in demand not from people boiling the kettle after Corrie but people switching their computers on and watching the nights TV online after an evening out
The accompanying graph was interesting.
My conjecture at the moment (I do not have enough evidence to propose it as a Hypothesis) is that iplayer has proved too popular and that as a consequence departments were asked for ways to restrict their bandwidth use and that the current fiasco is one of the panic responses.
I also suspect that increased iplayer video use has been exacerbated by the current financial situation in the UK. The threat of top slicing the licence fee may also have been a factor.
I would be happy for a BBC representative to show that my conjectures and suspicions are wrong.
Brian
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@120
Since when was there a need to be a 'customer' to access, Google for example?
How many more times must we hear this bogus licence/nonlicence payer argument.
The fact is that some years ago the BBC decided to use the licence payers money (and some advertising) to fund it's website operations.
If you didnt complain then, why carp about it now?
BBC internet access is as we find it, free to all. Go and complain to the BBC if you want to change the way its funded, you know they won't listen.
In the meantime I have every right to complain about a service that has been degraded by reducing choice. A service that fails to positively promote the UK outside it's boundary and now promotes International News as a Home Page, within (on some ISPs) and outside the UK.
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@114 DisgustedOfCrawley
Finally! A link! THANK YOU!!!!!! That is ALL I was looking for. What a shame the BBC couldn't provide this information. What a farce!
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Hey Steve, here's how to fix yer problem.
At present you're doing this:
if (uk_ip_address()) { uk_page(); }
else { international_page(); }
Change this to:
if (uk_ip_address() || user_set_uk_cookie()) { uk_page(); }
else { international_page(); }
You can have that for free. You're welcome!
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#120. At 2:10pm on 22 Jun 2009, EvilMole wrote:
"The only "customers" the BBC has are license fee payers, and the vast majority of those complaining here - certainly, the most vocal ones - don't fall into that category."
Sorry but that is totally wrong, most of the people who are complaining can be divided into four categorise;
1/. UK domicile, licence fee payer, but with a non UK ISP - such as AOL
2/. UK domicile, licence fee payer, but working for a company that has non UK IP numbers.
3/. UK domicile, licence fee payer, but either working or holidaying abroad and thus accessing with non UK IP numbers.
4/. UK domicile, licence fee exempt - such as users of the BBC's radio service that hasn't needed a licence for many years (as I had already pointed out)..
Only two two categorise fail into the rational of your comment;
5/. Non-domicile UK citizens living abroad.
6/. Non UK citizens either visiting the UK or living outside the UK
Even category 5. have certain rights within the Royal Charter.
There is also no requirement for BBC website users, like BBC radio users, to have a TV licence, video content excepted.
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Using the URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/default.stm I get the UK perspective national and international feed, when accessing from an international users IP. Not ideal, but a bookmarkable URL all the same.
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Re my 128
Using that URL as mentioned, means that, after reading a story you will need to use the 'back' button rather than clicking on News Front Page, otherwise it will default back to the international version again - not a fix but a rudimentary work around at best.
To refresh, same as, use the 'refresh' option on the browser to refresh the URL rather than any of the BBC links as you will lose the UK page.
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Hi Steve,
Thanks for acknowledging that I do have a problem with accessing the correct site through Opera Mini.
I am a little worried, though, that whilst my Blackberried colleagues have you "working to try to resolve this issue", I have to make do with merely "investigating with our technical team".
Is that because they are "business subscribers", and I am just a simple UK domiciled licence fee payer? Should I, too, (to use the euphemism) subscribe in a business-like fashion, in the hope that one day I will be able to view the correct version?
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Dear BBC, thank you for your e-mail.
Saying "we are unable to process your feedback due to the IP address you have supplied" and then no link to reply to isn't really helpful.
The IP addresses I supplied were using Opera Mini, which returns 2 IPs when using your suggested site whatismyip.com.
Maybe you should get someone to try it, and see what happnens, no?
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You wrote "We have added a UK Your Money section"
Well maybe you have, but I have another tab on my browser trying to access it, unsuccessfully unfortunately :(
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OK, it finally opened, please delete my last post, I'm happy :)
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OK, my browser finally opened the "my money" page. please delete my last pos. I'm happy :)
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Having just returned from holiday I was angry that this change was made so that one week I get the UK news web page and the next I get the "International" (American) website.
As I suspected I can now not see the UK news website from work as I work for an International company based in Uxbridge which has its internet connection in Houston Texas. That goes for the 100 people who work for our UK based company.
While this is a small user group they still pay for a service they are no longer receiving.
I come to the conclusion that the boys off junction 9 of the M4 can come up with a better technical solution.
As I see it currently the BBC line is that they will just ride out the negative comments and do nothing. So it looks like the only way to fix this this is to get twittering, write to your MP (my letter is in the post) as they love finding a way to reduce the license fee and also a number 10 petition would be good.
My view is if the BBC really want to fix this they should dump the International version of the website and only do the national edition, after all it is the British Broadcasting Corporation, that would save some editorial staff.
I don't have a problem if you block video content on none UK IP addresses as most of it is so dumbed down these days its not worth watching.
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#120 - the ironic thing is that it is costing the BBC money. People like me are switching to proxy servers, VPN's etc. that mean we are accessing the FULL content of the BBC website without paying for it. Why?
- No longer seeing ads hence reducing the BBC clickthroughs
- Able to download content off iPlayer, depending on download speed
Quite frankly, I would rather pay money to the BBC rather than the VPN. The ads never bothered me before and I understood that was my contribution to the website. However, by degrading the service to me I am limiting the contribution I make. Simple.
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Well, at least this issue is getting people to sign up to comment! It may go down as a textbook case of how to dilute your brand and alienate your audience. The attitude seems very small-minded and parochial.
I'm sorry but I'm just not going to bother drilling down to the UK news from the International page. I've already read about international stories from Canadian and US news sites, I go to the BBC to see what's on from a UK perspective. I'm afraid I will be sticking to the Guardian and other British newspaper sites from here on in.
It's not a big deal - as a Canadian I don't pay a license fee and my eyeballs can't be worth much to British advertisers - so I'm not going to complain too loudly but I'm not likely to visit anymore. Too bad.
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...and all this fuss just to get rid of two little radio buttons!
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Steve,
Thanks for addressing one of my points at the top of the page.
I'm sorry though but I'm using the BBC site less and less. Quite honestly, and call me lazy if you like, I cannot be bothered searching all over the place to find what I used to be able to see on this International Edition. My International Edition Homepage consists of International News, which I don't want to see as I see it all on BBC WorldNews, and nothing else. No weather, actually I can get my local updated weather on my laptop screen, No Sport, I prefer my local sport back home. No Lonely Planet. No Languages. No Radio or TV guide. The BBC Homepage and the site has over the last 3 weeks become useless to me.
The BBC has always got it wrong when it came to coverage of the World to the UK and the UK to the World. Way back, you could only hear BBC World Service Radio at night if you lived in the far South East of England. If you were overseas and needed News from the UK you got 6 minutes of "News about Britain". Now no longer on BBC World Service and BBC WorldNews doesn't attempt to cover British News for the Expat. Now we have this final Kick in the guts to the British expat.
As the MP for Gloucester so adequately put it in the Speakership election yesterday, you just don't "Get It". Do you?
The Google ads are a turn off, other advertising is a turn off. The whole site has now become a turn off or rather a "why bother to turn on". You just don't Get It, Do You?
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More censorship? I have just checked back in the archive to the Original "Changes to International Pages" and find that where there used to be 667 comments, there are now only 500. The total number of comments is now actually 1067, some 167 more than it might appear.
When will AOL's UK users get back their UK status? I am still feeling like a yoyo, wondering which version I shall get when I log on
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@140
There's a page two of comments. All of the comments are still there.
Unlike the little radio button that used to link to the different versions. I would like to request (again) that it be put back as there's obviously no technical reason why it cannot be done. I would also like to request that this request actually be acknowledged if there are any more updates to this blog. You know, (and I'm resorting to italics here), being that it's actually what most people are asking for.
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Was frustrated by this change, as I now get international news in the morning, then the "UK" version in the afternoon, but got over it quick enough. However what has really hacked me off this morning is that the Europe news page has not been updated since 15th June! Now I am seriously considering finding an alternative source of news!
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I, too, am now a happy bunny because this stupid decision has given me the incentive to pursue a work round.
Proxy servers are (like some of those mentioned on earlier threads) work fine for the News front page and are a good method where you have little control of your (work?) PC. The problem with this is the BBC can see if someone is using a Proxy server so they could decide to treat all proxy users as if they were international (or even reject them).
The solution for me is a UK based Virtual Private Network (VPN). You can find a subscription to one of these at about 5.00 per month. Once you open your VPN connection then all internet access will go via that and have a UK IP address.
I now have the added plus of using iPlayer as well as seeing my UK News page.
Come on BBC. You removed to choice so that you have more control but, as a result, you now have less.
'NEXT BIT EDITED TO MAKE IT CLEARER TO THE MODERATORS WHAT I AM SAYING'
Warning: DO NOT even think about using a VPN to access unacceptable material. You can still be traced by the law enforcement authorities.
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another nagative comment from me... as i see it (and I'm biased) bring back the radio button so you can switch between Uk and international versions... now..
I work for a certain US company in essex and I guess the IP address orginates in michigan, so now I can't look at the money page in business as it does not exisit in the international version.. I'm very frustrated and take very big issue that this change has made things simpler.. maybe for the beeb but not for me... I'm not interested in US news, almost never..!
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Steve,
Any chance of another update? And this time giving the real reason for the removal of the radio button. People want to understand the changes and keeping silent on this point is only going to make your users assume there is no plausible reason. As I have said before if the computer can select a version why can't the user? Proxies and VPNs are a solution but why should this be necessary?
#143: "The problem with this is the BBC can see if someone is using a Proxy server so they could decide to treat all proxy users as if they were international (or even reject them)."
This depends on how the proxy is set up, but yes, you are right if the IP address is known to be from a proxy then in theory the BBC could block it or treat it as being non-UK.
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Hey Steve,
So what's the latest then? Still a tide of unhappy bunnies out here. All this fuss over a radio button or two, as one poster put it. It just goes to show that you do have an audience, and we do care about what and how we see and read.
I'm now able to get the UK front page rather than the international front page - but it is not the same as we had before. It's not just about one persons view, but about the different expectations of everyone involved here. In fact, they're not expectations, but realisations of what they had that they now cannot have.
What about putting out a survey to all concerned. You could put a link to it via this blog, or better still, email it out to everyone who has registered to use the BBC blogs, or link it via the 'News Front Page - notice anything different' link.
I think you would get a good response, and it would help to consolidate the responses properly. It would show that you are willing to listen to your public, too, and that you are doing something about it.
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Steve,
Don't let your technicians confuse you in order to make their job easier!! I can see only possible reasons for removing the radio buttons (and my bet is that it is the first of these) :-
1) By doing an initial check on the IP address, (and setting the visibility to stories and links at that point), they no longer have to bother about checking it as each individual item is requested (saving them effort).
IF, this is the reasoning then this is security by obscurity and breaks many different design principals. You cannot make assumptions that someone who has found the way past your hidden door meets any specific criteria. Anything less than checking eligibility to data at the point it is provided is sloppy & lazy design.
2) The other possible reason that I can see is that the web pages are too crowded (or you would like to tailor them more). I can see that you might find radio buttons two restrictive if, for instance, you want to tailor you international view (just as you tailor the UK view).
I have a suggestion for this - why don't you ASK users where they want their view to be focused (just as you do on the UK page with postcode).
If there is any other reason that you are being given for this change then please do tell. Maybe I have missed something but, if not, I like a good laugh.
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Well that's made things a lot easier for everyone eh? What kind of school did you people go to? Pathetic!!!!
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onyxpaul
I presume you are referring to my update, (although your comments do not really make it clear what you are referring to)!
Yes, I really should proof read before hitting the post button, I noticed the typos myself AFTER the comment was posted. However, a couple of typos really do not invalidate the point being made.
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#149: I don't think onyxpaul is referring to your post as he is also very much against the - pathetic - changes (as expressed in response to the original blog entry).
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ExpatDinosaur - regarding "The solution for me is a UK based Virtual Private Network (VPN)" - of course.
The really sad thing is that the BBC is going through hoops to deny international users access to UK-centric items, and particularly the iPlayer, when they (and the programming rights holders who seem to be the motivation for banning international iPlayer access) could be picking up a nice little revenue stream...
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As someone who uses the BBC News site daily, a colleague informed me of this controversy today having been himself informed of it by his sister ex-pat in Germany.
I don't think I've ever come across such a lot of retentive rubbish in my life! If you are really experienced internet users: even if you're not: is your time really that precious that you can't spare less than 10 seconds to click two links to take you from international to europe to uk.
It confirms my view of ex-pats are broadly overpaid underworked tax-dodging whingers.
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@152
And my views of why I left the UK are confirmed with your post.
Btw, yes, I am overpaid and underworked, but I do pay taxes. I even have enough left over to keep my National Insurance up to date, so I'll be getting a pension when I finally return...isnt life wonderful?
Now, go and read all the posts and find out that 'taking 10 seconds to click two links' is one of the minor complaints in this blog....sorry...'retentive rubbish'.
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@152
Obviously your time is so precious that you couldn't be bothered to read the posts here properly before commenting - sorry, signing up especially to comment - on something that clearly doesn't affect or concern you personally. If you had you'd realise that you've missed the point completely.
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UK taxes? The taxes that partly fund the BBC World Service? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC
Licence fee? Or one of ExpatDinosaur's VPNs at 5.00 (£?), none of which goes to fund the BBC for which UK viewers have to pay more than twice that (£142.50 annually for colour).
If a slight inconvenience in navigating round a website is such a big deal to you, come back to the UK and put up with a generally low wage, high expense economy, deteriorating social problems and a government that is an impotent laughing stock. Or maybe just sit back and view the beeb for nothing while wallowing in schadenfreude, free from sharing the plight of the UK.
You're not paying for the service - stop whinging. No representation without taxation!
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@155
Perhaps you should think about leaving the country yourself then!
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Why would I have 'schadenfreude' when most of my friends and relatives still live in the UK? Why would I have 'schadenfreude' when I have two UK pensions? Why would I have 'schadenfreude' when I intend to return to the UK?
You sound as if you are just bitter at ex-pats. It wouldnt matter if we were discussing that puppies werent getting enough cuddles, you'd be in here pontificating.
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I see billybob #155 still hasn't mastered the fact that it affects UK residents too.
Ho hum.
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I've been following this controversy since it began and although I can understand some of the anger regarding the change, some of the complaints smack of throwing toys out the pram.
I mean, some of the ex-pats in particular complain about not being able to access all of the features including I-player that everyone in the UK can. It really comes across as wanting to have your cake and eat it. You choose to leave the UK, you can't expect to get everything you had media wise at your disposal in your new homes.
I'm also an ex-pat and the change is not a problem for me. Is it really that important that you have to pay money to get a proxy server so you can access the UK pages? Aren't there more important things in life? I think the changes are here to stay. So everyone will either have to adjust or take their business elsewhere.
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Hold on people, there seems to be a little bit of agro getting in here.
The basic point was as follows, and any other comments pale into insignificance.
Both UK readers and 'others' are no longer able to access some BBC News pages.
(At this point 'iPlayer' access is irrelevant).
The fundamental point at issue is this:-
What are "we" no longer able to read? ("We" is "everybody").
From my point of view, all I wanted to be able to read was the same as my friends, my family, other UK Tax payers, and UK voters.
I can access other countries' material, why (I was asking) was I unable to read ALL domestic BBC material? (Believe me;, I no longer can).
This blog has gone wrong. For some reason, there are some who are here to disrupt it.
Forget 'prams' forget 'iPlayer', forget Proxy servers. Go and throw your teddy at some other whim.
Forget the UK. Forget the BBC.
Hello CNN, hello Euronews, hello out there. Someone please let me read the truth, and make up my own mind. I know that there is BBC material out there. I can't see it anymore.
If anyone out there wants to throw something at me.
Here I am, but stop bickering! And if you are in the UK, last time I was there, it was cheaper than where I live now, I still pay UK taxes, and the average wage is higher than here. Be very grateful for that which you have got.
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@152 and @155
I live in the UK. I work in the UK. I pay the full licence fee. I pay UK taxes.
The company I work for is a multinational - investing millions in the UK economy and employing thousands in the UK (who all pay UK taxes). But because our internet access is routed via international servers, these ill-thought-through changes to the site mean I don't see the UK version, in my UK office, as a UK taxpayer.
*Read* some of the 1,000+ posts on this topic and you'll see I'm not the only one in this position. The fundamental issues here are user choice and how content is presented to a 'UK' user or 'International' user - not the burden of extra clicks.
Choice is not having the BBC decide what edition you get just because your IP address happens to say you're 'overseas', whether you are or not.
Don't reserve your ire for the ex-pats posting here, many of whom also have legitimate concerns. See it instead how it is - a bad move (technical, commercial and above all, editorial) by the BBC that has moved hundreds of people to voice their anger and is still going strong almost two weeks on from the change being announced.
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Can we please have a way of getting to listen to Radio 4 that does not involve having to go to the R4 homepage and endure whatever magnified face is leering at us there? (Stephen Fry is very lovable on the radio, by the way.) This used to be easy under the old system, of course...
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So what has been gained, at the end of all this?
- A change has been made, which can be worked around (see numerous links above)
- More people have investigated proxy servers and VPN to aid the workaround, which has lost ad revenue for the BBC
- More people have drifted off to other news sites, reducing traffic to the site
- There has been overwhelming negative customer feedback
And all because of a ham-fisted change, which could easily be reversed!
Your loss BBC.
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#152. At 5:23pm on 23 Jun 2009, shoebobb wrote:
"It confirms my view of ex-pats are broadly overpaid underworked tax-dodging whingers."
Whilst your comment has just confirmed to me that far to many people on the internet are broadly overpaid under worked tax-paying wingers who do not bother read/understand the real issues...
Why is someone using a computer at a UK address, with a UK post code, quite possible paying the TV licence (as if that matters anyway) but who has either an ISP or employer who uses non UK IP numbers to be treated as a non UK person - and thus unable to get the content that he or she wishes? Also adding extra, and pointless, navigation ("clicks" as you call them, clue, not everyone accesses web pages using a mouse) not only adds extra traffic to servers etc. but also breaks fundamental accessibility guidelines that effect usability for those who have mobility issues.
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#152
'It confirms my view of ex-pats are broadly overpaid underworked tax-dodging whingers.'
#155
'You're not paying for the service - stop whinging. No representation without taxation!'
Ah, now somebody is getting it!! Due to the changes the changes the BBC has made they are now encouraging us overpaid, underworked, tax-dodging, free-loading, non license paying, whinging scum of the earth to find even more ways to get something for nothing ;-).
If you had bothered to read even a sample of the posts then you would see that the majority of the posters (and even many of the Expats) are UK license payers.
As for tax-dodging: Communication between tax authorities in various countries means that I doubt that most are in a position to even try this. Those that do usually end up in clink somewhere. Most Expats have got on their bike to find work, rather than sponging on the state, and often pay far higher rates of tax than you are likely to. I know that, if I had the choice, I would rather be back in the UK (and I would be financially better off).
Just to clarify: The purpose of highlighting that there are workarounds is NOT to suggest that is the way it should be! It IS to point out the stupid effect of the changes the BBC has made.
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Thank you, ExpatDinosaur, I couldn't have put it better myself.
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Why change it? It was perfect before. I could CHOOSE UK or International. Stop mucking about with it and if you're bored, go and do some gardening or something.......
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Steve, your silence is deafening.
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teesman,
have you heard anything?
I haven't.
Is there anybody out there?
Hello!
Steve?
Ah, the office is empty. Nobody cares anymore.
Switch off the light, please.
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I suspect the unspoken line from the BBC is that Steve's blogs are somewhere for people to vent their frustration but don't expect there to be any significant reversal of this appalling decision
We can complain all we want but I doubt it will have any substantial effect, will it Mr Herrmann?
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I used the facilty on the bbc web-site to make a complaint, and requested a reply.
The reply was of course copied and pasted from the non-answers given by Steve Herrmann above, but at least this wasted somebodies time for a minute. I think I will continue to post a complaint everyday and request that I receive a response. Maybe the 17 year old intern - who's job it is to answer complaints - will get so fed up with me that he will sneak into the IT department and fix it for everyone.
That's my plan anyway.
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Something else I have noticed: If I simultaneously compare the list of the "Most read" stories on the UK Page from UK with the same list on the UK page from abroad, the list is different
Why is this please?
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Steve,
I've been following this saga with some interest, fully expecting the weight of opinion against this change to rapidly bring about a return of the radio button - the BBC is after all a 'service' for it's users, is it not? Unfortunately no such response to the needs of the BBC's customers seems to be forthcoming. By nature, I am not one to take part in Blogs, and I suspect that there are countless thousands of similar disposition, but I feel so strongly that this is a totally unnecessary and fundamentally wrong change that I have taken the unprecedented, for me, step of registering.
Yes, I want the choice between the version I wish to view, both when I'm in the UK. and also when I'm abroad.
No, I have not been in the slightest convinced by the explanations, (or more realistically, lack of explanation) that you have given. In particular, on your blog, version2, about the changes:
they are necessary to enable us to continue to develop the site internationally, to give us the flexibility to build new features and present content (including video and ads) differently for different audiences;
we are working on a whole range of developments over the next year, and to give us a firm platform for that work, we had to simplify the underlying architecture of the site, by removing the increasingly complicated consequences of the different UK/international permutations.
This implies that you need 2 versions - ermm...... wasn't that what you had??.
I think we were all quite pleased that you did have two versions and that we could choose between them. I certainly enjoyed the ability to look internationally AND to my chosen site version. I also think that many purely international viewers would welcome the ability to look at the more indepth feeling of what was happening in UK afforded by the Uk version.
So what's the downside of the previous arrangement?? You certainly seem unable to convince anyone that it's anything technical.
Is it something to do with targeted advertising? Doubtful.
Does it come down to iPlayer? Could that be the key? Don't let anyone abroad (as dubiously defined by an IP address) see that there is such a thing, so that they won't be upset by being denied access after clicking on it? Doesn't worry me, I'm not bothered, and that one can be worked around anyway.
I wonder how much these changes have already cost, and what the budget is for the ongoing development. Quite substantial I expect.
So. please, please Steve, in the absence of transparency, (in the accepted, not Gordon Brown sense) - just give us our radio button back.
p.s. who dreamed up that condescending 'Notice Anything Different' flag??
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i hate the new single version, its far less useful to me, i dont care abut uk news i only want the internation stuff. you dont have a clew what you are doing. all this blog posting to defend yourself must tell you people hate what you have done. It may be 'easier' for you but now im faced with a load of pointless stories about the uk everytime i look on the site. i hate it completly and wont be using the bbc news website until you change it back
change it back!
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#172
They are probably filtering the data to provide a "most read section that is tailored to the user and will provide a better experience that our readers will enjoy".
I expect they are using something dead clever like IP addresses or something.
Oh...wait...I forgot...that's doesn't work.
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#175 - I know what you mean. Personally I was kind of hoping that something as immutable as "Most Read" would refer to "Most Read no matter where you come from". My mistake I know
I am not happy that again, because of this ridiculous geolocation there is something different between the versions depending on where the BBC think you come from
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I think we'd all be better using the following for our news :-)
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
I came across a link of a blogger complaining about this very issue. I havent stopped laughing yet :D
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Hi again, Steve.
In case you thought the issue might have been fixed by now, I just wanted you to know that I still can't access the UK Pages via Opera Mini. Hope you can get it sorted soon. :)
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...and still banned from accessing the UK site with AOL UK - so much for "shortly".
Just what exactly is the point of this blog?
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I haven't posted on this blog for a few days, but I am still extremely angry and frustrated by this change. And I am appalled by the lack of response to the issues raised by posters. Surely it is not beyond Mr. herrmann and/or his team to respond to the many helpful suggestions raised in the posts above.
When will you respond????
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I'm slowly getting used to having a single site, although I do miss having my UK-focussed news. Then again, it's not that big a chore to just click on UK is it? What is frustrating me more is that it seems like there is daily fiddling about with the site, and that's just getting annoying. You're becoming as bad as Facebook! My current - read: today, because no doubt it'll change again tomorrow - is what's happened to the breaking news feed at the top of the page??? Sports still has it, but not news? That's just silly! PLEASE PUT IT BACK! Thank you very much!
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I've got to complain about this, you have no understanding how welcoming it WAS as an expat to have the UK version to go to as my homepage. It was like being able to have a copy of today's evening news on my table when I came home. Now I have to have what YOU decide is appropriate for me, isn't that what happens in dictatorships? How can it harm or upset anyone for me to be able to have the UK page when I open my browser? Oh well, it's just the "we know what's good for you" brigade again.
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It won't be long before this subject vanishes before our eyes.
...as has our access to UK News and Views.
The lack of response is alarming.
The lack of response, is rude.
Mr. Herrmann, the least you can write is
"Get lost everyone, we know what's best for you",
at which point we'll go away.
Forever.
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"The only significant exception is the main feature of the homepage (which differs between the UK and the rest of the world). Anyone abroad investing a few moments customising their homepage can set up a 'UK-flavoured' international page for themselves - not to mention one aligned more with their personal tastes and interests. Do you want the latest tennis results? Technology news? Great - we can do that too."
If you are in the UK, clicking on Have Your Say takes you to
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/default.stm
where you are shown today's UK topics.
If you have the international version, clicking on Have Your Say takes you to
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/default.stm
where you are shown today's international topics.
This means I can't get to the UK Have Your Say topics if the BBC website decides I am outside of the UK.
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Mr. Herrmann,
Do you realise how incredibly rude it is not to reply to the overwhelmingly negative comments being made here. Please at least admit that you have no plausible reasons or should we simply interpret your silence on this as meaning just that. The fact that several users have also complained directly and merely received copy/paste reponses from your blog entry is also a sign that the BBC clearly have no answers.
I would love to be proved wrong on this, but every day that passes without a reasonable explanation or an admission that you got it so very wrong this time is further evidence that you are just hoping this "inconvenience" will go away.
Please don't continue to patronise your users by telling them you know best. You don't.
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I've been following this discussion since it started and commented once or twice already. What I didn't mentione previously is that I also run a relatively popular expat site and I've been inundated with emails from our members over the past week or so expressing their anger over this decision.
On a personal note I've just spent a fruitless 15 minutes or so looking for something on this site which no longer appears to be where it used to be - is this related to recent changes? I'm not sure but what I do know is that I've had enough. Whatever trust and affection I had for the BBC has been eroded and it's time for me to move on to another site for my daily news as, I suspect, will many of the expats I know.
This has to rank as the least comprehensible web management decision I've ever encountered - congratulations on alienating loyal readers who were once happy to sing your praises overseas.
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The changes are very disappointing... what was a very good and informative site is now second rate at best. I am sitting less than a mile from TV Centre in London and can only get the international version... if I wanted international news I would go to an international news website ... sort it out!
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Hello again. Just checking in so you know we are not all just resigned to the mess you have made. I agree with 182, but it looks as if the parochial minds at the BBC have no understanding of this. Or of the fact that radio is a medium for listen ing, and adding close up pictures of the people concerned does a disservice to everyone.
On the other hand, I do continue to loath the horrible banner photos which were and probably still are on the BBC home home page (I remember very well the first one: a man pointing a gun at me) and on the Radio 4 homepage, as to which there have been many many complaints but guess what? no correction.
My main reason for going to the BBC website ceased to be the news from the time the news pages were "improved". My main reason now is to go to Radio 4 to listen to it. Duh. While the international home page has several links to the world service, as if this is all anyone outside the UK would ever want (endless repetitions of the news are fine in themselves, but not what anyone wants to have on in the kitchen while getting the meal ready), it has none to radio 4.
For heaven's sake, chaps, make an effort.
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@186:
"This has to rank as the least comprehensible web management decision I've ever encountered"
If indeed it was a WEB management decision and not as I suspect a decision made from above which may I suppose explain why the change hasn't just been quickly and quietly reversed.
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I have taken much strain for reading all members complaint about license fee.
I am surfing all websites from India.
From my college days, i have been listening news,radio music ,whenever i get times.
Please do not charge for any services from us.
Very honestly speaking, many websites had sent e-mail to me join to their websites.
Please make all applications,easy surfing,questions,suggestions are answered by you by very quick interval by sending our e-mail addresses.
I wish that ,all my problems will be solved by your team at the earliest.
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To those who wonder whether a blog makes the BBC more accountable to its public: a comment in another entry contains an interesting nugget of information about Steve's participation in debate on that subject. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/06/what_really_happened.html#P81855372 (that URL may break: try http://tinyurl.com/mxbmno)
Judging by this one, it seems that blogs don't help accountability.
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I have anyway been moving increasingly to use Al Jazeera as my primary news source for international news because the quality is greater and the BBC seems to be in a race towards infotainment. The denial of my choice to opt for an international front page is just another nail in the coffin.
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I noticed the changes although it took me until now to find an explanation. I don't like them. I can no longer see blogs on the business page. And it was nice to have UK housing market news in with business.
Since all the content is the same, why not simply give us back the choice?
I even went to the trouble to creating an account to post this, that's how strongly I feel.
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I followed Steve Herrmann's advice and emailed SiteVersionsFeedback@bbc.co.uk on 23rd June with a subject code of 'Postcode error'. Guess what! Not even an acknowledgement.
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"Since all the content is the same, why not simply give us back the choice?"
Careful now, mauvo58. They don't do logic here.
Or simple courtesy, apparently. They just prefer to wait for awkward subjects like this to drop quietly off the radar.
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I used to be able to see the non-UK have your say topics by switching to the international version. It is interesting to see the comments about overseas issues from people actually located in those countries - please can we have this back?
They don't appear on the same page now and only in the list when the debate is closed. Surely the UK licence payers should be able to see everything they pay for rather than just a UK biased selection.
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@195:
From Steve Herrmann's twitter page: update may well be forthcoming.
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Re: My Message 139.
I have just come back to the BBC Homepage to find yet again I have all that I previously deleted has been re-instated?
Why?
I have also had a reply from the BBC Trust, regarding my complaint about the changes to the site which states the following:- "I have noted your concerns about recent changes to the BBC Website and
how these have affected you. In terms of the questions you ask about the
reasons for the changes, this blog by Steve Herrmann, Editor BBC News
Website, may answer some of your queries:"
Catch 22?
I am now seriously disaffected with the BBC from Top to bottom. I cannot wait for Feedback to come back on Radio 4. Maybe if a particually abusive E-mail is sent - something may be done.
(I still love Judi Spiers on BBC Radio Devon - always good for a laugh every morning)
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OK, so it has been about 10 days now. I've spent a bit of time personalising my bbc.co.uk homepage so that I can see predominantly UK news. But it's just not the same. Frankly I hate it. And increasingly, my first port of call in the morning isn't the BBC website. Which is such a shame - it feels as if I'm a little bit further from home.
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#195 - far too logical!
It's sad that I'm popping back here mainly to see if there is any kind of response. I'm barely reading the site otherwise.
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Having read in the newspapers about BBC execs pay and bonuses,perhaps they are to busy keeping themselves happy with their noses in the trough than worrying about the small matter of what their customers actually want.
I'm like some of the others now,I just visit the BBC homepage to see if it has been changed back or their has been any response from the Editors.When I find there has not I go elsewhere.
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I can grudgingly accept the need for adverts on the international page (I live in the US), especially the videos--but could you dispense with the leading advert into the one-minute news summary? Surely it isn't essential, and having 15-30s of nothing appears to defeat the whole purpose of having the one-minute summary: quick and convenient.
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#201
Yes, that's exactly what I do. Visiting bbc.co.uk is such an intrinsic part of viewing the web for me that I cannot break away entirely. However, a glance at the home page, follwoed by an all too disappointing visit to this blog in the search for a solution is now all I bother with.
yahoo.co.uk is now my favourite and my homepage - it's really "U.K." orientated with direct links to news, finance, business, sport, travel - and even what's on the telly.
It's all just so sad though isn't it. bbc.co.uk was my first home page on my first computer and has been ever since. Now some numpty has decided that he knows what I want to view more than I know myself and it's the end of a long relationship.
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Now I know why we havn,t heard anything.They are all on a jolly down at Glastonbury !
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Judging by the overwhelming response to the editor's several blogs, this is, unfortunately, an outstanding example of an ill-considered change poorly implemented and barely, if not disdainfully, explained.
Perhaps all the effort which has gone into making then defending such an unpopular and apparently muddled decison might have been better spent trying to lift the standard of the BBC news website (possibly making a start with spelling, grammar and punctuation). Or is that not what BBC editors do these days?
Sadly, like others I now log in to see if anything has changed and then go to The Guardian.
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I'm not stuck to the past, but I honestly feel that the new look pages are anything but an improvement. The explanation given by the BBC for the changes is understood, but I wonder if any real effort was made to take into account the visitors' opinion in making the changes. Judging from the large negative reaction in this blog, the answer to this is obvious.
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Perhaps missymooabu has actually got it right.
"Home" page. Where you feel "At Home"
that's it.
Home is..
...somewhere where you get everything you want, everything you need, where you feel welcome, and comfortable.
If you want to know something, the answers are there....
Is that how it was? Yes.
Is that how it is now?
No.
Like everyone else, I check here occasionally to see
(a) if there has been any sort of response,
(b) if there has been any improvements.
And then, like everyone else,
I go elsewhere.
Mr. Steve Herrmann was on BBC TV's "Newswatch" a few days ago.
He did not address our complaints.
Did you?
Why not?
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There's nothing like a bad decision to wake people up and get them fired up. I no longer access the International page. I have the UK page bookmarked if i need it, but now i actually view CNN for my world news. Try it !! You will be surprised at the depth their reports go to, far more extensive than the BBC pages.
The BBC has one Top Story on its opening page (that usually is there for 24 hours). CNN have 15, changeing frequently during the day.
BBC your changed website is now no more interesting than torn newspaper strips wrapped around a cardboard core of a toilet roll.
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I am not in a box! I do not want to be thought of as "Being in a Box!" I like to think I have a mind of my own, so I get most annoyed when some bright-young-person decides that they know better what I want to watch/read/view, etc. I might prefer something else.
I couldn't care less about iplayer or other spurious reasons why the decision was made to have to websites (in effect). I visit the BBC website to get news that interests ME, not what some BYP wants me to read! As someone once said, "I AM NOT A NUMBER!" And I am not an IP ADDRESS!
So please, allow me to make up my own mind as to whether I want to see UK or International news. I am old enough to make this decision myself.
Rant over. :-)
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I'm also popping back to check on the lack of progress. Neither I nor my children are using the site so much now. I'm not inspired to go beyond the International front page which doesn't change very often, as I've said before I get all the info I need without clicking into the story. I could now get the old front page from Italy though I know I'm not invited to do so, so on principal I've felt like a 'lurker' and not 'at home' any more.
By the way anyone still in doubt regarding what the fuss is about? You should try comparing both versions simultaneously.
Finding other sites much slicker and informative to my suprise, if the BBC is now being run by Mr Herrmanns (there's an episode of Dr Who in this story) they can keep it and their patronisation, looks like Auntie Beeb has left the building too.
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Well I have been away down in Devon for a week (glorious weather by the way !) and have come back to see what developments there have been on this issue and lo and behold I find there are non. At least non that I can discern !
Thankfully I can still access the UK home page from the AoL Uk browser but it is a hit and miss experience in that many of the links are simply not functional and for what reason I simply can't fathom.
The people responsible for running the BBC website, which hitherto has been exemplary in form and content, have done the almost impossible of making something that was near perfect a complete mess and for no apparent reason. Moreover there have been no coherent explanations forthcoming from the hierarchy for these changes, nor much in the way of solutions offered up.
In any normal walk of commerical life the people responsible for this mess would surely have been shown the door. But then we all know that the BBC is no ordinary organisation and is in many ways a law unto itself, and unfortuantely it is precisely this sort of incident which fuels the increasing fire of discontent toward them.
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Mr Herrmann,
Are you going to change it back?
Yes or No?
Because I am fed up of waiting.
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Thought I'd make a brief fleeting visit back since I disappeared after comment #3. It's amazing how little I missed the site, as there's higher quality stuff out there in general. Not always in one place...cricinfo is best for cricket for example, but doesn't take much effort to find them as plenty of others have discovered. I must admit I've used the BBC sports pages on a couple of occasions, more out of speed at the time, and made a perfunctory (and rubbish) entry in one of my previous regular haunts of the Caption Competition, but nearly weaned off completely now.
I was hoping to check back here and see some real notice being taken of the core issues rather than a few platitudes and fiddling round the edges. Oh well, so much for my unfounded optimism at the start of the week. As I said at the start of this...I'm not even directly affected by this issue - it's the general principle that matters, exacerbated by the way it's been handled.
I did get a reply back from the BBC Trust after complaining about the issue and the handling of it. It largely missed the point as expected, although they did admit "we've handled the complaint poorly, overly moderating comments that are critical of our procedures".
Also "I'd like to take this opportunity to assure you that I've recorded your comments onto our audience log. This is an internal daily report of audience feedback which is circulated to many BBC staff including senior management, producers and channel controllers.
The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content."
All very nice. Let's see if anything actually changes however.
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I also just thought I'd check in and see if there's been any progress on a response and resolution from the BBC. I'm disappointed to see there isn't. I have to admit, I've gone from using this website several times a day down to maybe once every other day and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I made a formal complaint to the BBC and the reply I received was completely inadequate:
"Thank you for contacting us regarding the recent site version changes.
Some sections of the BBC website have changed in order to better promote
the content for the international audience. Specifically, these sections
are the BBC homepage, the News and Sport front pages and the pages for
BBC TV and Radio programmes.
If you are located outside the UK you will be directed to the
international editions of our pages. All stories are still available
wherever you are in the world but some of the key pages such as the News
front page show a more internationally focussed range of headlines.
There is a full explanation on the BBC Editors' blog here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/06/change_to_international_pa
ges.html - feel free to comment there.
While we are not able to answer all emails individually, all feedback
regarding the availability of the UK and International edition is being
collated and considered.
From time to time, we will post responses to feedback, and updates about
developments on the BBC Internet Blog.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/bbcinternet/
Thank you again for your comments.
Regards
BBC News Website"
This is undoubtedly some of the worst customer service I have received and I am so disillusioned with the BBC news website as a result. A lack of response by Mr Hermann after a further 200+ complaints just makes it worse. All people want is the choice between the UK and international versions. A wealth of other sites offer this- why can't the BBC?
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Hi Steve. I'm actually not opposed to many of the changes, they kind of make sense - and I'm glad that the advertising will go to support the site that previously was paid for just by UK licence payers. The simple problem I have, is that I don't want "UK news", I liked the old way of having UK focused news, but with an international viewpoint too for important stories.
If you were a UK expat, as I am, what page on news.bbc.co.uk would you use as your homepage? The same question is relevant to the news.bbc.co.uk/sport site.
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This whole fiasco demonstrates two things very clearly to me:
1) The BBC does not understand that there are ex-pats (i.e British citizens) and travellers abroad (i.e British citizens) who want to keep up-to-date with UK news rather than a general international view (which is available from other web-sites).
2) The BBC does not understand that the practice of identifying users from their IP address singularly fails to address the issue of UK users accessing the BBC web-site via an international server (through no fault of their own).
Until these issues are understood and acted upon there will be no satisfactory resolution to this entirely unnecessary problem.
Come on BBC, let us know what is going on, please.
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@216: Excellent summary. Lots of other details, but think these are the primary issues.
As I say, I'm not currently directly affected by this - although I did used to be affected by issue #1. The cop-out of "tell us about it if it goes wrong and we'll fix it" just doesn't work. I did this on multiple occasions, but nothing ever improved...and if it did, it was only for a few days.
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This topic has now been 'bounced' further down the order.
There hasn't been a reply or a response for days.
We don't count anymore.
Do we?
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There are nigh on 2000 posts over the 3 threads and 90% are negative of the changes. Has Steve gone on holiday (or just to Glasto?). The decision should to abolish the buttons should, by now, have been reversed. It is not working. Yahoo, amongst others, gives the possibility to be a Yahoo UK "member" and offers the possibilty to link into BBC UK News - how ironical!!! Steve, admit it, you've got it wrong. Be a man, and change things back. Stop being a politician...
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I wonder if the number of people who try to view the affected BBC pages has dropped significantly since the changes were made?
Personally I would appreciate if Steve Herrmann would reply indicating that the changes are not going to be reversed and if we don't like it, then the BBC is very sorry but that is what they have decided.
I am disappointed (but not actually surprsied now) that as far as I can tell Steve has said nothing else on this subject since he posted the blog. Maybe he thinks he has better things to do, instigating reversal of the changes not being one of them?
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I, too, have come back to both this blog and to the awful new BBC Radio 4 website to see if anything has changed and the two Steves are listening. Nothing - the BBC Radio 4 blog has disappeared completely and the awful pictures are still there. However, after years and years of conservatively using the BBC for anything and everything I am now enjoying so many other websites recommended on this blog and the earlier Radio 4 blog. I no longer need the BBC. I wonder how many other old devotees like me the BBC have lost in the past few months.
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#218: Perhaps Mr Herrmann and the BBC are thinking that if they bury this blog the problem will just go away...
I think they may well be right.
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#222: Yes you're right. Although in reality it's not the problem that will go away...just the people.
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#222 and 223: Then we must make sure that the blog is kept alive...
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Appreciate that all the same content remains a few clicks away, but the key point - as other commenters have indeed made - is that the UK version offered a view of the world as seen from the UK the "UK Zeitgeist".
When so much news on the web is of the homogenised international sort this distinctively UK view is the biggest loss.
So, my vote is most definitely for the return of a version selector am happy to live with the occasional inconvenience of problem links and iPlayer failures and yes, even advertising for international readers.
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The only reason I used the BBC News web site was to see a distinctly UK view of the news. It no longer does this so I now have to go elsewhere. What a shame. It used to be great. Please fix it!
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Its seems that Mr Herrmann and the rest of the BBC see fit to take away our choice of which version we wish to view, and also do not wish to make a comment with reference to the thousands of negative comments about this change.
Obviously they will just do their own thing no matter what the public want (sounds familiar doesn't it) and have no interest in being professional. I find this an utter disgrace and I do feel that behavior like that should be punished....but I don't expect it to be as it seems that most of the BBC are like that.
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I just wish that we'd get a response from someone.
Anyone.
Mr. (Miss or Mrs or Ms) Moderator,
you who are supposed to read posts these before transmission,
don't you have any input?
Do you pass on the comments?
Do you make sure that 'the powers that be' know what's being written and said on 'their' web-site?
Mr (or Miss or Mrs or Ms) Moderator.... (we speak directly to you as Steve H. obviously couldn't give a 'grain of sand' for any of our well-considered observations)
can YOU do something?
Please help.
This has hurt.
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Tell you what...
remove the "L". from "Editor's BLog".
Correct!!
That's what all this is worth...
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Came back to check if the ill-thought out changes have been backed out.
Still prevented from seeing what I want to see - i.e the old "UK oriented" front page,
Nothing changed, except the list of negative comments is getting longer.
I find I rarely use the BBC news website now. Funnily enough the London Evening Standard figures more regularly in my browsing now.
Shame - an excellent website that is driving its customers away.
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Hi Steve,
Hope you had a nice holiday. Just writing to say goodbye. I won't be visiting the BBC site any more. Thanks for your efforts in the past, but this new change has spoilt the site for me.
Neither will I feel able to recommend the site to others. I'm afraid that means a fair few people as I am an English teacher and have decided to recommend that my students look elsewhere for UK news, etc. I know that this means peanuts in the vastness of the BBC empire, but I feel powerless and you can only do what you can do.
I'm very sorry about this as the BBC website was a standard bearer for a long time.
Best regards for the future
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A poorly conceived idea which has got a number of people annoyed. To admit as much seems to be a problem.
It could be changed back to how it was before but I wonder whether this has now become a case of not wanting to lose face. ;-)
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I stumbled upon this issue because my employer happens to have its internet gateway in Germany. This is purely for reasons of efficiency, and there's no technical reason why it should be in the UK.
This whole thing reminds me of when the Weather pages (and TV broadcasts) were changed a couple of years ago. Apart from tilting the map a bit less to placate the Scots nothing was changed.
And on the weather front (see what I did there?) - why when I set my weather location to be other than London is it reset to london next time I go in? Doesn't happen on any other sites!
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Well at least, Steve, you have the honesty to admit what this is all about - advertising.
It's just such a shame that the BBC has basically taken a baseball bat (or should that be a cricket bat) to the very thing that made its site so great - it gave us a brilliant representation of the UK perspective on news - but no longer. I don't want an international perspective, I can get that from IHT.com, NYT.com, and dozens of others - which actually do that better than the BBC.
What to conclude from the correspondence your move has attracted? I have read hundreds and hundreds of negative comments, which will only be the absolute TIP of the iceberg. You've alienated vast numbers of your site's visitors and for what real end-user benefit? Er................none.
As a licence fee payer I'm really utterly dismayed and you've lost my support. The sooner the BBC gets funded in exactly the same way as everyone else the better - then you'll have to respond to our demands rather than come up with these dictatorial, top-down decrees that just don't give us what we want.
Heads should roll, starting with yours Steve.
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I can see the reason why Mr Herrmann wont respond - if he does I imagine that the topic will pop back to the top of the pile on the editor's blog, thus attracting more attention to the issue which the BBC is trying to (unsuccessfully) brush under the carpet.
Or maybe he's too busy Twittering on about Glasto and sitting in his garden.
Come on, just give us the technical reason why the old system didn't and wont work! Maybe you could ask someone else at the over-staffed BBC to respond, or are you all down at Wimblebore supping champers?
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Agreeing with jessphillips
The BBC used to be the first address of a short list chalked up on the blackboard at the beginning of term. Newsround could be found from the comprehensive front page too, not any more. Anyone doing any joined-up thinking there?
I know that it's felt that we BBC users abroad have no right to a voice, but since I for one see the Beeb like a Royal Family.... embarrassing, yes, but there we are. For example, there are thousands of teachers abroad, like me, who've encouraged people to get access to the BBC constantly and in so doing playing our part to promote its use (TV or online) and so bring in revinue through fees and advertising. Now that's changing sadly.
Finally, I hear so much talk about this debate, but I would urge people not only to follow but to register and take part.
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Dear Steve
Poster #5 here (on this thread of comments - there are two more from me on the previous 1000).
"On the wider issue of being able to choose access to the UK/international front pages, we're continuing to look into possible options to address the concerns that so many of you have expressed."
How's this going then?
I was just wondering if you could find the time to respond directly to the the problem that most of us are having with these changes: the removal of the radio button to switch between versions. Many allegedly technical people here have commented that there appears to be no reason why the change has taken place, and I would like to know your thoughts. You went out of your way 12 days ago (!) to respond to all of the comments except the major one, so please can you post a response IMMEDIATELY on the version problem. We're not going to go away.
It's very strange to report, but since these changes took place the BBC website doesn't feel 'mine' anymore. I've used the site since I started using the Internet in 1996 and now something has changed. Geo-location technology: ruining all the things that made the Internet good...
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Well, something's happened. On my US-based, company-specific IP address I get a UK News page. It's identical to the one showing on my UK-based machine.
I have a cookie: BBCNewsAudience=Domestic; which I guess is related. But no radio button to change it -- I wonder where the cookie value came from.
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I want to see the BBC UK´s TV listings! As a resident in Spain, the TV channels on the horrible International Homepage (Canada, Australia, etc.) are not available to me, so why can´t I change them to ones that are?
I also miss seeing what my old UK region´s (North West) is like, so I can remind myself how lucky I am to live in the sunshine.
Just give us the choice............
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Like others just checking to see if sanity and politeness has returned to the BBC Editors. Sadly it hasn't and still as miffed by the lack of response.
So please give us back our choice. Make the couple of thousand of us who have bothered to comment on behalf of the thousands who haven't, happy again. Please!
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#237, stuham
A very good comment! Exactly what I wanted to say but was too lazy (or disgusted, more-like).
Thank you!
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I have to say this is now the epitome of rudeness by Mr. Herrmann. How many days since your last comment on this issue? Staggeringly poor show!
Come on, somebody, let us know what's going on, please.
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It will be 2 weeks on Friday that Steve has not even bothered to address the complaints. There must be well over 2000 comments, if you can find pages 1 and 2... He will say he's been on holiday, well he hasn't posted since June 19th... Perhaps he's been sacked????
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Hi again, Steve. :)
It's been a while, so I thought I'd better keep in touch. Sadly there's still no change for us Opera Mini users. I'm still getting the international pages, despite being in the UK. How's progress going on your side?
L-x-
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"Even children's favourite Blue Peter admits to faking a winner."
"Prank phone calls made to actor Andrew Sachs - Manuel in TV show Fawlty Towers - by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross"
"BBC boss condemns licence plans"
"Steve Herrmann promises to respond"
Lets face the BBC not only treat us with contempt...
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The arrogance of the BBC is amazing,particularly when you remember that they actually started this post.Then when they receive an overwhelming negative reaction to the changes they have made ,they not only dont respond, they cant even correct the obvious flaws that they have promised to rectify.
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When will the red button return? Or, when will the BBC webpages be the same for everyone?
No discrimination. No filtering. No defining what the BBC think a person is solely by their IP address.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This page is "Changes to international pages (3)". For those who are interested like #243 there are previous pages at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/06/changes_to_international_pages.html [that's (2)] and the opening post at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2009/06/change_to_international_pages.html
I've just realised that my UK home page is something I've done, not the BBC :-( as my Favourite is set to http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/hi/default.stm. All the "inside" pages get the International menu. Sorry if I raised any false hopes; but at least it is currently possible to get a UK Front Page on an international IP address. Presumably there's a similar URL for UK users to see the International Front Page; but I haven't found that yet.
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I just wonder if this blog will drop off the blog page despite this issue having the highest number of responses? Of course, in W12 this means nothing.
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Today I posted a comment on Robbo Robson's blog in the BBC Sport webpages making a light comment about there being no mention of Andy Murray in the blog.
13 minutes later "Paul G" from BBC Sport responded indicating that 4 paragraphs of text had been missed because of a cut and paste mishap and that they had now been inserted into the blog
13 minutes and an acknowledgement that a mistake had been made. I can tell you I was impressed with that
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Unusually for this and the other threads on the topic, I'd like to say thanks to Steve H and others of the Beeb's techie geek department. This change has removing my inertia.
I've pretty much exclusively used the BBC News site to get a feel of home since first working abroad in '97. Whilst abroad from Monday to Friday, home has always been in the UK, so it has been excellent getting the local news stories, the local weather etc so that I have something to discuss with the family on a Friday evening.
My first task when changing jobs or getting a new PC was to switch the browser's home page to the BBC news site, it was always a fantastic resource.
Ironically, I am now working in the UK but my employer uses servers based in North America. This bizarre policy change has made me feel like an unwelcome alien when using the Beeb's pages.
It didn't, however, take me very long to realise that other news sites have not only caught up with the BBC, they surpass it in most every area. This is my first visit to the Beeb in over a week and it was only to confirm how second class it makes me feel.
So thank you to all involved in this decision, for encouraging me to make the change.
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Just logged in to say goodbye. It was nice to know you when you cared. Now you don't.
For these that are interested, I am in the UK and accessing via a foreign proxy. I pay my license fee but get adverts on the dreadful International page. Just not accetable.
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I've read developments on this page over the past few days sure in the knowledge that there would be some sort of response, even if it's not what I want to hear ...
...
... still waiting.
Joe_Chip - alienated (by the BBC) in NJ, USA
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If this wasn't the BBC but a private enterprise heads would have
rolled for this long before now.
Come on Steve, is it really so difficult to write a few lines?
You made a change, it was an unnecessary change and one which has gone down very badly with your users. The change can be reversed but someone
somewhere seems not to want to lose face. Poor show.
This post has been edited as a sensitive moderator kindly censored the remaining reasonable criticism it previously contained. Not sure I'll bother posting anymore. Words like arrogance and rudeness are apparently inappropriate, although several other posts contain them. Draw your own conclusions.
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Popped back to see the promised improvements to HYS so Those with an International BBC can still get (more of) the UK HYS discussions. Glad to see that it is the same as ever and no improvements have been made at all. Meanwhile, like many others, I have been discovering the delights of other news sites on the web. Missing the BBC I am not!
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I am still getting the main BBC UK home page through AoL Uk and its American servers but hardly any of the links to other pages or stories work ! I am left with blank pages or silly messages saying I am not signed on and such like:
"This program cannot display the webpage
Most likely causes:
You are not connected to the Internet.
The website is encountering problems.
There might be a typing error in the address.
What you can try:
Check your Internet connection. Try visiting another website to make sure you are connected.
Retype the address.
Go back to the previous page.
More information"
Madness utter madness ! The lunatic is clearly in charge of the asylum !
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As an expat in Ireland I pay for Cable so that I can get all the BBC channels. Now I can't even see what's on them, because I get the International Version of the website. Do I want to know what's on BBC America? No! I pay for BBC1,2,3,4,Cbeebies etc but I can't add the information about these channels to my home page. Why not? Making this viewable should be simple.
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I "pity" Steve (not!) if he has been on 2 weeks' holiday and has to go through all these post telling him that his changes are totally wrong and his decisions were the worst ever made in the history of the BBC website. Surely, he must backtrack. He can't be THAT arrogant...
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International front page for UK users (See #249): http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ifs_news/hi/default.stm
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It's taken a little while to go through your comments and questions. Our project team has helped me by answering a number of them in this new post.
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