Custom HTML Removed

[Kevin Colburn]

Hi Crew, 

We just rolled out an update that removes old custom HTML from the river pages. There has been no way to create or edit custom HTLM for the past 5 years or so, and some of this old formatting looked bad and more importantly screws up mobile display (including the apps we are working on). What does this mean for you / the site? If there is annoying formatting that you've been unable to fix on a page - take another look. The formatting will either be gone and look good, or in some cases (like tables in particular) you can now fix the issues. In some cases a few seconds of formatting in the current editor will help the customized pages look better. Most pages do not have custom HTML and should see no changes. Removing custom HTML is a crucial step in making the river pages look better now and work better with future site improvements, and we are stoked to have it completed. 

[Rob]

It may be true that "Most pages do not have custom HTML", but that is largely because: 1) a great many listings have only rudimentary (near skeletal) descriptions, and 2) a great many contributors had no knowledge of HTML, and/or no interest in spending any time dressing up their listings by using anything more than simple text. But a handful of the most avid volunteers (many of whom maintain(ed) web pages of their own) have used HTML to add quality to many of their listings. I (and I'm sure many others) enjoyed seeing these spiffy additions, and wished there were more HTML-aware people caretaking more listings.

That said, pages with 'custom HTML' are not the ones impacted! It took no custom HTML to create 'data blocks': two or more consecutive short lines of related information (with no blank lines between them), followed by a blank line before the next data block or regular paragraph of description. With this latest change, the lines of data within each block now have blank lines inserted between them, stringing them out down the page, undoing the 'data block' appearance.

The characterization that it will take merely "a few seconds of formatting" to fix each of these pages is flippant. It takes a few seconds to pull up each listing, a few more seconds to scroll through the description to check for formatting mangled by the change, then about a minute for the simplest of fixes (and more for multiple or more complex fixes) to carefully reformat things to look decent again, then a few seconds to save and type a 'change comment'. (For the 'data blocks' I cited above, it seems to require switching to "Preformatted" to delete the unwanted newly inserted blank lines, then back to "Paragraph" to return any other formatting as it was before. I have no idea what time and work-arounds it may take to remedy more complex custom HTML!)

For the gauge changes back in November there was a list of affected listings (I.E., river/reach), which automatically removed a listing from the list when it had been fixed. With no such list possible/available this time, this change (if we really want to be thorough) requires going into EVERY listing in EVERY state, to find which ones have been adversely affected. Then making the change, saving the change, and (however we do so on our own) keeping track of which listings we've looked at (and fixed, when needed) to know which ones remain to be looked at.

If removing all custom HTML was the only way for the river pages to work across all platforms, then perhaps it was a necessary move. However, as with a few times before, these cited remarks again show a casual disregard for the impact and serious demand of time these changes make on the most dedicated, conscientious, and long-serving volunteers.

[Kevin Colburn]

Hi Rob, 

We can get a checklist of reaches that had custom HTML that was affected by the upgrade. I'll share that here as soon as we can make it happen.

I assure you this was indeed a necessary move, and we are not investing in the NWI out of a casual disregard for volunteers but rather the exact opposite. We are investing in updating the site so the content on it can continue to benefit the paddling community into the future, continue to be updated by the community, look and work better, and be more sustainable. It is certainly not my intent for any of my messages to seem flippant, and we certainly appreciate all the work of this crew!