4 ms·

It's very fair feedback - I updated my response to highlight that the reason is not that classic sites is old, and old is bad, and new sites is new, and hence g

It's very fair feedback - I updated my response to highlight that the reason is not that classic sites is old, and old is bad, and new sites is new, and hence good. It's more that the way websites are built and rendered changed fundamentally ~7 years ago, and classic sites just doesn't match the way that needs to work today. All of the major website builders have tried to find a path from "raw html" to "content management system" and been unable to, and had a platform split at some point.

Robotbeat 6y ago
I just transitioned my sites, and I really dislike the reflow and mobilification of the websites. Makes it much less useful, especially on smaller screens. Stuff (like side bar info) is hidden away behind hamburger menu buttons instead of immediately visible in a compact format. This mobilification is a fad, and like many fads it will, too, disappear and have to be replaced (requiring many work hours) because ultimately it’s less usable especially for largely static content. There’s no option to keep a similar look and feel. “Mobile first” has been forced upon us and is now, with reflow, “mobile only.” Imagine if Arxiv required PDFs to be replaced by mobilified versions? So annoying and impractical. Really disappointed. Google made a bunch of work for themselves just to reduce the usability of older web pages.
dwheeler 6y ago
No, I'm sorry, that's just not so. A website maintained with raw HTML still works just fine on modern web browsers. In fact, it works much better. Web pages built with some CMS systems often take 5-20 seconds to load, while the "raw HTML" sites load in fractions of a second. In fact, the speedups continue; JavaScript parsing is slow, while HTML parsing is fast, and HTML compresses like magic. So a "big" HTML file is transferred and displayed in remarkably fast time. I wouldn't use raw HTML in all cases, but I also wouldn't use a fancy CMS in all cases. It's okay to use different platforms for different purposes.
Bjartr 6y ago
Why not leave it up to the authors of a site to decide if it needs to be rebuilt in a new system. That people's daily usage of the web is different today does render content written for the older paradigm valueless. Google's misson is "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful". Dropping sites on the cutting room floor because information in them isn't in a convenient format does not make that information accessible or useful.

Robotbeat 6y ago

I just transitioned my sites, and I really dislike the reflow and mobilification of the websites. Makes it much less useful, especially on smaller screens. Stuff (like side bar info) is hidden away behind hamburger menu buttons instead of immediately visible in a compact format. This mobilification is a fad, and like many fads it will, too, disappear and have to be replaced (requiring many work hours) because ultimately it’s less usable especially for largely static content. There’s no option to keep a similar look and feel. “Mobile first” has been forced upon us and is now, with reflow, “mobile only.” Imagine if Arxiv required PDFs to be replaced by mobilified versions? So annoying and impractical. Really disappointed. Google made a bunch of work for themselves just to reduce the usability of older web pages.

dwheeler 6y ago

No, I'm sorry, that's just not so. A website maintained with raw HTML still works just fine on modern web browsers. In fact, it works much better. Web pages built with some CMS systems often take 5-20 seconds to load, while the "raw HTML" sites load in fractions of a second. In fact, the speedups continue; JavaScript parsing is slow, while HTML parsing is fast, and HTML compresses like magic. So a "big" HTML file is transferred and displayed in remarkably fast time. I wouldn't use raw HTML in all cases, but I also wouldn't use a fancy CMS in all cases. It's okay to use different platforms for different purposes.

Bjartr 6y ago

Why not leave it up to the authors of a site to decide if it needs to be rebuilt in a new system. That people's daily usage of the web is different today does render content written for the older paradigm valueless. Google's misson is "to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful". Dropping sites on the cutting room floor because information in them isn't in a convenient format does not make that information accessible or useful.