Anyone else having trouble finding things on newtonma.gov since the redesign? I just got a lot of messages like this:
The following page could not be found on our site:
http://www.ci.newton.ma.us:80/Aldermen/Traffic/2011/05-26-11TrafficCouncilAgenda.pdf
It appears we have a bad link on our site.”
Also, B of A subcommittee agendas, reports and audio don’t seem to go back as far as they used to. For example, Programs & Services only go back to January 2011.
I’ve submitted this question to the city website and will let you know what I hear back. I hope this is just a transitional problem and access to the back records will be restored.
I ran into the same thing but the bad links so far have all been from old site addresses. I had previously saved the address of a particular page and that was dead. I also did a google search and some of those links were obsolete.
If I went in the front door at newtonma.gov and then navigated from there, I eventually found the info I was looking for, though now it had a different page address.
Those bad Google links will eventually clean themselves up as the Google web crawlers do their work but it might take a while. So far I haven’t noticed any missing info that used to be there
I’m told they are working on it. I’d say giving them feedback as issues are discovered can only help them get the site back together faster.
I was looking for the new location of the FAR calculator and found it here http://apps.newtonma.gov/far/index.php
Many of the links no longer work, but pages can be found in their new locations by using the website search.
Of course, there are also old pages that can be found with the search and then can’t be accessed … that will need to be fixed.
According to the website there appears to be many misdirections and apparently secretive government chancellories. – For instance. I wanted to find out the coveted minutes for the Conservation Commission from this past year. So, 1st a citizen I have to know that Con Comm is a subfunction of Planning & Development. OK. Once finding Con Comm ‘schedule and agendas’ page, we find that most of the 2011 minutes don’t exist and there are none for 2012. Inquiring further I find in order to get the minutes will require a freedom of information act request. — your tax dollars not at work! go figure..
I was trying to find the absentee ballots on line and spoke to someone in Elections who was incredibly helpful. She discovered there was a broken link, called IT, had them fix it and then called me right back. She said they are getting lots of calls about this stuff and are actively making improvements. Overall, the new site looks great.
I miss the location calculator & haven’t been able to find it through search–that was the page where you entered an address and got your ward & precinct (and voting location!), trash day, school district, etc. Anyone found it yet?
It appears it will take a little while to work out the kinks of missing data and broken links, but the link permanence is a problem. I don’t think it will simply age out of Google. Documents throughout the web will remain in broken form for a long time. The new system does not seem to make use of canonical links, so problems like this could happen again.
The new site appears to be designed for easier administration, perhaps so that fixes can be made without calling IT. Unfortunately, the heavy use of textual graphics and JQuery navigation looks like an accessibility fail. (Low graphics mode is a cop out for web design nowadays)
On the new website, I found a pop up menu with a link to where to give feedback regarding the website: [email protected].
According to the Clerk of the Board, David Olson, it is going to take some time to fix all of the glitches in the new website. You should let him know about links that do not work, missing or misplaced documents, folders, etc. at [email protected] so that he can have IT fix them.
At the last chairmen’s meeting, Mr. Olson also informed us that the Clerk’s office is looking into various applications for electronic workflow, which would allow one to more easily follow the progress of docket items, link to related documents, audio, agendas, reports and other files. The Board’s webpage already has links to all of the current special permit petitions and related documents, which makes it a whole lot easier to follow projects that may be of particular importance to petitioners, neighbors, aldermen and others.
On the whole, the new website looks a whole lot better and features a lot less “clutter,” which was my biggest complaint about the previous iterations.
I feel better, I think? At least it’s not just me. I now see the website feedback link, not as a popup (I think I block popups) but in the giant drop-down when you mouse over “How do I?”
Some things make more sense, once you figure them out. I was trying to pay auto excise the old way, through 311, then Bill Pay, but the only kind of bill you could pay there was a traffic ticket or fine. Other kinds of bill pay you now get to through “Online Services”
I still can’t find old (2011 Traffic Council, in this case) records, though, even doing a simple word search within the website. Never mind Google links having gone bad.
Call me silly but wouldn’t it have been better to test and fix the problems before they went live with the new website?
WT – as I understand the new server format, the main center for control of the website is based in Calif. and allows for the individualization of each departments’ outreach proficiency. So the new website in keeping with a ‘hands-on’ performance based approach will give an indication of those departments (and heads) which need to roll. A competition between departments for ‘best serves’ the public, in theory, will provide a better product for all. The ‘in-house’ IT dept. at the Hall has for over 10 years worked with an insufficient budget; insufficient as to the inspiration the corner office had hoped. Changing tech and economy has force-fed outsourcing with greater capabilty for site storage, online financial transaction base, and web designer option.
It’s been really frustrating when I try to Google city-related info and Google brings me to a bad page. They should have ironed this out and done redirects before the new site went live.