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AP's Clemens steroid slugs — WTF?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Football_Bat, Feb 13, 2008.

  1. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    I have on my wire right now about seven or eight different Clemens steroid stories, every last one of them slugged "BBO-Steroids-Clemens."

    Hey AP, how about a little differentiation with the slugs?

    I can't tell them apart.
     
  2. Batman

    Batman Well-Known Member

    Looked like they were doing the same thing with Daytona 500 stories the last couple days. They were all just slugged "NASCAR-Daytona500". Had to sift through previews to find the right ones. Quite annoying.
     
  3. ralph russo

    ralph russo Member

    Guys,

    The slugs are different. For some reason the full slug is not showing up in your baskets or directories.

    Here are the slugs as they appear on the wire:

    The main is BBO--Steroids-Clemens and BBO--Steroids-Clemens-Optional
    the sides are
    BBO--Steroids-Clemens-What They Said.
    BBO--Steroids-Clemens-Reax
    BBO--Steroids-Clemens-Fans
    BBO--Steroids-Clemens-Excerpts
    BBO--Steroids-Clemens-Body Language

    I might be missing something. Holy cow there's a lot of copy. Litke's column is slugged with his name as always.
    I'm sure the Daytona was the same deal. Might be something you can adjust in your directories.
    AP doesn't intentionally run different stories under same slug, but usually uses the main bar slug in the sides for continuity. The Clemens slug is already kind of long so that's also a potential problem for members, but we haven't been getting inundated with calls looking for stories, so I doubt it's a widescale problem.



    Enjoy
     
  4. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Re: AP's Clemens steroid slugs — WTF?

    I've been at three papers with the AP wire, and at all three, the full slug doesn't display. You can make the screen wider all you want, but it'll only display a certain number of characters, so putting that long slug on the front does make it difficult to differentiate.

    And yeah, really. Did anyone need a separate on Clemens' body language?
     
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