Why can't The AP get this agate stuff correct/consistent?

[Central-KY-Kid]

- In NASCAR results, The AP insists on using "laps lead" instead of "laps led"
- Also in NASCAR (and some transactions), it uses semicolons in the points leaders instead of commas. Semicolons turn into tabs with most code readers.
- With MLS and WNBA glances, "EASTERN CONFERENCE" and "WESTERN CONFERENCE" are all-caps in one but not the other.
- In NFL's kicking leaders, it will routinely do something like 10;-10; for XP and 4;-5; for FG instead of 10-10; for XP and 4-5; for FG. Again, this will screw up many tabs.

Granted most of this stuff is miniscule and easy to fix with a search-and-replace or routine editing, but it gets a little annoying on deadline.

I have brought this to the local office's and national office's attention thru e-mails. No luck.

 

[Bubbler]

This is a great topic for a thread -- what the AP needs to do to update their agate and make it more user friendly. Most of the way they move agate is rooted in 1940s archetypes.

For example, why move college scores in five regional takes? Five regions, I should add, that have little or no significance to today's college landscape. Arkansas might have been "Southwest" when it was in the SWC, but that makes no fucking sense now.

Not to mention that coding five takes (10 if you run women's scores as we do, 12 if it's tournament season) is needlessly time-consuming. Yes it's a simple cut-and-paste, but still a ginormous waste of time completely created by AP intransigence to change. The AP has started to move "major scores" in one take, but it does so infrequently, and I see no reason why they can't just move the whole kid and kaboodle in one take.

How 'bout this? Move one big take with the scores and for the seperate takes, move them by conference. It would be much more useful and relevant to our readers to pull updated Big Ten standings with scores off the wire instead of sorting out the Midwest take. There's absolutely no reason why they can't do this.

 

[BillySixty]

Did anyone else have a problem with the baseball leaders a few weeks ago? Maybe you did and just missed it, but someone must have had a different spelling for Oakland's Travis Buck than the rest of us. Because instead of TBuck in the triples leaders, it was TFuck.

I think it was the second or third weekend of May, if I remember correctly. We ran it twice without realizing it. When it was brought to our attention, we notified the local bureau.

 

[ondeadline]

How about when a name in a box score is replaced by a five- or six-digit number? Or when a pitcher's record is 1-3 or 2-3 and it becomes 1/3 or 2/3.

Regarding NASCAR: Why does AP only list the top 10 in the points race at the bottom of the race summary when 12 is a heck of a lot more logical this year?

 

[dragonzo]

Regarding NASCAR and AP only running the Top 10, we were told that's how the desk in New York is handling it, and there appear to be no plans to change.
Have to agree, though, it makes no sense to only have the Top 10 ... or to not run major college scores more often than at 2:30 in the morning.

 

[TyWebb]

I know I always have a problem with the agate for the less-popular sports: Arena football, WNBA, etc. Anyone else have this problem?

 

[HejiraHenry]

One that chaps my butt:

Why, in all TV listings, is it listed as FOX and SPEED and VERSUS?

NBC, CBS and ABC are acronyms, thus all caps. Those others are not.

 

[shotglass]

To be more general about it, I just get very irritated that New York doesn't seem to care when a mistake is pointed out to them. They just want to get you the fuck off the phone.

Any number of the problems listed above, I or other editors have called New York and told them about this. Myself -- and I only do agate once a week, one season a year -- I have called them about "Laps Lead" and all caps on the WNBA conferences. They agree in a bothered tone of voice, and get off the phone.

This, I suppose, is the problem in dealing with a monopoly.

 

[donaugust]

One that chaps my butt:

Why, in all TV listings, is it listed as FOX and SPEED and VERSUS?

NBC, CBS and ABC are acronyms, thus all caps. Those others are not.

Aaaargh! Yes!

Or, if you follow the Yankees, YES!

That drives me nuts.

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

One that chaps my butt:

Why, in all TV listings, is it listed as FOX and SPEED and VERSUS?

NBC, CBS and ABC are acronyms, thus all caps. Those others are not.

FOX is all caps despite the fact that it's not an acronym. The others shouldn't be capped, though.

 

[donaugust]

Why is Fox all caps? Because they have a logo that shows it as such? Whoop-de-doo.

Therefore, adidas is all lower case, Macy*s has an asterisk instead of an apostrophe and Yahoo! has an exclamation point.

It's not all caps unless it's an acronym.

 

[SoCalDude]

Fox is a name, not call letters, should be down.