I'm trying out a GIF animation maker for the banner slot on the ColumbiaMissourian.com home page.

Tips for reporting Web site problems

This is probably good advice for any organization.

Here's the scenario: You're checking out your site and you notice something major is wrong. You're not the person on duty, or maybe working on the Web isn't your job. Either way, you have to alert someone of the problem. So you fire off an e-mail and wait for results.

Now, what was in that e-mail? Did you include, say, a link to what's broken? Did you explain what's broken, or did you send something vague like "Web site not working. Not sure why."

Now, I get that people don't always know why a Web site is down. But for those of us who fix mistakes on the Web site, it sure is helpful to have specific information. Especially for news Web sites, where pages number in the tens of thousands.

I can't tell you how much time out of my day is spent going on treasure hunts to fix problems that can be done much more quickly if people would just paste a link in their e-mail.

Bottom line: The more information you can provide, the better.