New 2009 Lisbon Referendum Commission Website now

limklad

I got the booklet in the post this morning and noticed some bits are removed from the original 2008 booklet from the last referendum.

They removed the old website (http://www.lisbontreaty2008.ie) and redirected to http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie so an actual comparison is not possible on-line.

They did give some extra information that missing in the 2009 Booklet that was in the old 2008 booklet.
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_extended_guide.pdf

They still give the same crappy pdf file of the lisbon treaty, which is difficult to scroll therfore putting people off reading it properly. Best to Download it to your computer rather than through the webbrower so you can use Acrobat reader functionality. (Icons are disabled) to enable the Page viewer.

http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty.pdf analysis of the pdf file the Treaty Digital version was created using OpenOffice.org 2.2. Sell you shares in microsoft...:eek:

Hitman Actual

limklad wrote: »

They still give the same crappy pdf file of the lisbon treaty, which is difficult to scroll therfore putting people off reading it properly. Best to Download it to your computer rather than through the webbrower so you can use Acrobat reader functionality. (Icons are disabled) to enable the Page viewer.

http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty.pdf analysis of the pdf file the Treaty Digital version was created using OpenOffice.org 2.2. Sell you shares in microsoft...:eek:

I can't believe they have no link to the Consolidated version... what the hell are they thinking? Reading the main version of Lisbon is a waste of time, and just annoys people all the more.

marco_polo

limklad wrote: »

I got the booklet in the post this morning and noticed some bits are removed from the original 2008 booklet from the last referendum.

They removed the old website (http://www.lisbontreaty2008.ie) and redirected to http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie so an actual comparison is not possible on-line.

They did give some extra information that missing in the 2009 Booklet that was in the old 2008 booklet.
http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty_extended_guide.pdf

They still give the same crappy pdf file of the lisbon treaty, which is difficult to scroll therfore putting people off reading it properly. Best to Download it to your computer rather than through the webbrower so you can use Acrobat reader functionality. (Icons are disabled) to enable the Page viewer.

http://www.lisbontreaty2009.ie/lisbon_treaty.pdf analysis of the pdf file the Treaty Digital version was created using OpenOffice.org 2.2. Sell you shares in microsoft...:eek:

Cheers for that.

I was just about to go into rant mode about them using Open Office to convert the document to the proprietary pdf format. I didn't realise Adobe has released it as an open standard last year.

ixtlan

Hitman Actual wrote: »

I can't believe they have no link to the Consolidated version... what the hell are they thinking? Reading the main version of Lisbon is a waste of time, and just annoys people all the more.

Absolutely! Where is the Consolidated version?!

And Limklad is correct about the way the treaty is formatted in pdf. If the guides look correct why doesn't the treaty?

This is a poor start. Most people will want to at least look at the treaty, and this will put them off.

Is it worth e-mailing them I wonder?

EDIT: I have just e-mailed them. I encourage others to do the same... I said... put the Consolidated text beside Lisbon and tell people this is the more readable and complete version, and sort out how the pdf gets presented under a web browser.

Ix.

nesf

Eh, I imagine they used the pdf format because it's relatively platform neutral and doesn't require any propietary software to download and read. Not everyone is on Windows and not everyone owns a copy of Word and a minority of people know what Open Office is so putting it in that format doesn't work either. Nearly everyone's browser will have pdf support which gets around this issue.

Secondly, pdf's are perfectly printable and readable, it's the standard format for academic papers ffs!

Also, you should be able to quite easily and simply change the zoom level of the pdf in your browser etc.


I agree completely about the need for a link to the consolidated version though. However, lets be honest here, very very few of us are going to even read that (more's the pity).

limklad

nesf wrote: »

Eh, I imagine they used the pdf format because it's relatively platform neutral and doesn't require any propietary software to download and read. Not everyone is on Windows and not everyone owns a copy of Word and a minority of people know what Open Office is so putting it in that format doesn't work either. Nearly everyone's browser will have pdf support which gets around this issue.

Secondly, pdf's are perfectly printable and readable, it's the standard format for academic papers ffs!

Also, you should be able to quite easily and simply change the zoom level of the pdf in your browser etc.


I agree completely about the need for a link to the consolidated version though. However, lets be honest here, very very few of us are going to even read that (more's the pity).

Having the Treaty available for download in pdf is fine.

It is the way they disabled some pdf functions which is always available in most common pdf such as the page scroll and icon with common functionality is the big problem. It only gives the impression that they have something to hide.

nesf

limklad wrote: »

Having the Treaty available for download in pdf is fine.

It is the way they disabled some pdf functions which is always available in most common pdf such as the page scroll and icon with common functionality is the big problem. It only gives the impression that they have something to hide.

I agree that it's annoying, I don't get that it gives the impression that they have something to hide. I honestly think it's just because so few people will actually want to read the full text of the treaty that they didn't put a lot of time into that part of the website (which I don't agree with but it's more plausible than them trying to hide something).

limklad

nesf wrote: »

I agree that it's annoying, I don't get that it gives the impression that they have something to hide. I honestly think it's just because so few people will actually want to read the full text of the treaty that they didn't put a lot of time into that part of the website (which I don't agree with but it's more plausible than them trying to hide something).

If you want to promote anything you need good presentation and ease of use.
For Good presentation you need it to be easily accessible for anyone to easily read, not just highly intelligent people. Most people would look at that document and freak out at only seeing 1 page. None of the usually buttons to save it for example and scroll are not available. The majority of people only know the tip of the iceberg of how to use their computers.
They start it up, use click and select to open applications and basic use of their applications.
Only people who are computer literacy like ourselves know how to get around the disable functions, but to the ordinary Internet readers, you just pissed them off and give them that impression that you have something to hide by making it difficult for them to read the Treaty.

nesf

limklad wrote: »

If you want to promote anything you need good presentation and ease of use.
For Good presentation you need it to be easily accessible for anyone to easily read, not just highly intelligent people. Most people would look at that document and freak out at only seeing 1 page. None of the usually buttons to save it for example and scroll are not available. The majority of people only know the tip of the iceberg of how to use their computers.
They start it up, use click and select to open applications and basic use of their applications.
Only people who are computer literacy like ourselves know how to get around the disable functions, but to the ordinary Internet readers, you just pissed them off and give them that impression that you have something to hide by making it difficult for them to read the Treaty.

I agree with you up to the last part. Honestly I see incompetence here not a conspiracy and can't understand why anyone would think differently. The treaty is available in a multiple of forms all over the net, they can hide little by putting up a hard to navigate pdf on one particular site!