OT: Government Red Tap and Web Sites

[Atrocities]

Is it me or does it seem like any government web site is a maze of redirect circles and usless informational links?

Today I am trying to help my friend sign up for unemployment and the GD unemployment web site has this Sign Up On Line feature that does nothing but take you in circles???? So we call the phone number to sign up, and he is still on hold, after two hours.

Why does it have to be so complicated? The sign up on line form takes you back to the main page. When you click on sign up on line, it redirects you back to the on line form which doesn't ask you any information, it just has a continue CLICK HERE button which when clicked returns you to the main Unemployment line.

[Renegade 13]

I've found gov't websites to be nearly useless. You can rarely find anything you want, since they're so convoluted as to be useless.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Easily explained. Lowest bidder.

[Caduceus]

Get some clinical guidelines off the CDC website. It's a blast.

[Jack Simth]

Quick question, that may seem utterly silly: What are his cookie settings?

A while back, my Pastor was having a bit of trouble with his browser; it just kept loading and loading in circles..... turns out his homepage had been set to Comcast's main page whenever it was set up, and one of the things the Comcast main page did was set a cookie, then redirect to itself to look at that cookie.... and he had cookies blocked. So it didn't find the cookie, set it, and re-directed to itself. Didn't find the cookie, set it, and re-directed to itself. Didn't find the cookie.....

[Kamog]

They must have the same design philosophy for the web sites as they have for their automated telephone systems. You call them and you're trapped in an endless maze of touch-tone options and it's hard to find what you want and almost impossible to talk to a live person.