apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I like the idea of these, but for $274 I'd rather buy a new coat (and still put it on the chair).

Looks like AT editors aren't even reading the site anymore. This was just posted a few days ago...

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/organizing/portmanteau-clothes-rack-by-sonata-paruccini-042073

Someone needs to take control of things.

Terribly impractical. I'd like to see how you would hang an anorak on one of these.

Also, this seems like supremely simple DIY project you can make with dog toys and twine.

This has come up on AT a few time. I just don't get it.

I can see how/why it would work with jackets, but not bulky coats. Might be nice for us in the LA prop who wear big coats, oh say, once a year.

Plus, I like how little space it takes up (read: nice for a small entryway with little floor space).

I count this as the 3rd time it has been mentioned on AT.

This product is remarkably ill-conceived. Total BS.

It takes less than a second to appreciate that this "coat hanger" doesn't come close to being able to perform the task it is designed to perform.

AT's mindless content proliferation has resulted in a bunch of "editors" who overvalue form and disregard function.

Sad.

Third time on AT; third time commenters have said that they don't really see how it would be a functional coat rack.

And what about this desperate attempt to make this inane object relevant...

"Lately, we've been wearing a coat. But with a coat comes the coat problem. "

"WE'VE been wearing a coat"?!? How many AT editors fit into one coat in LA?

Lately I've been thinking. But with thinking comes the thinking problem. Where to put my head?

omg, southernwayfarer, your comments are HILARIOUS!!! we share the same snarky attitude.

"WE'VE been wearing a coat"?!? How many AT editors fit into one coat in LA?

You could do a lot with "how many AT editors does it take to..." as a new form of joke.

If you wanted to.

southernwayfarer: please note that this was posted on AT Chicago and San Francisco previously, and Abby our newest LA member might have wanted to share this with our LA readers. You don't have to like it, of course, but I just wanted to clarify on her behalf (and hope you can cut some slack to someone just getting started out) because I think her posts came from the perspective of an Angeleno noting our recent colder and wet weather in LA (by LA standards), so coats and boardgames were on her mind.

We don't share offices, not even amongst the LA editors; we're all people living in different cities in different states all scavenging sites, writing and sharing our own experiences, but overlap occasionally happens. This is the catch-22 of writing for LA, while also having our posts show up in the main shared site. Hopefully you can just skip the ones you don't like or have seen before, because honestly, we try our best to keep duplicates from happening.

Welcome to Abby and I'm happy to cut her all the slack she wants.

Overlooking the point that this couture "coat rest" is simply a bad design, the larger problem is with the bad design of the new AT website. The idea that people from LA read the LA site, people from NYC read the NYC site, etc is silly. Look at the responses to this post. At least four other readers have seen this post multiple times. AT should recognize that they screwed up and get rid of the city sites.

Why not have one AT site with editors from all over the country? I don't think anyone will be offended if they have to look at a post about a store in another area of the country. I'd prefer reading new posts about stores in other cities than the same post about a poorly designed "coat rest" three times.

I agree with SouthernWayfarer.

It would be interesting to know how many people who visit AT restrict their activity to just one of the city threads. It would also be interesting to note how many visitors to this site live in none of the big 4 cities listed on this site.

It's not as if the posts here are restricted to only items found in only those 4 cities. Even many of the house tours and contest entrants live in other areas of the world. So why keep the strange 4-city format?

The idea that people from LA read the LA site, people from NYC read the NYC site, etc is silly.

Actually, this happened quite a lot. The redesign was in fact a response to this readership pattern, and we've seen a drastic improvement in overall readership and response since the new site launched across all the AT sites. I could go into detail about why AT works best as different city sites with different editorial teams, but it's mostly has to do with boring details about managing different time zones, fulltime vs. part time contributors and other mundane details that have nothing to do with the fun stuff that we all love about AT.

Unfortunately, no design is a one-size-fits-all solution. As someone who reads about 100 sites per day, every day, I've seen this over and over with site redesigns. It's always painful for some, joyful for others, but for the most part we all get used to the change. Obviously you don't care for the redesign and we can respect that (its grown on me like a new haircut), and we continually keep tabs on comments and email to address any of these issues as they become apparent.

Anyhow, thank you for your readership and feedback.

None of the reasons you mentioned has anything to do with better content. Why can't all "editors" post to a single site? Why not have a tag system with city-specific content tagged by city name? The allow searches by tag. That way if you clicked on the LA tag you'd get content that was ONLY about LA. The tag system would also allow more specific and useful searches, e.g. chairs, kettles, home tours...

What exactly is the purpose to the city-specific sites? It would be one thing if the city specific sites contained ONLY content that was specific to the city but they don't. They also contain lots of content that is of general interest to ALL readers. So a LA reader must choose between seeing all the content by viewing the Main site (including more and more repetition and filler) or only a subset of the content (and therefore miss lots of general interest content) by viewing the LA site.

What does "drastic improvement in overall readership and response" mean?

Does it mean more advertising revenue? I'm certainly not surprised that you've generated more "hits" by creating 5 sites instead of 1. But what does it do for the readers? IMO, not much.

Gregory, thank you for taking the time to give a poised response, as defending AT's decisions seems to always prove difficult with this crowd. Like you said, no design is a one-size-fits-all solution and I'm sorry to hear that people don't like the current set up. On the plus side, it's always good to get feedback, otherwise you'll never improve.

Southernwayfarer, as someone who frequents multi-city sites, I've noticed that the ones that work out the most efficiently (for me) are the ones that have specific cities separate from the "everywhere" or main page. I say this, though, living in one of those major cities.

More often than not, I do only check the AT specific to my city for several reasons; the information is most pertinent to me, the concept of interior design (and what is aesthetically pleasing) seems to vary region-to-region, and it cuts out the content that would never apply to me, thus cutting my time spent on AT in, well, quarters.

As far as interior design varying from region-to-region, this is a discussion in and of itself. When I think of, say, Los Angeles interiors as opposed to, say, New York interiors, I picture something totally different. One bright, sunny, colorful. One richer and warmer. I like being able to filter what's more applicable to me.

While the city-specific threads on AT may present apartment-relevant interweb links outside of said city/region, it's nice for someone living in that city to be able to check out the scavengers and local sales. Plus, why would I ever need to see Chicago scavenger? I don't live there. I don't have any immediate plans to go there. (No love lost to the city, of course.) And, if there were just one blanket site, I'd hate to have to be the person to scavenger every city's craigslist. (And as a reader, I'd hate to sift through them all.) By clicking on my city, I filter out all of the crap that would otherwise be a waste of time.

I appreciate the other AT cities, though. And when I do get time to sit down with AT, I check the "everywhere" version. But on a daily basis, I just flat out don't have time to sift.

Also, from a business standpoint, while AT is internet-based, I'm sure it's much easier to have meetings when members are closer and could easily meet in person.

Just my $0.02.