Your comments

You're welcome, Michael, and thank you for implementing it.  Here's hoping... :-)

Much appreciated, and Shabbat Shalom to you as well,

Bram Weiser, MS, CT

Coordinator of ASL-interpreted Services & Events

Town & Village Synagogue, New York City

Hi, again, Michael,

I just took a quick look at Hebcal's Tazria and Pinchas pages and it seems like you already implemented something like what I suggested here because, for instance, you now have "live" text of relevant years when a Haftorah, say, is different than the "typical" one.  Thank you for doing that!

As you saw when you added these links, maybe it obviates the need for a major overhaul in order to solve this problem, but, yes, some time would be needed to ensure that each such situation in the cycle is addressed with correct links for a given year's particular situation added to the Parsha's page.

In case that step hasn't happened yet, best wishes in attempting it. :-)

Thanks again,

Bram Weiser, MS, CT

Coordinator of ASL-interpreted Services & Events

Town & Village Synagogue, New York City

Dear Michael,

Hello again, and thank you for your very thoughtful response.  I appreciate it very much.

To be honest, I don't believe that a full overhaul would necessarily be needed in order to try to address this issue.

For instance, maybe some additional "wayfinding" text and links can be programmed in so as to minimize the kind of confusion that we experienced.  Take Parshat Pinchas...why did the Triennial citations have a mention about 17 Tammuz but the Full Kriyah didn't?  As my Shul reads the Full Kriyah, I had no reason to look anywhere other than that column to see what we needed to know, so why didn't it have the 17 Tammuz advisory that the Triennial columns had?

Next, while you spoke of visiting the site with the date most prominent in your mind, I visit it with the Parsha most prominent in my mind.  If I didn't already know what it was for a given Shabbat, I'd visit www.hebcal.com/sedrot and, with some trial-and-error, determine that Parshat So-And-So is the one we'd need.  This would be confirmed by seeing our relevant date among those on the Parsha's page, thus learning that the information I'm seeing would be what we'd do.

At least, that's the plan...

Maybe the site's programming needs to be tightened up so that only truly-relevant dates appear "without comment" (such as that 17 Tammuz note, or a mention about, say, a Rosh Chodesh happening on that date in that year).  Those other dates that need "special readings" might also appear on the Parsha's page, but with headings like the 17 Tammuz notation (programming would be needed for the Web Page to identify the applicable dates) or one that mentioned the presence of special Rosh Chodesh readings (such as with Tazria's two {2}{!} other possible permutations), and they'd either include links on the relevant dates to the appropriate pages at Hebcal, OR would actually show what the citations would be on those dates.

Yes, this would be a notable revision to the site's programming, but it would serve its visitors much better than how things currently work because it'd make the needed information more easily accessible and not leave the well-intentioned visitors unnecessarily in the dark about what readings would really need to take place on that date.

I hope that these descriptions are clear, and offer at least some ideas about how to improve the way that the site gets the needed information to those who seek it.  However, if you have any questions for me about this, please let me know and I'll gladly try my best to answer them.

Thanks again,

Bram Weiser, MS, CT

Coordinator of ASL-interpreted Services & Events

Town & Village Synagogue, New York City