Would rain force my son’s Halloween party to move indoors? This morning I cruised on over to weather.com to see. The tile in the weekend forecast said 70% chance of showers on Saturday. Fine. Now I know. But I looked down and was shocked to see LOVE and UGH buttons at the bottom of the tile. Call me old-fashioned, but I found this revolting.

This bothers me because it’s actually a gambit to take you over to Facebook to post on the weather.com page there. I suspect there’s also SEO value. I’m OK with giving users easy ways to show they like certain content. It gives other users and the content-creators a gauge of the content’s value. But the weather? That’s not content to make a judgment about. And things are shallow enough online, but posting about the weather on Facebook? Digital small talk.

I’m in the content business, and I get that it’s a business. But many content creators these days don’t have the best interests of the reader (otherwise known as the user) in mind. I found the interview Tim Ferriss did recently with Maria Popova so refreshing. (She’s the brain behind BrainPickings.org, one of my favorite blogs.) Her philosophy is to always think about what she as a reader would want when making content decisions about her blog, not what gets traffic. No slideshows. No listicles. No advertising. It’s a long-view approach, and I’m so glad it’s working for her and others like her.

I may not be thrilled about the showers on Saturday, but I refuse to “vote” or even comment on that with an UGH button.

Photo: Flickr/Neal Fowler