The New Spout Off

Dear Spout Off Community & Herald Readers,

The Herald recently updated its much-loved Spout Off feature, and many of you were kind enough to provide early feedback and suggestions for improvement.

First, thank you! Your input – as well as the thoughtful, humorous, and heartfelt Spouts you continue to share – makes Spout Off a one-of-a-kind community resource, both in print and online.

We’d like to share a few things with you:

1.  Why we had to upgrade the system.
2. What we hoped to improve.
3. What we’ve already changed based on your feedback.

Why Did We Change Spout Off Online?
The truth is, our small team could no longer maintain the old, free-standing site. The open-source software it was built on was outdated and no longer well-supported. We needed to move to a modern, more secure platform – so we integrated Spout Off into our main Herald news site. This created both challenges and new opportunities. For example:

• Subscribers can now Spout directly from articles without leaving the page.
• Editors can tag Spouts under “Trending Topics,” making it easier for the community to follow important conversations.

What Hasn’t Changed?

• You can still comment on Spouts. (Note: Disqus, the comment system we use, has started serving more intrusive ads – we’re looking into that.)
• Spouts are still printed in the Herald every Wednesday for all of Cape May County to read. As far as we know, there’s still nothing quite like it anywhere else in the country.
• Anonymity is still protected – we remain committed to providing a space for free expression without fear of censorship or retaliation.
• Our commitment to Cape May County remains strong, even as local news faces unprecedented challenges.

Suggestions we’ve implemented.

• Temporarily Removed Disqus ads – Disqus serves the ads you see above the comments and that is how they provide the commenting tool free of charge to the Herald. We are investigating how many more Herald subscribers we’ll need to pay Disqus to keep the ads off after the “ad-free” free trial ends.
• Added more navigation options – we’ve added more obvious cues so folks can find the comments section.

Help Us Keep Spout Off Going

Newspapers across the country are closing every week. (We lost Shoppe last week and the Press of Atlantic City is a shadow of what it once was) Advertising revenue is shrinking, and many readers have not yet subscribed to the news they rely on. If you enjoy Spout Off and value local journalism, please consider subscribing to the Herald for just $0.96 a week.

With your support, we can keep Spout Off – and local journalism – strong in Cape May County.

Warm regards,
The Herald Team