Annoyance With Ads

[Vassago]

Hey Jon,

I understand the need for ads to run a site of this size. I have no problems with ads. The problem I see right now is with ads INSIDE posts, that appear to be a part of the person's post. Most of the time, it's obvious that they are ads left by the site, but sometimes, they can look like spam posts by users on the forum. Can't we move the ads OUTSIDE of posts?

An example of a goodad and badad are attached. Another forum I visit has ads between posts, so they don't find themselves in the middle of a post above the signature but below the actual words left by the member. Your post attached shows an ad right in the middle of your post, even appearing before your signature. This is a bit much and honestly a bit of an eyesore. This could have ramifications on member participation, especially on smaller browsers.

What do you think? Can we move these ads outside the actual posts?

 

[Galaxiom]

What I hate is the continued loading of the ads on a page when I have already clicked to go to another. The new page only loads when the ads are completed. At work part of the problem may be that we block most of the ads at the proxy server but at home where I only have a 256K connection it is really annoying.

I always use Open Link in New Tab otherwise sometimes the page simply doesn't ever load.

 

[pbaldy]

Same here, and it's one reason I use FF with an ad blocker. It was taking pages too long to load in IE, and I'm on a decently fast connection.

 

[ChrisO]

I think we should also consider that it is costing us money if we see the ads.

With a download limited connection the more we download the faster we reach the download limit. That can either mean we exceed the limit and get disconnected or, as in my case, the download speed is decreased.

The only way out is to increase the download limit by paying more money for the service. So it ends up costing us more money even if we don’t click on an ad. And I doubt if Jon recoups any of that extra cost but rather that it just gets syphoned off by our service provider.

And don’t get me started on the animation of the ads. That keeps me offsite more than anything else.

Chris.

 

[ChrisO]

And if this whole thing [with advertisements] is for paying for the upkeep of the site then we could look at it another way…

Jon is not expected to provide the service at a cost to himself, nor is he expected to do it at break-even cost.

But what does this site, and other sites like it, actually do?
The answer is quite simple; it uses volunteers to answer the phone for Microsoft.

Some of the volunteers get paid by an MVP title they can put on a business card.
Some of the volunteers get paid by learning through teaching.
In both cases each is paid in their own right.

But the people asking the questions get a free lunch and they very often make a meal of it.
And the volunteers do a lot of work, very often, without any benefit to themselves.
(There is just so much one can learn from answering the same questions ad nauseam.)

So; who should pay for a site that answers the phone for Microsoft? (Rhetorical question)

Chris.

 

[Galaxiom]

So; who should pay for a site that answers the phone for Microsoft?

Microsoft provides their product as is. They also include an extensive help system and a vast online repository to assist users. Many of the questions here could be avoided if the poster wasn't so averse to doing their own research and simply used these resources.

It is not Microsoft's responsibility to provide detailed designs and code for specific applications. If they were to do so then the cost of their products would obviously be unaffordable and everyone would be paying for thse who can't be bothered using the help provided.

Personally I believe I get at least as much out of answering questions here as I put in. We have all answered the easy questions when we started out and we move on to mostly only answering the interesting stuff as our own skills develop.

 

[ChrisO]

As usual I agree with most of what you say.

However, there was a time, in Australia, that even to ask Microsoft a question by phone one had to give credit card details prior to asking the question. From recall, if the question was valid, in Microsoft’s eyes, then there was no charge otherwise there was. That procedure may or may not still exist, I don’t know.

Now we have web sites, and volunteers on them, devoted to answering the phone for Microsoft for apparently no charge.

So, “Who you gonna call?” Microsoft?
No; they come here for free. It is apparently a free lunch but someone has to pay.
It is costing us time (and money {connection fees}) to do so.
It costs Microsoft only a title for the business card to those that are prepared to put in the time to do so. For those that may benefit from the title the title may be a reasonable payment, that’s up to them and is their call.

But we, you and I, are answering the phone for Microsoft and, most of the time, we are doing it free of charge to Microsoft.

And BTW, you posted as Galaxiom not GalaxiomAtHome and so would assume that your time on site, posting the above reply with no apparent benefit to your company, is in fact being paid for by your company. I am retired now and every site I go to is on my own time and at my own cost. When costs come into consideration I, as a pensioner, need to consider most things.


Chris.

 

[Jon]

Yes guys, I know the ads suck. Its a question of needs must.

Regarding ads inside the post, which was a recent change. I've spent a lot of time working out how to reduce the need to scroll and increase the amount of content on the page at the same time.

I did 4 things:

1. I narrowed the size of the blue bar at the top of the screen. That shaved a bit off.

2. I put the profile details to the left of the post, rather than along the top. That reduced a bit more.

3. I put the ads inside the posts. That saved the most, in many cases giving several cm extra viewing of content.

4. I reduced the number of sticky posts from 11 to 5 in the General Forum.

I know many forums have a paid subscription model where it reduces the number of ads for subscribers. Its an option I may go down, but some of the implementation complexity involved has put this off to date.

 

[Vassago]

3. I put the ads inside the posts. That saved the most, in many cases giving several cm extra viewing of content.

I don't mind the ads. I understand the need for them to be here. Having them inside posts is probably the biggest annoyance. I think needing to scroll a few pixels more is well worth not having ads INSIDE posts. That's a forum standard. Having ads inside posts, just a bad idea IMO.

 

[Galaxiom]

Typically we have hundreds of visitors and just a handful of registered members online at any time. Could we have the visitors get the ads and the members spared having so many? It would make very little difference to the number of ad views.

Even a model where members who contribute beyond a minimum amount of content could be spared the ads entirely. This would be a reward for contributing the content that makes the site so attactive to visitors.

 

[Jon]

Galaxiom, you make a good point and it is something I was thinking about myself yesterday, to see if I could come up with something. Few members are logged in at any one time and I understand the argument. I may even do a bit of testing to see what impact it has on ad revenue.

The ads shown across the top are already smaller when logged in, but maybe I can go further. Leave it with me.

 

[Vassago]

That would actually be a pretty epic idea. You could even take it a step further and say, no ads if you have more than XXXX posts. It could be a reward for contributions.

 

[dan-cat]

The ads within the posts are actually interfering with the purpose of the site. That is to say, reading content. The eye is being deliberately drawn away from the natural flow of reading the thread which breaks my tolerance level I'm afraid.

 

[Alansidman]

Honestly, the ads don't bother me anymore. I am seeing ads everwhere on forums and I guess I have been able to use my selective vision to just block them. Having said that, Jon, anything you can do and still keep the site going would be great.

Alan

 

[Vassago]

The ads within the posts are actually interfering with the purpose of the site. That is to say, reading content. The eye is being deliberately drawn away from the natural flow of reading the thread which breaks my tolerance level I'm afraid.

That's a much better way of putting it. I only wish I could use Firefox with Ad-Block Plus at work.

 

[Jon]

I've formulated a plan and will put it into action soon as a test. I might have to revert it back to how it is now, depending on how the numbers stack up. Hopefully, I can let it run. Let me see what I can do. Expect an announcement soon.

 

[Jon]

Ok guys, here's what I am testing. For those with over 1,000 posts, you will no longer see the advert in the middle of a long thread. Then, for those with over 2,000 posts you will also no longer see the end of thread advert. That means within the thread, people with 2,000 posts will see a reduction from 3 adverts to 1. This will also have an impact of speeding up page load times somewhat. I hope you like the change.

Please bear in mind that this is just a test to see what the impact is on revenues. While there are only a small number of members logged in relative to the number onsite at any one time, these figures are misleading. A logged in member visits far more pages than a non-member, who often just bounces off the site or could even be bots.

Lets see how this runs as a test and I will make an assessment in the near future.

 

[Vassago]

Ok guys, here's what I am testing. For those with over 1,000 posts, you will no longer see the advert in the middle of a long thread. Then, for those with over 2,000 posts you will also no longer see the end of thread advert. That means within the thread, people with 2,000 posts will see a reduction from 3 adverts to 1. This will also have an impact of speeding up page load times somewhat. I hope you like the change.

Please bear in mind that this is just a test to see what the impact is on revenues. While there are only a small number of members logged in relative to the number onsite at any one time, these figures are misleading. A logged in member visits far more pages than a non-member, who often just bounces off the site or could even be bots.

Lets see how this runs as a test and I will make an assessment in the near future.

Good news. It's still only the in-post ads that give me a headache, but it's nice to see faster load times regardless.

 

[ghudson]

What about the users with over 5,000 posts?

I see 1 advert at the top of the thread, 1 advert at the bottom of the post at the top of the page (which looks like it is a part of the posters signature), 2 adverts on the right side of the page and 1 advert at the very bottom of the page. It would be nice if you would award the users with 5,000+ posts to only see the adverts on the right side of the page.

I admit that I have been away for a long time but today I was searching for a post I made many moons ago and the blitz of advertisements that smacked my visual senses was not the way I wanted to be welcomed back.

 

[Jon]

I have already removed intext advertising for those with over 5,000 posts or more. Those are the ones where you get a double underline on some words. ghudson, you won't see them because you are 5K+ but their removal will also have improved your page load time.