It’s not the happiest times here on this board and I personally feel really bad about it.
I think banner ads are about the worst idea that someone could come up with lately and I am sorry beyond words that someone came up with it. I hope they go away soon.
If these were my choices they would be different ones.
I can’t speak for the rest of the staff – and they can speak very well for themselves and have been – but I can tell you that we’re all quite displeased with the current turn of events. We hope for betterment for you and for ourselves – we’re all members too – and we continue to work to try to make this the best experience you can have in all the circumstances that prevail.
It’s also hard to keep from being angry and upset over all of this but I’m aware that’s not really useful. All I can do is hang on and give you the best service I can in these most unhappy times. If at times I seem testy it’s not intentional and most of all it’s not personal. I am very frustrated, though, it’s so not what I would want for this site or for any of you. I hope you all understand that.
Is there an appropriate avenue of protest? Fortunately for me, I don’t see them on the machine I do the majority of my browsing on, but still. Can we contact someone?
Hoping this doesn’t come off as snarky – it’s absolutely intended not to be:
Is it reasonable to ever expect someone with real power over the SDMB – or at least an ombudsman – to ever begin posting here regularly? Weekly, or monthly? A “State of the SDMB” post, then some Q&A?
It was pointed out elsewhere that this is the real issue: this particular board is no longer run by its members. Meaningful control over the SDMB is far, far removed from those that actually contribute to this board.
Yeah, we’ve got enough loud, flashy screaming members, we don’t need adverts adding to it!
In all seriousness, I think many people would agree with me that the ads are not that bad. Personally I’d like to see the banner ads gone but if they stay it’s not a deal-breaker for me.
Would it be of any use for us to e-mail Ed or anyone else directly, or is he and everyone else accessable getting a sufficient flavor of the nearly unanimous (and when is anything on this board nearly unanimous) hostility to this idea?
If so, just point us and we’ll fire. If not, I at least will hold off the dogs (to mix metaphors).
Actually, as I said in one of the rant threads, if it weren’t that some of them play sound, it is a big ol’ meh for me. I can ignore most of the visual stuff, but the sound is annoying.
The site has always been the property of the Reader but in years past there was more benign neglect – and the board was small enough that we could do for ourselves and nobody cared much and we sort of just bumped along.
We had more autonomy perhaps but no real authority.
It is a new day now and we’re waiting for orders, as it were. You’ll see what we see when we see it.
Thank you very much for the update and explanation, it is refreshing and appreciated. I retract my previous statements in the Pit, and empathize that you lot are as unhappy with this turn as we are.
I’d just like to point out that if we’re stuck with audio-enabled banner ads, there is no more justification for the “two-click” rule since the entire board then becomes NSFW by definition.
Maybe 99% of members who are commenting on it are absolutely fucking infuriated about the ads, but there are a good deal of us who either a) don’t rightly care, b) care, but not enough to be arsed about it, c) have some sort of blockers on and can’t even see the ads, or d) realize we live in a capitalist society where money must be made at every corner and welcome our new corporate emperors.
It might not be a deal-breaker for you or me, but it will be for some members. What’s worse, it will be for some non-members.
You might like to while away some time here, flashy ads be damned, but what about the guy who’s never been here before? Will he bother to become a member? Will he even bother to visit more than once, particularly if he’s at work and a noisy ad shows up?
The ads are a disincentive for new users to join. Since (so far as I can tell) the SDMB is keeping roughly stable or trending slightly downward in terms of membership, this can only decrease total membership. Since the content is completely member-supplied, fewer members = less content. Less content = less reason for new members to join.
