Are the ads at the bottom of the page supposed to play, out loud, spontaneously?

[drewtwo99]

This same exact complaint was brought up not long ago.

Here were some responses.

@gnoitall

(By “Improper”, I mean not in accordance with stated standards of The Straight Dope).

On column archive rerun from 27 May 2013 (“Is the south side always the baddest part of town?”), the inset advertisement above the “Recent Additions” list was an autoplaying, fully-animated, with-loud-sound advertisment for “Schiff Megared” on my recent viewing of the page.

Completely autoplaying. My mouse pointer never came anywhere near it. No clicks, no mouse-overs, nothing at all until the voiceover started blaring (which was immediately upon page load).

I don’t have a good way to post a screen cap, alas, but I hope this is enough information to squash this obnoxious nuisance.

@TubaDiva

Standards stated where?

Keep in mind that even if something was said at one time, that was at least two owners ago and the current owners may do as they wish.

@spinky

Here, by you, less than a year ago:

And you can give us the snippy, bullshit excuse about new owners and imply that it’s silly of us to expect you to do what you said you’d do, but that’s seriously weak sauce: there was likely no intentional policy change, and you know it. These things just slip through occasionally, and the recent change in ownership has given you a convenient excuse to ignore the reports.

I do hope the new owners are happy with the brilliant strategy of cranking up the obnoxiousness of the ads until everyone is convinced to use ad-blockers. I’ve literally never even come close to installing one for any other site, but here I am, blocking ads on your site. Smooth move!

@TubaDiva

Neither snippy nor bullshit.

It is reality.

This is a business, one that is not owned by the staff nor the users. The owners of this site can place whatever content they want on these pages.

It’s worrisome and annoying when an ad sounds off at an unwelcome time and in an unwelcome place – especially in your office. But there is nothing that we can do about it. It’s why I keep headphones hooked up to my computer all the time – I have people on different sleep schedules in my house that object to noise. I don’t always hear everything but I’m not unpleasantly surprised neither.

I’m sorry if it sounds off in your office or if it wakes the baby. I’d do something about if I could. I don’t know what else to tell you.