I was in the “Asking a question about virginity” thread in IMHO and I got an autoplaying video ad for Veet wax strips.
Reported.
Can you clarify what you saw? We have some autoplaying video ads that appear in the lower right corner of column display pages only; the video expands beyond the ad border. These ads are not supposed to appear on message board pages. Questions:
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To confirm, this ad appeared on a Straight Dope Message Board page, and not on a column display page?
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Did the video expand outside the ad border, or did it remain within the box?
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Was the ad accompanied by sound?
We have no prohibition against silent autoplaying video that remains within the ad border, and haven’t previously had complaints about such ads that I’m aware of, so I want to make sure I understand what the issue is here.
Shall I repeat myself again?
Yes. There was sound.
Perhaps what you wrote wasn’t what you meant to say, because not all video is accompanied by audio.
I think the “shall I repeat myself” was in regards to the question about where the OP was when the video started playing.
Precisely. I would have thought the bolding of the quoted text would have helped illustrate the point.
Apologies on my part, then.
I’m getting them, too.
We have added Veet to the block list maintained by our largest ad provider. If this ad or other ads with unprompted sound appear, please advise.
I just got hit with one for terratv (in Spanish!) in the CS thread about ramen restaurants.
Damn. OK, on it.
Tech support asks: what is your location?
Austin, TX.
I’ve been getting something Spanish on and off for about a month, but AdBlock for Chrome must have been blocking the video and not the sound. I was confused as all fuck until now.
The same ad that I mentioned in a previous thread on this topic is still around. World of Tanks. The audio on it is very loud, and I would appreciate it if you got rid of it. I’m in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Are we still not supposed to be getting ads with sound? Because I keep getting “It’s a beautiful day…” and that’s as far as I get because I exit.
It comes up when I click on a thread, the ad that’s in between the first post and others.
Anyone have any idea what this ad is about or who it’s for?
We can’t do anything about it if we can’t identify the source.
Also … are you touching the ad in any way? (That might include accidentally mousing over it.) Those are supposed to be okay; it’s the ones that automatically start playing regardless of what you do that aren’t supposed to be happening here.
Finally … where are you? Ads are targeted to specific places, so that sometimes helps us sort out just what’s going on. For example, the Veet ad mentioned above only played in Europe, I think, and that made it easier to track it down.
(bolding mine) According to who? Are you saying you want to be sending us ads that start making noise if we accidentally run our mouse across them? If so, you guys really are doing your best to increase the popularity of ad-blockers among your users.
Not happy with this rule. Simply mousing from point A to point B could trigger a video if the ad happens to be in the way. Bad idea.
From Calculus, the Intermediate Value Theorem applies here. It says, basically, that to move a point along a continuous path from A to B, you have to pass through every point in between.
(ETA: Even menu items that open a drop-down menu when you point to them are annoying, because they tend to cover up something else that you were actually aiming for.)
In general, I protest any GUI activities wherein anything ever happens simply because of where you pointed. Okay, tool-tips are okay, and links or buttons that change color when you point to them are okay, and trivial stuff like that. But a screen control should NEVER play a video or audio, nor open another page or pop-up or anything substantial like that just because you pointed to it. That’s just baaaadddddd design.
Web ads that play video and audio are extreme cases (in terms of annoyance). SDMB should forbid advertisements that play (video or audio) when the user only points at them. spinky is right. Bad advertisers just lower the value of “good” advertisers’ ads by encouraging more ad blockers.