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PithHelmet 2.6.7
I think what is a constant general frustration, and bound to be a specific frustration here, is the complete lack of control Administrators of this board have over the place. The admins here are really just moderators with slightly higher vB security privileges. It’s very hard for people to accept that nobody that actually posts here runs the show.
I mean, what was with the confusion over “debugging” as the initial explanation “administrator” TubaDiva gave?
I’m late to the party but throw me on the never complained before/strongly object list.
I’ve never before considered not renewing my subscription, but this gives me pause. That I’m even considering it probably means that there are a whole lot of people on the other side of the fence, who will leave.
This board suffered when we went to pay to post. Lots of valuable members of the community were lost. But enough of the core members remained to keep the place interesting.
We may see a mass exodus in April when it comes time to renew subscriptions and the charter member base sees its largest decline. Clearly this issue pisses off a LOT of people. And if we lose a chunk of our core member base, could this board survive it again? I don’t think I’m being overly dramatic when I say that there’s a chance that this could result in the eventual demise of this board.
So this decision doesn’t even make financial sense. They’re going to lose more in membership losses than they’ll make up in ads. Those that remain will be disheartened by the valued members of the community that have left, and also by the obnoxiousness of the ads themselves, and so the sizable exodus in April will be followed by a gradual decline in memberships until this board bleeds to death.
Who thought this was a good idea?
Thank Og for Firefox, AdBlock Plus and NoScript
yes I’m using a computer, no I will not supply you with data on it’s configuration so you can find a way to sneak more ads past the gillnets of my filtering/blocking software
Banner ads are a definite NO GO for me, chalk me up as another user willing to pay a few dollars more for a completely ad-free experience, no Google Ads, no banners, nothing, 100% ad-free is the only acceptable choice here
the Hamsters have a hard enough time with the board the way it is, ads will merely compound the problem
Yup, me too. Or 10. Or 20. Or 245.
Nothing I can say that others haven’t, really. This is pretty fucked.
Nice to see that the new management has the same people-friendly approach to the SDMB as the old management!
So how much more are you guys willing to pay? Toss out your cut off prices. No point playing coy now!
For OS X users, Camino with the “block Web advertising” preference checked does a good job at blocking the banners. Camino is about as fast as Safari, but uses the Gecko rendering engine; it’s essentially a very fast equivalent of Firefox.
On Safari, I’m only seeing banners from two advertisers; Internet Explorer and Dunkin’ Donuts. Unless they’re pay-per-impression and not pay-per-click, I don’t know how effective the ads will be at raising revenue.
Something Awful has had a lot of success with member-paid banner ads. Many members will buy ads to point out a thread they started, link to a personal blog, or flame another user. It might be a model for the SDMB to consider; it’ll both raise revenue, and reinforce a sense of community among Dopers. From SA:
OK. Let’s hear it for the Capitalist Model!!
Buy an ad, flame your nemesis! I can get behind this one. 
It’s one thing to ignore them, but you cannot ignore the sound. Also, I despise ads that drop over the text I’m reading if I accidentally go over it with my mouse. In which the ones implemented here do that, it’s totally unacceptable.
Seems adding the filter “http://media.chicagoreader.com/phpAdsNewer” into Adblock got 37 hits over the ones I manually filtered. So far so good with that one. It even took that gap out of the SDMB banner and the forum so it’s like it’s not even there!
That’s an interesting and creative idea… which is exactly why we’ll never see it here.
It hasn’t quite made it yet to the popular Internet for Greedy Fucks (4th ed., 2003 - NOW with an all new “Ignoring Your Users and Never Updating Your Software” supplement!) business manual that the SDMB gets its revenue generating ideas from.
ETA: it’s kind of funny how they have plenty of time to test goddamn banner ads, but when someone mentions that the board software hasn’t been updated in years, well… uh, they’ve been very busy for all of those years!
Wow, I just noticed Ponder Stibbons already wrote almost the exact same thing earlier in the [post=9219877]TubaDiva, must be Wednesday[/post] thread. However, I would extend it beyond just technical issues.
Perhaps there should be two price levels. One at $15 for a “Member” (Charter Members keeping their discount), and one for “Member Who Pays Extra To Block Ads” (Charter Members can pay extra, but still get the “Pays Extra” part tacked on).
Indeed. And maybe that discussion should be “taken to email” and everyone could negotiate their own “Ad free” price. The Chicago Reader might really be able to cash in on certain Dopers.
I just updated my Firefox to include Adblocker - worked like a charm.
I’m pretty sure that because of the revenue-enhancing banner ads, the administration is about to announce that the SDMB is FREE again. YAY!
Yeah, but SA has a very different feel than here. I’m not going to say it’s better or worse - I’m a member there as well - but it’s definitely got a different ‘feel’ that the SDMB. I’m not sure we want to go that way.
Well, there are about 15 dozen people in this thread alone who can tell you how to block whatever crap the decidedly untech-savvy business idiots at the Chicago Reader come up with to generate revenue off us.
Actually, maybe they’re not that stupid. Sure, we can block the crap, but we also provide the content which keeps people casually surfing through and clicking on the ads and making money for Chicago Reader off of us.
We make this place popular, we pay to be here, and Chicago Reader makes the profit. God, the underwear gnomes would be proud.
Advertisers look at the traffic stats, think this place is happening, pay more to advertise here, we provide the content that makes this place “happening.”
Fucked up.
I’ll tell you what’s different about it. It’s full of more annoying crap. It has a lot of good things about it but I’ve found that the people there are less literary, less mature, and more interested in shocking/getting a cheap laugh out of everyone else. It’s like a whole classroom of class clowns, albeit sarcastic and fairly-well-educated clowns. It doesn’t have 1/10th of the class that this place does.
I have complained about administrative stuff, and I’m hoping the ads lead to better stability. If they do, I’m happy with it.
Well yeah, if you’re reading FYAD, BYOB, or GBS. The huge number of specialized forums means that you’ll find a different crowd in each, though. It can’t really replace the SDMB for me, but it’s great for what it is.