No I do not. I hate ads for the most part. The only magazine that I buy is Motorcycle Consumer News, which costs around $50 a year, but has zero ads. I rarely every buy another magazine, maybe once a year. I would rather pay more then have ads everywhere.
Hell I had to put up with ads on a fucking plane the other day on the seat in front of me. Ads on a fucking plane.
Uhhh … such posts aren’t only just off-topic for most of the subforums (except maybe the Pit), but also borderline spamming.
If you’re mad, continue this thread, write TPTB (maybe even vis snail mail), add something in your signature … anything non-destructive, that doesn’t viol;ate the SDMB rules. Please don’t fark up this site.
Lightnin’ you’ll just get banned and the threads will be deleted. Only the people actually looking at the site at that moment will see them. If you think that lots of people will fall on their sword with you then think again. You’ll get socks and trolls joining in but that’s about it.
Elmwood, Yojimbo- those are valid points about it being spamming. However, what do we do? Any silent boycott is doomed to failure, even if only from a lack of cohesiveness.
It’s been pointed out, repeatedly, that Firefox and Adblock can get rid of the ads. How long do you think that’s going to last, if every member uses that to ignore the ads? TPTB will surely work on getting around it in some way, if they aren’t already.
Should we just hold onto our ankles and think of the SDMB which used to be?
I used to work for a magazine, and the day I realized that 95% of content was driven by advertising and advertising alone is the day I stopped reading magazines under any circumstances.
Chalk me up as another who won’t re-up if the ads stay.
If it stays the way it is now (I’m not seeing the ads as they are blocked but that matters less that the thought process behind the move IMO) I’m doing the only thing I can. Walk at re-up time with my money in my wallet and not theirs. I’ll be sad to do it but I feel strongly about it.
I also worked for a magazine. I still subscribe to Newsweek. I don’t mind generating two types of revenue for them, because they have two types of expenses. They have to physically produce the magazine, and they have to generate the content.
I’m puzzled by that last remark. Lots of people have way higher post counts than you do. Please don’t leave, you have one of the best usernames ever.
Somehow, I think people would like Snakes on a fucking plane better.
Wow, I leave the country for a relaxing week of international travel, and I come back to a howling meltdown of industrial-strength wackiness. I can’t decide whether I should handcuff myself to my desk or schedule more frequent getaways.
I’ve always been extremely aggressive about keeping offensive material off my computers* both at home and at work, so as soon as I understood the situation I implemented several layers of blocking options, including but not limited to the HOSTS solution mentioned above. I’m ad-free, and will continue to be as long as the technology permits user-level control.
That said, it’s entirely understandable that others many not be as comfortable tinkering with their configuration as we IT types are, and that their alternatives are limited, so I give myself permission to feel some anger and disappointment on their behalf, even though I am not and will not be affected by the change. Further, the basic principle involved here, to wit, paid members being further soaked, and not enjoying the benefits of what is, in Internet terms, a fairly substantial membership fee, is enormously significant, and reflects quite poorly on the Reader’s decision-makers.
Therefore, for the benefit of those who don’t have the technical capacity to block delivery of this content, and further in consideration of the general principle of the situation, let me say this:
Dear Reader Management: Please remove the ads for paying members, or feel free to massage my quivering taint with your unlidded eyeball.
That is all.
*Unless, of course, I put it there deliberately.
As a form of protest, how about all of us that are so inclined use something to the effect of what Lightnin’ suggested. Like…
“Paid membership buys you banner advertisement! Brought to you by another Doper Ready To Strike!!” or something similiar.
Why don’t we start our own message board?
jimm mentioned DreamHost in another thread and I think people should think seriously about this, starting our OWN message board, instead of taking over someone else’s, or just scattering to the winds. I’ve had a DreamHost account for over a year that I pay $9.95 a month for (that’s because I pay monthly, it’s cheaper if you pay for a year, or two years, in advance). I’m only using 7% of my 269.7 available gb. My bandwidth availability is 5384gb. I’d offer my account, gladly, but a new account gets even MORE benefits. 500gb disk storage, 5 terrabytes of bandwidth a MONTH.
Here’s a page with all they offer. I don’t know the first thing about most of that stuff, because I only use my account to host mp3s, which is why most of it is going to waste, but it looks to me like it would provide just about everything needed, at a MUCH cheaper cost. Dreamhost even offers a way so that people can donate money via PayPal that goes directly to the bill, and not to anyone running the site. This is what they say about that:
The Dreamhost people are VERY cool, which is one of the reasons I’m sticking with them. On the very very rare times there’s a technical problem, they keep their customers very well informed as to what’s going on.
Seems like it would take a little bit of initial investment (which I can’t provide…I’m paying monthly because I can’t afford a year’s payment in advance), setting up the message board, some tweaking to make it all look familiar and there we go. It’d have to be set up by someone trusted though, or most people wouldn’t move over.
Again, I wouldn’t mind offering my account to set up a message board, if no one else wants to start a new account, but I don’t know the first thing about message boards and would need security and setup help, but a new, fresh account would be better.
Just wanted to add another “Fuck you very much!” to this thread.
That’s probably the rub, right there.
I mean sure, I can volunteer to do it, but I don’t know if I look all that good in my Pied Piper suit, and I have no idea who would follow me. If they didn’t follow, I’d be hanging out in my own little playground WITH NO FRIENDS!
You’ve been around for a long time! I’d sure trust you and follow you. Hey, you paid for my membership once. I’m loyal to you! 
Well, one positive is that the ads are now atop the big banner at the top. Looks nicer aesthetically, harder to accidentally expand.
Downside? Still there. I just ponied up for my first year, and it’s rather irksome that they added this. Never felt the need to get adblock, but I think I’ll look into it at sometime in the very near future.
(How would I go about doing it and keeping the Google ads? I like seeing random little bits of surreality at the bottom of a page.)
Little known fact: I have a huge Pied Piper fetish, so I’d follow you anywhere, baby 
Ok, but seriously: I just looked up the Pied Piper on Wiki because, well, it had been a while since I’ve heard the story and I was trying to remember if it was rats or kids he took with him. And, um,
WHAT? :eek:
I’ve changed my mind, jsgoddess. You stay the hell away from my rectum.
I hate the idea that we’ll all scatter to the winds. Hate it.
I also think that it’d be tough to invade another board, they probably wouldn’t be too happy.
The question is not whether this board will be shut down, but rather when.
We-the posters-need to be proactive, not reactive. We need to do this sooner rather than later, before we have lost most of our posters to 50 different sites, leaving the last ones to assemble somewhere to become it’s own little fiefdom.
I second the opinion we need to start a new messageboard. Now, while we still have a following and momentum.
I have no technical ability, but I know how to write a check.
I would check out your place if you made one, but you’ve made no secret of your dislike for me. Not making a point of that per se, but just a point about how people might split off. When they close this place, there’ll probably be a lot of scattering to here and there. Maybe instead of being lonely, you’d end up with a lot of people who are well matched to you. On the other hand, some people like hearing a diversity of opinions. That might be harder to make happen unless you make clear who is welcome.
Look to see if you have it on the list of webpages that you allow script popups on (since there’s a popup for linking). The first time I tried to add in the restriction it didn’t paste what I copied - cut it short - and blocked this page all together for a few minutes so you might want to make sure it’s the exact url pasting in too.