I’m unblocked again, if they come back, I will notice pretty quickly, note the fact in several threads and then put my custom blocks back in.
Jim
Yep. Thanks, Staff. (Especially Giraffe, who was the first to let us know anything at all.) If nothing else, I hope **Tuba ** takes a lesson to stop posting from her ivory tower with snarky ad hoc barbs whenever people ask questions in ATMB.
So… I’ve been gone about a week.
Anything going on around here?
I feel informed. Yay, informed is good!
Nah, just the usual.
I don’t remember all of them, but the one I do remember is on oil origins. I was going to keep track of them and at some point write a pithy thread about Ed cribbing columns in order for him to be able to spend more time downloading squirrel pr0n, but, well, fuck that.
Now, having read Ed’s latest missive on this whole abortion, I’m still heading towards the door.
So, let me get this straight, CL decides they need more money from the SD (a property which they consider to be “highly valuable”), and instead of doing some, uh, basic research and seeing how the gravy train (i.e. us) will react to it, they, like the previous overlords, just arbitrarily make a call (and a bad one at that). This is akin to car makers swiping everyone’s car and replacing it with a Pinto because they think that they’ll be able to make more money off of us. In short, dick move.
The key word here being “think.” I “think” of a lot of things, too. Many of them involve tropical islands and half-naked women, but that doesn’t mean shit, really, since I still live in a dump and the odds of me actually owning said island are pretty much between slim and none and slim just left town. The Cecil Adams columns I cut my teeth on taught me to be a cynical bastard to such things, and given that we’ve been various things in the past and they’ve not shown up, I ain’t holding my breath.
More vague promises, and I’ll note no mention of re-examining the overflowing plethora of suggestions members have made over the years about how the Reader could make some bank off of this place without pissing the membership off. One would think this would be at the top of the list of things to do. After all, the gravy train is pissed, and while some of them are placated by a return to normal, it’s pretty clear to anyone with brain cells rubbing together that it doesn’t take much to upset the apple cart.
Every please see **Ed Zotti’s ** update in ATMB: No more banner ads for subscribers
It is great news
I’m back! (OK, I couldn’t go a day without lurking, dang it, what else am I gonna do at work?) And I gotta say Ed’s annoucement is the best possible outcome I could hope for. I would love to see lots more new posters and a more robust and vibrant SD. And also have the option of turning off the ads with a subscription. Win-win IMHO.
Oh, yay! I was about to stalk you via email to let you know the storm had (mostly) passed.
Okay, this is to be my final post on this subject, I’m letting the matter drop…
But what the hell were TPTB thinking, to even contemplate showing banner ads to paying subscribers, all they needed to do is a little RESEARCH (something for which the SDMB is great for) to discover the last uproar when the Google AdWords were implemented, if we got that bent out of shape over small, unobtrusive text ads, how in the hell did they think we’d tolerate large, noisy, animated disruptive ads?
they should have known that banner ads would go over like a lead balloon…
I would like to apologize for posting identifiable phone numbers and addresses. I did not want to spend much time on the post, because I would have gotten quite upset and said things I should not have.
The general point was not intended to create a mailbomb campaign, but rather to note that people who could have direction over the message board are easily locatable, and some sort of consensus message could have been passed to them, signifying our displeasure, and the potential results thereof.
ETA: Now, perhaps we could think of positive revenue-enhancing methods for Creative Loathing? For example, tasteful banner advertisments?
No worries, that’s the vibe I got from your message. And I think that’s why fluiddruid left the information up – it was clear you guys were just brainstorming ways to communicate your feelings to those in a position to make decisions, not trying to cause mischief.
Giraffe, thanks again to all the mods that helped, complained with us and gave us more leeway than usual in posting on this subject.
I think I speak for most in saying it was greatly appreciated.
99% of the complaints were from people that like or love this board and did not want to see it head the wrong direction.
Jim
Seconded.
Thirded.
Oh god, if I were really smart I’d come up with a witty SDMB-worthy comment, but as it is, I just have to say that that made me laugh out loud.
Yeah, big love to all the mods and admins who let a lot of stuff stand in the various threads that probably wouldn’t have passed muster otherwise: I was halfway expecting my “Boycott” thread to get locked, and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t. You guys could have made what was already a pretty heated topic much worse by jumping on threads and warning people for pushing the boundaries, but you showed great judgement in showing a lot of patience and restraint. Big love too to all the posters who didn’t start shouting, “This decision stinks, therefore the mods suck!”: restraint all round, with righteous wrath tempered by good judgment.
… sadly, that was a freudian typo. I rather like it. It’s not quite as good as the one a friend once used to describe a pair of vampire-goths. “Nouveau Rice.” He meant ‘Riche’, but it was such a perfect description…
As anyone in Customer Service will tell you, you can get away with a lot if you KEEP THE CUSTOMER INFORMED!!!111!!! Nobody likes being treated like a mushroom (especially this herd of cats).
(I’m still having trouble getting over the idea that The Powers That Be have no idea how members feel about anything. Too busy having high-powered meetings and doing power breakfasts to take a look once in a while? I’m still getting whiffs of arrogance/ignorance.)
As most of us, they would like to make money. They may not have any experience with a message board, and they are probably concerned with business interests other than the SDMB. I’ll be glad if I can turn off the avatars, and I’ll hope they don’t attract riff raff. 
And burying the information in the bottom of a long list of fine print, doesn’t count.