Read engineer_comp_geek’s post carefully. If it involves the SDMB (because you are threatening action against a company due to their advertisements on the Straight Dope), it does involve us.
It is not a separate issue at all. There are thousands of web sites out there which use advertisements that do NOT hijack the users and that do NOT block or otherwise obfuscate content.
The current business model boils down to, “pay us a membership fee or be subjected to an untenable user experience.”
Thanks to the mods who have responded. I understand your position, and FWIW I sympathize.
Regards,
Shodan
But you couldn’t take any kind of legal action against anyone involved in getting that ad from the think tank at Zales to your screen without mentioning the website where you saw the ad or the people who own the website. If you’re going to cost them even an hour or two for a legal team to type up a reply and that’s that, not only are you costing them money, but of course the first thing they’re going to do is make sure you’re no longer a member.
It reminds me of something that happened a few years ago. A customer was in my store looking for an item. He couldn’t find it, but the sign was still up, he threw a hissy fit and threatened to take me to court AND call the consumer protection person at the local news station for ‘false advertising’. I told him he had to leave. He was stunned that I would kick him out and he asked why. I told him (amongst a few other things) that he just said he was going to sue me and try and send bad publicity my way and that I need him out of the store, now.
To be honest, I didn’t think he was serious, I didn’t think his case had any merit (but I’m not a lawyer and wasn’t going to try to figure it out in the heat of the argument), all I knew right then and there is that I have a bunch of customers, in my store, spending money, and this guy telling me his going to sue me because there’s a sign that says Bartlett pears and one of my 15 year old employees put D’anjou pears in it’s spot.
Exactly the point I wanted to make. No one argues that a site is not entitled to revenue either from membership fees and/or advertising sales, but I have quite frankly never seen a legitimate website in which the advertising content was as abusive as it is here. A first-time visitor hitting the worst of it couldn’t be blamed for believing his machine had been infected by malware, not to mention that sometimes the ads literally do that, too!
I’m willing to be charitable and suggest that this is not actually the intent (“paid members don’t see ads” is a reasonable and common business model) but rather the result of an overzealous, ill-conceived, and ultimately self-defeating idea for maximizing ad revenue.
Minkle minkle minkle.
Which is why there are adblocker blocker blockers out there which make mincemeat of sites trying to block you unless you disable your adblocker. This is a good one.
As to the ads, though I never see them, well armored as I am, this sounds a real problem for the SDMB. Way to discourage casual visitors! Isn’t it possible to use an ad provider that actually vets the ads? I think Ed really needs to get a grip on this one, the cheesy and intrusive ads described could well damage the good reputation of this place.
Certainly it’s not the intent, but it’s still the outcome.
Obviously I have had to reconsider this issue. If a TV commercial for Buicks spills over into the program that is sponsored, I would be barking up the wrong tree to belabor General Motors about it, let alone the production company that produced the TV program itself; I would do better to complain to Foote, Cone and Belding, or Batton, Barton, Durstine, and Osborne, or whichever other ad agency prepared the commercial. And certainly not the TV network or local station. Of course, I would have to know which ad agency was responsible.
But I do not know how much latitude the ad agency has about the layout on the web page. This includes the fact that the ads in question lack an “X” in the corner with which to remove them–in fact they spill over outside the edge of the picture on the screen, making them immovable. Does the FCC have any latitude here?
Seriously. Threaten legal action and we’ll ban you…unless you’re some semi-famous hack.
It is the intent. Every time we have a thread about the malware-infested ads, the first response is “oh, but if you buy an account you don’t have to worry about bricking your computer, you freeloader.”
On an internet message board? Nope. Only on commercial broadcast TV and radio.
It doesn’t help that when someone posts about ads making SD unusable or infecting their computer that people (to be fair non-mods) will reply, “If you were a member it wouldn’t be a problem.” I can’t tell if it comes across more as blackmail or a protection racket.
This has but this is one of my biggest pet peeves, which I have slowly and patiently ground out of my kids…
Complainant: “I have a problem!”
Respondent: “Here is a solution, guaranteed to work.”
Complainant: “Your solution is NOT WHAT I WANT! I don’t care that it works, it wasn’t the thing I was looking for! Now I have major issues with your proposed solution, and I will complain about it bitterly! Whinge, whinge, whinge!”
FTR, I agree that the ads on this site are atrocious. My wife no longer visits here, as the boards are currently unusable without either a membership or the kinds of protection aldiboronti mentions upthread. However, a membership is a valid solution to the ad problem, and also the easiest. So it will, naturally, be mentioned almost immediately by those of us who are members. Not necessarily out of blind devotion, or with an ulterior motive, or… stick with me here… because we are looking down upon you from our pedestals.
I would love it if TPTB would hold a frank discussion with the users of this board to establish a way to keep the site USABLE. I think that it is likely that the current advertising policies are probably strangling the board. I know that there are several other websites that have annoyingly intrusive ads that I will no longer visit, and if I ever make a virgin visit to a website that acts like the SDMB does nowadays (when not signed in), I immediately leave and look elsewhere- and there is no way I am the only person that responds that way.
I visit a limited number of commercial websites on a semi-regular basis, including one other that depends on user-generated content (Gardenweb). There has only been one site whose ads were sufficiently annoying to get me to finally download AdBlock.
That’s right, the Dope and its bottom space-hogging ads that had to be X’d out of existence every time I went to a new page.
Ads that are so obnoxious that even an ad-tolerant user like me who recognizes the need for Internet ads feels compelled to block them, are arguably a bad idea.
Just about every single one of these threads features members looking down on guests from their pedestals. This one is no exception.
I’m a paid member. My usual routine is to check the Dope, go do some other stuff, come back and check the Dope again, go do something else again… When I sign in, it seems like I get booted out pretty quickly and it’s easier to deal with the intrusive, annoying ads than sign back in every time. The funny thing is, the ads never fully load before I kill them, so I have no idea what they are. This is mainly on my iPad but pretty much true for my desk top too. Do internet advertisers realize how much the average web surfer tunes out all the clutter?
Hmmm… I sign in once, then never have to do so again… until I either delete my entire browsing history or reinstall my browser.
They most certainly do. Which is why the ads are getting ever more intrusive.
I think it wasn’t so much the semi-famous as it was “works in a profession rife with actual lawyers”.
Isn’t dougie a paralegal who works with lawyers?