Yes, it’s just a banner ad.
It’s also not just a banner ad. It’s a banner ad where there was not one before. Bear in mind that, if we accept that the population of actual Members is in the 3000-5000 range, adding banners for us doesn’t generate a significant amount of revenue.
It feels to me like the new ownership finally got around to reviewing their newly acquired web property, noticed it was missing a tiny revenue component and activated it. All well and good, but the SDMB has what value it does for the Reader (and Creative Loafing) because of two revenue sources:
- Member subscription fees
- Ad revenue.
Interestingly enough, the very same people who supply revenue source 1 are the ones who are creating the majority of content that allows revenue source 2 to exist. Even if you (Harborwolf and others) don’t give a shit, obviously some people do. On what planet is it a good business decision to piss off a large number of the people who create the content that you monetize in order to generate a negligible amount of revenue?
I don’t like the banners because they don’t fit in. There are no graphics here, we’re text and we (or at least I) like it that way.
I *hate *the banner *decision *because it tells me that the people with the power to make decisions about this board don’t have the slightest fucking clue how to generate revenue on this Internet thing in any meaningful fashion, and that increases the likelihood of this place that I like to visit becoming less fun and potentially going away.
and you felt this was so ‘kewl’ it deserved it’s own thread, why?
Curses! I knew my love of boots in asses would someday come to bite me in the . . . nevermind 
.
(And snaps to you for remembering that. . . STOP STALKING ME, JEEZ! 
)
But you’re not paying to see advertising, Litoris. You are paying for the same content that you were paying for before the banner ads began.
But she’s not getting the same experience that she paid for. The experience on offer when she signed up was that Members got a banner-ad free site. You can make fun of her arguably awkward phrasing, but do you have a response to the actual complaint?
Beck and call? I’m not saying that the Reader needs to deliver me a pizza because I paid for a subscription. I’m saying that I think it’s reasonable to expect that the service I’m paying for won’t change for the worse after I’ve paid for it. And, yes, I consider banner advertisements to be a “change for the worse”.
I’m not sure what else to tell ya. The other forum I post most frequently at, I also pay for. You know why I pay for a membership there?
Because it gets rid of the banners.
I wasn’t making fun of her phrasing at all. In fact, I even rephrased my original response in the hope of not coming off that way. What I was trying to do was suggest that perhaps her focus had become misplaced. Had she said that she wasn’t getting the same ‘experience’ I would probably have just let it slide or perhaps a comment similar to the one I did above about the board’s content being its value, not peripheral stuff like the Straight Dope’s page design, Google ads and/or banner ads.
Further, I’m not protesting the negative response to the banner ads around here just out of a desire to be confrontational, you know. IMO, the board lost something when it went to paid subscriptions and a fair number of regular posters bit the dust. I would hate to see the same thing happen now over something as relatively minor and innocuous as these banner ads.
I like banner ads. I pay for newspaper and magazine subscriptions, and deal with ads without problem.
Frankly, I’d be happy with more ads and no subscription fees: the board could use some new blood.
What I don’t like is moving pictures and sound. That’s why I browse with Firefox, equipped with Flashblock.
The more popular adblock apparently blocks all ads. But, I choose not to install that: I’m willing to meet website providers halfway, provided they don’t annoy me unduly.
I’m one of those people. Let me try to explain my POV. We had banners her before and I didn’t give a fuck. Then they went pay and we were told that we were going to get a better service because of it. We have had very little real improvement IME since. The board was very very bad way before P2P but the
back of the problem had been broken before we were asked to pay up. We were promised some very special surprises and nothing came. All we got was a terrible infrastructure that crashed when something like 10-20 people searched at any one time so the search window was expanded. I read way more than I post and search a lot. It’s a pain in the balls.
We also had the google ads put in without so much as a warning about them. Now this shite happens without even the admins being aware of the move. I’m not happy with the way this place is being run. I am a customer. Whether I see the ads or not is quite frankly irrelevant to me. It the manner in which the owners are treating us that I disagree with. I could start a million PIT threads about it and go out in a storm or I could just withdraw my custom. I choose to not give any more money to a business that I’m not happy with. You are free to do whatever the fuck you want to do and fair play to you. If something happens and I get the feeling that the owners have decided that maybe they have made some mistakes then I am free to change my mind.
If and when I go it will be quietly and without a fuss. I doubt many will give a flying fuck anyway. The ads are just another straw from me and a symptom of a bigger thing that has pissed me off. I’m sorry you feel that my decision is the stupidest thing you ever heard of but there you go.
Oh and BTW if Ed had of opened a sticky and announced that this was going to happen around re-up time in March. I would have paid another years sub and just blocked the ads. It’s the manner in which this has been done and not the actual action that is the problem.
btw it appears most of these ads are really only truly annoying if you scroll over them.
I’ll let you guys figure out the simple solution to that problem.
Also, they’re now ALL the way at the top middle of my screen, out of the way, making that even less likely.
Actually, I call the shots at work. I’m the senior veep, and whether people can surf from the office is up to me. But that isn’t the point. The point is that your sort of myopia takes into account only what it is that suits yourself. You and people like you are the reason anarchy can’t work. People don’t have to have what you consider to be a good reason in order for their reasons to be good.
You know, not everyone has the same type of job. Some people have jobs where their actual work only takes up a small portion of their day, the rest of the time they’re sitting there twiddling their thumbs, and one way to kill the time is to read the Dope. Also, some people don’t go out for breaks or lunches, they stay at their desks and use that time to catch up on e-mail and web sites, including the Dope. And some people work so hard that they need to make their own breaks every now and then or they burn out. The SDMB used to be one place where people could go where not only did they know they wouldn’t be assaulted by banner ads, but they knew they wouldn’t be assaulted by banner ads with sound. Who are you to call any of those people stupid?
Man, this “it doesn’t bother me so it shouldn’t bother you and if it does you’re stupid” mentality is so bizarre to me.
Where’s the empathy for your fellow Dopers?
Edit to add: And another thing about work. Most people can’t modify their own computers at work, so they can’t install ad blockers or change the host file.
Can they not preemptively access the volume control before logging on. Not trying to be snarky, I’m just wondering if this option is not available on most office computers.
It depends on the office. You can lock down basically anything using Group Policies if the company so desires. People in my office can’t change any of their desktop settings, change security settings in their browser, install apps, change their host files etc. They need to talk to someone like me.
I don’t know. I’m not speaking from experience. I’m speaking from empathy. It’s this “one size fits all” mentality that confuses me. There might be any number of reasons why someone would have their sound on, either on purpose or accidentally. They might diligently stay away from web sites that could have sound and so never see it as a problem. Then they come here and are assaulted with a sound ad they didn’t expect. As many have pointed out, the “two-click” rule was put in place to avoid NSFW sites. These ads automatically make the SDMB a NSFW site in one click.
I barely notice the banner ads, but I’m concerned about the effect on low-bandwidth users.
The banner ads aren’t really all that irritating. What is irritating is the fact that there was a tacit implication that the site would be free from adverts when we went to paying for memberships.
Frankly, all the slackjaws posting about how its possible to turn sound down on your PC are missing the point - you shouldn’t have to do that for a site you pay to visit, especially when we were told that this wouldn’t happen before going P2P.
This is a message board so I can’t tell, but did you actually post this with a straight face? If you did…well wow. Have to say I’m a bit flattered. My opinion is so great that it has become the face of everything that is wrong with anarchy. Who knew?
Goody for them. They still shouldn’t expect sympathy when it becomes slightly harder to slack off at work.
If they are on their break, then they shouldn’t be worried about being caught by their boss. They could also bring a book to work. Books are like the internet, only with out banners, popups, viruses, or spyware. Though now that I think about it, you could get a paper cut which could become infected. Scratch that “no virus” thing.
If people are so strung out at work that they need a banner ad free message board to not burn out, they honestly and sincerely need to find professional help because they clearly aren’t dealing with their stress properly.
First, I never called the entirety of the issue stupid. I said that one part of it was stupid and the overreaction was annoying. The problems at work are stupid because
1)You are at work. You are not on your own time. Posting on a message board is something you should do on your own time. If the boss is gonna yell at you for doing it, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it at all anyways.
2)Computers have volume controls. Learn how to work them. Mute is your friend.
3)If it becomes slightly harder for you to slack off at work, it’s stupid to even complain about it. It’d be like pitting your boss for putting a lock on the supply closet when you just ran out of printer paper at home. Not to compare surfing the dope with stealing (though you could point out reduction in overall productivity studies and costs inflicted therein but that’s a different thread for a different time). Simply comparing it to another relatively minor thing that you aren’t supposed to do at work.
As for the “it doesn’t bother me so it shouldn’t bother you and if it does you’re stupid” mentality, likewise for the the “it does bother me and if it doesn’t bother you than you’re a bastard” mentality is equally bizarre to me.
Reserved for issues that actually deserve empathy such as illness, deaths, ingrown toenails, etc. Just can’t find it in my heart to get upset because somebody can’t post from their desk. I’m cruel like that I guess.
To repeat: “The point is that your sort of myopia takes into account only what it is that suits yourself.”
I mean damn, when the topic sentence *tells you * that it is the topic sentence and you still miss it, it is hardly any wonder that you can’t get why the banners piss so many people off. You clearly have no idea what we’re all even talking about.