It's just a Banner Ad.

The BBQ Pit
81

[QUOTE=Liberal]
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.
[/QUOTE]
Right. Got that. I just went to the larger stupid from your post. If you want me to pull out and ridicule all of your stupid, I can do that as well. I mean, you’ve already inflated banner ads on a message board to something deserving of large scale drama. It’s not at all surprising that you would think my irritation with an overreaction about a message board reflects an overly selfish world view. You clearly have an inability to put in their proper place or context with regards to importance. Seriously, how is my disagreeing with the majority any more or less myopic than Bricker or Shodan posting in a thread about the current administration?

And pot calling the kettle black, just because the majority agrees with your view doesn’t make your opinion any less potentially myopic. You are calling me to task for disagreeing with your opinion. Nothing more.

82

[QUOTE=Harborwolf]
Seriously, how is my disagreeing with the majority any more or less myopic than Bricker or Shodan posting in a thread about the current administration?
[/QUOTE]
You said our complaints *irritated * you — as though we pushed your face into them and made you read them or something. You copped the “banners don’t bother me so why should they bother anyone” attitude that I so fucking hate about anything and everything. If you can’t stand the drama, get off the stage.

83

[QUOTE=Liberal]
You said our complaints *irritated * you — as though we pushed your face into them and made you read them or something. You copped the “banners don’t bother me so why should they bother anyone” attitude that I so fucking hate about anything and everything. If you can’t stand the drama, get off the stage.
[/QUOTE]
Incorrect. I copped the “this overreaction annoys me” attitude. I posted as much. You took an attitude of “I’m glad we annoy you because you deserve it” rather than trying to explain yourself. You also took the attitude of “this bothers me so if it doesn’t bother you than there is something wrong with you.” by calling me myopic. You’re right. Those attitudes are so much better than mine.

84

[QUOTE=Usram]
But my memory is of paying a small amount of money out of little more than goodwill and a vague hope that maybe things would get better if the tech guy wasn’t too busy doing things that, you know, earned his employers some money.
[/QUOTE]
You think we don’t earn them money? There are about 3,000 of us, paying an average of $10 each per year. That’s $30,000 plus the google ad money.

The board is moderated for free. Jerry works on the board in his spare time. They haven’t upgraded the software in nearly 3 years. Most of what Jerry does seems to be once a month troubleshooting and offloading old posts so that they don’t actually have to deal with the growing DB size.

Do you expect me to believe it costs near $3,000/mo for server space and bandwidth, because I don’t. Many privately run boards run without members paying at all, with no more adspace than we now have. The ones that do have payments usually give paying members something. We get the ability to search an incomplete database (with a 2 minute lag time) and post, and that’s it.

85

[QUOTE=Dominic Mulligan]
especially when we were told that this wouldn’t happen before going P2P.
[/QUOTE]

Again, does anyone actually have a cite for this? It’s been brought up in several of the banner ad threads, and no one seems to have actual evidence for it.

FWIW, I went back and looked at the original thread announcing P2P, it didn’t make any sort of statement about no future ads.

86

[QUOTE=yojimbo]
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.
[/QUOTE]

Look, don’t take it personally. I only said it like that 'cause we’re in the Pit. Plus, I’ve heard way stupider things here, like that time you said- :wink:

I don’t want to see anyone leave for a couple reasons.

As much as things around here suck in a variety of ways I still haven’t found a board that can hold a candle to this place.

We’ll never pull off a mass exodus successfully. This is the one and only SDMB. The alternative boards everyone is talking about emigrating to probably don’t want us. Who would?

We’ve got one and only one alternative at this point. Don’t click on the ads. None of us. Ever. Spread the word.

87

My issue is its just another nail in the coffin showing they do not care about there customers.

88

[QUOTE=faithfool]
So, I think I’ll forgo any other point of view other than my own (even those possibly laced with principles) …
[/QUOTE]

But I don’t see the “principle” involved here.

People don’t like paying for ads? Don’t these same people buy magazines, newspapers, movie tickets, and TV sets? Does the selective application of this “principle” make it one?

Stuff on the net should be free? Then how are servers, bandwidth, and IT personnel’s time to be paid?

That we, the users, should have a say in the boards administration? As an analogy, I don’t recall any principle that states because I buy an Egg McMuffin value meal I get to sit on the Board of Directors of McDonalds, or act like an Executive Officer with daily authority over product and revenue.

That there’s some ironclad agreement between me and the board’s administrators preventing them from exposing my tender eyes to advertisements? Anybody mind pointing it out to me? Closest I see is here, and there’s not a single mention that paying members will not be subjected to advertisements.

89

It’s just a banner ad.

True, but don’t you need a little bit more than that?

Seriously, a whole bunch of times this morning, I tried to load assorted threads and forum pages here, and what did I see? Just a banner ad. Nothing else. A banner ad atop an otherwise blank page.

It’s just a banner ad. :smiley:

90

[QUOTE=Winston Smith]
We’ve got one and only one alternative at this point. Don’t click on the ads. None of us. Ever. Spread the word.
[/QUOTE]

I can think of at least 3 alternatives:

  1. Don’t click

  2. Block the Ads

  3. Continue to complain about the ones with sound and flash over, hoping against hope that the new owners want to keep the board going and will come up with a way to not piss off as many members.

The owners have more money to make if they grow the board by improving performance and features than they do by just adding annoying ad revenue streams that do nothing to improve the board and actual drives off some customers (members) and slows the boards loading time a bit more.

Jim

91

[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
It’s just a banner ad.

True, but don’t you need a little bit more than that? :smiley:
[/QUOTE]
Are you kidding? The banner ad for TakeTv says that it is better than sliced bread. What more do you need? Helio offers one touch search, and you’re asking for more. Greedy bastard.

92

[QUOTE=RTFirefly]
It’s just a banner ad.

True, but don’t you need a little bit more than that?

Seriously, a whole bunch of times this morning, I tried to load assorted threads and forum pages here, and what did I see? Just a banner ad. Nothing else. A banner ad atop an otherwise blank page.

It’s just a banner ad. :smiley:
[/QUOTE]

Can you block the ad?

Other member will be happy to assist you. PM me for IE6 or IE7 on XP or Vista.
Post your Op Sys & browser in the main pit thread and someone will help and be glad to help.

Jim

93

[QUOTE=yojimbo]
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.
[/QUOTE]

How do they disable the volume control on the speakers?

94

[QUOTE=JohnT]
But I don’t see the “principle” involved here.
That we, the users, should have a say in the boards administration? As an analogy, I don’t recall any principle that states because I buy an Egg McMuffin value meal I get to sit on the Board of Directors of McDonalds, or act like an Executive Officer with daily authority over product and revenue.
[/QUOTE]
The principle is that if you sign a year long contract for Egg McMuffins, paid in advance, and McDonalds changes the recipe after 6 months, that you (and other EMcM customers) might have a legitimate beef with the management.

95

But my “long-term contract” is bound by what’s in the Rules (at the top of every page) and there’s nothing in the rules that state that advertisements will not be placed on the board.

If my contract at McD’s states that the recipe for an Egg McMuffin will not change, then it’s changed, then I have a legitimate gripe. If there’s nothing in the rules addressing a change in recipe, then there’s an implicit assumption that the recipe might, in fact, change at any time.

96

[QUOTE=Starving Artist]
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.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks for the response, SA. And my apologies for inferring condescension you did not intend.

As I noted above, the banner ads in and of themselves are an annoyance, but the decision to add them signals (at least to me) a profound cluelessness on the part of the new owners of the Reader. There is little benefit to be gained from the decision and much to lose.

Bear in mind, please, that I do NOT think we have a right to know how much the Reader/Creative Loafing makes from the Dope, nor a voice in their decisions. Endless theorizing about the costs of running the Dope vs. the revenue from it are not particularly interesting.

But as a customer AND a provider of the product they sell, I’d like to think that the new owners give a shit about me, at least in the collective sense. And while there is certainly a vocal segment of the board that does not care if there are banner ads, there is one of at least equal size that does. Making a change of this kind pisses the latter group off, which is a bad decision when those people are (a) directly responsible for a portion of your revenue through subscriptions and (b) indirectly responsible for a portion of your revenue by generating the content that people come here to see so you can show the ads.

It seems to be that a fair-sized chunk of the “get over it” crowd is advocating blocking or ignoring the ads. Since the only way the ads can generate direct incremental revenue from Member is if we see them, this further reduces the revenue potential of the ads.

In sum, I’m not finding any way in which this nets out as a good business decision by the owners. The best case is minor incremental ad revenue at the cost of some subscriptions and content providers leaving. Unless someone out there thinks that having animated banner ads is going to increase membership?

97

[QUOTE=JohnT]
But I don’t see the “principle” involved here.

People don’t like paying for ads? Don’t these same people buy magazines, newspapers, movie tickets, and TV sets? Does the selective application of this “principle” make it one?

Stuff on the net should be free? Then how are servers, bandwidth, and IT personnel’s time to be paid?
[/quote]
People buy print media and watch television shows with the expectation that there will be advertisments. Also, most people don’t pay newspapers for the pleasure of providing that newspaper’s content.

I’m not sure what to make of your “Stuff on the net should be free” statement. The complaint is that they introduced ads onto a site we’re already paying for.

That’s a pretty horrible analogy since it’s unlikely that the receipe for an Egg McMuffin will change between the time where you pay and when you receive your sandwich. In any event, while I don’t believe that I should individually have the ear of every company I have business with, I do feel entitled as a person paying for their product to have a vocal opinion when I feel that that product has diminished in quality.

If there was, we’d all be able to sue or something. No, I don’t advocate anyone suing, I’m just making the point. But I paid for a membership based on my enjoyment of the boards which was based partially on the lack of intrusive advertising. Their changes have dimished that enjoyment and, again, I feel entitled to have an opinion on the subject. If anyone wants to pay me off, I’ll willingly admit that my entitlement on those grounds has ended :smiley:

98

“People buy print media and watch television shows with the expectation that there will be advertisments. Also, most people don’t pay newspapers for the pleasure of providing that newspaper’s content.”

Yes, but you pay for phone service in which you are expected to provide the content.

If you want to merely read the SDMB, ala a newspaper, there’s no reason to pay, right?

99

[QUOTE=JohnT]
Yes, but you pay for phone service in which you are expected to provide the content.

[/QUOTE]

And if the phone company started advertising over my phone calls, I’d be just as annoyed.

100

[QUOTE=JohnT]
Yes, but you pay for phone service in which you are expected to provide the content.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t hear an annoying advertisement everytime I pick up the phone to make or receive a call.

ETA: Ooops, Lightnin’ beat me to it.