Let's pit the google ads...

[Moe]

@eleanorigby

Like it or not, there is a community here–a sometimes strange and obsessive one, but a community nonetheless. The Straight Dope column was founded on the premise of getting the REAL scoop, eradicating ignorance, and yes, poking fun at the Man and his Businesses while sticking up (however indirectly) for the Little Guy and his need to know Stuff.

To me, the Board is just one long conversation–continuing that premise (no matter what side of the aisle any poster may be on or what side of the business equation as well). These ads, as unobtrusive as they are, are like those guys coming thru the theatre lobby during the interval hollering about programs/drinks/souvenirs etc–I think they’re called buskers. They are annoying as hell and take away from the experience considerably. Others may find that they add color to the whole evening–to each his own.

Call me a silly, naive idealist, but I am somewhat saddened (not a lot-perhaps dismayed is a better word here) to find that the SDMB is just another business out for profit, no matter what. I admire and respect the researching skills and the humor of the column and “Cecil”. But this has changed things for me in a strange way. It is silly–and I’ll get over it–but it is “Cecil” to me now–he is just another manipulation to separate me from my dollars.

Go ahead and laugh (I’m not sure I don’t deserve it, really) but one of the reasons I so admired the SD was the impression that Cecil was an admirable character, that the Quest for Truth was more important than anything and any “filthy lucre” that came The Reader’s way was almost serendipitous…not so, apparently. I didn’t mind the straight up–hey, we need subscriptions to cover costs. It was honest. Ads are the last thing from honest.

<sigh> It’s a fucking newspaper. It exists to sell newspapers-any way it can. Maybe the Staff really DO have the morals of a newspaper editor, afterall (or whatever that famous quote is–it’s early here and I’m not fully awake!).

I’m done and off to work. I will do my best to ignore the ads (and my best is pretty good in this respect). I do hope that this was a high up decision and not one backed by the mid level managers etc, but I doubt it, really. It was done so very badly…but that’s another thread that probably already exists and doesn’t need my input.

I just wanna go on record as echoing this sentiment. This is precisely my biggest problem with the ads.

When I first discovered the board it really felt like some hip underground community. Take the “don’t be a jerk” rule for example. It used to be put into practice in much the same way it sounds as if to say “hey, come hang out with us. Just don’t be a jerk or anything, because that kinda ruins things for all of us. Oh and welcome”. Jerkish behavior was called out, chastised, and even ridiculed by posters and mods alike, but rarely did anyone get banned. Now there’s an entire body of “official” policies that go along with that rule, and of course, considerably more bannings. I do think that this particular aspect is a result of a natural evolution of things, and not anyone’s fault in particular, but I am saddened by it.

The discourse on paid subscriptions before they went into effect is a more direct example of how things used to be compared to this. The very fact that the administration thought enough of us to involve us in the discussion was pretty cool. They actually asked us “hey guys, we’re sucking money out of the Reader and it just isn’t fair to them. We’re tossing around the idea of requiring people to pay a subscription fee. Whadya think?”

I actually used that as a selling point in preaching to my friends about what makes this place so wonderful.

I wish there were similar discussions about this.

I’m not even going to say that anything about this decision is wrong or unethical. But like eleanorigby, I’m just feeling like I’ve perhaps been naive in the past about having the view that this place was somehow some sort of neat internet utopia. I still love this place and I’m probably not going anywhere for a while, but I do realize it’s a business like any other. It’s naive to see it otherwise anymore.

[Absolute]

@SP2263

That is obnoxious and pit worthy. I haven’t seen any pop-ups since I got Spy Sweeper last year.
I’ll turn it off and see what kind of ads I get.

The SDMB is not using popups. Una Persson was either kidding, or getting popups from another website and/or adware.

[Dead_Badger]

I would like to recant all of my earlier posts, and express the opinion that I don’t give a fuck. Because I’ve just been on a brilliant first date, and have realised the futility of getting annoyed by adverts, or for that matter getting annoyed by people who are annoyed by adverts.

A first date so amazing, in fact, that we were discussing her dad (who is a beekeeper (oh yes) ), and I was able to say, “so, does he like his women like he likes his coffee?” and got a laugh instead of a blank stare. Basically, I rule, and by definition anyone who disagrees with me is wrong, so I’m going to stop taking positions on contentious topics like this because it would just be unfair. Please don’t ask me about politics or I’m afraid world peace might break out.

I’m still in favour of raping kittens, however. Especially if they have adverts on them.

[Una_Persson]

@Absolute

The SDMB is not using popups. Una Persson was either kidding, or getting popups from another website and/or adware.

Yes, I was kidding, apologies.

[Harborwolf]

@BwanaBob

10000 posts and you’re still a putz? No one is entitled to lie to anyone.
Try it sometime, maybe in a court of law.

I’m going to guess that the cite he was asking for was one for your claim that the SDMB/Chicago Reader were making false claims.

[Capt.Ridley_s_Shooting_Party]

Is it just me or has the back button in IE stopped working properly since the ads came? It won’t go back a page after clicking it, and sometimes pagead2.googlesyndication.com or somesuch is listed as being the last site that I visited, which is obviously wrong. To go back, I have to manually click the page in the drop down list and click it.

It’s quite annoying.

[What_Exit]

@Dominic Mulligan

Is it just me or has the back button in IE stopped working properly since the ads came? It won’t go back a page after clicking it, and sometimes pagead2.googlesyndication.com or somesuch is listed as being the last site that I visited, which is obviously wrong. To go back, I have to manually click the page in the drop down list and click it.

It’s quite annoying.

just you

[Dead_Badger]

@Dominic Mulligan

It’s quite annoying.

With my magical brilliance, I declare it un-annoying, but also suggest that you switch to Opera, which is now free and suffers from no such problems.

Thank me later. I’ll date you too if things don’t work out.

[Musicat]

@Dead Badger

Thank me later. I’ll date you too if things don’t work out.

:eek:

[Dead_Badger]

@Musicat

:eek:

What? You want in on the queue? Sheesh. Well, alright, but I may be all charmed out by Tuesday. Pencil you in for a sullen and gristly shared curry at about 4.30pm? You’re paying.

[Ms2001]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

I wonder if Google treats mailing list folks with contempt, and requires them to pay per view of an ad instead of paying per clickthrough? If so, it might make sense for them to feed mailing list ads to a site until they’ve got a handle on what sort of ads might result in clickthroughs from that site.

I don’t think so. Mailing list advertisers would never agree to that, and I’ve never seen anything in Google’s description of their advertising programs to suggest that anyone pays per view.

On my site, when Google wasn’t able to target ads for a certain page, I saw a public service announcement, not an ad for mailing lists. I suspect Google’s software just thinks mailing list ads are appropriate for these pages - they do contain the keywords “list” and “advertising”.

@cricetus

As a Nabokov fan, I find the whole co-opting of “Lolita” to be the single most obnoxious thing about the Internet.

You’re right… it really should be “Lesbian Latino Nymphetss”.

[furt]

@eleanorigby

The Straight Dope column was founded on the premise of getting the REAL scoop,

Yes.

eradicating ignorance,

yes.

and yes, poking fun at the Man and his Businesses

No. It appears you assumed that because Cecil has an irrevereant sense of humor, he is possessed of some sort of anti-commercial agenda. Sorry, but irreverence pretty much precludes ideology of any kind, including anti-Manism.

I can only repeat: ISTM the people that are getting pissed are either those who have what is, IMO, a rather naive idea that the SDMB itself (as opposed to the people or relationships one might form there) is some sort of family or personal environment and not a public forum run by a business, or else people who have some sort of irrational or ideological aversion to advertising.

[wring]

@BwanaBob

10000 posts and you’re still a putz? No one is entitled to lie to anyone.
Try it sometime, maybe in a court of law.

No one is entitled to lie to anyone???
Bullshit. and This ain’t a court of law. :wally:

[Frank]

@furt

I can only repeat: ISTM the people that are getting pissed are either those who have what is, IMO, a rather naive idea that the SDMB itself (as opposed to the people or relationships one might form there) is some sort of family or personal environment and not a public forum run by a business, or else people who have some sort of irrational or ideological aversion to advertising.

:rolleyes: Yes, yes, we get it.

[fessie]

Whaddya know, that Adblock does work - I thought I had to be using Firefox (I’m assuming that’s a browser?) but it’s fine w/Netscape. Thanks for ragging on me, Daniel; I wouldn’t have bothered trying otherwise.

furt - it’s more like the moment in church when they pass the plate. Only the donation has now been specified (some of us would’ve given more, some less), and now they’re hawking goods in the middle of the sermon.

Turns out this place isn’t a business so much as a religion. “We’re poor, we’re poor” yeah right. If it were a business, they’d be upping the goods before they raised the price (and wouldn’t have been “operating in the red” all these years, either).

And they’d have some respect for the customers.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@fessie

Whaddya know, that Adblock does work - I thought I had to be using Firefox (I’m assuming that’s a browser?) but it’s fine w/Netscape. Thanks for ragging on me, Daniel; I wouldn’t have bothered trying otherwise.

I live to serve.

furt - it’s more like the moment in church when they pass the plate. Only the donation has now been specified (some of us would’ve given more, some less), and now they’re hawking goods in the middle of the sermon.

Sounds nothing like any church I ever went to. At your church, do they tell you that you can only come for a month for free, and after that, you can’t sing unless you put a set amount in the collection plate? At your church, do they demand a set amount of money, once a year, and then don’t pester you in-between? At your church, does every hymn end with a request to buy mailing lists?

Turns out this place isn’t a business so much as a religion. “We’re poor, we’re poor” yeah right. If it were a business, they’d be upping the goods before they raised the price (and wouldn’t have been “operating in the red” all these years, either).

And they’d have some respect for the customers.

I find their bluntness toward the customers refreshing. The customer is frequently wrong, and the unctuous “The customer is always right” attitude irritates me. I’m happy to pay a business that doesn’t take shit.

Am I thrilled about the ads? Nope. But I’m also not the least bit worried about them. There’s bigger things in my life to worry about; I’m vaguely envious of those of you who find the ads to be near the top of your outrage scale.

Daniel

[Silentgoldfish]

@Left Hand of Dorkness

Am I thrilled about the ads? Nope. But I’m also not the least bit worried about them. There’s bigger things in my life to worry about; I’m vaguely envious of those of you who find the ads to be near the top of your outrage scale.
Daniel

You’re getting the cart before the horse. The dope itself is down far enough on the list of things that are important to me that it takes less aggravation than I might put up with otherwise to drop it off the list altogether.

Thus, paying for ads becoming a big factor into whether I stick around come subscription time.

[SolGrundy]

@eleanorigby

Like it or not, there is a community here–a sometimes strange and obsessive one, but a community nonetheless.

Yep, that and the rest of your post hit the nail on the head. Every time one of these things blows up, you always get people crawling out of the dark recesses of the Pit to remind us that this is not a community, but a business being run on the internet.

Well, no. If it were a business, the staff would be a lot more conciliatory, because they know they depend on our money. And the arrogant, condescending attitude that makes the columns interesting, gets really old after a couple of years. Time and time again, we keep getting reminded that we’re all just a bunch of whiny, petulant children, just this close to getting banned, and oh the Reader makes such sacrifices for us and we don’t appreciate it, and we’re always this close to having to shut down the boards altogether and then where would you go?

Well fuck, guys, you know if it’s that much of a financial and emotional burden on you, why don’t you shut the boards down and be rid of the hassle?

That’s the part that bugs me, and that’s why it’s such a big deal for me. Honestly, if the ads hadn’t been pointed out to me, I probably wouldn’t even have noticed. (Except for the Katrina ads, but that’s for a good cause so I don’t mind).

It’s not that hard to set up a site that feels like a community, even with all the jack-asses that plague the internet – look at flickr.com, for example. They’ve got millions of posters, as opposed to the thousands of the SDMB, and they’ve still got a business model (thanks to Yahoo!) and it still feels non-corporate. It’s all in the attitude. And I’ve got to say I’m just about sick of the attitude here, especially since I know that there are at least a dozen responses being typed even as I type this that involve the words “door,” “ass,” and “hit.”

Sure, I know I can cancel my membership right now and it won’t make that much of a difference to either party. The boards will go on functioning without me, and I can go talk about gay marriage and “Alias” somewhere else. But how many more posters can you treat like they’re just a burden, before the whole thing breaks down?

[What_Exit]

I signed up for SD because it is the only board I have ever found that was both Non-specific and extremely intelligent. I find even the worse poster to be informative. People I disagree with strongly can still instruct me. There are Posters I support in one thread and exchange heated words with in others.

This board is actually quite special. With the exceptions of some computer Boards/newsgroups I have never found a board as free from the juvenile and (excuse the word) stupid.

I was part of a Tolkien Group for an extended time but it still had too many idjits soliciting sex or trolling. I gave it up. Even the Snopes board isn’t as intelligent and that is one of the better ones I’ve seen.

I hope the board keeps going and the many intelligent and wonderfully diverse members will not choose to leave this little niche of mostly intelligent discussion.

In one of my earliest postings, I spewed forth a hateful little rant and instead of just bashing me, **Campion ** took the time to debate my points and educate me. Following his example several other posters did the same and what started out as a pit subject turned into a Honest debate. I was impressed and I think I learned much from it.

[Larry_Mudd]

@Silentgoldfish

Thus, paying for ads becoming a big factor into whether I stick around come subscription time.

I hate obtrusive ads. Until now, Google ads have never really registered as offensive to me at all. If the ones on SDMB pages were located at the top of the page (and were working properly, instead of being mail-list ads,) I don’t think I’d of blinked. I got rid of 'em because they sucked more than they had to.

I have a hard time, though, imagining how someone can value the SDMB enough to pay the nominal subscription fee, but not enough that it’s worth their time to just ad one lousy line to their hosts file or adblocker plugin and forget about them. I mean, it takes more effort to subscribe, right?

Hell, if I ever hear through the grapevine that they’ve relocated the ads to their logical sub-SDMB-banner place and got the context-sensitivity issue resolved, I’ll probably even stop filtering them, partly because I’d like to know what ads get served up in threads about feeding semen to freshwater fish, and partly because I might conceivably bust my ad-clicking cherry in some of the Cafe threads. If there’s a good deal on something I’m interested in from a reputable outfit, I can see myself checking it out. If it benefits the Reader by a few pennies, all the better.

I totally get that people might be sensitive enough about ads that they would never even consider such a thing tolerable. (My first “mute button,” back in the day before IR remotes were commonplace, was a toggle switch on a long wire that ran from the speaker in my TV to the wall beside the couch. Learned that trick from my dad. I like to avoid obnoxious ads, because it’s bred in the bone.)

But I don’t get people who say “Oh, I like this board well enough to pay for, but not enough to filter ads.” How does that work?