The ones I get are for the US Marines; easy for me to ignore. Now if it was the Air Force --------- 
They’re following the Microsoft model. “We think this will work, so let’s roll it out and let the users be our beta testers.”
Android / Dolphin browser
These ads don’t cause any system problems for me but they are annoying as hell and I’m spending much less time here as a result.
From comments above and experiment it appears most of the problems arise when viewing the SDMB on a mobile device screen in landscape mode. On screens with a c. 16:9 aspect ratio the docking ad takes up a large percentage of the available space. I’ve sent some questions to our vendor via our tech guy to see if there’s anything we can do about this.
The real problem here is that the SDMB isn’t mobile friendly and mobile device users need to view the board in landscape so the type is big enough to read - in portrait the ads aren’t that big but the type is tiny. We have a redesign in the works that should address this problem, but I’ll see what we can do in the meantime.
After all of this discussion, THAT is your takeaway as to the real problem?
Look, it’s true that these ads are no worse than most of the online news sites, or broadcast television. The difference is, you are not selling your content, produced with revenue raised from ads, to viewers. You are giving our content, produced for free, back to us, while making revenue raised from ads.
I don’t think the site has fully recovered from the Pay-to-Post Fiasco, and the Reformation of the Pit also lost a lot of good content producers. How many more of those episodes can the site withstand before it becomes not worth the bother?
They provide the bandwidth, software, administration and technical support. Are they not entitled to make a profit on that investment?
Do you suppose the powers that be have looked at the actual data on those events, instead of basing decisions on anecdotal observation? Has daily user posting gone up or down as each change to the ads is rolled out? Do you really think they just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks? Do you work in a field that does that?
Of course they are. I didn’t say they shouldn’t make a profit. I just said that they’re profiting off of a site driven by user-created content, which should be considered in determining what sort of advertisements to use. The best advertisements are those that target the audience, and what we have here is generic bottom-of-the-barrel crap. The character of this board is distinctive, but the ads are clearly aimed at the most general audience possible, or individually targeted by algorithm.
The users here have recommended some great sites for off-the-wall, nerdy gifts or hard-to-find books. That sort of ad I might click on. The current docking ad is from my gas company, which holds a monopoly in my area. I clicked on it just now to check, and it’s some sweepstakes to win a gas fireplace, which I don’t want. Whee.
You seem angry, but I’m not sure why. I have no idea what methodology they use. How could I? Given some of the decisions that have come down, it sure seems like they “throw stuff at the wall.” The two things I mentioned previously were decisions made by an individual in spite of overwhelming feedback, which is classic bad management.
I have no idea whether daily user posting has gone up or down. My observations are that they have indeed gone down, but I have not been observing with anything like rigour. I’m sure those numbers are available, but I am equally sure that they will not be shared publicly.
As it stands, we don’t know how much the site costs vs. how much it brings in: we could be a liability or we could be a cash cow. We don’t know whether docking ads increase the revenue by 2% or 2000%. If it were the latter, I’d be inclined to put up with them, but as it stands it’s presented as “take it or leave it.” I’ll leave it, thanks.
Unscrollable content is always a bad idea. Very, very, very bad. It is an inherent sign of really crappy web page design. The wide variety of devices and programs used to browse the web makes doing this right impossible. And doing it right still means you’re ticking off readers because it is widely hated.
Ad or not, sites should never do it.
The horrible ad system this board is using is presumably driving off first time visitors (who are therefore potential future members).
Businesses are notorious for being unable to properly evaluate how many lost new customers they drive away in a failed pursuit of gain revenue for existing customers. And since current customer numbers always dwindle, gaining new customers is a must.
The people running things just aren’t seeing it.
There’s also the notion: “So many people are using ad-blockers we have to more aggressive in pushing ads.” which somehow doesn’t cause lightbulbs in web site admins’ heads about cause and effect.
In a normal company, no–of course that wouldn’t happen.
But among the various owners of the SDMB, certainly. Every time a new ad rolls out, it breaks something, or plays loud obnoxious noise on load, or spews malware or has inappropriate content. This doesn’t happen on any other site I’ve ever visited.
It’s clear that these ads aren’t being tested or vetted or even probably examined before going live.
ETA: And we know for a fact that posting dropped significantly during pay-to-post, per several posts by Ed. I’ll try to dig up cites later.
I wish these ads would be renamed something else. To me, “docking” has an entirely different meaning.
The standard way of delivering web advertising allows bad ads to be snuck in. The ad company doesn’t host the ads. They only act as an intermediary between the web site and the ad providers. They may never see the ads let alone vet them. So if one of the ad providers decides to throw in something bad, the ad company usually only learns about it second hand from web site users. (It costs real money to host and provide bandwidth for a huge number of ads. Better to push those costs onto the providers.)
Some ad companies do a better job than others. E.g., you can tell that a “new” ad provider based in Russia isn’t go to transmit nice ads. So the good ad companies reject a lot (but not all) crap providers outright.
OTOH, this means less income. The rotten ad providers pay more and there’s a lot more of them. And the more income the ad company gets, the more it can share with the web sites.
So, for a web site, what do you do? Take more money and users be damned or get less money but semi-protect the users a bit? (But keep in mind that this “more money” is fictional as you’re also driving away visitors.)
Seems like a no-brainer to me. But clearly not to others.
The site (or my computer) is slow enough that I’ve discovered that I can click the little “x” before the ad itself appears. So after a few days of getting used to it, it is still annoying but manageable.
And, of course, it means I don’t see the ads at all. Good job, guys!
I had no problem with the ads for years. A few months ago they got bad enough that I downloaded a separate ad blocking browser. I had it, it sucks in every way but the ads are worse. Now I have this docking ad for botox at the bottom and flash ads trying to load at the top and side and clickbait trash at the bottom.
I don’t think I’m the most valuable member of the site, not by a long shot, but I can’t be the only one giving up. Adios.
I do have one small complaint with the current crop; some sort of molding company. It keeps locking me up wanting me to install the latest FlashPlayer with OK being the only choice. Annoying. Not terrible – but annoying.
I adblock on my computers, I don’t adblock on mobile. That means that mobile browsing is when the board is making money off of me.
I’m just a single data point, but I will say that I have severely curtailed my visits to this site on mobile devices. Soon enough, I’m sure I won’t be visiting at all unless I’m using blocking software.
You guys have crossed the equilibrium point - you’ve made the experience bad enough that you’re losing views.
Oh my god this site is now complete shit. It crashes my iPad 3 safari every minute. God damn.
Ditto here–iPad 4 crashes on Safari, Firefox or Atomic Browser*. It also fucks up the sound (if I’m playing–not even streaming–music in the background, one of the ads kills the sound then crashes the browser despite the fact that I’m using a totally different app) for it. I just don’t browse the SDMB on any portable device any more.
*Which was a great app for a while.
My Note II is starting to be affected as whatever ad platform is in use fights it out with Adblock Browser - I see ads, then they’re gone, then they’re back. Each time makes the page jump around, making it unreadable. Loading has long pauses, 3-4 seconds at a time and frequently enough to make me go do something else.
I’d resubscribe, but only with an ironclad assurance that NO ads ever appear for paid users. I haven’t seen that this round.
Between this and the negative possibilities of Tuesday, I think we may be entering end times. And neither set of PTB seems to be listening to anyone.
Get Firefox on Android, then install uBlock Origin add-on.