Thanks, hope the mngmt agrees.
Another vote for making it optional – I can ignore, and am finding them delightfully surreal at times. Would that up your numbers in a way that would make it more palatable to goooooooooooooogle?
I think this thread is now my example anytime I want to demonstrate “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.”
Another vote for making the ads optional for members. I too find them amusing at times and unoffensive in any case.
[QUOTE=Derleth]
[ul][li]Reminder to guests that this is a pay service. Seeing ads until you subscribe is very common on Web fora of all kinds. This move could increase the number of paying members.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
And now that we don’t have to worry about annoying paying members with even moderately unobtrusive ad placement, we can put the ads in a more high-profile location for guests. Say, as a ten-second floating popup on top of the Reply button. 
well, i’d personally turn them off as i hate advertising, but i think having a checkbox for “Ads on/off” would be the simplest choice, those of us who spit on the ground advertisers walk on could turn them off, those not bothered by ads can leave them on, let the user make the decision
Optional is good, I would keep them as long as they remain text only.
I think this is a very smart move though; to turn them off for those who are/were offended.
You’ll need to make this a sticky.
Thank You
Another vote for making them optional. I actually have followed one or two of them, for products in which I was genuinely interested. See, the thing is, truly targeted advertising is actually a good thing. The reason most people dislike ads is that most ads aren’t targeted.
That, and the comedy value in some of them.
And while they’re at it, couldn’t TPTB move them to the top of the page below the header or the bottom of the page? Right now I’ve got them blocked, not because they annoy me, but when I go to click on ** Reply** inevitably I click on the ad. I know, trivial, but still…
I’ve done that twice already. I imagine incidental hits are good for SDMB however.
We’ve asked about making them optional, I like that idea myself. We’ll see what TPTB say. I dunno about putting them on top, I think that’d look kind of cheesy myself. It’d be practically the first thing a newbie saw on the site.
Also, is there any chance of having the ads open in a new window rather than the existing one?
I would second that. Every other link pops open a new window. Hopefully that is easy.
Google doesn’t allow us to do that: " Clicks on Google ads must not result in a new browser window being launched." https://www.google.com/adsense/policies
Thank you.
I don’t think the ads are a major annoyance, but I think this is absolutely the right thing to do from a management perspective. Thanks, guys. I hope Google listens to you.
It seems to have a default mode {Katrina and spam lists} when it gets confused or can’t match content with a relevant ad. Badgers. I don’t have a problem with a couple of inches of unobtrusive b&w text at the bottom of the page.
I’ve clicked on a few; some of the CS ones are very well targeted, as in a Philip Glass thread where you could “buy Philip Glass CDs” {I thought hard before not buying a copy of Akhenaten to replace the one my demon ex walked off with, but the option’s still there…} Badgers.
Personally I find them sometimes good for a giggle, occasionally interesting, and very easy to ignore otherwise: to appease those who think the sky will fall every time anything on the board changes from how it was back in the good old days, I’d support making them optional for subscribers, but I’d probably end up leaving them on. Badgers.
People can right-click and choose “Open in New Window”, though. That’s what I did when I decided to follow one of the interesting ads (for mail-order fudge!).
Hmm, any idea if the “open in new window” option in the context menu affects this? That’s the way I open pretty much any link these days. I’ve followed an ad link a few times and I’d hate to think it was screwing up your revenue opportunities.
Enjoy,
Steven
For what it’s worth I’ve clicked on an ad or two myself for products which I’m interested in. The same thing which drew me to the thread actually, kind of neat.
The ads in general have not bothered half so much as all the whining about them has.