Why the nasty ads?

About This Message Board
21

Member, Firefox, AdBlock normally off–no ads. Logged out–this:

After the OP I have four ads together:
[Attention] Parental Discretion is advised! Disney Stars turn…
These smoking hot body paint pictures have readers asking, “Do I see what I think I see?”
37 Craziest Bodies Painted! You Won’t Believe This…
Whoops! The Prettiest Cheerleaders & Their Embarrassing Moments!

At the right there’s:
Still paying for electricity?

Below the posts there are another five ads together:
This Dinner Hack Has Millennials Ditching Delivery (Real Simple for Plated)
1 Dirty Little Secret To Eliminate 15 Years Of Mortgage… (LowerMyBills)
Pay Off Your Credit Card Balance Faster Using This One Trick (NextAdvisor)
11 Celebrity Pairs Who Share The Same Face (BuzzFeed Video on The Scene)
#1 WORST Exercise That Ages You Faster (MAX Workouts Fitness Guide)
Forget Boxed Hair Color and Try This… (eSalon)

On the bottom I have:
Juicy Fruit Starburst Gum (Walgreens)

The first four would cause raised eyebrows in the Sun Times boardroom. The last one would get a raised eyebrow from my wife, who hates gum chewers. The rest are innocuous and everywhere on the innertubes. While the first four don’t feature nudity, they are tacky and reflect poorly on the SDMB. Okay, they’re ALL tacky, but those are worse.

22

I pay money, and I miss the good stuff!

dammit.

23

I am a guest and I always thought a guest was someone the does not have a username. That is how it works on other forums I use.

24

The Straight Dope home page is not the SDMB home page. The Straight Dope home page does not know you are paying member of the boards and gives you the same ads it gives everyone else. The SDMB home page won’t give you ads if you are logged in and a paid member.

25

Had to read that three times before it wasn’t doing my head in- thanks for the explanation though.

Chefguy, I never get ads and don’t use any blocking software- for what it is worth. I come straight to the message board.

26

I have see those ads or something similar on many other entertainment sites. They are in no way “nasty”, but perhaps in poor taste. I suggest to the OP- not clicking on them.

27

Recently, the SDMB was dealing with ad provider problems and getting malware attacks. Part of trying to prevent hacks and malware but still generate ad revenue, they changed ad providers. Now they use ad providers that use these “clickbait” provocative ad titles and images to try to up the click through rate. These same ads are all over the internet. Crap, now that I’m actually looking, I’m having trouble turning up any sites. The ones mentioned here are running on Adblade, but I’m not seeing those on the sites mentioned on Adblade’s homepage.

Right now, cnn.com has links to stories like

“Burlesque legends still got it”, showing a picture of an ~80 yr old woman in a rhinestone rimmed, frilly bra.

“12 most romantic islands in the South Pacific”, showing a guy in his long shorts bathing suit, and a woman in a bikini, standing by a waterfall.

“Did SI swimsuit cover show too much?”, showing an image of a guy holding up the SI cover over his face, so you can see the racy bikini clad model who is pulling her panties down, almost exposing her naughty bits.

“Lingerie models, astronauts have THIS in common”, with a picture of a Victoria’s Secret model in lingerie and wings.

Those are all articles, using the same clickbait strategy of provacative images and text.

That qualifies as a moral issue?

“Guest” is a status given by the forum owners to whomever they wish to assign that status. Some forums allow people to post without registering, they are anonymous guests. You register to become “members”. The SD went to a pay-to-post model at one time, so they had “guests” who were registered and allowed some small minimum number of posts, plus all the previous members who did not pay to remain active. They were retained as “guests”. When the SD revoked the required pay-to-post model, they changed to a “free registration but encouraged paid membership” model that they now use. So “guest” was retained for registered but non-paying members.

SD does not allow unregistered posters.

“Nasty” in this context means “too sexy for me”. They might not be nasty to you, but the overly sensitive feel they are nasty. “Come on, you’re implying former Disney stars have sex. And you’re showing women in skimpy bathing suits! How DARE you?!”

28

And “overly sensitive” in this case usually describes bosses and HR people concerned about “creating a hostile workplace.” The solution is to keep a thumb and middle finger hovering over [Alt] and [Tab]. And something work-related in another window. Basically, SOP for the past few decades. Anybody remember the “bosses key” in old games?

29

Right, but before if you got caught the only thing you were doing was “slacking off at work”. Now if you get caught you’re displaying pictures of half-naked cheerleaders at work, which believe me is a very very different can of worms.