[ltdodge]

I noticed that if you type key words like Dodge horsepower etc... it gets underlines and if you touch it with the pointer you get a advertising ad???

This sucks!!

 

[ekool]

It is a form of advertising that we are evaluating. We will make a decision by tomorrow wether to keep it around or not. We may add it to the "archive" only, which 99% of the users will never see.

Hang in there.

 

[epoch]

ekool:

I realize that you own a few websites like this one. Firstly, let me commend you on that, it's a smart thing. Secondly, as I'm sure you know, being in the same business, advertising has a threshold that it must not cross.

When advertisements cross this threshold, they leave the realm of helpful and fiscally sound to pervasive and obtrusive. Only you, really, can decide where the threshold is for you, but from what I've seen, you're nearing it.

IMO, the green links are too much. It interrupts the reading of the forums. You are seeing such a large upswing in registrations to these forums because we have some very knowledgable, polite, and friendly people who submit content to them. An unwanted flood of excess advertising will disenfranchise a lot of users.

So when you cross the threshold, and the registration ebbs, you must ask yourself what's better: more users, or more ads?

Doesn't do much good to have a website crawling with advertisements if no one ever goes there.

Google is successful because it's simple and relatively ad-free (at least, that's where it started).

Best of luck to you, I know you'll make the right decision.

epoch.

 

[joescat]

I don't like that it virtually edits the posts written, especially without explanation. At first, I thought users where doing that to provide emphasis, but that's not what it is. It makes reading more cumborsome.
More importantly, now that I realize it's advertising, it's kinda like putting the ad link into a person's post without consent or knowledge. How will EVERYONE know that? You should at least have a disclaimer - but, that would just make it even uglier and more awkward.

Google was mentioned as an example - they put them off to the side (separated), and clearly states "ads by Google" or such.

I understand your need to cover your costs (hopefully not making money on it). But there's got to be a better way.

 

[a14umbra]

I'm starting to get IE errrors when I go into posts. It's not the annoying javascript errors that can be turned off in the IE Options. It's a message that the page failed to load properly, then when I click OK, the whole page goes away. I have to click Back then Forward to get the page to finish loading. I'm not sure, but I think this started at the same time as the underlines.

 

[DutchMaster]

yes, this causes IE Errors for me too, when posting... the post goes through, but the page does not reload...

me no likey.

 

[ltdodge]

I was getting those errors too, I thought it was my connection, but now I see its the same for others.

 

[ChargerSXT]

It's VERY annoying.

If you are wondering whether or not to keep it, I vote NO. :happy:

 

[GoDaddy]

easy easy easy....we lost a forum member to a thread like this!

 

[epoch]

Why the hell do you guys use IE?

 

[GoDaddy]

what do you use? and how do you use it....for me - always have b/c i never really knew there was an alternative....and then completely off topic what is the difference?

 

[bstowers]

Why the hell do you guys use IE?

Firefox did the same thing to me. But you can not defeat my hosts file skillz.

 

[beezn]

my firefox 1.06 woks perfectly.

 

[epoch]

No problems here.

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050911 Firefox/1.0.6 (Debian package 1.0.6-5)

 

[bstowers]

Using 1.06 as well. Must be a config option.

 

[ekool]

easy easy easy....we lost a forum member to a thread like this!

We lost a member because he could not keep his high and mighty accusatory tone to himself.

I'm very open to suggestions, criticism, etc. as some of my long time members know. I will put up with ALOT before stepping in with a ban... however, if you go overboard, I have no sympathy for you.

We have not implemented this system permanently. We have put it on this forum only so we can solicit feedback so this is exactly the type of feedback we are looking for.

I see some users running into problems and thats not good. Also, if the ads are too annoying, we wont stick with them.

To address the person about the posts being edited without a disclaimer, when you mouse over a link there is a disclaimer there that you can clearly see that it is an advertising link... so its not something we are trying to sneak in without your knowledge.

I'm going to leave the system in place for the full day and night (today/tonight) and make a decision by tomorrow.

You'll have to bear with the system for now, unfortunately.

 

[jaavenor]

I'm receiving IE errors - pain in the neck!!!

 

[bstowers]

I think I misunderstood what you Firefox guys were saying. You're saying the underline ads are working fine, aren't you? I thought you meant Firefox was filtering them out for you.

Yes, they "worked" fine for me in Firefox as well. Then I fixed my hosts file.

 

[ekool]

There's an easier way

When you see a link to an ad, mouse over the link and click on the "What's This" portion of the ad. That will take you to a page describing the ad, and how it works, etc.

Down below, there is a link to "Disable the Ads" that will remove the ads until you clear your cookies.

Hope this helps for now.

 

[GoDaddy]

thanks....saved me alot heartache b/c those things were really driving me crazy......do this and then shutdown the window and reopen and bam it is like it should be.....thanks again ekool