Whoa, ads!

[Stewart]

Whoa, ads! Everywhere. Sidebars; skimlinks; sponsored threads; banners, etc. There's a surefire way to kill a forum. The equivalent of reversing to make sure it's dead.

This does feel like a step into the dark ages. Maybe we can put up some of these in potentially obtrusive areas:




Or just go the whole hog, like this.

 

[beer good]

Wait, there are still ads on the internet? I haven't seen a single one since Adblock.

 

[Stewart]

Nice. Didn't realise it was free. Now installed. But doesn't hide the fake threads that look so stupid and out of context.

 

[beer good]

Woah, didn't see those. Yeah, that's gotta go if they don't want the users to go instead. Plenty of forums out there that don't have them. There's been a few too many changes here lately that only seem to make the site worse...

 

[beer good]

For those who don't know about Adblock:

Adblock Plus — for annoyance-free web surfing

There might be some way to weed out sponsored links as well. I'll check it out tomorrow if the admin hasn't ditched them by then.

ETA: Also, as of yesterday Adblock is available for Android phones too. Possibly for iThings as well, I wouldn't know.

 

[Brent W]

I always welcome feedback. The site isn't free to run and ads are all over the internet. I try to do them in tasteful ways. There are only three display ads on the entire site, which is farless than many other major sites across the web. Skimlinks is also non intrusive.

I am already looking into ways that will let you disable the Sponsored post ads as well.

 

[Brent W]

There's been a few too many changes here lately that only seem to make the site worse...

Care to explain? So far I have only switched out the previous owners existing ads for my own (same locations) and adjusted the width of the style to be centered. The sponsored thread ads were added two days ago. I can't help if I am not provided feedback.

 

[Stewart]

The site isn't free to run and ads are all over the internet.

Yes, nothing is free to run. But what's wrong with a bit of philanthropy?

I try to do them in tasteful ways.

Simple answer is to make them contextual. Book-related. People come here for books. Not random off-topic things.

 

[beer good]

Care to explain? So far I have only switched out the previous owners existing ads for my own (same locations) and adjusted the width of the style to be centered. The sponsored thread ads were added two days ago. I can't help if I am not provided feedback.

Thanks for listening! Well, mostly I'm thinking of the "recent threads" thing that I've pointed out several times. Up until recently, it was
a) down at the bottom of the page, where it didn't take up valuable page width for those of us who browse the web on phones,
b) had the option of choosing how many recent threads you wanted to list, which was useful if there'd been more activity than usual or if you'd been away from the site for a few days,
c) linked to the latest unread post in the thread, rather than the first post in the thread, which meant you could actually click it and go straight to it, which is always useful.

I can get the point of putting it up front where it's more visible, even if it messes with readability, but unless the point is to force people to go into the subforums and look at sponsored links, I really wish something could be done about the last point. As it is, when I see that someone has updated, say, the post-apocalyptic thread and click on it, it takes me to a post from 2004.

 

[Brent W]

Yes, nothing is free to run. But what's wrong with a bit of philanthropy?

Nothing at all. But this site wasn't free to me to buy and I enjoy making a living at my hobbies. One of those is running forums and the other is reading books. So I agreed to buy this from Andy R.

Simple answer is to make them contextual. Book-related. People come here for books. Not random off-topic things.

It isn't quite that simple. The ads that are running (the display ads) are Google Adsense, which are contextual ads. They provide ads based on many different criteria on the person viewing the page using cookies, geolocation and other factors.

 

[Brent W]

Thanks for listening! Well, mostly I'm thinking of the "recent threads" thing that I've pointed out several times. Up until recently, it was
a) down at the bottom of the page, where it didn't take up valuable page width for those of us who browse the web on phones,
b) had the option of choosing how many recent threads you wanted to list, which was useful if there'd been more activity than usual or if you'd been away from the site for a few days,
c) linked to the latest unread post in the thread, rather than the first post in the thread, which meant you could actually click it and go straight to it, which is always useful.

I can get the point of putting it up front where it's more visible, even if it messes with readability, but unless the point is to force people to go into the subforums and look at sponsored links, I really wish something could be done about the last point. As it is, when I see that someone has updated, say, the post-apocalyptic thread and click on it, it takes me to a post from 2004.

Thanks, I will look into restoring that.

Also, mobile browsing will get an improvement soon. I plan to pay for dedicated Android and iPhone apps for BookandReader that will make browsing much more efficient. More details to come on that soon.

 

[Stewart]

Best hideous ad ever was on a tech forum I used at work, which went ad-crazy, so all these programming threads were filled up with picture links to mature dating sites. Certainly not safe for work. Ha.

 

[Brent W]

beer god,

Can you check the forum home page and let me know if that is how it used to be for you?

 

[beer good]

That's more like it, thanks a lot!

 

[Brent W]

That's more like it, thanks a lot!

No problem. Not sure how that got disabled. My bad

 

[Polly Parrot]

Wouldn't this new change make the Recent Threads thing on the side unnecessary?


(I know you can't do everything at once).

 

[Brent W]

Wouldn't this new change make the Recent Threads thing on the side unnecessary?


(I know you can't do everything at once).

I will disable it for the forum home page

 

[Brent W]

Adjustments made. Thanks for honest feedback without biting my head off

 

[Polly Parrot]

I can always do that later.

 

[Brent W]

I can always do that later.

Fair enough. :lol: