Ads In OP of Threads...

I too understand the need for advertising, even more so on a website that doesn’t charge users for its excellent service.
Also I don’t mind it, but perhaps put the advertising after the first post and before the first reply. Looks better and doesnt "invade" peoples posts. I don’t like my posts being "invaded" by ads.

But i will never stop coming back to Guru.

IMO, adding a line and typing the words advertisement doesn't make it any less in the posts and part of the thread than it was before.

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*VOMITS ALL OVER THE BOARD*

Sorry but if advertisements stay inside the posts, even being divided by a thin black line, I will most definitely leave this site.

They make my guides look completely ridiculous.

I would also say that as an avid GWG contributor, this one act alone could destroy the site’s status as an elite GW fan site. You may think I am joking but I have seen forums crash and burn for similar offenses.

I entirely understand the need for support as I have ran boards myself in the past, but you really need to figure out another way to do it.

As is, I consider them to be offensive.

BTW: The advertisements don't even show up for me, they are just huge blank squares with advertisement written above them. I don't have any special programs to block them either.

Livingston

i hate those new ads as well
pages are already awfully slow at loading, doesnt help a bit...

add banners at the bottoms of pages but in or as posts

If I can use this analogy with GW, this in-post advertizing reminds me all the W.TSellers who think spamming the "all" chat will make them sell more, when it has actually the opposite effect: players who don't want to caution that won't buy if they can find the item somewhere else. That just doesn't work.

Another rant, again, yeah. But this thread is also a kind of survey to know what the members of this forum think about it. I won't repeat what I said in my 1st post, but I tried yesterday to browse the forum as I do usually. I just couldn't. I'm prolly allergic to advertizing or something, but I just can't "concentrate" on a thread with these in-post adverts. I haven't posted in any topic but this one since. I just can't. I'm not saying this to "threaten" you or anything: no one cares if I leave the forum or not, and its popularity won't decrease because *I* leave. However this thread is made to give his point of view, isn't it?

About being constructive now. The problem is we can't really be constructive as we don't know what the deal is. I'm not asking you to post how much the site costs, how much you earn from adverts, etc, if you don't want to. However, it would be quite interesting, and constructive for us to know simple facts like: "the banner on the top of the site pays x% of the site", "in-post adverts generate x% more money than side-adverts for example", etc, so we can know what the deal is.

A few very interesting suggestions have been posted in this forum, including the very original idea of posting weekly how much the site has costed, how much money has been generated by adverts, how much you still need, etc. Another idea would be to add a discret but still noticable donate button on the redirect pages (after having posted a thread or a reply for ex). That's my 2 cents...

I'm for the every 10th post being an ad like suggest previously.

Puttin a big, intrusive box in the first post just plain ruins it. Find some other way to fit the necessary advertisments in, anything that doesn't have a major detrimental affect on the threads, so in other words - no big boxes inside of posts. Even having every other post as an advert would be better! Maybe stick a box between the last post and reply box - that would get plenty of views and wouldn't generate so much hate.

I'm just going to copy and paste from my earlier statements in this thread:

No, we still don't allow the discussion of ad blockers Please, this is just a test I think you can all see that we are making changes and taking your constructive and valid suggestions as we progress here. There is absolutely no reason to go over-the-top as we test this out. Please continue to leave feedback, let us know about any bugs you see. Change is never taken lightly, especially in a forum setting, and we are all very aware of that. Nowhere has anyone stated that this is permanent, that it won't be changed, that we aren't taking suggestions or listening to your feedback.

yeah that ad in the first post is really annoying i think maybe it is better to go with the an ad maybe after the first post or another banner above Post Reply/Thread. as said many times before the ad in the post is just very intrusive and it has screwed up many toturials posted around the site. my 2 cents

ads in threads must stop.

There really is quite a lot of unused real estate under the "quick reply" box, but another option you might wish to consider instead of putting ads in the first post: a "layer" approach, for example the floaty ad thingies which come up on GeoCities pages.

I think some might be missing this as it wasn't really clarified, but if you scroll down to the bottom left-hand of any page in the forum you'll see a drop down box with different versions of the forum skin. On the Guild Wars Guru V1A version it has the ads as the 2nd post in every thread. That's currently what we are wanting feedback on versus having them in the 1st post. So if some of you could look at that

No, please, no floaty ad thingies. They are horribly annoying. Even worse than the Intellitxt, IMO.

Thanks for pointing out the different skins Inde. I'll go play with those straight away.


I looked, but I really don't like either option.

V1A is good
and from the areas of the forums I mostly use which is services, buy, sell and high end. This would actually be better as it is seperating the service from teh comments.

Im fine with the V1A version (though I hate the skin), but that's mostly because the adds still don't show up for me, thus it simply creates a thin blank line under the OP...

Livingston

Some information: The majority of our traffic is not from repeat users. Growth continues. The majority of our users are guests. The majority of our traffic is not even those who directly come to this site but through search engines. And we are working on a compromise. We are taking your suggestions, we are tweaking, fixing and implementing even as we speak. Please leave the dramatics out. I want to come up with a happy medium and solution as much as all of you want to. We have many things coming down the line right now, this is a test of ads and we continue to appreciate all the construcive feedback and criticism.

I vote for the V1A option, it's much less annoying in my opinion since the ads aren't right next to what you're reading. However, that might also mean the ads there are less effective.

Also, there's no fast edit in V1A, and I get null errors on every page I open.

OMG , please no on the current inbetween 1st and 2nd post.
Thats is my suggestion ( inbetween 1st and 2nd) but the size has to be changed,make it longer and shorter.
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V1A (under 1st post of each page) gets my vote, but it would look much better if the ads were longer and shorter, as the above poster suggested, similar to the banner ads at the top of the pages.

I'm assuming by "longer and shorter" (which are opposites, BTW) that you mean "wider and shorter"? I'm all for that.

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hm, in response to the 'guest' issue--I dont sign in unless I have something to reply. I see no need to sign in when I get logged out after trying to look at 10 pages or so and then needing to sign back in (the lagg, you see, it takes forever to view pages and by the time I get there I have been logged out). SO many of the so called GUESTS are people who just havent signed on. So I guess I am messing with the stats for this site seeing as I only 'visit' maybe once a day, but I have it up and running most of the time and check it when I feel like looking at white pages, or working on my patience title.....



cant get the v1a to work--only get pages of white or the error notice. oh well

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Ok. Iv decided the 1a is preferable, as long as we get to keep the 1b skin
I find that the reformatting of peoples posts to be intrusive, as well as distracting. The 1a format just looks...cleaner. less jumbled.

Even though I don't like anyway,

I like the current one we have, seperated by a black line.


-LiamB

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Hrm. About the Online Users list.

Is it really needed? Does anyone actually use it? And if so, does it justify a plus in traffic by 71 KB? I actually went as far as to save the index file and cut the whole userlist out manually to compare the filesize. It's a whooping 128 KB versus 57 KB without the list. This list is probably even generated everytime a user refreshes the page, bombarding the Database with a myriad of querys.

If removing it is no option, then make it optional so that it doesn't load everytime someone visits the overview. And i'm doing that quite often for example.

Oh I believe we've taken it down before and a lot of people screamed over that as well We've disabled it for unregistered users and it is a tool for staff and I imagine several other forum users. If that's something you all feel you would like to do away with then please leave your thoughts.

Hrm...
Maybe make it an option in the CP? That should please everyone as those that want it can easily activate it and those that don't need it can save some traffic.

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Besides, Guild Wars Players are known for complaining about everything :P

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Definitely 1A, but I'd suggest lengthening and thinning it if you aren't already going to. I'd also prefer they not be in the threads at all, but I guess that's not constructive <_<

Also, regarding the guests bit, I think people are taking it the wrong way; Intellitext is still enabled for guests. Preference is definitely angled towards logged-in users.

GWOnline seems to have had the same deal. In order to cut back on users, though, they simply upped the requirements to even VIEW anything to logged-in users. If the guest users had created accounts, they'd have the exact same problem they always had, and that's not a solution; It's a patch-job that relies on other people being too indignant and/or lazy to stick around.

The end-result is that many users simply leave, and head over to other fansites. I'm willing to bet if we forbade guest accounts from viewing as well, like GWO, most people would call Guild Wiki their home fansite, and it'd be down even more than it already tends to go down.


Guru is still growing and still working on how to handle that growth. As forums, I don't think any guild wars fansite has more regulars, including members and guests. The ads in text has never been a 'deal-breaker' for me, but even if it were, I'd stick it out for a bit to give the hard-working administration a chance to manage as best as they can.

You have to keep in mind that the ad revenues are not often as great as people paint them out to be. And ad revenue vs resource usage only goes DOWN as time goes by, because people learn to use ad blocking software, without understanding the implications it has on the free internet we all know and love.
The difference between revenue and cost always comes out of the administration's OWN pockets in the red.

And despite the above, the administration works as hard as ever for the community. Guild Wars Guru has hosted numerous promotions thanks to Inde's hard work negotiating with companies in order to give out prizes of varying values in contests.

I don't get anything out of saying the above. I don't see any particular glory in deleting people's posts and banning individuals. I don't get paid, nor do I get any particularly amazing perks above a registered user beyond the ability to always use the search engine to perform moderation functions.
I say this out of my own respect for the administration.

Even dealing with personal issues in life, certain administrators kept working hard to restore functionality to various portions of the site that had been lost in the server move. Recently, some of those efforts have been fruitful, resulting in the restoration and overhaul of the site's database system.
Other administrators have been constantly logged in to the IRC channel for Guild Wars Guru, which there is absolutely no profit to be had in, for the sole purpose of giving a place to the community to chat in real time. The moderators also often give up some of their time not moderating the forums to handle the IRC channel.

Guild Wars Guru is a labour of love, by the community, and for the community. All I mean to say is... have a little faith. Or don't. It's your choice. But judging the administration without taking a step back to look at all the things they do, not for profit or lining their pockets, but for the sake of the community, is just plain foolish.

Sorry for the long speech <_<

Edit: Forgot to mention the auction system. Sorry Dral >< Another feature the site gets nothing for created solely for the convenience of users, and managed with the time of a hard-working administrator who has real life responsibilities as well.

1A is better in apperence.

@Those of you that threaten to leave..you know where the door is, shut it behind you, thank you. ( Yes that is childish much like your "threats" )

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I'm definately liking the '1A' version better.