Ads In OP of Threads...

Wow, the last page was so constructive and now we have gone over-the-top and threatening again. Once again I stress, we are testing some things out. We are reading every post and appreciate constructive feedback and crticism.

The ads are perfectly visible at the top, bottom and sides of the pages. How about keeping them in those places instead of raping our posts with them? All it does is annoy the piss out of most of us, making it even more unlikely that we'l actually spend time clicking them.

Definately annoying, though bills need to be paid somehow so it's understandable...
I like the idea of a more rectangular banner at the top or bottom of a post rather then the way it is. The bottom of the post would probably be the best in my opinion.

Ugh putting it in the actual thread is really not that great positioning.

Wouldn't it be possible to put an extra advert, say, at the bottom of the page? If you must put more adverts in to support the site that's understandable but could something like that be done? Put it underneath the thread as you view it? Then you have an ad the top and one at the bottom, and untouched thread in the middle...

The board that i work on have ad in between the posts not in them as we use PhPBB not Vb anyways is there anyway you can put them in between the posts as I find them a little annoying as well.

dont like them at all....they add time to loading a page that already takes me near to 2 minutes to get to!
however; I do understand operating costs.....but putting these annoying things INSIDE posts is a big no-no!

keep them outside of the actual posts please!
many other sites (see guildwiki, yahoo auctions, even ebay)...keep them on the sides or between posts, not IN them!!!!
so please move them to another part of the page, not IN someones personal space!

Can you limit it to static ads and not Flash or animated GIFs? It's the animated ones that are MOST annoying (though they're all pretty ugly).

I don't mind them much if they'll result in improved site performance (will they?). I know this is a free service and I appreciate it greatly but occasionally the site suffers slow-downs and downtime as we all know. I presume these ads can only mean a better service, right?

I'm glad the green text was removed, I really hated that. I also find the add appearing in the first post on every page intrusive, and annoying. It would be really, really nice if that add could be removed too.

I really, really dislike peoples posts being turned into adds.



Instead of what you currently have, I think you could do somthing like the following to generate more revenue, without causing people to ragequit GWG:

Banner adds are fine, even animated ones. Infact, it wouldn't really bother me if you added a banner add at the bottom of all of your pages. Perhaps between the text body of the thread, and the quick reply box? I've seen several IPB boards that have done this same thing, shouldn't be that hard to do the same on a VB board. This would get people to look at it, without overly annoying anyone to the point where they stop visiting the fourms.

For the regular reply/new thread box, you could certainly place an add to the side of it. Don't think that would annoy too many people either. After all, there's already an animated banner add just above where I'm typing now, and it's not annoying me in the least. Although I'm unsure as to if doing that would actualy be possible. If it's not, simply add another banner add between the body of that box and the 'additional options' section below it. It should be visable to everyone, and it wouldn't annoy the hell out of them.

Let people donate, and make the donation link very visable, infact even set it as a global announcement. Perhaps you could even give people a special title, or name color if they donate, I think that would encourage alot more people to do so. You could even have different teirs of whatever title(perhaps even a custom title for a donation over a certain amount), or different name colors for people who donate more, thus encouraging people to donate more money.

Heck, even adding an adbot that posts an add in-between posts would be better than what you have now, IMHO. It wouldn't cause people to simply not read another users post, hurry though reading that post, or be distracted and annoyed as hell while doing so...

I dont like the ads in the OP either. It makes it hard to read and really distracting. It's like having a commercial blaring at me while I'm trying to watch a show.

There really isnt any constructive feedback that I can give other than to say that the ads should be removed from the OP. It's extremely tacky too.

heres an idea...
instead of voicing how much you hate ads in a flaming rage, post some constructive ideas on methods of aquiring revanue that arent obstructive.

i still think my suggestion would work...
lets say for the sake of argument the site costs $100 a month to keep up...lets say that (collectivly) $30 was donated towards that, and this information was posted in a readily accessible area, it would let people know how much more is needed to keep the site up and running (at no personal monetary cost to you) for that month.
if people can think to themselves "hmmm...theres $70 left to go before this next month is covered" they will be more likely to donate. its ALWAYS easier to work towards a goal of you know what that goal is. and to be honest, i think you'd do far better with voluntary donations than with advertisements.
but, thats just my opinion.

Quote: Originally Posted by Akhilleus

Ok, want my opinion on this? It sucks. Web is turning into some sort of television... don't you think people hate seeing ad every 6 minutes? It's a location that can actually make a person click the ad if he/she tries to highlight something... you know what I mean. Put it on the bottom or on the side like on youtube but not in the post.

Ok. I don't mind the ads at the top of the pages. Putting them into people's posts as huge blocks is annoying, but even that I can live with. Sites have to make ends meet. As has been mentioned, I'd also prefer these new adsquares were static instead of animated. But then, I'd also prefer it if they were horizontal banners at the top/bottom of posts instead of big ugly squares imposing on the text but... I figure the very idea of these things is to make them as visible as possible. :/

I suppose I'm more concerned with the less obtrusive aspect I've come to notice with this site, and that's the Hitbox (among others?) tracking cookies that seem to pop up on my system every single time I visit.

I agreed with Ahk.

The End.

Doesn't bother me, site is running a bit faster then normal.



Another idea is to move the ad to the bottom of the page and insted of it being a big sqaure make it a small rectangle that fits along the bottom of the OP.

So who wants to /sign for the idea of donations?

Me!

/signed

Couple of points of interests. Ads need to be towards the top, cannot be at the bottom. Most ads need to be "above the fold" for the most part. Squares tend to pay more than banners. It could be worse at least you can read the forums anytime you want and there could be ads in every post. Sites cost a lot of money to run when the get huge (GWG is the biggest GW site around).

My suggestion is box off the ad with style and put the word "advertisement" under it so it doesn't appear that the individual poster is endorsing the actual ad/product.

another extention of my former idea, to post what it costs/donations, is to enter people who donate into weekly or monthly drawings for different items in-game...
this would provide a special means of thanking those who go that extra mile to contribute to the site.

while i may not be able to afford to contribute much monetarily, i would be more than willing to offer up items for drawings for such an activity. i'm sure you'd also get others willing to donate some things here and there, in the absence of not being able to afford cash donations.

Any reason why the Smiley ad is always used, are they are a long time sponsor?

I can see the reason for the ads, but a bit more variety would be nice. Any chance that other companies would want to advertise here?

It is kinda overbearing the ad and detracts from the thread.