Who advertises on Boards.ie & how much do they spend?

Ghost Rider

I imagine the chances of Boards.ie making available the figures regarding its advertising revenue are pretty slim. And, much as it goes against my personal feelings, I don't intend right now to question the rights of the organisers to police the discussions on the boards. However, I do find it hard to imagine how useful this website will continue to be in the (almost inevitable) eventuality that a significant advertiser starts to become the subject of a discussion.

So what do the organisers think? Can we have the names of the advertisers and details regarding their respective ad spends?

If not, what will Boards.ie do if/when an advertiser becomes the subject of a discussion? Ban the advertiser or ban the discussion?

The choice will be critical because it will determine whether Boards.ie perceives itself primarily as (i) a website designed to encourage (relatively) open discussion, or (ii) a business.

delly

I don't see how any of this is really up for discussion between us. Its up to the advertisers to suss this out with the people who own the site, and I doubt that would be done in a forum.

Beruthiel

Ghost Rider wrote:

So what do the organisers think? Can we have the names of the advertisers and details regarding their respective ad spends?

I seriously don't understand why you would consider that to be any of your/our business

If not, what will Boards.ie do if/when an advertiser becomes the subject of a discussion? Ban the advertiser or ban the discussion?

If and when that ever happens the Admins will deal with it then.

Ghost Rider

I've a feeling you don't mean what you say when you claim you don't understand why I'd want to know such a thing. But let me be clear about it anyway. It's precisely because it's somebody's "business" that I want to know this information. Let me elaborate...

Unlike, say, a newspaper, the content of an Internet forum is participatory. That is to say, to a large extent those who create the content are also those who consume it. Thus, the question of who "owns" the forum, and therefore the question of who can rightfully legislate over it, is not quite as simple as it is sometimes made out to be around here.

There is the legal ownership of the domain name, true; there is legal ownership of the servers and network infrastructure, true. But who owns the content itself...?

I would argue that the forum should be seen to be owned by a combination of those who host and administer the site and its domain name, and those who supply the content. (I fully admit this is an idealised scenario.) That is why I think there is a case for openness in relation to the matter of who is funding the site.

Nobody would expect a privately owned newspaper to divulge detailed information regarding its advertisers, even though that would go a long way towards addressing many of its readers' concerns regarding conflicts of interest between the advertising content and the editorial content. It's just a fact of a certain type of organisation and we accept that, for the most part.

But when it comes to what I call participatory media, I wonder if the situation shouldn't be different...

To be honest, I don't expect it to happen around here in a million years. Call me cynical but I just haven't seen evidence of anything close to that sort of inclination on this site. Still, I think it's a question well worth raising, if only because few of our conventional media raise questions like these. Also, I think a certain discussion currently ongoing elsewhere on this board may end up running into territory such as this. (Not naming any names for fear of...etc.etc.) I'm just curious to hear what the people who own the domain name and who pay the hosting bills think about these issues.

If it comes down to it, my simplest take on the matter is this: I generally won't bother playing football if I think that, halfway through the game, the owner of the ball is likely to grab it and go home.

Beruthiel wrote:

I seriously don't understand why you would consider that to be any of your/our business

If not, what will Boards.ie do if/when an advertiser becomes the subject of a discussion? Ban the advertiser or ban the discussion?

If and when that ever happens the Admins will deal with it then.

regi

Hi Ghost Rider,

If you scan and upload your latest P60 and payslip, we can start talking.

In terms of a dispute between advertisers and users, its probably worth noting that advertising has allowed the continuing existance of this site and thus the discussion on it. Having said that, we don't have any written policies on this.

Ghost Rider

Hi Regi,

I can see the importance of advertising here. Anyone can. And I'm certainly not questioning its role. (I work in advertising, by the way!) I'm just questioning the possible conflicts of interest that might arise because I think it raises intriguing political and ethical questions. Anyway, you say there is no policy as yet, so that answers my question in part. Thanks.

As for my P60 etc., I'll upload it as soon as I start getting sponsorship for my posts.

Regi wrote:

Hi Ghost Rider,

If you scan and upload your latest P60 and payslip, we can start talking.

In terms of a dispute between advertisers and users, its probably worth noting that advertising has allowed the continuing existance of this site and thus the discussion on it. Having said that, we don't have any written policies on this.

ecksor

And, much as it goes against my personal feelings, I don't intend right now to question the rights of the organisers to police the discussions on the boards.

If by "organisers" you mean the admins then you don't have any grounds to question those rights.

If not, what will Boards.ie do if/when an advertiser becomes the subject of a discussion? Ban the advertiser or ban the discussion?

There was a rather infamous problem of this nature a few years ago actually. I don't think any of the users felt we (actually, I had a slight conflict of interest in that matter and stayed out of it) "the organisers" were favouring the advertisers unduly. However, in future we would probably take each case as it comes.

The choice will be critical because it will determine whether Boards.ie perceives itself primarily as (i) a website designed to encourage (relatively) open discussion, or (ii) a business.

We are both. If setting our own standards rather than letting everyone say whatever they want seems contradictory, then so be it, perhaps it is.

Unlike, say, a newspaper, the content of an Internet forum is participatory. That is to say, to a large extent those who create the content are also those who consume it.

That is correct, and furthermore we rely on a cooperative effort between an army of moderators who keep the whole show on the road.

Thus, the question of who "owns" the forum, and therefore the question of who can rightfully legislate over it, is not quite as simple as it is sometimes made out to be around here.

If posters or mods become dissatisfied then very often they just leave. I.e, they vote with their feet. That does not change ownership or legislative rights.

If that sounds overly totalitarian, then bear in mind that we've kept a lot of the people happy a lot of the time in terms of how we work and how we interact.

If it comes down to it, my simplest take on the matter is this: I generally won't bother playing football if I think that, halfway through the game, the owner of the ball is likely to grab it and go home.

See above.

Vexorg

If you are asking would we pull a discussion that showed an advertiser in a negetive way, I do not believe we would do so.

If you are asking if we would pull a thread that was libelous and what we might deem as generally unacceptable then yes i think we would.

The reason I say I dont believe so is that a majority of the admins would have to make the decision at the time. I believe we would make the same decision today as we would have made 7 years ago which would be "no" a negetive discussion would not be pulled in favour of an advertiser.

If you have any major advertisers who you would like to push our way to test this, please pm me the details

mike65

^^^666^^^ :eek: :eek: :eek:

Mike.

Steveire

Woah, three admins posting within an hour. Something has changed here in the last few weeks.

There is the legal ownership of the domain name, true; there is legal ownership of the servers and network infrastructure, true. But who owns the content itself...?

I asked the legal eagles about this quite recently, but I still don't know. I think either they don't know or it's not clear cut. I guess it just hasn't come up as an issue here yet.

DeVore

Firstly check the disclaimer you signed on the door, your act of submitting the content clearly gives us the right to disseminate it as you are REQUESTING it to be disseminated by submitting it.

Secondly I'm not going to detail advertiser's spend by advertiser because thats private information the advertisers may not want public. I respect that.

Thirdly, the main point of your question regards the conflict of interest we face when we have an advertiser being criticised. This has already happened.

Check the poker forum where Paddy Power have been advertising hardcore. They are regularly criticised and they interact with the community to improve things. I dont think we've ever cut anything that wasnt abusive and on at least one occasion I put my consultancy job AND the advertising money on the line regarding any hint of censorship pressure (they didnt and in fact thanked me for allowing them to work things out with the community. they are really smart that way).
Eircom, Digiweb, Esat have all advertised and we've never stopped people complaining on the IOFFL or Broadband forums or interferred with the moderatorship (mods of those forums, if I'm lying please speak up).

We once cut an Eircom campaign because it expanded on roll over (one of our rules is that ads dont do anything like that) and they never advertised with us again. We also fired Doubleclick over it and so effectively lost all our ad revenue at that time.

You can file a request for our accounts with the CRO (it might even be online at www.cro.ie) and you'll see a lot of 0's.

DeV.

The Sweeper

DeVore wrote:

You can file a request for our accounts with the CRO (it might even be online at www.cro.ie) and you'll see a lot of 0's.

Please note: these zeros are not necessarily grouped in threes or preceded by a comma separator.

KdjaCL

Ghost Rider wrote:

If not, what will Boards.ie do if/when an advertiser becomes the subject of a discussion? Ban the advertiser or ban the discussion?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=355

Check out those 3 forums , probably answer your Q.

All advertisers qho have the nads to participate on discussion that sometimes shows them in a bad light. (komplett vs the TFT being the best example).


kdjac

Gillo

DeVore wrote:

Check the poker forum where Paddy Power have been advertising hardcore. They are regularly criticised and they interact with the community to improve things. I dont think we've ever cut anything that wasnt abusive and on at least one occasion I put my consultancy job AND the advertising money on the line regarding any hint of censorship pressure (they didnt and in fact thanked me for allowing them to work things out with the community. they are really smart that way)..

TBH thats what I'd expect, for the company to actually come on board and that the critism constructively, it shows a certain amount of maturity on the part of the company.

Again as for publishing figures, thats between boards (the company, management or whatever you like to call it) and the advertisiers. Any company who is going to spend good money advertising (in any media) will have first researched that media and be aware of any potential problems that may arise hence when someone advertises on boards they will be aware of the risk of them been slated in a medium where they also advertise.

Ghost Rider

When I follow that link I get the "Old For Sale" sub-forum. Can you repost the link?

Thanks.

KdjaC wrote:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=355

Check out those 3 forums , probably answer your Q.

All advertisers qho have the nads to participate on discussion that sometimes shows them in a bad light. (komplett vs the TFT being the best example).


kdjac

John R

Ghost Rider wrote:

When I follow that link I get the "Old For Sale" sub-forum. Can you repost the link?

Thanks.

At a guess he meant the shop/interaction forums.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=241