AdBlock and Guilt

--amadeus--

Was going through a thread in Limerick and it linked out to here.

What I liked about it is that I run FFox with AdBlock (disabled on Boards before I get site banned!!). On that metal site there was a banner that said "Support the site, please don't ban our ads".

I use Adblock because I use StumbleUpon and some sites are unreadable without it. I would imagine a lot of people also use it on here without giving any thought to the sustainability of teh site. Is there a tweak that could be made so that if anyone is using AdBlock software they see a guilt trip message?

Red Sleeping Beauty

The ads on boards are fairly unintrusive and I am to believe that that's on purpose - cause there's someone in power who said "We need ads, we're having ads but they won't blind people".
Grand, fair enough I say. There's worse services that have worse advertising . I never click on em cause they never interest me but yes, I agree, compared to other forums this one is grand. I was using an absolutely rubbish "yuku" forum the other day and nearly had an epileptic fit at one of their ads.

DeVore

We dont ban people who use adblock or "admit" to using it.

I get very angry when they stuff it in our face but they dont get banned.

I dont know how that metal site is doing it. Its a nice idea but to be honest, if someone wants to block our ads, I dont know what can be said that will make them change their minds.

I despise the over commericialisation of well, everything. But there are economic realities too. We've always strived to find the middle path and not "do evil".

take take take however, is not a sustainable model. Thankfully enough people seem to realise that at the moment.

/my 2c
DeV.

Steve

This would maybe be better suited in development.

I'd hazard a guess that the answer is no.
Firstly because the content is filtered out by the user's browser and the site can't detect that and secondly don't you think that if sites could detect adblock and display a message then they would surely just display the ad anyway instead of a message.

btw, I don't use adblock and I see that message on the site that you linked so it's unrelated.

Personally if I see a site full of eye bleeding flashing ads then I just go somewhere else and I'm grateful for the subscriber option to turn them off on boards.

seamus

I have a suggestion (Going Ultra-Nerdy Here).

This may actually be possible, but it's a concept in my head right at this point in time.

You have a DIV which has its background set as a single image, taken from static.boards.ie (so it's not blocked by adblock too), which has the adblock icon in it, and a message like "Please don't block our Ads". You can also include an onclick handler for the div which brings the user to an explanation page of why you shouldn't block ads.

Then you overlay this DIV with a second transparent DIV containing the actual ad content. So if the ad is blocked, you see the "Please Dont" picture, if the ad isn't blocked, you see the ad.

The only problem is that this puts X amount of extra load on every single page and makes every single page X KB larger.

I'm going on my lunch now, but I'll give it a wee test in a bit.

Dord

The ads are ok here, not that intrusive so it doesn't bother me. The only thing is that sometimes the adtech.de server hangs and causes the site loading to slow down for me.

I know of other forums where you have to scroll down 1 or 2 pages of ads to just see the posts. Now that is ridiculous.

--amadeus--

seamus wrote: »

I have a suggestion (Going Ultra-Nerdy Here).

This may actually be possible, but it's a concept in my head right at this point in time.

You have a DIV which has its background set as a single image, taken from static.boards.ie (so it's not blocked by adblock too), which has the adblock icon in it, and a message like "Please don't block our Ads". You can also include an onclick handler for the div which brings the user to an explanation page of why you shouldn't block ads.

Then you overlay this DIV with a second transparent DIV containing the actual ad content. So if the ad is blocked, you see the "Please Dont" picture, if the ad isn't blocked, you see the ad.

The only problem is that this puts X amount of extra load on every single page and makes every single page X KB larger.

I'm going on my lunch now, but I'll give it a wee test in a bit.

As I was reading down through the replies that was pretty much what I was thinking - a smaller image from a non-blacked directory with a "blocking our ads is wrong because..." that is overlaid with the ad if there is no blocking software. Can't see it adding that much in terms of size?

seamus

Yeah it works. Awesome
Very rough draft, I'm sure something much better could be used. But it works

Attached, nothing naughty in it, I promise. You'll need to save it and rename it with a .htm

Blowfish

One problem I've run into is that OpenDNS is blocking them as they've flagged adserver.adtech.de as serving up adware.

It doesn't make much of a difference to me as I'm using Ubuntu, but I don't really want to whitelist the entire adtech.de domain as there are less techy people using the connection.

--amadeus--

Cool

Works well, nice one.

Overheal

DeVore wrote: »

We dont ban people who use adblock or "admit" to using it.

Oh trust me: its been tried

All the same i have Boards on the greenlist and it'll stay that way until that feckin fogra lag pops its ugly head again (when ads take grossly longer to load than the actual page, stopping me from reading a thread)

I might mention though that all these ads are in Euros for places like lastminute.com and what good does that do to a user that isnt from Ireland, or Europe for that matter? Meh

RoundyMooney

Indeed Particularly out of order, that was.

Worth noting too, that afaik, it is the click on the ad that puts money in DeV's, Vex's, and the others pockets.

So if you're not going to click, there seems little point in displaying?

That said, I may be wrong here, and I know that the admins can't/won't ask people to click on an ad to inflate the figures, as it were, but I can totally understand both the aversion to adblocking software,as well as the need for it. To be perfectly fair, given the restrained nature of advertising here, I have no problem with displaying them anyway. It's a latitude I don't allow any other sites I frequent.

Overheal

As I understand it depending on what contract is formed its either based on the number of unique views or the number of clicks.

Red Sleeping Beauty

Overheal wrote: »

Oh trust me: its been tried

All the same i have Boards on the greenlist and it'll stay that way until that feckin fogra lag pops its ugly head again (when ads take grossly longer to load than the actual page, stopping me from reading a thread)

I might mention though that all these ads are in Euros for places like lastminute.com and what good does that do to a user that isnt from Ireland, or Europe for that matter? Meh

Why would someone "that isnt from Ireland, or Europe " be using the site

AlmightyCushion

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

Why would someone "that isnt from Ireland, or Europe " be using the site

Are you serious? Lots of people from outside ireland and the EU would use this site.

DeVore

Look, if Fogra is causing lag then by all means block it until we get it sorted

We dont ask people to click on links in ads because its bold and its wrong and Google will slap us anyway. Click on what is relevant to your needs but not for any other reason.

Seamus, could you explain that to Cult, its something he would deal with while I'm a bit of a simpleton about these things in comparison

DeV.

Dord

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

Why would someone "that isnt from Ireland, or Europe " be using the site

A lot of Irish people abroad use the site to "keep in touch" with what's going on in Ireland. Along with that you have others who are just interested in Ireland, or people who find the site via google searches and realise there's a sh!t load of information here.

AlmightyCushion

Oh just wanted to say that the remove ads feature for subscribers is a great idea.

RoundyMooney

Thanks for the clarification, DeV. As far as I can gather, there's no issue with the ads causing lag.

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

seamus

DeVore wrote: »

Seamus, could you explain that to Cult, its something he would deal with while I'm a bit of a simpleton about these things in comparison

All the code is in the attachment. It's dead simple, he'll be well able to figure it out. I don't even know though if it'll work with boards's ad setup.

Red Sleeping Beauty

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Are you serious? Lots of people from outside ireland and the EU would use this site.

Scarcastic smiley added to original post

Orion

I use adblock. There I said it. But it's not because of boards - ads here are very ignorable. Tbh I don't see banner ads generally - my mind is tuned to ignore them. But some sites are just ludicrous.

That said - how do I add this site to a greenlist? I don't want to blanket unblock adtech but I don't mind them being displayed on boards.ie because they're unobtrusive here.

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

AlmightyCushion

Macros42 wrote: »

I use adblock. There I said it. But it's not because of boards - ads here are very ignorable. Tbh I don't see banner ads generally - my mind is tuned to ignore them. But some sites are just ludicrous.

That said - how do I add this site to a greenlist? I don't want to blanket unblock adtech but I don't mind them being displayed on boards.ie because they're unobtrusive here.

Right click the addblock plus logo and there is an option "Disable on this site". Click that.

@Alan Dunne - I thought you were being sarcastic but wasn't sure. Text is useless for getting sarcasm across.

Red Sleeping Beauty

With your name I thought you constantly wore sarcastic glasses and sat on a sarcastic cushion .

DeVore

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Right click the addblock plus logo and there is an option "Disable on this site". Click that.

@Alan Dunne - I thought you were being sarcastic but wasn't sure. Text is useless for getting sarcasm across.

No! reeeeally? I just don't believe you... :rolleyes:


Dev.

Overheal

DeVore wrote: »

No, reeeeally? I just don't believe you...


Dev.

That just makes someone read like an asshat better to use good old rolleyes :rolleyes: After all thats half the reason I saved him from one-eyed oblivion.

DeVore

Happy? :rolleyes:

(being sarcastic online makes you the sombrero of asshats imho. )

DeV.

Overheal

Thats Urban Sombrero to you!

AlmightyCushion

DeVore wrote: »

I just don't believe you

That sounded very Victor Meldrewey in my head.

MooseJam

I've been to sites that would not let you in because you were running adblock so I would guess it's pretty easy to check if this is enabled in the browser and block the user, It's pretty silly to get all annoyed about it but do nothing - if it's really an issue then block users who have it.

DeVore

Its the disrespect of having my nose shoved in it that annoys me. Anyway, I'm not going to get bent out of shape about it any more. Its very heartening to hear people recognise that we try to keep the commercial stuff unobtrusive and they reward us for that trust by whitelisting us.

If that trend was taken up in general you would find a lot more "polite" advertising.

DeV.

MooseJam

you could always put it in the rules upon registering that it would be nice if adblock wasnt used but i dont know if anyone reads that

RoundyMooney

I think Seamus' idea is a touch of genius tbh.

AlmightyCushion

DeVore wrote: »

If that trend was taken up in general you would find a lot more "polite" advertising.

I'd kill for this to happen. I'm absolutely sick of sites that use those stupid big flash ads that appear out of nowhere, block half the page and then hide the close button somewhere obscure. Complete pain in the ass. I normally don't stay long on sites after seeing those ads.

Orion

eVeNtInE wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

boards is greenlisted now. It's kind of odd seeing ABP in green at the top of the screen
Like I said - I don't mind the ads when they're subtle. I have adblock installed mainly because of some gaming sites that are just a ****ing joke - more noise than signal.

zAbbo

I advertise a fair bit on boards, you'll probably have noticed banners, competitions and discounts I've run over the past 2 years.

From my point of view, I think members disabling ads would cripple boards.ie's revenue stream on media sales. It would be less attractive to advertise here if a significant number of members were blocking all ads.

Dero

I have just whitelisted boards.ie today. To be honest, I never considered the option of disabling ABP on specific sites before. I just installed it to block the obnoxious flash crap that's out there and forgot about it. I have noticed that AV Forums have a guilt-trip message when ABP is enabled. No idea if it appears on other browsers like IE because I don't have access to it.
The text appears in an ad box and starts "We have detected that you are blocking adverts on AVForums.com.", so I presume it is technically possible to detect APB.

Anyway, bottom line, this thread has made me disable APB on boards, and thanks for keeping it unobtrusive.

Overheal

Why not make a site announcement asking users to whitelist boards? Kinda tacky but it would help

Rovi

Like others above, I installed ABP ages ago and just let it get on with it; this thread has spurred me to disable it on Boards.ie.

It IS a bit odd seeing the ABP icon in green, isn't it?

DeVore

See now I feel all warm and gooey.





And I hate that. :mad:

DeV.

Rovi

<shudder>

Orion

Green that ABP may be but tonight I just saw an outlined box that NoScript had blocked - it was a banner ad from pantherconsulting.com. Unless there's a good reason I won't whitelist any company in Noscript. There's no reason that I can see that an ad should contain code that can execute locally.

DeVore

Can you explain? I'll look into anything naughty going on and report back but any more details will be helpful.

DeV.

Sully

zAbbo wrote: »

I advertise a fair bit on boards, you'll probably have noticed banners, competitions and discounts I've run over the past 2 years.

From my point of view, I think members disabling ads would cripple boards.ie's revenue stream on media sales. It would be less attractive to advertise here if a significant number of members were blocking all ads.

On Google Adwords or directly? Cant say iv noticed myself and I dont usually notice Google Adverts much!

You have me intrigued now!

zAbbo

Sully wrote: »

On Google Adwords or directly? Cant say iv noticed myself and I dont usually notice Google Adverts much!

You have me intrigued now!

Mainly direct, lastminute.com, eircom phonewatch, Digiweb - all mine at one stage or another.

Also run some of the content network AdWords, but not at same volume as the above ones.

Orion

DeVore wrote: »

Can you explain? I'll look into anything naughty going on and report back but any more details will be helpful.

DeV.

That's what I see occasionally. Most ads display fine but NoScript blocks anything from panthercustomer.com or adtech.panthercustomer.com. Myspace ads, Digiweb, google text ads, etc are all fine and I didn't whitelist any of them in NoScript.

Panthercustomer.com also gives you a 404 and Siteadvisor rates it poorly. I know that Siteadvisor is flawed in itself so I don't pay it too much credence (iirc boards.ie was flagged on that site not too long ago). But I still don't see a need for an ad to require executable script to display its wares.

DeVore

I'll chase down an explanation for this next week. If it doesnt have a good reason to do that (and a transparent one too) then I dont want it here.

DeV.