AdBlock and Guilt

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.