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Its not my fault I cant see the ads, and I'm not about to tell the guys over in Bloomington "Hey, can you maybe stop blocking the ads when they come through the pipe?"
Can't do it, its a company thing. Ads are fine, but I'm just a believer in freedom of choice, if someone doesn't wanna see the ads, they shouldn't have to. Thats like telling them that they have to watch the TV commercials or they cant watch TV at all.
Ads is a revenue generating venue for CodeGuru. If we block the ads, we are slowing killing off CodeGuru. Nowadays, tell me which site doesn't have any form of ads. Support CodeGuru by not blocking the ads and also clicking the ads if the ads's products interest you! I do read the ads sometimes, and inform my Boss of any products which might help us in our work.
Its not my fault the ads are blocked *shakes my fist* LOL, its the company I work for. Their servers filter out anything flash or ActiveX. However, at home I don't block them. I rather enjoy the VS 2008 ads, I just wish we could see more of them or if there was a place that stored them for viewing. I know, it sounds totally weird, but I do like watching the little movie clips, they're amusing.
It isn't clear what bypassing means.Quote:
Originally Posted by PeejAvery
HTML is a declarative language, not an imperative language.
This can be used to render documents, extract data from documents in various ways.
Among other things, any CSS 2 browser let the user chooses the style, because CSS 2 is designed towards user customizability.
Is it forbidden to change the background from blue to white?
Is it forbidden to use Opera's "accessibility" layout?
If none of these two are forbidden, then, I don't see why setting display:none to divisions that the user isn't interested in would be forbidden.
Is it forbidden to use FF or Opera "see links of page" features which can be seen as a feature that blocks *everything* except links!
Are pop-up blockers forbidden? This is an ads blocking feature enabled by default in IE7.
I think there should be a much more detailed policy.
A list of allowed and forbidden browser features should be listed.
You may say something like:
"
You cannot download any page of this forum without rendering it entirely either on screen or on printer, with a CSS 2 conforming user agent, with the default stylesheet, with an ECMAScript binding that supports all features used by codeguru. You cannot view/use the document in ANY other way. You mustn't look at the source code. You mustn't do any statistics on it. You mustn't bookmark any page (that would allow you to bypass ads). You mustn't separate iframes from their enclosing page. Flash animations must be rendered before there's any user interaction. You must SEE all the ads (be careful with browsers which have scroll bars and make it easy to jump over an advertisement without seeing it). Disabling Flash or ECMAScript is strictly forbidden.
"
To avoid problems, a very restricted list of allowed browsers should be listed, with a description of how to browse without violating the rule.
This is against the spirit of the Web. The Web is flexible, declarative, and permits features you would never have thought of!
Codeguru is free of giving the policy it wishes for people who suscribe. I just think that I'll delete my account.
Where are we with all this thing????
I mean, the man has explained he has to block das, or that he has ads preempetively blocked from his navigation. Okay? Okay.
The thing is, you guys are quite ready to penalize users who care about themselves and the site, without giving the choice for those users to make a degree of compromise they want to do. Most users I think do not disagree with the ads, I see most of them find them useful, but that does not imply that everyone is as good as a candidate to have the ads shove up their ***. I am OK with ads some time, but not if the big ad is taking 33% to 45% of my screen width and forcing thread names and descriptions to wrap around every 13 characters or so. I have that 2m wide x 15m tall shove up my. If that happens, I am violated enough that I have to compensate. Does the AUP allow me to? No.But i HAVE to do nontheless or else the site --- and by extension the content I want to acces to --- is becomes to the worst case unusable.
Enforcing a browsing policy, which establishes that you can not use "any browser or browser feature or system component or third party tool or neuronal exception suppression or hypnotism or any media feasible in any physical or computer manifestation in any way those are understood, that by any method or in any consequence and with any motive or cause, be these incidental, accidental, coincidental, intentional, interventional, some of the above, none of the above or all of them, blocks ads" or the oppossite, is simply not going to help. The second a user installs the new shiny user extension for Firefox or the new shiny Google Desktop or alexa toolbar or weather control reporter, their conditions of usage are going to change. I don't like usage policies that will force me to hire a lawyer everytime I check a domain for ad blocking in my filter because thei content is shove up my.
As usual, things for the end user remain the same: he wants to access the content. He can, but not the way he is expected to. So he is blamed upon to because of it. And punished because of it. And not given, instead, a realizable option that is directed towards the compromise he is trying to apeal into. Last time I saw such prejudging was when US invaded Iraq. And before that when they invaded Afganisthan. See a trend here?
I've been in a lot of "block these ads, we throuw you to the LA police" wars since Codeguru. I think, from experience, the best way to have ads and not have users block them, to the degree expressed by the current AUP and by an "acceptable" web usage, is to have:
a) ads presence as customizable as possible. I'd like, for example, that idiot "IBM TAKE A COFFE" 33% wide ad to be bottom of the page instead of consuming 33% of my screen width, and have instead the wide ad (that one just over the AUP link) up near the head of the page instead. Heck I don't want to block the ads, just get it to less annoying state. Am I given the choice? No.
b) channel/transport nondescriptive usage policies. "Do get to us any way you can, we won't torch you for being behind a restrictive firewall or for appealing to your own security by employing AdBlock Plus". Unfortunely lawyers are always against this kind of measure as it gives "too much leverage" in a "too much lax way". And if lawyers say no, CFOs say no. And then, CEOs say no. Brad has already stated what has been done was the best compromise achievable. So am I being given the choice? No.
c) no AUP. Come on, this is ridiculous...
d) better ads. No CPU consuming. No Flash. Do we need Flash if most of those ads are just static images or barely any movement? An "a href" could do better and would be FAR less intrusive. And do we need 33% of the screen width to be consumed by ads? Design should be more aware of the display conditions on the other side of the wire. That also goes with a)... But, am I given the choice? No.
The only thing that gives me choice is the ad blocking feature... buying a new plasma LCD Halo3-like display is not possible for me, unles you want to cooperate as a compensation for the times of 33% screen width loss. So I google up a little... and "ad blocking" just surges... You may be able to punish those who even mention it, but most people that has faced tthose ads once or more in their life, are already motivated and firefox-extension-savvy enough to block them, and a lot more others. It would be far more damage to the site and eventual allies, to have a more intrusive UAP that dictates that you can, in essence, use only a completely unsecured and overbloated Internet Explorer 6 with Flash 9 and not even a sight of an antivirus, firewall, or the such, in your computer, which must directly be conected to the net with no OSI Lv. 3 or higher intermediaries. It would be better to just design better instead of punishing worse.
This is my soap-opera-but-still-justified-and-somewhat-emotional rant. Hope it helps.
And no, using Opera's accesibility layout or IE's default blocker do not fall under the adblock clause AFAIK.
You didn't see this one?
http://www.gainesville-rent.com/Images/Win100Header.jpg ;)
We can't do much against that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Luchin_plusplus
Our brain is used to ignore ads.
If you want some text on your site to be ignored... Simply make it looks like ads. Most people won't "see" it.
Agreed,Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperKoko
I don't much notice the ads anymore, even if they're supposedly "subliminal" they don't seem to be affecting me much in terms of my purchasing choices or what I think about or want to buy. I suppose you do become sort of immune to them over time.
Blocking ads cuts off Codeguru's revenue stream. The revenue pays for servers and the costs of running a web site. Cut off the revenue, you kill the site. Jupitermedia would be foolish to tell you that you can block ads. In fact, if you look at the fine print on most sites on the internet you'll find that they have the same rules as Codeguru. The ones that don't are sites that are marketing arms of companies like Microsoft..... Of course, Microsoft stated 25% of their revenue will be generated by advertising in the future......
Blocking ads takes Jupitermedia's bandwidth, server time, CPU time, etc. The same issues you argued about with the ads. Again, the difference is, if we use a little of your bandwidth, then we have a great site that keeps on going. If you use our bandwidth without letting us serve the ads, then you block the revenue stream and put us out of business.
Just like television - don't watch the ads, the shows and series you like go away -- or worse - the ads become more intrusive. Did you see the Mountain Dew ads in the Transformer movies.....
I agree the ads can get out of hand at times. There are some other sites that are doing things right now that would put you guys through the roof. Things that are worse than anything we've done here. I'm fighting against such things.
When we have ads that eat up a lot of CPU, we work hard to get them pulled or fixed quickly. Unfortunately most ads are served from 3rd party servers, so we can do immediate resolutions. I also agree that some ads are a bit too much. The ads in our articles are over the top. I've actually made this point several times internally. I've gotten some positive feedback that something might be done about those ads.
On Codeguru we have compromised more than most of our other sites thanks to a few of us yelling internally. The "Click Here to Expand Forum to Full Width" link is not something that is liked by some of the people internaly. We fought and got it here. Look at the other Jupitermedia forums and you'll see that it is lacking on them. (I don't think any other site was allowed to do that).
Ads are a pain. I don't like them either, but I understand that a site has to pay its bills. I also am of the frame of mind that blocking ads is equivalent to theft. As such, I've choosen to never block ads. I've seen some of the alternatives sites can use to make money. I'd rather put up with annoying ads.
I'm open to suggestions for generating revenue as alternatives to ads. If you've got suggestions that are reasonable, feel free to post them in Feedback or send them my way. Realize, however, that this site has a **HUGE** audience including a large magnitude of lurkers. At the level of traffic this site (as a whole gets), you have some serious server and bandwidth costs along with IT time to keep things running.
< This conversation should be in Feedback, but I'll leave it here. Please remove instructions for blocking ads from your posts. >
Brad!
<< One last comment - the irony of this whole conversation is that we don't look for ad blockers. As such, the only way we'd know you are blocking ads is if you tell us. It is kind of like being a shop lifter at a store and yelling at the store manager on the way out to tell him you are stealing something under your shirt.... If you simply don't say anything, we'd never know. Of course, posting instructions on how to shoplift on the store's front door is likely to get the store to ask you to never come back. >>
Granted, I may have exaggerated a little :D :wave: ... But, I've heard news about MS reading brains, MS's patent that allows them to charge every time a hospital performs an ECG ("obtaining body informationby electric reading of nervous components" or some other blah-blah, maybe in Miami), Wifi radiation killing birds in their eggs, and Tobacco companies wanting to short-range broadcast in a frequency that interferes brain waves, so... I'm being left thinking and a great plop...Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperKoko
(Note to self: stop watching "X-Files" and the such for a while... :D )
Granted and in full concordance with the precept, but...Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Jones
Granted, again, but with a HUGE difference: TV ads are "merged" with the conten and blend to provide their value without unbalancing the scenes they appear into. That's the essence of product placement. You see a nice SUV? Then the SUV does what SUVs do. That's in "24" or in "CSI", not in "Gilmore Girls" or "The L Word". You see a Coke? Then the coke's being drought, it's not a flying parrot. Drink a bystander, one more of the crowd, character, not for the President during his videoconference with his Russian simil.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Jones
(Note to self: stop watching "24" and the such for a while... :D )
Web ads are making the effort, but surely they are not hitting the jackpot if the ads is, as are in some sites, a p0rn ad in an anthropology archive site. In our case, with specialized content comes specialized, targeted ads, but targeting value is somewhat lost when, again, the ad takes 1/3rd of your content.
I don't get where, how or who from did you get that idea, but, despite its backwards-utilitarism sense I will concede to it for now and as follows: If blocking ads equals theft, then those who block ads are thefting from a theft, ala Robin Hood, because the intrusion of the ads are forcibly, unquestoinably, and unauthorizedly taking their bandwidth for which they have to pay for. I'd rather steal back something that has been stole from me, that just "accept" to be a sitting duck, cordial victim, who can be played along with it at all times.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Jones
Also, this idea comes against the very basic economics of third party services. Let's check Service Trade Markets 101 and Market Law 101: if you're A and you're being paid, by B, everytime A offers a potential client, C, a pamplet about B's products, which C receives, then:
- it can't be theft if the potential client C walks to A, and says, "wha, wait, before we begin our biz, don't hand me B's stuff" and acts accordingly. You're not handed the offer, and if you've, the client has not accepted it anyway, so it can at most be a potential sale lost, never a theft.
- Not only that, it must not be theft if A forces the pamplet into C's hands despite C trying to resist, which is how currently web ads operate. If for a legal standpoint, that should be harrasment and probably bribing from A's part (and on a minor term colusion from B's part), never theft from C's part.
- What can be considered theft, or at most evasion, is if the client C accepts B's offer from your hands but will publicly deny having ever done so. Which is not the case here.
Of course, that's under the assumption that B is a legally enabled agent that willingly and ethically acts on the market under no conditions of offerent-side stress (understocking and the such). Which in our case I want to believe.
The AUP maybe enacts not being able to block ads in any way, but it does not say, and it can't say, that I'm legally enforced to have the ads violently shoven up my, and also that I can't comply about it. That's harassment at least, legally.
It can be argued that the individual loss is minimal for end user in terms of ad-generated traffic, but if you multiply for a couple visits a week, easily some share participation a month, and with, again, 1/3rd of cotent view lost, then the opportunity cost of bloking the ads become SO important.
Yeah, that was that made ad-related therads so fun to me, you never knew wether you were whistling or screaming your ways in and out of it...Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Jones
On the note of CG and the stance you guys have taken about this (I mean the administrators and all that stuff) I have to say I congratulate the CG staff for being the most ad-serving/targeting/blocking/adapting-aware staff in a LOT of forums I've run into. No one besides CG will at least give the option to "Expand Forum to full width" to begin with :D. So let's hope those efforts go to the better.
Luchin_plusplus -
Nice reply.
One thing I think your points leave out -- As a user you choose to come to this site. That is similar to walking into a mall, a store, or a fast food restaurant. In walking into a store -- or signing onto our server, you made a choice to come into 'A''s place of business. If A stated that to come into his place of business you have to accept his pamplets about 'B', then once you walk in, you need to be ready to accept the admission price of 'B'. That isn't harassment and such, it is simply the ticket price.
I hear so many people say that sites 'forceabley' make them accept ads. In truth, those sites didn't make you come to them. You chose to go to those sites. If we were pushing ads to people that didn't come to our site (aka Spam) then I would agree with your argument; however, you didn't get our ads until after you choose to go to http://www.codeguru.com. ;) :)
As to discussing ad -- I think it is important for everyone to understand the logic behind ads and behind what makes the Web tick (or pay for itself). May of the things we are discussing apply to a lot of sites on the Web, so it is good to understand. While we are debating it here about Codeguru specifically, this is not really a "Codeguru" issue. Rather, it is a web issue.
The key to a successful ad-supported web site is to make sure the content and community are more valuable than the annoyance caused by the ads. My job with this site is on the content -- not the ads. I fight the constant battle of trying to raise the standards in order to offset what our ad guys do to us..... They don't always make it easy..... :eek:
If you want to know what really annoyes me, it is the overlay television ads. The ones that are animated across the bottom when your show is playing. Those use to be subtle around the station logo. Now they can take up as much as the bottom third of the tv screen -- when you are trying to actually watch the show. On a show like Heroes where half the hour is already commercials, it is getting to the point where the ads are more annoying than the content being provided (especially this season)....
Thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Jones
I agree that the terms of service are enacted upon the user ("C" in my examples) enters the site, however, you should consider what it is to the visitor, if upon the first time he enters a site (or store), you tell him that they've been legally enforced to take up pamplets about a third party. Specially if those terms were not printed on your store's windows and front door (equivalent to say that the ads terms of service are not printed in the CG main page, before the user actually reaches content), as you talk about "A stated that to come into his place of business you have to accept his pamplets about 'B'", which for most web sites is simply __NOT__ how they are working.. The only known, almost well implemented exception I can think of righ now is Devianart... Otherwise, is just like poeple in the suburbs that are already living their happy lives and then "by decreet" they are forcedto pay a road/train company a monthly fee because their houses are in the route plan and therefore they are "consuming the company's resources" (here in Chile, this happens everyday).Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Jones
Furthermore, it is true that one only gets the ads once one visits the content, and it is true that the ads in this site are the most content-aware of all forums I've been revisiting, so you guys have done an already great job vy holding the ads in sync with the content in terms of presentation, sans the infamous 1/3rd width ad.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Jones
Anyways, that's why I was talking about what things can not be, not about what things are. If I were this informed about things "are", I may be prompting myself to Jupitermedia's staff... :D:D:D Just to make sure we were not viewing the current state of things under a point of view that is actually damagin for the relationship between B and C.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brad Jones
But I see things are quite advanced and for the most part the right choices are being made and being fought for, so I can calmly walk aside and let things flow for the time being. I'v already monopolized this thread with my views on the subject, it's the time to proove I have the confidence in yours' ability to handle things as fits best for the comminuty, after all you've been doing quite well inmy so ad-unfriendly opinion.
Thanks for all the effort made and for listening and debating my perspectives. I'm off to enjoy the site for now.