I hate the new Promotion !

Hi Friends ! There is a new Promotion on top of this forum and iit drives me crazy. As my provider isn't the best the connection to the forum is most times slow since the last three month. But now this intel thing permanently comes down from top of the window and I need to close it every time when I change from one post to the next - minimum - 5 times between one postchange - terrible.-- We have this guy with the rolling wheels, which disturbes me typing so I have to close him, otherwise my textcursor seems to blink all the time and now I permanently need to close this promotion. Does people really think its a good promotion to get a customer angry about the promotion ? Isn't it possible to only allow promotion which doesn't interfear the users habits ?

Jonny Poet

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I suspect the IBM ad. I guess FLASH is back? Arrrrrggggghhhhhh!

Yes, I find the new wave of advertisements detestable... I hope the technical team does lots to alleviate this situation.

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Originally Posted by cilu

I think that's debateable. And there are companies that automatically block pop-ups and ads from proxies.

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I agree with Cilu here.

Apart from the fact that many company policies may block advertisements, etc - this is also a privacy issue concerning the user's rights and preferences. Many advertisements consume (if not guzzle) bandwidth making it inconvenient if not expensive for a user to browse the web - this expense is subtly incurred and does not contain user's explicit permission.

So... While I understand that websites will not like Ad-Blocking software - they've got to live with it, and any punitive action on grounds of someone using Ad-blocking software may not stand the scrutiny in many courts of law.

As far as CG's AUP goes - there is no crisply worded clause against using ad-blocking software - but, of course, the webmaster wouldn't encourage it.

I'm addressing the Intel corner ad internally now.

As Site Manager, let me say:

This site is supported solely by the sell of advertising. As such, blocking the ads prevents its ability to pay for the cost of the site operating. Blocking ads is considered a violation of the site's acceptable usage policy, so those admitting to blocking ads may be banned from using the site. Those telling or showing others how to block ads will be banned.

But for now, let me focus on talking to some people internally about making the ads more digestable....

Brad!

I had a phone call with a Senior VP. The intel corner ad is coming off the site (should be down now). He stated that the ad did not operate as it really should have, so in listening to what you guys were saying, he has had it removed.

Brad!

That's a great news. I'm very happy to hear that. That Intel ad was a real bummer.

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Originally Posted by Brad Jones

...what you guys were saying, he has had it removed.
Brad!...

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Thats great news. At first it shows that we are also heard here about our wishes. As a second in my sight of view, its more promotion for this firm to show that they respect our wishes then if they would have continued with a promotion which is more like overwhelming users , because it really needs me to switch it of more then 10 times for only reading and answering one post. When my mouse had come into the upper range of the screen for example to tye in the subject title it has switched me off and disturbed my intentions. So its great, its off.
Basically I have nothing against aid which catcjhes peoples attention, when they do in a way that I can decide tofillow their link - or not. Because as I am in a business myself, I know that promotion is the basic of each business. I also can accept slight forms of agressive promotion and would enjoy to see this promotion in an altered form again, where it's not heavily intruding in the intentions of our community members. Maybe then I really would have been interested what they have wanted to learn us. Because in thefirst time, I was so pissed off that I really didn't remember whatfor this promotion was. I havn't read a single line of it :D The only thing I know about was - I hate it !! --:lol: --not really the sense of good promotion ;) , isn't it ?

So lets say thanks to the seniors here who acted on our complaints and also to the obvously great firm who instantly agrreed with our wishes.

Great news.

Good to see you lot looking otu for your members.

Cheers

That's great! Much appreciate for putting effort to help us and making CG usable. :thumb:

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Originally Posted by Brad Jones

Blocking ads is considered a violation of the site's acceptable usage policy, so those admitting to blocking ads may be banned from using the site. Those telling or showing others how to block ads will be banned.

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The IBM ads are back and nasty as ever. It all boils down to this now. CG is rather unusable for me. I have tried both IE7 and FF and I see CPU running on 70-90% and even 99% sometimes. What that means is, if one does not block the ads, one cannot use CG and if one does block them, s/he shall be banned and s/he cannot use CG. End result is the same.

I am bringing this up, because, I personally loathe any kind of blocking. I'd rather live with them, since it brings revenue to CG. But, the least the ads could do is, make themselves viewable and not bring down the browser , da*n it.

Brad, I know you said this a while ago, but I feel it needs a response anyway, even a late one:

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Originally Posted by Brad Jones

This site is supported solely by the sell of advertising. As such, blocking the ads prevents its ability to pay for the cost of the site operating. Blocking ads is considered a violation of the site's acceptable usage policy, so those admitting to blocking ads may be banned from using the site. Those telling or showing others how to block ads will be banned.

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It might be true that the financial aspects of the site are supported by advertising, but it's completely untrue that the site is supported "solely" by ads. The site is supported in large part by the community and the experts here who donate their time completely free of charge, and who make this an interesting place to visit. Without them, the site is uninteresting and unhelpful. If the site is uninteresting and unhelpful, nobody would visit, and no vendors would be interested in buying ad space.

Please don't sell the users short, and especially please don't underestimate the frustration of the most active members amongst us, me included. What would be left of this site, and how many ads would be sold, if valued members like Andreas, Paul McKenzie, gstercken, JohnCz, cilu, kirants, Siddhartha etc., all decided that the ads were simply too frustrating to deal with, and just left.

The site needs balance. Lately, the ads are over the top.

Mike

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Originally Posted by MikeAThon

.... What would be left of this site, and how many ads would be sold, if valued members like Andreas, Paul McKenzie, gstercken, JohnCz, cilu, kirants, Siddhartha etc., all decided that the ads were simply too frustrating to deal with, and just left.

The site needs balance. Lately, the ads are over the top.

Mike

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THis is exactly my opinion, Its totally unnecessary to have a jumping boy there, turning himself like a wheel, we all know how such thingsa re programmed, so who should be impressed by that. But it slows down my laptop so I have difficulties to load and upload and sometimes it is so heavy that it interferes my typing. Its as I said in the beginning: Advertising which interferes or disturbes our communication is just the same as if your neighbour comes just in the wrong time and interrupts your talk to somebody else. You would at least get angry about this rude guy. Per sure you never would only think about buying something from this person.
Good advertising is informative and catches your interst without permanently interrupting your communication.

I was browsing CG from a PC with 256MB RAM, 900MHz processor and it took an eternity to do it. Now I realized why: the IBM ads are loading the processor to heavly. On my home PC, wiht Sempron at 1.83GHz, 1GB RAM, it constantly eats at least 70% of my CPU. That doesn't look good to me.

Just a thought:

If there are always more GUESTS than members, why subject members to ads at all? Substitute a small icon, which we could click (instead of the regular ad), but this assumes that advertisers assume that MEMBERS click the ads.

Also, an incentive to JOIN!

The man between the rollers one is the most terrible and funny.. :) Can they not just write in bold bigger font "Man rolling between Gears" instead of that graphics :D

Sorry.. I am just having fun. But my question to Brad would be - do you have an internal compliance test for those ads before hosting them on Codeguru.. something some data that they should abide by based on CPU usage etc? That would help reduce such complaints to a minimum setting up a compliance system.

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Originally Posted by exterminator

My question to Brad would be - do you have an internal compliance test for those ads before hosting them on Codeguru.. something some data that they should abide by based on CPU usage etc? That would help reduce such complaints to a minimum setting up a compliance system.

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I believe there are a set of rules.

In almost all cases these ads are going onto sites across the web. IBM, AMD, Microsoft, all advertise on sites other than just ours ;). I get the impression we are the ones, however, that do most, if not nearly all, of the complaining. On the flip side, there are a number of sites I visit where the ads are more annoying and intrusive than anything we do here.

Neither of those statements justifies resource-greedy ads. I use the site too (as I say over and over), so I see them as well. I also see my CPU usage; however, even with it being high, I've not hit an issue in quite a while where the CPU usage has hurt my system's performance. But that is me, running a higher powered machine with a broadband connection...

I continue to talk to the internal people and they continue to work with the advertisors. Unfortunately, I think the complaints sometimes help fuel the ads....

Your complaints help me when talking internally about the ads, so keep them coming if they are warranted. As always, images and source helps.

Brad!

Yeah, your are right about them being hosted elsewhere too. Good point. But I think benchmarking them should be beneficial to all. Different sites may have different things to do - so they may affect them differently. It is a very wide thing to discuss about but that would surely provide you much peace. :)

May be we complain more because they are taken care of, are noticed! That is in a way an appreciation to your efforts and concern you show. We thank you!

I'm seeing much, much lower CPU usage with the ads now. I see a lower usage now than on most ads I see on other sites.

Are others seeing the same drop?

Brad!

With the guy playing around with the magnet, Firefox still goes into 90s.
With the guy just dangling from the magnet, Firefox ranges from 35-50, usually in the mid 40s.
Without the ad? 0 but I don't care about IBM so..

And the cpu stays used even when I'm using another program.

With the Huge magnet ad, my CPU is averaging at about 4% (with other things running too). It fluxuates between 0 and 8% with a median closer to 2%. I'm using IE 7.

If I have it running in both IE7 and Firefox at the same time, it averages about 10% on CPU usage with fluxuations up and down from there.

Your numbers seem high at this point. You might have an old copy on your machine or something? (I'm reaching with this)

Brad

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Originally Posted by mdmd

With the guy playing around with the magnet, Firefox still goes into 90s.
With the guy just dangling from the magnet, Firefox ranges from 35-50, usually in the mid 40s.
Without the ad? 0 but I don't care about IBM so..

And the cpu stays used even when I'm using another program.

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I tried with IE6 and its about the same. The new crane
ad took less - 20-30%.
Of course, this machine was made ~97 and is only 1ghz I figure most people are more blessed, Mr Dually :)

Well, thanx to everyone! Fx 2.0 seems to have resolved all of my problems. Just upgraded, and it took less than 5 minutes!!!

Last night, I switched to the enhanced editor, and while the window changed colors, I could never type into it, unless I used the mouse to set focus. I once waited 10 minutes!

Pages are returned at the normal expected speed for once. CPU seems to be around 10-20% with 2 tabs @ CG opened. ;)

Hm.. I don't see the IBM ad anymore. Is it gone ? Or, do I just have to be patient enough to see it ?

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Originally Posted by kirants

Hm.. I don't see the IBM ad anymore. Is it gone ? Or, do I just have to be patient enough to see it ?

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I see an IBM Add, but it has changed and is much better then before. No troubles in the moment

First crash, trying to REPLY to a post. Also, I don't see any cursor with this new editor. Might switch back.

I have got just 1 crash since I upgraded to MF 2.0. And it is my observation that usually that will happen when you are writing a post (either quick reply or the editor on "post reply").

I always thought that there were incompatibilities or stability problems with the earlier versions of MF (a perception probably not shared by many:)).

I had the usual 2 CG tabs open. Closed Fx. A few minute later, reopened the 2 CG tabs. Clearly lies the problem! :)