New forum look, advertising, and you!

[Laodaron]

Originally Posted by LFG

One other thing, since we are in the realm of self-righeous indignation based on your perceived lack of notice and opportunity to be heard on this plan.

Do you think I hatched all this yesterday and implemented it today?

No, this has been under discussion and planned on this site for some time.

Over a month ago, here: http://www.eq2flames.com/admin-reque...g-ordered.html

I described EXACTLY what the plan would be that we've finally implemented today. You read what I posted on June 17th in that thread and kindly tell me how what is in place now is different from what I requested community feedback on over a month ago.

If you want my opinion, I think you should ride your high horse in a broader area of this site before accusing me of extortion.

So you think I'm out of touch by doing what I did because I didn't want to continue paying for the great majority of this out of my own pocket?

I think you are out of touch for either failing or refusing to participate in previous discussions that have gone on ad nauseum and where those who were truly interested in the plans under discussion actually participated in the discussion.

Umm I was wondering you had really gone off to, until this...but it still doesn't contain fuck, so your point was only 75% understood.

[Bruised]

Originally Posted by LFG

If you want to draw a line in the sand and brag about how you spend ten dollars at Starbucks each morning but you aren't willing to make a similar donation to this site to view it without ads, that's your choice.

Enjoy your coffee, and your ads!

LOL!

[Bruised]

I love the new look!

[Ironhide]

Originally Posted by Kyrsten

At least the user base has the option of paying a nominal fee to get rid of them.

I've been thinking about this since I first encountered the adds this afternoon while at work. While no one wants to see adds, no one can deny the fact that running any sort of public website with even half as much traffic as flames costs money. LFG made efforts to offer things that people would be interested in buying, but advertising is still going to be the most reliable source of income over the long run, which is why nearly every site has it.

Delphi/Prospero's forums were free and blissfully add free for a very long time, but eventually they incorporated advertisements as a way to generate revenue. They started a subscription package to get rid of the adds for paying users, and added small perks. This isn't really different from what LFG is doing here, except here the site admin is trying to make the adds as unobtrusive and annoying as possible. Yes, the "Click to skip this add" pop up was annoying, and the sexy asses were a bit much for work... they've been removed, and I am confident that LFG is more than willing to keep tweaking things to make it better.

It's true, no one put a gun to LFG's head and forced him to finance a website and provide this resource for the community, but can you really blame the man for wanting to at least TRY to break even? After thinking about it, I can't.

I agree with pretty much all your points, hell we DO run advertising on our sites.. the devil is in the details of how you do it. We run targeted text ads in the first post of every thread. They are targeted to only display ads relevant to the discussion in that first post/thread topic and those ads are only displayed to users not logged in. Register and they go away.

Other than that we have on banner at the top that is pretty unobtrusive and we filter what goes up there. LFG is right that its difficult to filter out plat seller ads, but hell.. why bother?.. at least they are related to the topic at hand while the shit thats currently blinking and animating all over the place isnt.

My point is don't subject the people who make your website what it is to this kind of stuff, reserve that for people who come to leech your content or who just browse anonymously. they are alot more likely to click the advertising anyhow.

LFG if you want to look at how i have set up the advertising on my sites send me a PM. We've had to pay for alot of hardware/hosting too and we own both our servers at over $5K a pop. At one stage I was replacing my server evert 6-12 months because we were growing so much.. at that time a simple "please dontate" was enough to raise the $2500 needed to build a new server.. these days the Adsense takes care of the cost of hosting and 2 lots of DL380G5's for servers. I know exactly how fickle the line between a site costing you a fortune and doing something to ease that burden without pissing off your userbase.

Nice choice with minerz skinz too, they do awesome work.

[Havok]

Originally Posted by LFG

Do you think I've ever used a PSP? Shit, they look legit to me, if you are telling me that's warez, I'll take your word for it and reject those also. Again, there is no immediate gratification with Adbrite, it takes a couple hours for their server to stop serving those ads. So basically, I'm agreeing with you on this one.

Regarding the poker cheating ads, I already said above I rejected them. Soon, they won't appear on this site again. I rejected those not because cheating at poker violates our site rules, but because I don't think the entire concept is in the best interests of this site. So I partially agree with you on that one, but the reason doesn't really doesn't matter, because the thing you are complaining about has been resolved as you've requested.

I hope you read above that I've also removed the pop up ads forever and completely, and they will never again appear on this site. I agree that's more annoying than any person should be required to tolerate.

But regarding your suggestion that I go panhandle for donations in the server forums rather than put up advertising, I've had donations enabled on this site from the beginning and can tell you conclusively that isn't a viable solution to financing this site.

If you want to draw a line in the sand and brag about how you spend ten dollars at Starbucks each morning but you aren't willing to make a similar donation to this site to view it without ads, that's your choice.

Enjoy your coffee, and your ads!

LMFAO you wont put a post up in server forums explaining the situation and asking for help. Yet Give me 10 bucks or deal with ads fuckers! is better, Nice.

Yea i missed a post from over a month ago, you got me /kills self. lol

Get the fuck out of here. So every single site you have a subscription to is extortion? Fuck you, I'm so goddamn sick and tired of you cheapskate assholes

Lmao your such a fucking tool. If i knew up front that this was a pay site then i would have made a decision as to if it was worth it or not. To be told now that i either pay 10 bucks or deal with ads is exactly that. hell i wonder how many of those links will end up getting some spyware on peoples computers.

Its all good now at least your costs will go down, im sure 20% of the people that view these forums are now going to be keyword blocked at work, another 10% will stop comming all together so you will save some bandwith.

[Faxon]

lol i was right, i can hardly even see the ads they are so tiny! thank you 2048x1536!

with that in mind though im prolly gonna go and buy several things from the store (more than 10 bucks to say the least) soon as i get my paycheck hehe. dont mind adds but would gladly do something i was planning on in the first place to get rid of em

[Laodaron]

Originally Posted by Kena

LMFAO you wont put a post up in server forums explaining the situation and asking for help. Yet Give me 10 bucks or deal with ads fuckers! is better, Nice.

Yea i missed a post from over a month ago, you got me /kills self. lol



Lmao your such a fucking tool. If i knew up front that this was a pay site then i would have made a decision as to if it was worth it or not. To be told now that i either pay 10 bucks or deal with ads is exactly that. hell i wonder how many of those links will end up getting some spyware on peoples computers.

Its all good now at least your costs will go down, im sure 20% of the people that view these forums are now going to be keyword blocked at work, another 10% will stop comming all together so you will save some bandwith.

Thank you for replying and proving your complete worthlessness. No one here is going to cater to only you, oh great Princess. I donated. I paid into this site WAY before it was rewarded. I don't feel it right to offer Starbucks my $10 and not someone who works their ass off for us.

Also, if you weren't such a forum troll only coming in cause you are angry to see ads, then you would know that bandwidth isn't an issue.

EVERY FUCKING FANSITE FOR EQ2 OFFERS NO ADS FOR PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP. Get your goddamn facts straight. Extortion would be not letting you SEE the info here without money. Subscriptions merely give you extra perks for paying, but the infomation is all the same. You are a whiny worthless piece of shit bitch.

[LFG]

Ok, thank you for the positive criticism and feedback.

Like I said earlier, I've applied to advertising.com, Burst, and others to try and come up with a better solution than we are getting from Adbrite. Hopefully I'll be able to do that.

We're going to have to agree to disagree about running ads for the secondary MMO market. I won't do it.

My first choice would be all graphic panel ads, with no text ads, and each either having something to do with the positive side of online gaming, for example, ads from video game developers.

To the extent I can't get ads like that, my second choice is for ads graphic panel ads for computer equipment, on line retailers and other mainstream products and services that are commonly displayed on other websites.

The ads we have up now are all that Adbrite will serve up here. I've selected basically everything they've offered except ads from gold sellers (and also have now rejected all forms of pop up ads and other miscellaneous things), but what you see on display now is basically what our options are through Adbrite at this time, unless they choose to serve up some of the liquor and casino graphic panels I've approved. I'd really rather not have all that marginally sleezy stuff however, and would much rather have mainstream ads.

So there is no opportunity through this vendor to target ads to a topic of discussion. 90% of the ads I've been given to approve are for financial services and what you see on the site now.

I don't care if specific ads are relevant to a topic in a thread, it is clear nobody wants to see them or pay attention to ads anyway. I don't see ads as enhancing any discussion here at all, except to the extent they enhance our ability to host the discussion in the first place. So in my opinion, I'd like the most vanilla, non-controversial graphic panel ads possible. Like I said, I don't think we can get those from our current provider, so I'm shopping the Internet now for new providers.

Again, the specific ads we have now are only temporary until we can contract for better ones.

Also, this is my first website, and today was my first experience ever trying to manage ads for a website. I think we've made pretty good progress today, and have gotten past the major issue of complaint (pop up ads). Any remaining dissatisfaction I see involves having ads at all. I guess my response to that is "tough".

There are no "alternate" things I can do here to generate revenue in exchange for value. There is no way to avoid having ads on this site. This site has never and could never raise the kind of money you say you've raised through donations.

The only feasible financing solution here is ongoing revenue from advertising that people who chose not to pay ten dollars will pay by viewing the ads instead.

[Vaanir]

Originally Posted by Bruised

I love the new look!

Agreed, awesome turnout : )

[Faabio]

Where's the multi-quote feature at?

I liked that =\