moving advert in quick reply box - The witcher

[Jay]

I agree its just that one moving add right next to the quick reply, of a night when I am reading etc it is very distracting and adds to my eyestrain! lol. It worrying that the most feedback I have seen by mods in one post is when it affect revenue.

Yes its a profit making operation and yes you do provide us with a free service that is fantastic but please don't make the mistake I have made in the past. That is to forget that this is a symbiotic relationship, without you we would have no forums without us you would have no adds and in turn no revenue, this is a mistake made by many forums. They assume that because they have a huge user base it will always be there, but is not true because we, the users, are fickle and no matter what we think there is no loyalty on the internet. (starting to sound a bit like Tron now.... oh what a film that is!)

err.... anyway

Its up the Hexus Limited what they do with their website and although I have said sorry for blocking this one add its appears to have made no difference.

[DR]

I agree its just that one moving add right next to the quick reply, of a night when I am reading etc it is very distracting and adds to my eyestrain! lol. It worrying that the most feedback I have seen by mods in one post is when it affect revenue.

Yes its a profit making operation and yes you do provide us with a free service that is fantastic but please don't make the mistake I have made in the past. That is to forget that this is a symbiotic relationship, without you we would have no forums without us you would have no adds and in turn no revenue, this is a mistake made by many forums. They assume that because they have a huge user base it will always be there, but is not true because we, the users, are fickle and no matter what we think there is no loyalty on the internet. (starting to sound a bit like Tron now.... oh what a film that is!)

err.... anyway

Its up the Hexus Limited what they do with their website and although I have said sorry for blocking this one add its appears to have made no difference.

Just so you know - peoples names in Blue are paid HEXUS representatives - the orange people are Administrators.

I am fully aware how things work around here - and I am happy to make sure we keep the site fast, and running for all of the readers who 'give back' both in contributions to the forums as well as reading the content, and visiting advertisers. However, I'm not interested in a symbiotic relationship with people who post within the forums telling other readers how to block or avoid adverts which we work so hard to make sure are relevant to the reader base.

Anyway I've said what I've said ... hopefully people will understand my point of view, and my objection with people promoting the blocking of adverts.

[Fraz]

Just so you know - peoples names in Blue are paid HEXUS representatives

When can I expect my pay cheque?

[Jay]

When can I expect my pay cheque?

lol



Fair enough DR but i was giving me eye strain. I shouldn't have posted the how to block the add with IE7 and I have said I am sorry but you seem not to be very magnanimous about this. I know that it affects your takehome etc but what I posted would work for any site and is easily found on google. What more can I say apart from sorry? It shows that at leaste I care, I could have just ignored you and said "sod it, I don't give a crap"

It was just a mistake and I bet I am not the only person here who has made one of those.

[UltraMagnus]

and Nick, Its ok for you to just sit and fob off any claims of it screwing up plugins and applications, but it does.

firefox with certain plugins will prefetch any linked static pages, this has no problems on a forum, simply because the entire thing is static, however if my browser is busy caching pages, which with a lot of pages that are linked to be ads tend to be very intensive, it can use up my RAM and slow down my web browsing experience considerably. not to mention the fact that i will sometimes browse by mobile broadband by which i am paying per MB.

another question, if these ads are flashing, would someone with epilepsy have a problem? i have had at least one friend with it that when caught out by a rather bad flash ad ended up having a fit.

[Jay]

People with brain injury etc can be overly distracted by moving adds if placed in certain places. I think the problem is that we need to view the adds to make DR his money to fund this site + pay the wages, (buy the holidays and BMWs lol) and at the end of the day any business wants to make as much money as possible. You can't blame them for that. If you pay per MB and don't like it think how they feel, they also pay by MB. I think blocking all the adds is a bit over the top and its not what I did, I just blocked the one!

This is getting way out of hand now.

[GoNz0]

aww man i clicked the mute off and forgot i had the volume up loud

an idea i saw implemented on another site like hexus was the option of supporting your fav site, a small donation each month and the ad's were gone.

the donation far outweighed what the user could have generated unless he clicked each link. and was optional.

the sites got to be paid for somehow, and in the case of hexus being as big as it is, staff wages have to be paid as well.

[Nick]

Ok, I have a calmer head now so I openly apologise for my rant earlier.

I still stand by what I said though.

First off, I think we've established the purpose of the ads and their function, not just for advertising a product but for the revenue they generate. That's beyond dispute because that's what they do, we've always been open and honest about that.

So now to the knotty problem of ad blocking.

Of course, this is a personal preference thing and one which is very much down to the individual.

My personal opinion is that ad blocking for sites you frequent is wrong. You're actively affecting the revenue that site generates through it's adverts.

And, in a completely even and calm manner, let's address some of the points raised by Ultra and Jay.

Ultra, without wishing to sound off-hand, there's little we can do if you're prefetching web pages. Really, there's not a lot that can be done. I guess the ideal would be to remove as many links from pages as possible, but then how would you naviaget anywhere without constantly backing to a homepage?

If caching is screwing up your browsing experience and eating up system resources, surely the problem lies with your machine and the app you're using? How about limiting the resources that prefetching can use?

I'm 150% certain that HEXUS isn't the only place where you're having these issues, so perhaps you should look at whether or not you can actually do all that caching with the machine you're on?

And no, this isn't a 'tough luck, turn it off' answer, it's an honest answer. Surely you visit more sites than just HEXUS and still ahve the same problem, so are all the sites you visit wrong?

And as for mobile BB browsing, what would you like us to do about the fact you choose to connect like that? That's your choice, you know the costs involved when you connect, you can hardly blame us for that.

Yes, I can see that blocking ad reduces the cost for you but at a cost for us in lost revenue. And who gets the benefit of the content you're viewing, however you're connected, with the ads blocked? Not me.

I'll address the flashing issue that Jay and Ultra raised in one go at the end of this.

Jay, nope you're not the first and you very likely won't be the last person to explain how they block ads.

I for one can see both yours and Ultras point but as I've said to Ultra, there isn;t a whole bustin' lot I can do about how you choose to browse or the problems you encounter.

But specifically for you I think posting up a full explanation, as you've said yourself, was a mistake and your apology is accepted as far as I'm concerned, just like I hope you accept my apology for losing my rag somewhat earlier on.

Anyways, the point I'd like to make here is that for general surfing sure, block ads as you don't want all those pain the ass pop-ups and damn rows of animated smileys yelling 'Hello!' at you.

But if you find a site you like and frequent, surely there's a moral obligation to give something back to the site? Let their ads load and let them make some money... it's not like it costs you a whole bunch of time or effort, eh?

I don't use ad blockers myself, because I'm at the thick end of web-work and know how important ad revenue is to any site, so if I visit a page their ad gets registered as an impression... it's only fair.

However, I do know enough about ad blockers to know that they have exception lists, and if you frequent a site then you should add it to the exception list. It's how you support a site that's giving you a benefit in the form of advice, info or just general chit chat etc.

Hope we see eye to eye on this one now.

And finally, flashing ads and brain injuries and all that.

You're preaching to the already baptised here. I've had more mild through to severe head injuries than you'd believe, which is the absolute truth. In told I've had nearly 200 stitches in my face and head from a very accident prone teen-hood with everything from mild through to major concussions and even temporary blindness in one eye from swelling around the optic nerve.

I've had more crashes on bikes and in cars than I can remember and I always seemed to land on my head... which was always where I got kicked when I played rugby....I think I may be the first person in the world to have not just cauliflower ears but cauliflower head.

In fact, I had to have more tests done just last week due to some odd headaches and I've now been checked for signs of epilepsy twice.

Thankfully it's all clear so far, (more scans might be due), but the point is this: epilepsy and other brain/sight related conditions are something you learn to live with. Ask those suffering from them and they'll tell you that they just get on with life and work around it.

The flashing in the ad is minimal and certainly not of a duration or intensity that would start an episode in the vast majority of epilepsy sufferers which leaves a small minority who *may* have a small chance of suffering a reaction...

Now, having done the research as I was possibly going to be in that group of sufferers, a bloody big downer for a games reviewer I think you'll agree, I know that the chances of that ad setting anyone off are incredibly tiny... tiny, tiny, tiny.

So whilst I really don't want to appear as if I'm just dismissing your concerns, I can say with a pretty big chunk of certainty that it's about as safe as can be for anyone with a brain/sight condition who'll be browsing the web.

Ok, so that's me all written out now and I hope it makes some sense.

I'm off for a mug of tea and a minty Aero to console myself over the rugby.

Night all!

[Jay]

I understand you rant! I shouldn't have posted what I did and I 100% agree that it was wrong, I think I was tired and had not thought it through!. I work for an acquired brain rehab company (IT manager) and with some of the top doctors in their field, after many years in this field I think that the moving advert would make it very hard for people who have concentration problems or sight issues etc to use the quick reply box. Depending on how bad your injury was and to where on the brain you received the injury is very much part of this assumption and also as we all know brain injuries by their very nature bring up random issues that are not what experts would expect. It does very much seem like we all use our brain in different ways, some of us can adapt, learn how to adjust, some of us can not.

On a personal note I would LOVE to hear your story in full. Please PM me!!!!

infact I will PM you!.

[Giraffe]

Well, just clicked to turn off plugins in Opera and I'm already missing the ads!

I keep the plugins enabled as there are some sites (Ecover being one) that don't work without Flash. Anyway, I'm fully capable of typing badly even without the ads., so at least they give me an excuse!

[schmunk]

I worked on HEXUS for two moths earlier this year on nothing more than a 56k dial-up and the ads didn't bother me so the 'eats my bandwidth' argument can eat my shorts.

Well, it is difficult these days to make a good living as a moth. I can appreciate that they can't afford these fancy new 'fat pipes'. I remember how it used to be, when moths were respected members of society, you know, one day I were walking down the high street, and (that's enough of that. Ed.)

[Jay]

that should keep nick out of this thread for the next few months!!

lol,

[Nick]

my " " key is broke .

Dam , a yo e k ow how to fix a keyboard?

[Jay]

I always thought that those moth balls did nothing!

n =U+006E

[father smurf]

Well a bag of them will mean a lot of male moths in pain somewhere...

[dangel]

Is there a whitelist for hexus' ads anywhere please?