Jimquisition: The Adblock Episode

[Sansha]

It took me a long time to get AdBlock. It was actually imgur that was the final straw, when they came out with ads with sound, but Blip and Doug Walker's site playing full-length trailers... that was it. When it started unapologetically started fucking with my online experience, that was it for me.

I have it disabled on Escapist, mostly because I'm a Pub-Club member, which I paid for specifically to not see ads. What was the last thing for me was a year ago, the Valentine's week condom ads were just... couldn't deal; ten bucks paid.

I like supporting content creators, but if the ads are obnoxious, intrusive and, worst of all long, then... well, sorry.

 

[tweedpol]

Never had or used Adblock, I'm one of those self-righteous people who doesn't (often) stream films illegally online (thank god for netflix) but I should say, as I read through this forum, there's an ad autoplaying - with sound - somewhere on this tab, that I can't find and if I could find I couldn't fucking shut up. Not so bad when reading a forum and I can mute the whole computer, but when I'm watching a video which let's not forget is the main string to the Escapist bow, it makes me really want to stab 'em right in the server...

 

[PlayerDos]

I see the mods are still active in this thread (albeit, covertly).

Despite the obvious censorship ramifications, I still would've personally rather seen this thread locked from the get-go.
Many many dozens of users would've been saved warnings/suspensions/whatever, had this been done.

I understand that the forum rules have very little flexibility. That being the case, you've got to weigh up what's best for the site; steadfastly refusing to lock the thread and instead annoying your users with warnings, or locking the thread and completely removing the likelihood of any users even GETTING any warnings (in this thread, on this topic).

Everyone who posted to this thread knew exactly what the risks were.

Let's not pretend this is fighting in a war or something.

Sure some probably figured the moderation would probably be really dumb about it (considering a content creator of this website made the fucking thread), but nobody likes to be punished, or see people punished, for mentioning adblock in a thread about adblock made by a content creator who just made a video about adblock and asked us to discuss adblock.

Why isn't Jim getting a warning? He made the thread. I'm sure if I went and made this thread it'd get locked and I'd get suspended because I'm on probation. Why didn't the mods lock the thread? Clearly they don't want us talking about it, so why are they lurking a thread that isn't getting locked just handing out warnings+ to every post they deem too adblocky?

Maybe people should have known better, but the way this was done was incredibly stupid. Don't want us discussing it Escapist? Fine. Hand out warnings+ for mentions of it like you already do. Don't let content creators make threads about the banned issues and then leave said threads open though, because that is bullshit.

 

[Marter]

Sure some probably figured the moderation would probably be really dumb about it (considering a content creator of this website made the fucking thread), but nobody likes to be punished, or see people punished, for mentioning adblock in a thread about adblock made by a content creator who just made a video about adblock and asked us to discuss adblock.

Why isn't Jim getting a warning? He made the thread. I'm sure if I went and made this thread it'd get locked and I'd get suspended because I'm on probation. Why didn't the mods lock the thread? Clearly they don't want us talking about it, so why are they lurking a thread that isn't getting locked just handing out warnings+ to every post they deem too adblocky?

Maybe people should have known better, but the way this was done was incredibly stupid. Don't want us discussing it Escapist? Fine. Hand out warnings+ for mentions of it like you already do. Don't let content creators make threads about the banned issues and then leave said threads open though, because that is bullshit.

A) Nobody was punished for mentioning adblock. Hundreds of posts have discussed it without receiving wrath. Please don't make false accusations.

B) Jim isn't getting a warning because (1) nothing he said would receive a warning in this thread if said by a user and (2) content creators are held to different standard than forum users. At least, in terms of the content they create. If Jim came onto the forums and said "I adblock The Escapist" he would be warned. He didn't do that.

C) We don't lock content threads. That directive is not the moderators'.

 

[PlayerDos]

A) Nobody was punished for mentioning adblock. Hundreds of posts have discussed it without receiving wrath. Please don't make false accusations.

Kaitaiser and Thephil were warned, and that's only the first two pages. This was made because Jim was talking about people using Adblock. They talked about using it and they got warned. I can't fathom what they were punished for if it wasn't talking about Adblock. Did they talk about doing crack and then edit that part out or something? This is part of what I said, nobody even knows why some are getting warned and some aren't. Some say they use it and get warned, some say they use it and don't.

B) Jim isn't getting a warning because (1) nothing he said would receive a warning in this thread if said by a user and (2) content creators are held to different standard than forum users. At least, in terms of the content they create. If Jim came onto the forums and said "I adblock The Escapist" he would be warned. He didn't do that.

He's prompting discussion about adblock and people who use it. If that's somehow not something that would recieve a warning then that's interesting considering people who are mentioning using it on the escapist are all getting warned for it.

C) We don't lock content threads. That directive is not the moderators'.

Okay.

 

[Marter]

Kaitaiser and Thephil were warned, and that's only the first two pages. This was made because Jim was talking about people using Adblock. They talked about using it and they got warned. I can't fathom what they were punished for if it wasn't talking about Adblock. Did they talk about doing crack and then edit that part out or something? This is part of what I said, nobody even knows why some are getting warned and some aren't. Some say they use it and get warned, some say they use it and don't.
They were not warned for discussing it or mentioning it, which is what you claimed. They were warned for saying they adblock the site.

He's prompting discussion about adblock and people who use it. If that's somehow not something that would recieve a warning then that's interesting considering people who are mentioning using it on the escapist are all getting warned for it.
Content creators are exempt from the Code of Conduct when creating content. I already said that. The rules of the thread, then, were altered in order to allow for a discussion. Yes, if anyone created just a random thread about it, the thread would be locked and the author warned. That's not what happened.

 

[PlayerDos]

Kaitaiser and Thephil were warned, and that's only the first two pages. This was made because Jim was talking about people using Adblock. They talked about using it and they got warned. I can't fathom what they were punished for if it wasn't talking about Adblock. Did they talk about doing crack and then edit that part out or something? This is part of what I said, nobody even knows why some are getting warned and some aren't. Some say they use it and get warned, some say they use it and don't.
They were not warned for discussing it or mentioning it, which is what you claimed. They were warned for saying they adblock the site.

Dude. The video was for Jim talking about people USING IT.

I don't know if you think I was being dishonest in saying people were talking about it as if the mere mention gets them banned, but I figured it was kind of a given that I meant people talking about USING IT. Since the video was about using it on the Jimquisition and other content on the escapist. That's why I said talking about the video or discussing what it talks about it is bait. The video was about using adblock on the Jimquisition, Escapist and web content cause Jim says he gets why we would. People talk about why they did and why they are stopping and why they are resuming and they get banned. That is why I consider it bait.

 

[Marter]

Dude. The video was for Jim talking about people USING IT.

I don't know if you think I was being dishonest in saying people were talking about it as if the mere mention gets them banned, but I figured it was kind of a given that I meant people talking about USING IT. Since the video was about using it on the Jimquisition and other content on the escapist. That's why I said talking about the video or discussing what it talks about it is bait. The video was about using adblock on the Jimquisition and Escapist cause Jim says he gets why we would. People talk about why they did and why they are stopping and why they are resuming and they get banned. That is why I consider it bait.

I guess you're welcome to think that. I don't believe anyone needed to say "I adblock The Escapist" in order to discuss the software. That's what is getting people warnings. Admissions of use. Not even "I can see why people would use it because X, Y, Z." Admission. And I find it hard to believe Jim would create something just so people would get warned.

 

[PlayerDos]

Dude. The video was for Jim talking about people USING IT.

I don't know if you think I was being dishonest in saying people were talking about it as if the mere mention gets them banned, but I figured it was kind of a given that I meant people talking about USING IT. Since the video was about using it on the Jimquisition and other content on the escapist. That's why I said talking about the video or discussing what it talks about it is bait. The video was about using adblock on the Jimquisition and Escapist cause Jim says he gets why we would. People talk about why they did and why they are stopping and why they are resuming and they get banned. That is why I consider it bait.

I guess you're welcome to think that. I don't believe anyone needed to say "I adblock The Escapist" in order to discuss the software. That's what is getting people warnings. Admissions of use. Not even "I can see why people would use it because X, Y, Z." Admission. And I find it hard to believe Jim would create something just so people would get warned.

I'm saying it's bait to leave it open, not that Jim is trying to bait people into getting banned.

People are saying they adblocked the escapist because of the issues they had with it which is getting them warned. Jim was saying that people might have those issues.

 

[Marter]

I'm saying it's bait to leave it open, not that Jim is trying to bait people into getting banned.

Ah. Okay.
People are saying they adblocked the escapist because of the issues they had with it which is getting them warned. Jim was saying that people might have those issues.
I can understand the point. We've laid out in some of the earlier pages why we still had to warn people blatantly admitting to it. That's not something in which the moderators really had a choice, and it's still possible to discuss adblockers without it, which a far greater number of people have done.

 

[KisaiTenshi]

I'm saying it's bait to leave it open, not that Jim is trying to bait people into getting banned.

The thread itself was not bait for people to confess to blocking the ads, and as per the moderator, I didn't see any promise made that there would be exemptions, only that they weren't warning for merely mentioning it. That's why I said , everyone who came here, knew exactly what they were getting into.

Likewise a user who picked a fight, and then admitting to blocking ads, didn't get warned either. This thread easily revealed who was blocks ads by default even if they didn't admit outright about it. If the moderators wanted to be a dick about things they could just as easily warned everyone who said "but I whitelist the escapist" and those who subscribe to the pub club but block ads elsewhere too. But IMO this is overreach. It was probably overkill to warn people who would then be banned.

 

[Snotnarok]

Whitelisting things is difficult, you do that for a site, turn around and the next day you get a virus warning from the site. I had that with creative uncut, I love the site, white listed it, 3 days later virus blocked by my PC.
I even chatted with the owner about it and nothing to be done, he was cool about it and understood.

It's hard to be open and try and get things going to help the creators, but when it's biting you back and threatening the well being of your PC, or in my case my workstation...it's hard to risk that. I create content as well, I don't use ads ...but it's totally understandable to use them.

I...just...don't....want to risk having damage to MY content and have to worry about getting crap on my PC that'll take hours to fix or lose because of serious infection.

It's a shitty balancing board of wanting to stand up and help, but you can't without risk of you taking a spill for the sake of it.

 

[Kinitawowi]

Maybe it's a UK thing - I'm very aware that there's some regionalising going on with this - but except for that video that keeps showing two minutes from the first episode of Skins, very few adverts here have ever reduced me to needing to consider ad blocking.

That goes everywhere. And I'm a dinosaur; I still run IE, I use Microsoft Security Essentials and Malware Bytes for protection, and the only adblocker I use is IE's built in pop-up blocker, which barely works half the time anyway.

But.

I work in tech. I had one day in my shop where one virus, permeating around ads on Facebook, came in to the store on sixteen different computers. Now yeah, we made a small fortune once I'd spent fifteen minutes working out how to clean it up and fix its damage (this is why I still use MSE - because if I get a virus, I've got the Knowhow to deal with it myself), but the point remains; ad impressions, while always a vital source of revenue to many websites of all stripes (I remember having to click on adverts to get passwords for FTP servers to download dubiously legitimate music - this was before Napster), also sometimes represent significant risk to an end user.

The other big problem is personal identity and security. It's no secret that all too many ad services read locally hosted cookies to track your recent page views and offer pertinent advertising, and a lot of people really aren't comfortable with that - the notion that The Man is tracking you and knows what you are doing. We're moving into an age where data on personal habits is the most valuable data a company can get, which is where Facebook and Google make all their bank.

TLDR; I don't use adblockers and I don't think I ever would, but I can see why some people feel driven to consider them. In other news, the Pope is also a Catholic.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

This wouldn't be a fucking problem if the advertisements were kept reasonable. When they were just banners at the top or the side of the page most people wouldn't have cared, I know I didn't.

But since then they have become fucking ridiculous. Autoplaying videos that can't be muted, flashing banners that take up half the screen, banners that expand massively should you happen to accidentally scroll over them, which are then obnoxiously difficult to close and ads taking place before videos which then proceed to crash the actual video, or go for longer than the video itself.

If you expect people not to take measures to prevent these sort of advertisements, then you are a fucking idiot. Have some decency and prevent such frustrating and intrusive ads from having a place on your website.

 

[ERaptor]

This wouldn't be a fucking problem if the advertisements were kept reasonable. When they were just banners at the top or the side of the page most people wouldn't have cared, I know I didn't.

But since then they have become fucking ridiculous. Autoplaying videos that can't be muted, flashing banners that take up half the screen, banners that expand massively should you happen to accidentally scroll over them, which are then obnoxiously difficult to close and ads taking place before videos which then proceed to crash the actual video, or go for longer than the video itself.

If you expect people not to take measures to prevent these sort of advertisements, then you are a fucking idiot. Have some decency and prevent such frustrating and intrusive ads from having a place on your website.

Pretty much this. I wont get into Detail from risk of getting hammered by Mods, but I wouldnt mind reasonable ads. Fact of the matter is, they arent reasonable in most cases. The Malware/Spyware-issue is a constant one that I can observe on a regular basis. OFC, they're most common on Porn or Warez-sites (Which isnt surprising), but i've surfed past "regular" sites before and picked up some rather fancy stuff. And even if it isnt Malware-ridden, a lot of ads are ridicolously intrusive, loud or obnoxious. I'd actually ratehr blame the marketing-industry than the content-creators or even the site. Luckily I didnt have to deal with those bloodsuckers a lot, but its one of THE worsts cesspools when it comes to hosting stuff on the Web.

In summary, I usually consider subscription-models or Fanarticles like shirts as a form of support, but not ads. And frankly, if sites want to outright block people with adblock. Please, go ahead. I'm actually curious to see how that would work out and how long it would take to find a new way around ads after that. It would be amusing either way.

 

[Spakka]

Well... The Escapist is the only website I know that has extremely loud autoplay ads that start after the video I'm watching starts, and if you press the pause/mute etc. button on them, they don't stop but take you to whatever crap they are trying to peddle.

I've considered getting an adblock purely for the escapist just because of this. I often have to reload pages 5-6 times before I can actually use the content because of this obtrusive rubbish spewing out its gunk at me. And frankly it's just insulting that the pause/mute buttons are just scams to get you to try to shut the damn things off!


/Rantover.

 

[Jenvas1306]

Now I am glad that currently Im seeing just some advertising for an emergency call system for the elderly that consists just of still images, but I cant help but wonder if I am or anyone on the escapist really is the target audience for such a thing.
A quick reload of this page results in similary silent advertising but my firefox tells me it just stopped a popup from being opened...without me clicking anything.

going through this thread I find that with enough dark humor this affair is kinda funny...
Jim makes a video about asking his audience not to adblock so he ma be paid and have such precious things as food. now thats a reasonable requst but in reality I see lots of people not being able to keep this site white-listed as their adds are way too intrusive.
the funny part that is actually the sad part is how many of those posters have atleast gotten a warning because they admitted to using adblock...

Friends of mine who also frequent the escapist, but from the USA have told me how annoying the adds get and I understand everyone who doesnt want to be bothered by them.

So in conclusion, Jims episode about adblock only made people feel bad about having to adblock this site after they tried, but a bad choice of adds made it impossible to enjoy and support the site.
Together with all the warnings that have been sprayed over this thread this whole affair has cost Jim quite a chunk of my respect.

 

[Durgiun]

Oh, fine, since you asked so nicely. Unlike Linkara, that git.

 

[OneCatch]

Question for the mods:

Out of interest, is it just admitting the use of specifically described adblockers that is banned, or would, say, admitting to using services which block cookies or trackers in order to protect online privacy also count?
Because although such a user might not be using a service intending to block adverts, such add-ons do often have the unintended side effect of also interfering with the serving of ads.

On the other hand, would a person who deliberately used, say, a really old browser in order to avoid ads be wrathed? Or someone who's AV blocks ads from certain providers?
What about tor?

I should point out that none of these possibilities describe myself.
But in spite of agreeing with the moderation here 99% of the time I think it's only fair that users be given explicit guidance as to what is permitted, especially when site content encourages such discussion.


Edit; removed snarky last line