Jimquisition: The Adblock Episode

[Matt Dellar]

I've seen people get warned for admitting to using Adblock even after Jim's talk with the moderators, so I'm a bit hesitant to say anything.

I will anyway. Here's the thing: my Internet isn't very fast. It's unstable and it costs a lot, but it's the best I can get where I live. I enabled ads after watching this video and tried to watch it again, but I couldn't. The page loaded and loaded and loaded, and in the bottom corner, I saw that it was loading an ad. This took a full minute. When the page finally loaded, auto-playing ads and all, there was a 30-second ad before the video, which was annoying, but fair enough. Then, after it finished, Jim's video buffered, then started playing. Then it buffered again. I looked, and Chrome indicated that it was loading more ads.

In the end, Jim's video took a little less than three minutes to finally load and play (with occasional buffering), whereas with ads disabled, it took maybe three seconds.

Is it not reasonable to block ads that make a video take quite literally 100 times longer to load?

Like many users, I have no problem with ads, and I really do want to support the creators of content I enjoy, Jim included. It's just really hard to do so here on the Escapist when the ads are only a little better than on most porn sites. Maybe Escapist videos could have Flattr buttons or donation buttons or something, so that even Adblock users could pay and support the content creators without any hassle.

 

[Matthewmagic]

I did whitelist the escapist after watching this but I just want it to be known that the reason I seek out add block is usually because of this site. I don't mind the thirty second add that plays before a video, I think that is fair, but sometimes moving my courser too a link I trip over an add that expands and covers the content I want to view. What follows is me refreshing the page and a carefully constructed set a movements to get to the content I want. I will keep adblock on at least until my tax returns come and I can pay for pubclub, that being said, please keep in mind the placement of adds and how they control because it may lead an otherwise uninterested person to seek out adblock.

Thank you.

 

[ERaptor]

This actually convinced me to become a member of the publishers Club. I appreciate your work Jim, and the work of other producers like Yahtzee, and those two alone are definetly worth 20 bucks to me. I also want to second the thing about intrusive ads. It doesnt matter how good the content is, if the ad is bumping around my screen, or screaming at me, it gets blocked. I prefer Subscription systems over this, even if its just to show the middle finger to ad-companies.

One thing tough, even if it might be a tad offtopic. Is there any way to pay for the P-Club with paysafe or directly via card? I'd like to avoid Paypal if possible, since its kind of a hazzle and I have no idea how it works over amazon.

 

[Zipa]

Good episode as ever Jim, though I disagree with you on one point. Adblock came about because intrusive ads existed, it did not spawn them.

As a person who is the "computer guy" for his friends and family I always make sure that all of their computers that I work on has both AB and Noscript installed (as well as Chrome or FF) as it protects their machines and their data.

Plus it means less headaches for me when they inevitably click an ad that links them to a dodgy hyperlink and they end up with a dodgy search engine installed that is stealing their data.

That said I understand that content has to be paid for somehow which is why I am a Pubclub member because between you, Yahtzee and the LRR content it is a steal and I support them in other ways as well like buying LRR shirts and escapist merch when they have stock.

There can be a compromise though, Adblock has already started working on it a little bit with its non-intrusive advertising system, the thing that really bugs a lot of people is as you said yourself those obnoxious ads that ruin your hearing by screaming shit down your headphones. Ads need to be held to a standard and regulation on the internet just as they are on TV. The Escapist itself is a huge culprit of this as its ads are the worst kind as many people have described in this thread.


Thank God for you though Jim.

 

[Zipa]

This actually convinced me to become a member of the publishers Club. I appreciate your work Jim, and the work of other producers like Yahtzee, and those two alone are definetly worth 20 bucks to me. I also want to second the thing about intrusive ads. It doesnt matter how good the content is, if the ad is bumping around my screen, or screaming at me, it gets blocked. I prefer Subscription systems over this, even if its just to show the middle finger to ad-companies.

One thing tough, even if it might be a tad offtopic. Is there any way to pay for the P-Club with paysafe or directly via card? I'd like to avoid Paypal if possible, since its kind of a hazzle and I have no idea how it works over amazon.

Amazon is easy as heck if you have an account, it works just like paying for something normally on the site. You login, it takes you to a payment screen, it tells you the amount and what you are paying for then you click confirm and job done.

 

[LordLundar]

Why does it feel like Jim set up a trap "that which shall not be named" for anyone using said thing that shall not be discussed? Calling it now Jim just went full SIINNDRRIII on us to flush out any users of said rule breaking offense. Well played Jim well played.

Looks that way. Either Sterling lied or the admins lied to him.

The mod who wrote the mod message in the OP might not've seen Jim's comment further down. Or the mod Jim spoke with must not've passed the message on to the other mods.
Something doesn't add up here.

Regardless of the reason, what has happened here has probably been the worst possible way this could've been handled.

Nothing new. They allow posters who have posted essentially hate speech to go unopposed but if you dare mention you have adblock running or, heaven forbid question their practices you get flagged immediately. I also suspect that disputing the flag is a waste of time because it goes to the same mod that flagged you in the first place who simply dumps the complaint. Put it simply, the way the mods act, I don't expect much (if anything) in the way of integrity.

I'm done with this site. The content doesn't justify the scatter shot enforcement by the moderators who seem to be more interested in protecting their own image than the integrity of the website.

 

[Red Panda]

Thanks for bringing this topic up Jim, honestly I had no idea how using a program like Adblock effected you and other online personalities. I have turned mine off for now, and hope you get to keep making these videos for many years to come.

 

[Seditious Spyke]

Dear Jim, you asked, so i have deliberately made adblock not block any adverts on this domain.

You didnt demand, you didnt beg or cajole, you asked. So i awnsered, even made this account via my fb so i could write this.

I hope it helps enough to make a difference.

Sincerely,

Someone who's enjoyed your content for a while now.

 

[Mr Fixit]

Wow people really hate ads. Yeah some are annoying, but nothing nearly as bad as Youtube. I've even found a couple things I never would have seen otherwise.

I've never experienced the site breaking ads that people are talking about, but then again my anti-virus takes care of pop-ups.

The only ones that really annoy me are the rollover ones near the top of the page, move anywhere near those & they expand, minor inconvenience though. I really should join Pub club...

 

[sobkas]

Last time when I tried to get into Publishers Club(what a strange name, I'm not a publisher), paypal kept asking me about credit cards, so no luck there.

I do not use an adblock, I use noscript, disconnect and cookie controller because, after NSA leaks and revelations about willingness of firms to sale or share personal data with almost anyone. I do not trust them enough with any info, especially ad agencies.

The idea of something like this:
http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/19/nation/la-na-nn-officemax-mail-20140119
makes me sick.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

I don't have adblock, but I simply don't use "allow Flash" unless I watch a video, and I make my browser window very narrow so the ads are pushed out. As far as I'm aware it's not against the rules to not run a plugin.
Still "shows" ads, except for the )(@&%()@& annoying ones with video and sound.

That said, The Escapist is really blowing up with ads lately. I find Kotaku's ads a lot more enjoyable because they're on the side and easily missed. The Escapist had those Toobola ads or whatever they were with those disgusting pictures, ugh.

I understand that they are needed - ad companies still believe people actually click on that garbage - but you can't seriously complain about people using adblockers if half of them are irrelevant crap.
Non-Escapist example: I listen to Russian folk songs and classical music on Spotify. The ads that I keep getting are for the current pop hits. I could not give 2 shits, but it's extremely annoying and unstoppable.


That being said, I prefer ads, even if they are annoying, over journalists trying to make a ad-disguised-as-newsstory.

 

[Les]

I sought out adblock because the adverts on websites were getting more and more and more obnoxious by the day and since I've started using it I have Never white-listed a site.

Until now.

I have white-listed The Escapist, because Mister Jim Sterling asked nicely.


Thank God for Jim.

 

[snowfi6916]

At the risk of being yelled at by a mod, I have Adblock on for most sites. However, for the Escapist, even though I have Adblock on, I am also a Premium Member, so I wouldn't see the ads anyway, and I'm putting money in the Escapist's pocket. I got the Premium Membership not for the ads, but so that I could download the videos if I wanted them.

The Premium Membership helps the content creators for the Escapist right?

 

[theApoc]

I don't understand this. You're saying we should charge every user a subscription instead of giving them free content and entertainment?

I am saying that providing subscription based content exposes your true audience. If you really wanted to know how many contributors you can pay, what content people see as valuable, then that is how you would do it.

We do have an optional subscription available, that does give people some additional perks and ad-free viewing, but not everyone can afford a subscription for the sites they visit. This is why ad-revenue is currently the largest income source of the Escapist, because, especially these days, people just can't afford to buy merch and subscriptions all that often.

Then accept what people are and aren't willing to do for your content and leave it at that. The implication that people who don't like ads are not supporting the site is insulting. People don't come here for ads, they come here for information, and in turn, they share that information, getting more people to come here, etc... Point being, accept that some people don't care, and you are getting revenue from them. Accept that some people REALLY care, and you are getting a subscription from them. And also accept that some people do not want to look at irrelevant ads, so they block them on yours and every other site, that they still support you by being part of your community, and that they are not stealing food from the mouths of your children by not clicking ads. You can't make people pay attention to or click an ad, so unless you want to make your site that intrusive, you have no right to complain about people blocking things they aren't going to pay attention to anyway.

Your analogy of comparing The Escapist to a concert isn't really valid. Those musical artists still pay to advertise their album, or their concert, because if they didn't then people wouldn't know to attend. So yes they do still use ads, just not in the actual concert itself, in the same way that we have ads on the side or just before a video, not during the actual video itself.

They pay to advertise THEIR content, they do not generally wrap their content in ads for other crap. Does it happen? Of course, but usually when I see a commercial or a banner about a show, the band is the product, and they are not banking on we wanting concert information as a means to show me an add for mouthwash...

If websites were able to pay their employees and other costs with just the revenue made from selling merch and the optioning PubClub, I'm sure they'd be more than happy to. The sad fact is that ad-revenue is still very much essential to keeping the site up and running.

So again, who is responsible for that? When you start a business, you should build it based on your product and the interest in YOUR product. Selling webspace to advertisers is fine, but using that revenue as a gauge of how many people you can pay is not on the shoulders of the consumer. That is on you. Lot's and lot's of people, do the work themselves, make their own content, bust their buts and grow based on interest. When I try to sell my music, I am trying to get people to like my music, not to get paid for ad placement and page views.

 

[FFMaster]

Ads are generally fine, I see why they are needed so I do not have anything like adblock, ads pay the bills for sites to be able to run content and let you have it for free. The ability to remove adds for a subscription is great as well for sites you like (I have a twitch turbo subscription for example)

However at this very moment I am hearing music and voices through my speakers, despite this being the only thing loaded, because of a autoplaying video on this very site. Right down at the bottom as well so the whole page has to be scrolled to shut the sodding thing up.

That is where the line is crossed. Its been that way for a while,people are ok with adverts as long as they don't inconvenience you, however advertisers are always pushing for more "in your face" ways of advertising. I don't mind moving images, but full video which is defaulted to unmuted are where the lines get crossed in my eyes (it causes me to check the site less often, only on Monday and Wednesday whereas i used to check daily), and when lines get crossed more people will install adblock. Its not a one sided thing, advertisers need to exhibit responsibility in this situation if they want to show the ads to people.

And this isn't mentioning at all the annoying full screen takeovers that happen on some sites, with tiny close buttons. It's a two way streak unfortunately. Yes some consumers are not holding up there end of the bargain, and games sites are harder hit due to there readerbase being more technically minded, but advertisers need to understand why some people are enabling the blocks.

 

[jdarksun]

I love Jimquisition, but I hate ads. There are 10 ads on the Jimquisition "The Adblock Episode" web page, including a video that plays before the episode, an animated banner ad, and one of those super annoying "From the Web" trap ads that pretends to be from the web site you're on but is actually from zergnet or whatever.

If the Escapist began a policy of no animated ads, no video ads, no ads with sound - and vocally published this fact, ran it on the main page as a new feature of the Escapist - I'm sure you'd get a huge number of people to turn off their adblockers.

 

[rusad]

I'd just like to post this where everyone can see: It seems that the mods and admins (Or someone who wishes they were an admin or mod) is flagging every post that doesn't sing praises to the Escapist. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this.

Disgust, yes, it is a deplorable method of doing things, reminiscent of places such as r/Pyongyang. Except the Escapist forums supposedly discuss things, and not a gag forum wherein people are banned for fun (Although they both worship a leader, only the Escapist has a Great Leader. Thank god for Jim)

Mostly....I feel amused. Giddy and mirth. I reminds me of a four year old throwing a tantrum when they're proven irrevocably wrong. Pathetic, but a gentle laugh and a wink will cure that little rascal's rampage tout suite.

TLDR: Escapist staff, your ads suck. Sincerely, Everyone. Thank god for Jim.

 

[Schadrach]

By default, I run adblock for most things most of the time. If it's a site I frequent and no harmful ads have been pointed out on that site in the past year or so (by "harmful" I mean ads that crash Chrome, install malware, that sort of thing), then I tentatively whitelist the site. If it doesn't utterly destroy my experience, I'll leave it that way.

On a side note, if there is an ad for a company I hate that shows up, I click it. I will click the ad, because I know it costs the advertiser more money every time someone clicks it. It's a great way to give content providers a little bit more money while sticking it to people you hate.

Also, as a tip for Jim, don't look at poor on the internet. Download it from usenet and browse it off your hard drive. (Or use a flash drive so you can keep it away from prying eyes.)

Better still, use TrueCrypt and encrypt that flashdrive so that even if you misplace it, it's *still* safe from prying eyes.

If you get really paranoid, build a self-destruct mechanism...

 

[theApoc]

In this case, I would have to disagree. That already happens. People who go to concerts often walk into stadiums lined with advertisements. Every concession stand proudly has Coke emblems on their drink fountains and Budweiser taps on the countertops. The drive to the concert hall is teeming with billboards and business names. Somewhere, everywhere, there's an advertisement. Be it someone's branded shirt to a flyer drifting on the floor on the way in. However some may feel, advertisements are everywhere in this society.

That said, "blaming the user" isn't the route this is taking. It's saying to consider whitelisting or not using adblocker so the ads don't get more abrasive. And if you do cut off this man's paycheck, perhaps he shouldn't listen to you as you're not his paying audience. Seems like a pretty reasonable response to me.

Also, there is a subscription system in place, called the Publisher's Club. Find it's benefits here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/subscription/details].

And if the bands or the venues relied solely on ad metrics to fund their businesses, they wouldn't last very long.

Imagine if you went to read a book, and the pages were 3 times as wide as necessary to read the book so that the publisher(not the author) could sell add space to anyone willing to pay for it... As many people have said, when ads aren't intrusive, they aren't blocked, and they tend to get ignored as irrelevant, because ultimately, to most people looking for information about a particular subject, they are...

And it is blaming the user. I don't owe him a paycheck, none of us do. The Escapist does. It is THEIR job to pay the contributors, not mine. Do you pay your mechanic based on the work they do for everyone else, or for the work you contract them to do for YOU? I didn't ask Jim to make videos, he chooses to do that. The assumption of value comes from Jim and the escapist, not from the user. As I said, true metrics and value are determined when the only access is granted via a subscription. But the fact of the matter is that both Jim and The Escapist realize that their content is only as valuable as the people who consume it, no consumption, no external value(Obviously creative works have value beyond marketability).

There are benefits to offering content for free, to exposing it to the world. Benefits that Jim and the Escapist reap via ads and the user base spreading and sharing content. There are additional revenue streams available via ads, where people are willing to pay for access to your users, being it directly or indirectly. Those are THEIR choices as to how they present the content. Implying that anyone who comes here is some how beholden to The Escapist and it's content providers simply because they produce content is ridiculous.

If we CHOOSE to allow ads, or to subscribe, that is OUR decision, not theirs. They waved that right when they put this site up and exposed it for free. They chose more exposure over user funded content, so that is what they got.

Ads may pay the bills, but that is not OUR responsibility. How you make money from your content is on you. Don't want people looking at it for free? Put it behind a pay wall. Don't want to limit your audience? Put it up for free and accept the ad revenue you get as a measure of value and leave it at that.

Trying to force people to pay(and yes being inundated with ads is a form of payment) for "free" content, kind of defeats the point of making it "free".

The irony, you get paid regardless, and anyone who actually uses your site has to interact with an ad to post...

 

[sky14kemea]

Nothing new. They allow posters who have posted essentially hate speech to go unopposed but if you dare mention you have adblock running or, heaven forbid question their practices you get flagged immediately. I also suspect that disputing the flag is a waste of time because it goes to the same mod that flagged you in the first place who simply dumps the complaint. Put it simply, the way the mods act, I don't expect much (if anything) in the way of integrity.

I'm done with this site. The content doesn't justify the scatter shot enforcement by the moderators who seem to be more interested in protecting their own image than the integrity of the website.

Thanks for being civil and telling us about what you think we could do better directly.

If posts are missed for moderation, it's because we can't be everywhere at once. We rely a lot on the report queue which is filled with reports from normal users. Chances are if a post got wrathed, it got flagged by someone here, not by a Mod.

As for the Appeals queue, we've said this many times in every thread complaining about Moderators. The Mods do not run the Appeals queue. Only Site Staff get to see those appeals and overturn those decisions. There is a 0% chance that your appeal will be seen by whoever gave you an infraction.

If this falls on deaf ears, please feel free to leave anyway.