Jimquisition: The Adblock Episode
- Thread starter Jimothy Sterling
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First off I would like to say: IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT A SITE AND HAVE NO MONEY TO GIVE, WHITELIST IT!!!!!
That being said, I feel like the Escapist has had a real problem with ads for a long while now and this thread is simply the flash point. I started visiting the escapist my freshman year of college and am still on it three months after finishing a Masters, the vast majority of the time keeping the site whitelisted (I started going here before i knew what Adblock was).
Most of the time I can deal with the Ads on the Escapist but this site has a tendency to host experience destroying ads like the one I ran into just the other day. I was trying to watch a moviebob video but some autoplay ad about some dude on a bike started playing at the same time as the video, making the audio and video de-sync on the video I came to see in the first place. There was also an ad a while back that blocked the reply to thread box. as a result I stopped using the forums for a few weeks.
I understand that the Escapist needs to make money and that ads are a major way of generating income, but some of these ads place the user in the situation of either having to turn adblock on to use the site or leave it entirely. The Pub Club was a very good idea but you have to remember that a fair number of your users cannot swing $20. For that much money a person could get 5 or 6 meals off the dollar menu. On top of the pub club, I think a simple donation button on the front page would generate more money than these ads that are chasing your users off site and behind adblockers more and more as time goes on. I'm typing this from my mother's basement so I can;t swing $20 a year but I and many other users could donate $5 every so often.
I'm also rather surprised by the moderating on this thread. The Escapist Forums are the best moderated I have seen since Megatokyo in it's hay day. I've attracted some mod agrro once or twice in the past but I'd earned it each time. The Escapist mod staff is really good at telling the difference between telling the difference between vitriolic bile and honest discussion, although I must say y'all dun goofed a bit on this thread.
That being said, I feel like the Escapist has had a real problem with ads for a long while now and this thread is simply the flash point. I started visiting the escapist my freshman year of college and am still on it three months after finishing a Masters, the vast majority of the time keeping the site whitelisted (I started going here before i knew what Adblock was).
Most of the time I can deal with the Ads on the Escapist but this site has a tendency to host experience destroying ads like the one I ran into just the other day. I was trying to watch a moviebob video but some autoplay ad about some dude on a bike started playing at the same time as the video, making the audio and video de-sync on the video I came to see in the first place. There was also an ad a while back that blocked the reply to thread box. as a result I stopped using the forums for a few weeks.
I understand that the Escapist needs to make money and that ads are a major way of generating income, but some of these ads place the user in the situation of either having to turn adblock on to use the site or leave it entirely. The Pub Club was a very good idea but you have to remember that a fair number of your users cannot swing $20. For that much money a person could get 5 or 6 meals off the dollar menu. On top of the pub club, I think a simple donation button on the front page would generate more money than these ads that are chasing your users off site and behind adblockers more and more as time goes on. I'm typing this from my mother's basement so I can;t swing $20 a year but I and many other users could donate $5 every so often.
I'm also rather surprised by the moderating on this thread. The Escapist Forums are the best moderated I have seen since Megatokyo in it's hay day. I've attracted some mod agrro once or twice in the past but I'd earned it each time. The Escapist mod staff is really good at telling the difference between telling the difference between vitriolic bile and honest discussion, although I must say y'all dun goofed a bit on this thread.
I'm not trying to be inflammatory or to urge anyone to adblock the site, I'm simply stating my own thoughts and opinions based on my own experiences on the site. The true test of a company is not just in how well you can keep your customers happy, but in how well they respond to situations like this in which your customers are unhappy. I hope someone in a decision making capacity is paying attention to this thread.
I don't get it, I haven't had adblock for years and I have none of the problems a bunch of people are claiming. I had one, ONE! noisy ad a couple days ago, but it was the first one I ever had on this site, and I was eventually able to silence it. I don't get anything malicious or filled with viruses, so what are all the anti ads people talking about?
To AdBlock users and to people who want to improve the state of online advertisement:
https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads
AdBlock Plus' dev team doesn't like intrusive ads, neither do most people. They have a feature that allows "acceptable" or "non-intrusive ads." I like this idea a lot as it provides advertisers incentive to make less intrusive ads. Only problem is, more people need to know about it.
The feature is enabled by default, but I turned adblock on for the Escapist to test it out and noticed that none are flagged as non intrusive, even though the ones on the right were fairly acceptable (static, non-moving, no sound, etc.).
I'm no expert on the flagging thing but if someone could figure out how to make the Escapist's less intrusive ads allowed through adblock, that might start a trend.
Something to consider...
For the record I disable adblock on all sites except ones that I deem it necessary. I.e: when they're realllly annoying.
https://adblockplus.org/en/acceptable-ads
AdBlock Plus' dev team doesn't like intrusive ads, neither do most people. They have a feature that allows "acceptable" or "non-intrusive ads." I like this idea a lot as it provides advertisers incentive to make less intrusive ads. Only problem is, more people need to know about it.
The feature is enabled by default, but I turned adblock on for the Escapist to test it out and noticed that none are flagged as non intrusive, even though the ones on the right were fairly acceptable (static, non-moving, no sound, etc.).
I'm no expert on the flagging thing but if someone could figure out how to make the Escapist's less intrusive ads allowed through adblock, that might start a trend.
Something to consider...
For the record I disable adblock on all sites except ones that I deem it necessary. I.e: when they're realllly annoying.
I am more than happy to pay the $0.10 per add you get as revenue, if content driven sites such as the escapist would start putting some kind of button to let me give you that money via pay pal, I am more than happy to do that. How ever, the annoying adds that play sound, capture mouse movement and other potential security concerns I have with allowing any form of flash, active X, or any other scripts that I do not explicitly white list (with my current set up I must allow each and every single script to run that has not been explicitly white listed). Furthermore, I would be more inclined to allow adds if I was on a secure HTTPS connection rather than a simple port 80 HTTP connection.
When you say that do you mean it's not possible given some technical problem or it's some rule that needs to be changed? If it's the latter then this thread set a precedent, when someone working for the Escapist makes something that is gonna cause so much moderation then it should be locked the instant things start going wrong. Do it for the sake of the users please, it's very unnerving to see so much moderation in one thread.Marter said:
Also known as mentioning Adblock. Which means people have been warned for mentioning Adblock, contrary to your claim that nobody has been.Marter said:
Have you always been at war with Eurasia?
So basically talk to Greg Tito about it?Marter said:
Also nice AJ Lee avatar, she's probably the best diva in the WWE right now.
But other people are blatantly admitting to using Adblock, but not being warned, because they say they whitelist The Escapist.Marter said:
Why the double standard? Admitting to using it and having a whitelist is still "blatant admission."
It's also not clear why people "blatantly admitting to it" should be against the rules in the first place. Who is it that writes these rules, and when was the last time they were reviewed?
How many suspensions does it take? Before it becomes wrong? Humm? A hundred, two hundred, a thousand? How many suspensions does it take?!
Sites are becoming more like businesses and jobs than they were 20 years ago where people did a site for fun or a passion for a subject. Problem is whats the alternative? Could make it a subscription only site but you would lose a lot of traffic. Less offensive ads would hurt you financially because im guessing the louder and video adverts pay more than a static banner.
On one site i visit to watch their vids if you use adblock the video has a 2 minute blank screen telling you to unblock the site. The argument was, take off adblock and watch a 20 second ad or watch a 2 minute screen. Pretty obvious what people do and they were pretty polite about it. Maybe this is something you could look into? After all your vids (well the three that i watch) are normally around the 7 minute mark so a 20 second ad isnt that much of an issue.
I guess there needs to be a balance of ads that get you paid but doesnt annoy the consumer. Like on Youtube i used to have it blocked until i found Angry Joe Show and he puts so much effort into vids. Same as Jim, Bob and Yahtze. Im happy to support these peoples content. Though there some groups where money has clouded their mind and they release way to many videos, quality goes down because the more vids they do the more money they get. Where once they made an interesting 10 min video about something, now you get five 3min vids about random crap.
I guess its just about finding that balance as i dont begrudge the escapist needing to make money.
On one site i visit to watch their vids if you use adblock the video has a 2 minute blank screen telling you to unblock the site. The argument was, take off adblock and watch a 20 second ad or watch a 2 minute screen. Pretty obvious what people do and they were pretty polite about it. Maybe this is something you could look into? After all your vids (well the three that i watch) are normally around the 7 minute mark so a 20 second ad isnt that much of an issue.
I guess there needs to be a balance of ads that get you paid but doesnt annoy the consumer. Like on Youtube i used to have it blocked until i found Angry Joe Show and he puts so much effort into vids. Same as Jim, Bob and Yahtze. Im happy to support these peoples content. Though there some groups where money has clouded their mind and they release way to many videos, quality goes down because the more vids they do the more money they get. Where once they made an interesting 10 min video about something, now you get five 3min vids about random crap.
I guess its just about finding that balance as i dont begrudge the escapist needing to make money.
Ya know what Jim, you've got a good point, your videos when I watch on the Escapist I shall not be using adblocker. But for others, I cannot do this for.
Bara_no_Hime said:
I have to agree.Xan Krieger said:
I've said it before, but it's worth reiterating:
If a forum policy means that a certain type of thread can never be locked, no matter how bad the comments get and no matter how many warnings/bans the thread accumulates, then perhaps it's time to rethink that policy.
Because a policy like that, combined with a thread like this, is nothing but detrimental to the site as a whole.
*hears about news article, views page*
This whole thing was a mess. I get that the mods were trying to enforce the rules, but now all the users are pissed and a news article has made the Escapist look bad. I don't think anyone benefited from this "discussion."
I still love the escapist, but I feel like there could be a little more discretion used in situations like this...
This whole thing was a mess. I get that the mods were trying to enforce the rules, but now all the users are pissed and a news article has made the Escapist look bad. I don't think anyone benefited from this "discussion."
I still love the escapist, but I feel like there could be a little more discretion used in situations like this...
The Escapist should really try to get more of their ads from the non-intrusive advertising section. Most AdBlock users would have this option still enabled since it's a default. Currently it would appear that no ads on this site fall into the non-intrusive category.
When a big site like your officially disavows any responsibility for the ads on your site (as an admin on here did) and placing the blame on users heads for not informing them of the bad ads...
I'm not going to want to watch or be exposed to your ads because you are completely okay with my computer getting messed up. If you don't care if we can't watch your content or use our computers because of the ads you put on your site, then why should I support your site?
Police your ads before they end up on the site and then I would be okay being exposed to them. Continue your refusal to do even basic checking as in not having ads interfere with the use of your website and well...
What do you really expect of your users? That we are all drop dead stupid and love to have to deep clean our systems every week and not actually be able to view and listen to the videos we came to watch?
I'm not going to want to watch or be exposed to your ads because you are completely okay with my computer getting messed up. If you don't care if we can't watch your content or use our computers because of the ads you put on your site, then why should I support your site?
Police your ads before they end up on the site and then I would be okay being exposed to them. Continue your refusal to do even basic checking as in not having ads interfere with the use of your website and well...
What do you really expect of your users? That we are all drop dead stupid and love to have to deep clean our systems every week and not actually be able to view and listen to the videos we came to watch?
Okay Jim, you've convinced me. I even had to register an account just to say this.
I'll consider the minor inconvenience of whitelisting sites to allow addblock depending on how much I appreciate their content and how intrusive their ads are. Escapist is on a beta test. I've been addblocking for so long I really only ever run into them while on my phone, so maybe they've became less obnoxious.
But we'll see. You'll get a few clicks worth of add money from me for the time being.
I'll consider the minor inconvenience of whitelisting sites to allow addblock depending on how much I appreciate their content and how intrusive their ads are. Escapist is on a beta test. I've been addblocking for so long I really only ever run into them while on my phone, so maybe they've became less obnoxious.
But we'll see. You'll get a few clicks worth of add money from me for the time being.