Invasive Advertisements

[Chanak]

Some ads apparently bypass pop-up blockers as well, as I've been experiencing as of late. For reference I use IE, and as a rule don't experience pop-ups. Some ads here, however, bypass the blocker.

[Kiwi]

I dislike Flash so much that I have FlashBlock active all the time. There are several places on the net that collect advertiser URLs and offer downloads of their collections to add to your HOSTs File. Well worth the time to look for them, add the collections, and never see many such ads ever again.

[the_bogan]

I book marked a thread in the Diablo II forum, which I'm guessing has a flash pop up attached to it. The problem is, I can't see the ad, and apart from selecting GameBanshee home, I can't select anything else. This also happens when I'm browsing other forums.

I'm running Firefox 2.

[Siberys]

There's a new ad featuring a show called Torchwood. Whenever you roll your mouse over the advertisement, it pops up into a completely separate box containing a picture. This blocks out many links on the site itself.

Now, what's worse is that the close button is located right on the banner ad itself, so anytime you close it, the instant you move your mouse it's going to open right back up. There's no other conceivable way to fix this problem I've noticed. I've even tried not moving my mouse and simply hitting page down, and that doesn't work. It still pops up.

[Xandax]

Originally Posted by Kiwi

I dislike Flash so much that I have FlashBlock active all the time. There are several places on the net that collect advertiser URLs and offer downloads of their collections to add to your HOSTs File. Well worth the time to look for them, add the collections, and never see many such ads ever again.

The problem is that this site lives and is run by advert revenue, so many of us do not want to block the ads on this site, because they make the site possible.
Thus it is a really bad road to go if you like a site and especially use the content on the site.

[KillerGremal]

The forum doesn't only live by ads, it also needs users!

Sadly the ads here are really aggressive meanwhile and so i am considering to abandon this forum. May all the remaining Dungeon Siege 2 players rest in harm of uncertainty, it's not may fault then.
The GameBanshee responsibales should not overstress the forum user but if they want me to leave then i will go...

Of course if the ads-flood here is the last try to survive then i am very sorry the adiministration is forced for such an approach - you have my regrets and i hope you will find a better solution right before insolvency.

[Siberys]

The GameBanshee responsibales should not overstress the forum user but if they want me to leave then i will go...

Ok, that's a false accusation. Numerous times throughout this forum, and right here in this thread Buck, the owner of the site has implied that he has no real control over the advertisements, just as many website owners don't.

So please don't blame Buck and Gamebanshee for this problem, as without these advertisements from UGO, the -sponsor- of this website, there wouldn't be users in the first place, not for this big of a site.

[BuckGB]

Originally Posted by KillerGremal

Sadly the ads here are really aggressive meanwhile and so i am considering to abandon this forum.

I'm sorry to hear that you feel that way. If I could keep the site up and running without advertising, I certainly would. That's just not the reality of the internet, though.

Personally, I don't think the advertising here is any more invasive than many other gaming sites. GameSpot, IGN, and GameSpy have a whole assortment of ad campaigns running - popups, takeovers, roadblocks, rollovers - while also implementing a full skinning advertisement almost every month. That's on top of the ads in their newsletters, online services, and all the monthly subscription fees they're charging their premium members.

GameBanshee (and every other website working with UGO) only displays a fraction of those. If it wasn't for these ads, I would have been forced to take the site offline years ago. Sure, some annoying ads sneak through every once in awhile, but UGO is pretty good about getting them pulled from our rotation.

If there's a specific ad that you're annoyed with, please let me know and I'll contact UGO about it. If you're just growing tired of the leaderboard ad across the top, though, I really can't do anything about it without negatively affecting the website.

[Xandax]

I'm still plagued by the roll over adds which both pop up out of the 728x90 banner and the ones which pops over that and roll down the left side of the menu.
They have a bad habit of not rolling back correct, making parts of the forum impossible to click on in other browsers then IE forcing a page reload.

The only one of the "down the left side" additional pop up adds which seem to work correctly is the questionnaire but that doesn't exactly roll down, it fly in all over the place no matter where you have screen focus.
But all the others doesn't roll back correct yet, and haven't for a long time.

I'm still displaying them due to this being a site I want to support, but I am thinking of blocking adds on work due to the Maxime girls adds, which features half-naked chicks and suggestive texting, which I do not really want displaying at work. Games are fine when I'm at work, but scantly clad girl adds, and people might think I surf differently then I do.

[KillerGremal]

Originally Posted by Siberys

Ok, that's a false accusation. Numerous times throughout this forum, and right here in this thread Buck, the owner of the site has implied that he has no real control over the advertisements, just as many website owners don't.

So please don't blame Buck and Gamebanshee for this problem, as without these advertisements from UGO, the -sponsor- of this website, there wouldn't be users in the first place, not for this big of a site.

I wasn't aware of this - i apologize.
So UGO must be informed their ads would chase forum users away!(?)

Originally Posted by BuckGB

...

Personally, I don't think the advertising here is any more invasive than many other gaming sites. GameSpot, IGN, and GameSpy ...

That's why you won't see me often on those sites. They don't care about me and i myself don't really need them.
So it seems i'm one of the users with a rather low ads-threshold. Also some ads here are really nasty, eg. who the f*** is this commerical guy named Chuck walking in my browser!?
Even with some tits and bikini i'm not really interested to see him/she here! - Thus Chuck, go to hell with your fire wall or so, the devil will like it much more down there...

.

Well, generally i have a certain comprehension for ads.
Indeed i have nothing against to be informed objectively and in decent manner about the newest games or a new piece of hardware. But the current ads are much too aggressive taking away my attention from the real forum content - and i suppose the gamer's post are meant to be the real content, right!?
Of course catching the visitor's attention is intended by the advertiser but absolutely not in the prior interest of the forum user.

So make up your mind yourself if this is still a gamer forum with some decent ads or if it will turn into a complete ad-forum traping people with some game data that get even weaker with every forum user who is leaving.

[DesR85]

If you really detest ads so much, why don't you just install the No-Script addon for Firefox instead? Sure blocks quite a lot of stuff.

[Magelord648]

Ads are Ads. If you don't want them block them. Buck can't waste his precious time emailing UGO because you don't like the Ads. If they're causing damage or blocking your view, fine, but you can't just complain because you don't like them.

[dragon wench]

Originally Posted by DesR85

If you really detest ads so much, why don't you just install the No-Script addon for Firefox instead? Sure blocks quite a lot of stuff.

I was about to say the same. Firefox and Opera both have excellent ad blocking capabilities. If KillerGremal feels so strongly he should try them out...

@KillerGremal,
I'm actually a bit surprised, given the intensity of your feelings, that you haven't tried ad blocking software. A lot of us here at Game Banshee try to avoid using it too much because we know the site needs ads for revenue, and having been here a while there's something of a relationship and such.
But, really, that shouldn't be an issue for you

[BuckGB]

Originally Posted by KillerGremal

So make up your mind yourself if this is still a gamer forum with some decent ads or if it will turn into a complete ad-forum traping people with some game data that get even weaker with every forum user who is leaving.

I realize that you don't like the ads, but I will guarantee you that if you saw what this website costs me a day/month/year to run, you'd understand why they need to be here.

If a website doesn't have any ads, it's most likely because a) its creator is independently wealthy, b) it doesn't get a lot of traffic and can get by with a cheap (or even free) server, or c) it generates revenue through sales, subscription fees, or some other method. If there's someone out there going to work every day and paying all necessary fees to keep their high-traffic, content-rich, ad-free website online for nearly a decade, then I'd like to meet them and shake their hand.

[KillerGremal]

First, indeed i do not like ads very much. But i'm realistic enough that hosts and web space must be paid anyhow.
As written above it's the kind of advertisment here (didn't i mention above 'decent' instead of 'aggressive'!?), so i could live with ads but not so impertinent as they are at the moment.

And thanks for all your conecerns about my mental health. It's nice but not really required - if needed i know quite well how to treat such ads as they deserve it.

Even more important is that i don't like to see (resp. to know) my posts 'decorated' with such stupid ads related on my tries to write my own posts (mostly answers on questions) as serious as possible.