Ads keep the light on...

[Unidentified 2,930]

Really? We've become one of those sites that are going to nag me to turn off my add blocker? The only thing that makes this site usable is the fact that I can block the ads. If you're short on cash, why not put a donation thing on your site and ask people to donate money. This forum is going downhill.

 

 

[Captain Ewok 1,857]

Just out of curiousity, for the desktop version of the site, how do the ads make the site unusable? I'd certainly like to strike the right balance. We typically just have 3 ads per long scroll page on the forums.

[Captain Ewok 1,857]

We can certainly provide an ad free experience for donations but the site itself truly does have operational costs to run. 

[TBoneTX 43,196]

1 hour ago, Captain Ewok said:

for the desktop version of the site, how do the ads make the site unusable?

The ads have been tolerable for several weeks now.  I typically see one each atop & below a page.  Occasionally, one appears in the middle, but not within posts, as used to be.

[geowrian 22,336]

My issues with the new nag are:

1. They appear on every page load.
2. They clear the path from the URL and the page's title. As such, I can't see what topic I'm on without going back up to the top of the page. This is highly annoying for site notifications, especially when loading 2/3/25/etc. at a time (because I've been away form the computer part of the day. )

[Unidentified 2,930]

I think this website needs to do something about all the phishing attempts before forcing people to turn off add blockers. I can barely use the website on my phone, especially not while using Chrome. I'm not turning off my ad blocker on my Chromebook anytime soon so please stop nagging until people can use this website problem free.

[trudi 1,317]

4 hours ago, Captain Ewok said:

Just out of curiousity, for the desktop version of the site, how do the ads make the site unusable? I'd certainly like to strike the right balance. We typically just have 3 ads per long scroll page on the forums.

Pop ups make using the site impossible from either my Android or iPad. I had to resort to using Brave to be able to get past the forum list.

Now thanks to the whitelist push I can no longer use the back button in a thread, it returns to the main page every time.

I love this forum, it's got me through the immigration process, put me in touch with others who understand the emotions and stress the process creates. But it's getting harder and harder to access from a mobile device and that's sad.

I for one would happily donate to the operating costs to resolve this

[Captain Ewok 1,857]

I'll look into the ad free skin for the forums. 

 

The nag message was only supposed to be for the desktop view where popups are non-existent. I understand the mobile view argument. 

[sumbunny 560]

The same thing is happening here. Getting returned to the main page after clicking away from the ad nag makes the site really hard to navigate.

 

Just editing to add... once I paused my ad blocker, navigating the site is normal again and I'm also able to edit my timeline again rather than getting a "page not found" error, so the ad nag is definitely affecting the way the site functions. 

Edited June 20, 2018 by sumbunny

[Captain Ewok 1,857]

1 hour ago, sumbunny said:

The same thing is happening here. Getting returned to the main page after clicking away from the ad nag makes the site really hard to navigate.

 

Just editing to add... once I paused my ad blocker, navigating the site is normal again and I'm also able to edit my timeline again rather than getting a "page not found" error, so the ad nag is definitely affecting the way the site functions. 

Desktop of mobile view?  I'm making a change so it only shows in desktop (not mobile) regardless of adblocker settings.

[sumbunny 560]

 

8 minutes ago, Captain Ewok said:

Desktop of mobile view?  I'm making a change so it only shows in desktop (not mobile) regardless of adblocker settings.

Desktop on both PC and Mac. Chrome is the browser. 

[Captain Ewok 1,857]

Ok I killed it for now. Not worth taking site functionality away.  Let's find a good solution for everyone :-).  I'm going to launch an ad free experience for the site based on donating. Monies go straight to the ole' webserver (which is frustratingly expensive).  Stand by...

[Steeleballz 7,550]

10 hours ago, Captain Ewok said:

Just out of curiousity, for the desktop version of the site, how do the ads make the site unusable? I'd certainly like to strike the right balance. We typically just have 3 ads per long scroll page on the forums.

 

   The adds on PC are not intrusive at the moment (using Chrome). There have been times when they were worse. Once someone blocks the adds, obviously it's difficult to see if it get's better or worse since you won't see any adds at all. 

 

  On the current PC I am using, I only see an add on the top, add on the side, and one at the bottom. Nothing blocking the reading area.

 

  Mobile is a different issue I think, in that many of the adds have been using exploits and I don't blame people for not wanting these to pop up. Personally, I haven't had any of the crazy popup adds on IOS -Safari browser since I enabled the IOS popup blocker. 

[geowrian 22,336]

Something with the redirection when the nag screen appears is making the sort options on the timelines page not function. It takes you to an error page instead.

Example: http://www.visajourney.com/timeline/k1list.php?cfl=&op1=&op2=&op3=1&op4=1&op5=&op6=All

Click any sorting option and it takes you to an error page. Disabling the adblocker works normally.

Edited June 21, 2018 by geowrian

[Captain Ewok 1,857]

29 minutes ago, geowrian said:

Something with the redirection when the nag screen appears is making the sort options on the timelines page not function. It takes you to an error page instead.

Example: http://www.visajourney.com/timeline/k1list.php?cfl=&op1=&op2=&op3=1&op4=1&op5=&op6=All

Click any sorting option and it takes you to an error page. Disabling the adblocker works normally.

Should be fixed.=)