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Lastly, most of the people here have really annoying signature pictures. Whatever happened to the sigs that were just text (like mine)? Oh yeah, I also don't see most of the "annoying" signatures either

Well the reason we dont have sigs like yours is probaby because your sig breaks the forum rules...advertising another site..one that sells weapons! :p

  • 4 weeks later...

I don't mind the banner ads but I find the ad-words extremely annoying and distracting from the main content of the site. I would have a much happier Neowin experience if the ad-words were removed completely.

Does a subscription remove the ads? If so I might be tempted to get a subscription.

I don't mind the banner ads but I find the ad-words extremely annoying and distracting from the main content of the site. I would have a much happier Neowin experience if the ad-words were removed completely.

Does a subscription remove the ads? If so I might be tempted to get a subscription.

I am pretty sure you can easily imagine that it could be much worse that that!

I am pretty sure you can easily imagine that it could be much worse that that!

So what if it can be much worse then that. Just about everything can be in a much worse condition. The question is, it is bad enough to keep visitors away. I believe that some will stay away because of it. You accidentally hover your mouse over one of these ad-words, and this box pops up over the main article and won't go away for several seconds. Maybe if it wouldn't pop up nearly instantaneously? Like... you have to keep the mouse of the ad-word for a few seconds before the pop up occurred?

Very aggravating and distracting to the main content.

I understand that Neowin needs to support its own bandwidth, and ads are the best way to do that considering most Internet users are cheap.

What I don't understand is why this thread here is even open. It is clear from the admin responses that I read throughout this thread that their position on the subject is "STFU!" Should just close it if you don't want people bitching.

-shad

  • 2 weeks later...

The only reason people block ads is not the ads itself but the slowness of them. Most of the time it takes 10 seconds for me to load a page in Neowin, and I've tracked it down to the ads server. With no ads pages load instantly.

I disabled my adblock, but you are only hurting yourself with this since the ads slow things down considerably (at least for me they do).

Will v5 have a option to subscribe and have a site without ads? That would be a good solution.

No doubt about that. Whoever it was above that said the ads here don't slow down the site is obviously sniffing glue, or something. True, the ads are not really as noticeable on here as some sites, but they MOST DEFINITELY do slow down the site. It hasn't been as bad lately, but just not to long ago I was dreading even coming here becasue more than half the time the page would never finish loading. I have the ability to bloack ads, but don't usually, as once you have your computer blocking every ad under the sun, everything slows down then while your computer is blocking everything.

I block all ads all the time. I pay for my bandwidth and I'll be dammed if I'm going to waste it with a bunch of bandwidth-wasting time-consuming useless worthless ads.

Seriously, Neobond is loosing his mind if he thinks he can do anything about adblocking just by decreeing that adblock talk is verboten. For pete's sake, Adblock Plus is right there on the Firefox Recomended Add-ons page. Fourth form the top of the list. You can tell people not to talk about it on Neowin all you want, Neobond; people will still find it. I suppose you'll ban all talk of Firefox extensions next, huh?

:whistle:

I block all ads all the time. I pay for my bandwidth and I'll be dammed if I'm going to waste it with a bunch of bandwidth-wasting time-consuming useless worthless ads.

Seriously, Neobond is loosing his mind if he thinks he can do anything about adblocking just by decreeing that adblock talk is verboten. For pete's sake, Adblock Plus is right there on the Firefox Recomended Add-ons page. Fourth form the top of the list. You can tell people not to talk about it on Neowin all you want, Neobond; people will still find it. I suppose you'll ban all talk of Firefox extensions next, huh?

:whistle:

Did you block the whole thread and miss the point? The request is not to bar discussion of Adblock, it's to bar discussion of Adblock in conjunction with blocking ads on Neowin. A simple line like

@@|http://*.neowin.net/

will do wonders.

BTW, what kind of cheap-ass company do you deal with where you have a limit on your bandwidth where ads would make a difference?

Well, I've got news for you, Neobond: Anyone who uses Adblock or Adblock plus doesn't need any special information to block the ads that you show on your website. All he needs to do is subscribe to the default update lists and he sees no more ads any of your ad-pushing partners. So, what's the point of making discussion of Neowin-specific ad blocking verboten? If anything it HELPS you to allow Neowin-specific ad blocking discussion. At least then you'd be letting your users let other people know how to let specific Neowin-related ads through their filters. Heck, you could start publishing a Neowin-friendly exception list and nicely ask that people who ad block lease use it to help support the website.

Oh, and my DSL is plenty fine, it's just that I'm always running torrents (downloads and seeds) so I really don't need to waste bandwidth on ads, OK?

Edited by Croquant

/me wonders if these people who are admitting they block neowin's ads are getting warned, as it is against the rules. :whistle:

/me ends friendly reminder.

trying to get people warned? :no:

on topic: how about neobond says how much it costs neowin to operate for a month and how much ad/sub revenue it makes? after all, if he NEEDS the ad money then neowin must be either making a loss or just making a profit which he won't mind showing. if on the other hand it shows neowin is making a nice profit, where is that money going? back into upgrading neowin? paying mods? neobonds pocket?

Did you block the whole thread and miss the point? The request is not to bar discussion of Adblock, it's to bar discussion of Adblock in conjunction with blocking ads on Neowin.

That's fine, but that was not the case a while ago. This thread clearly did not mention anything about blocking Neowin's ads, unless you staff members see content that is hidden to us.

  • 2 months later...
trying to get people warned? :no:

on topic: how about neobond says how much it costs neowin to operate for a month and how much ad/sub revenue it makes? after all, if he NEEDS the ad money then neowin must be either making a loss or just making a profit which he won't mind showing. if on the other hand it shows neowin is making a nice profit, where is that money going? back into upgrading neowin? paying mods? neobonds pocket?

Towards the upkeeping and the upgrading of the neowin servers.
  • 1 month later...
Well the reason we dont have sigs like yours is probaby because your sig breaks the forum rules...advertising another site..one that sells weapons! :p

It doesn't advertise for anyone. It simply points to a company that makes the best production knives on the planet. If it does violate the rules I will be happy to remove it.

Knives are not weapons they are tools. Sure they can be used as a weapon but so can a pen. People are stabbed by kitchen knives about 10 times more than they are from pocket knives.

Pocket knives are tools which I like to carry because I am a civilized human being and I don't have claws. Therefore I choose to use a tool (knife) to open boxes, cut rope, etc. I laugh when I see people using their keys to open boxes, and then when they have to open those clam packs (hard plastic packs) they ask to borrow my knife.

I have no idea how people get along without a knife day by day. I use mine to cut apples at work, cut rope, open envelopes, open boxes, break down boxes, cut plastic cable ties, etc...etc...etc.

The knife is mans oldest tool. Cavemen used to have knives made out of rocks and flint. A gun is a weapon, a knife is simply a tool. I would never dream of using my knife in a self defense manner as I have no training in such things. Hollywood gives knives a bad name.....well, except for NCIS. In NCIS Gibbs tells everyone to always carry a knife. I would advise the same. They are useful tools.

  • 2 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I've never seen this thread before in all my time at Neowin, but now that I have done, I feel that I have some things that I would like to say. Let me start by saying that by expressing my opinion I am in no way attempting to break any rules or corrupt the purity of the board, I am simply expressing my views so that others can see another view from what makes up another one of Neowin's members - myself.

The rule was passed quite some time ago. It's the choice of this website and I will respect the decision made. Since reading this thread and learning how much these ads mean to the company, I have unblocked the adverts and even clicked on a few. As an end-user of this site, the amount that this website relies on adverts simply never occured to me when I was installing certain extentions to enhance my browsing experience.

This site would not exist without adverts, I do accept this. I of all people do not want Neowin to fall. However, forbidding members to speak about certain innocent (even useful?) tools is a double-edged sword.

In a world of commercialism where everything successful is dependant of money, it is an unfortunate reality that people must accept the presense of adverts (whether Google Ads or 'You make me blush - bite me' ads) on the internet. People have a right to deny the downloading of these adverts. Neowin equally has the right to block who they choose. I don't blame Neowin for stopping those who advise others on how to block Neowin's adverts. However, I find moderation such as -this- quite stupid.

People have genuine needs for disabling the display of advertisements. This may be a technical question asked by those in our very own tech. forums. Are we then going to censor the very support they are seeking so that the site does not lose some clicks? I think there would be a better response to this rule from our users if instead we could provide helpful recommendations but kindly ask not to block adverts on this site. We could provide advice on creating exception rules, as many of us have done in this thread.

If this website is so dependant on ad revenue, then in my opinion it should become subscription only. When something relies on advertising for it's existence, it will start to impose restrictions in order to ensure it's income. An extreme example of this mentality is ITV, who with a decline in viewers is so desperately dependant on advertising that it's advertising and sponsors even cross over to feature in it's news stories. I do not like this. I would pay ten times my TV license if it means that the BBC remain ad-free. It is only for this reason that the BBC are one of the only true impartial and unbiased news organisations left in the world.

This is my view. I didn't break any rules, but of course you have the right to moderate this post should you see fit.

With respect,

David

Great post Lt-DavidW (Y)

Problem is, we could become very well known for showing people how to block ad's which would in turn affect us greatly.

It's a grey area for us here at Neowin. All I can say is that we have selected ad types that are non-intrusive, don't affect your experience at Neowin unlike many other sites that have ad's with sounds when you mouse over them, or flash ad's that pop-up over the content or "in between page" ad's that you have to view first before reading an article.

I will defend our policy on this simply because we have never given our members or guests a hard time with obtrusive ad's.

I browse Neowin exactly how I expect it to look as if I was a normal member and I think we deserve credit for not over loading our members with bull**** ad's.

:)

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