MR has apparently discovered a new way to get ‘pop up’ ads past my Ad Block. Recently when I go to sign in to the forums the sign in procedure has been interrupted by a pop up ad. I am so annoyed by it that I have deliberately refused to read the ad so don’t ask me what it’s all about. My point is that this is one more example of MR doing something that I’m not happy with.
At the risk of offending the powers that be, please share your feelings about this new affront to our sensibilities. I would ask that the forum members restrict their comments to this particular ‘pop up’ issue. Please do not turn this into a bitch session about every perceived fault that you can find with MR!
Steven, please understand that I am just trying to communicate to you the forum members feelings about this new annoyance. You can delete the thread if you wish, but that won’t change the way I feel. I suspect that many others will share my opinion.
Yep, I’ve been dealing with them for a while now. just never said anything about it. They also come up when you’ve left the page to go to a link, and then come back.
One thing I will say, I never have any ads, what so ever, on the right hand column. Nothing but my information block, who’s on line, and community search.
The “new” ad’s are devious and a pain. Many of the ad’s in the rotation are hijacking browsers with endless redirects to “You have won” type scams.
I actually had to go in to my router and block traffic from some of the ad providers due to this. Kalmbach still gets the ad “referal” for their click/view stats, but my router dumps their traffic once it’s received.
Some of the ad’s that are in the rotation from DoubleClick (one of the biggest ad placement companies) are downright malicious.
Interesting, I haven’t seen those ads? I wish they’d fix the Classic Trains website. When you click on a thread and then want to go back to the main page for the Classic Trains forum, it’s almost impossible because it creates a pop-up for buying Kalmbach books and such. Often wonder if that problem is why the Classic Trains website gets so few entries compared to the others.
I have become innured to pop up ads on this site or any other web site that I frequent. I click on the X in the upper right hand corner without reading them, the ad goes away and I go about my business.
Like Bear, I click on the X and move on. I don’t know what the adds are for.
What is really becoming irritating, is the video ads in the right column. They are hard to stop, drag the site down to a crawl, and in some cases lock up the website/browser. I have been leaving the site when they start. It’s less aggravating that way.
All I can do is to point out that to offer you the use of this Forum, free of charge, costs Kalmbach money and resources. The ads you see allow us to recoup a portion of those expenses. If you don’t like the ads, perhaps you can suggest a less obtrusive way we can pay for the servers, bandwidth, and I.T. staff that keep these Forums running.
This one doesn’t bother me. It’s not that much more of a bother than the banner and the right column ads. As Steve alluded to, it’s the cost of using the forum. A few extra mouse clicks for the privilege is a bargain.
Sometimes I glance at the ad before clicking the “X” and other times I just do as some others and click the “X”. Depends on how fast it catches my eye.
I do have a suggestion for defraying some of the forum costs, Steve - offer a paid subsctiption to the forum, wherein anyone paying a monthly fee no longer sees all the ads. The cost of setting that up may make it a non-starter, but it’s an idea…
I think the complaints about the ads aren’t so much that they are ads (which Steve says are needed) but irritating ads.
There’s a point where irritating ads drive customers for ads away. And damage the reputation of the supporter of those ads.
I started seeing the pop-ups recently, and clicked on the X. It’s “sorta” OK. If it becomes NOT sorta OK, I can always put the computer to sleep and work on my trains. Which would be more productive (so much to do!!)
I’m 100% on board with having the ad’s to offset your cost. My complaint isn’t that there are ad’s, but that the ad company is placing ad’s which hijack your site and redirect you off MR/Kalmbach altogether.
There are placed ad’s coming through that automatically redirect you from the forum entirely. The “Amazon Gift Card” and “You have won!” are two of such ad’s. The remainder of your (Kalmbach, not pointed at you Mr. Otte) ad’s aren’t nearly as malicious as the two “hijackers”.
I would gladly pay for a subscription to the forum (in addition to the mag) to remove the ad’s entirely. Based on the average price per 1k placement of ad’s, Id gladly pay 9.99 a year or so to offset the ad revenue, which is likely a higher dollar figure than the ad revenue generates based on my own (known) browsing habits here.
I don;t see any of the ones that come from doubleclick. The problem with services like that is, as rightly pointed out, they seem to not both to vet who they sell ads to and they are often loaded with malicious content, usually the sort that pops up a full page inescapable warning that your computer is infected and that you should click on the button to fix it. NEVER EVER DO THAT - until you actually click, you still have not received malware. But click on that link and you absolytely will.
This is an issue for EVERY ad-supported web service. The people providing these ad services need to do a far better job of vetting their clients and blocking this garbage. The thing is, they have little reason to care, as long as they get their money.
This popup doesn’t really cause any problems - I stay logged in all the time here anyway. It’s not like if someone breaks into my house is going to hop on the forums and post trash messages from me.
The newest cover-over ad that turns the page darker most often just goes away for me if I quickly click on the X. But this is new for me…here. On one other site, cyclingnews.com, it’s a gate keeper. The pop up says, “We notice you have adblocker. (blah, blah…)” I am given three options, but none of them is to simply close the popup and continue to read. No reduction of my blocker, no lookee. So I am one of those that have lept the fence and moved on to another cycling news site.
I can’t flee forever. Our hosts can’t continue to bear the increased costs of this convenience to us, the membership, maybe not for long. At some point, something has to give.
Paid membership at a forum is not unheard of. If you’d rather it remain ‘free’, then free up the time it takes to click out of pop up ads now and then. That’s my [2c] which I will kick in before I agree to pony up with some cash to participate here.
To Steve, would it make much sense to run a sticky poll/survey for a full month asking the obvious question? I don’t know if you and the staff have discussed this at a meeting in the past, but apart from newcomers, the participant base here is probably very small compared to the vastly greater number of registered members…whom none of us ever hear from. Would those of us who might come here even once a month find the poll, answer it, and would the business find that it is a decidedly popular decision to have to pay a small amount to participate here each year?
Some ads are useful. I do not find those irritating. Because I want the information, sometimes not until after I read the ad. There are such ads in the magazines. They explain why their product might be useful to me. Or they inform me of a new product that I did not know about.
Irritating, to me, is an ad that is of no use to me.
Very irritating, to me, is an ad that is incredibly pushy.
I do not mind seeing ads, particularly when they support free forum activity.
I begin to balk when the content of these ads is not properly checked, get irritated when the ads contain even the appearance of malicious code, begin to complain when there is no way to click through or terminate pop ups. But I draw a firm line at code from any advertiser that crashes or slows the browser, and well on the far side of that line is a response from Kalmbach that says problems of that kind are not a priority for tech support because they do not assist revenue generation.
I think everyone will agree that malware is to be avoided no matter what its nominal profitability. And that, not ‘ad’ revenue, is the proper subject here.
