Advertising

    I pulled up a long thread and saw 10 advertisements in a 47 post thread, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 1:4 or 1:5 ads to posts. That is more than excessive. The forum IS free, and if a service or product is free, YOU are the commodity, but banner ads at the top and bottom, and every 4 to 5 posts, and creating threads of their own is kind of crazy. Is this just a symptom of a new forum host location, or was ad revenue critical to continued operation?

    Hi everybody


    I don't like the advertisement either. It's a necessary evil . Somebody has to pay for the sever.
    Would you rather pay a fee and not have advertisement ?


    Keep bringing your pros and cons to this post. I think Werner (the site owner) would like to see the feedback from everybody. Still ,remember, somebody has to pay for the server . If yo have a better idea, go ahead, post it


    Thanks everyone

    Retired but still helping

    I don't think it would be good to require paid membership, because the biggest value of the forum is connecting people with a wide variety of knowledge and experience with a very low barrier of entry. I would never have asked m=or answered my first question if i had hit a paywall on day 1.


    Maybe an option for paid membership to remove ads locally, but leave them generally to facilitate free users? This might be considered unfair, but as long as the price was reasonable, i would be willing to do that just for my own ease and convenience.


    Alternative, find some way of limiting the invasive-ness of the ads? Banner ads at the edges of the window are fine regardless, but having ads in place of threads and responses within threads is just too much. A YouTube style experience wherein you have to view an ad to proceed might even be better.


    I do understand the need for ad revenue to operate, and i don't know what the best solution is. I will throw in that ads all over the screen has an impact on how the site is viewed. In general, i am less comfortable having it open at work, even for work related things, because it looks less professional. Personally, if i opened a site looking for help and were overwhelmed with ads, i would probably continue looking.

    I don't mind non-invasive ads. Necessary evil and all of that. This new format is bad enough that I turned on Adblock+ and NoScript for this site. Now I get no ads, which I'm sure has the opposite effect of what the intent of the ad spamming was.

    Robo_Eng_13
    I agree 100% with you.
    1) Paid users don't get ads or after so many post you get less ads
    2) Put them on the side, top, bottom but not in between post
    I don't know if the layout of the forum allow to do this changes but at least we are putting ideas out there

    Retired but still helping


    I think keeping the ads but making the ads less invasive would help the forum help more people by keeping it free and getting back some of the previous ad-free user experience, and having a way for people who use it very frequently to be able to remove them entirely while still supporting the operation of the forum would help keep the knowledge base that is already here and committed.

    PLCTALK.net is a good example of a forum that is dedicated to plcs. They have one single ad on top of a forum. they provide two membership levels that you can donate money as a onetime donation to help keep the server up and running. The two levels of membership gives the users different perks for example. the lifetime supporter gets an additional member only thread and their username in gold showing that they are a lifetime supporter. People who have a membership can use different tools in the forum. One of the biggest benefits is the search tool that utilizes google search engine instead of the forum search. Then they have the non users that can view and create posts in the thread.


    I myself is a lifetime supporter for the site because of the value and information of the community. I would have no problem donating to robot forum because i value this forum just as much as plctalk.net.

    Thank you for your honest feedback :blumen:
    I agree with you all to 100%, I also dont like annoying ads, flashing banners, intrusive popups etc.


    However, after having been running the forum here for over 12 years, i decided that the forum itself must be supportive.
    Please understand, i invested tens of thousands of dollars, thousands of hours work, sleepless nights and so on.
    I enjoy to see this great Community growing and this makes me proud to help so many people all over the Wold with this Forum.


    I can not thank you enough often THANK YOU to our Moderators and valued Members they help together to solve robotic Problems.


    The advertising is now running for 5 days and I'm still trying to find the best solution for everyone.
    Please forgive me if it does not work out so well in the beginning.

    I am grateful for any feedback from you. :fine:
    I will try to consider all your opinions and try to find the best solution.


    I would like to ask you to use no ad blocker, because the forum also earns money with the pageviews.
    This allows me to continue to operate the forum, to go to the best possible server structure and incorporate useful features.


    The forum will continue to be free for all, I promise :justice:



    Thanks for your understanding :yessir:

    A couple of forums I use have the option to make a donation towards the running costs, once you have donated you no longer see the ads.
    I understand the need for ads to help with the running costs, but they do seem intrusive, maybe once admin have fine tuned the settings things will improve as it's only been a few days.


    Edit: just noticed all my "likes" given and received have disappeared, anyone else had this?.

    Quote from RoboWeld


    A couple of forums I use have the option to make a donation towards the running costs, once you have donated you no longer see the ads.
    I understand the need for ads to help with the running costs, but they do seem intrusive, maybe once admin have fine tuned the settings things will improve as it's only been a few days.


    Edit: just noticed all my "likes" given and received have disappeared, anyone else had this?.


    I noticed, formerly known as thanks given/received gone.

    Quote from Lemster68


    I noticed, formerly known as thanks given/received gone.


    thats also in Progress. I want to add the Received Thanks to the new Likes Function. Not to easy, but i will do it. Hope so.

    OK, i changed the Adverts a bit. :yessir:


    Guests and Newbies (until 50 Posts) see 1 Adverts on Top and on Bottom that Buttons.
    Inside a Tread they see a Advertise after first Post and every 7 Posts.
    Inside a Board 1 Advert is shown after 7 Treads.


    All Members with more then 50 Posts (Jr. Member to Hero Member) dont see that Posts inside a Tread, but the first one.
    Does it work ?

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