Paying it's way

[Jezreel]

No chance. It'll ruin everything. YUou bastardsdusd21!2"12

[Ekona]

I'd rather send you a quid a month to your bank account than have ads everywhere (whether I block them or not). Clicky ads are horrible things and, given the amount of fun times I have here, I'm more than happy to contribute towards the running of the place. It's worth more than £1 pcm really to me, so just name your price and I'll do that instead.


And I know you weren't fishing for money or anything like that, I'm just saying how I'd prefer to do things. Actually, I'll even pay Jo's pound as well, so make it £2.

[Savara]

Likewise.

[Dan]

Just for reference, it would look something like this, but with more complementary colours, right at the bottom of every page (so it wouldn't affect the positioning of the content):


My personal feeling on Dan's idea is that it causes the problem of creating almost a 'two teir' forum: those who have paid and those who haven't. There's also the fact that one of the things I said when I took this on is that I wouldn't ask for money, and I can't and don't want to change that - especially as there is no clear 'Otherplace' outgoings from my / the companies bank account - it wouldn't be fair on anyone. The adverts would bring in a small amount of cash which has been 'earned' rather than gifted, and any hosting referrals from the link would be an additional bonus, but again not be a handout.

Regardless Dan, thanks very much for the offer: it's appreciated

[Dan]

The other thing I'm looking at is http://www.projectwonderful.com - they use a different advertising model whereby advertisers choose 'your' website as the target for their ad, so what was being displayed might actually be relevant and interesting to the people on here? It's also done on a time basis, to avoid click fraud. Similar style of advertising, but more targeted, basically.

[gamerfreak]

Try disabling and enabling Ad Block on that site. Looks so different in both cases!

[Ekona]

In all honesty I've never clicked an ad in my life, and without being reminded every month I'm very unlikely to start now. I know that comes across as particularly cuntish but I really don't mean it like that, more that I'm very set in my interweb browsing ways, that's why I'd rather just pay some monies and be done with it and I shall feel no guilt then if I forget to click as often as others.

[Dan]

In all honesty I've never clicked an ad in my life, and without being reminded every month I'm very unlikely to start now. I know that comes across as particularly cuntish but I really don't mean it like that, more that I'm very set in my interweb browsing ways, that's why I'd rather just pay some monies and be done with it and I shall feel no guilt then if I forget to click as often as others.

The advantage with the second option is that it isn't per click. Regardless, there would be no reason for anyone who blocked / totally ignored the ads to feel in any way guilty, because as I said above, this isn't a 'cost' that has to be met.

[Jezreel]

Targeted ads based on our posts?
Awesome! Minge Food Cars titties and Tubgirl ahoy!

[Dan]

Targeted ads based on our posts?
Awesome! Minge Food Cars titties and Tubgirl ahoy!

I was guessing that it was more likely to be tech/gadgety stuff, but that is a very real possibility

[Jezreel]

Just in case.

MINGE
FOOD
CARS
TITTIES
TUBGIRL

[DCUK7]

I use Safari on my Mac to view this forum so I'd see any ads and if one were to interest me (always a first time I suppose) I would click it. The only ads I object to on forums are the ones that look like posts. That fucks me right off for some reason!

Also, off topic but when is phpBB gonna get AJAX-like with its poll votes and get quick replies?! Even my own ASP.NET forum has that!!!

[Ward]

I'm alright with pseudo-text or image ads on the page footers. Bonus points if they only have to be seen to earn you monies.

Will it actually cover the cost of the hosting, though?

[Dan]

I'm not sure really. If it does, then brilliant. If not, then it doesn't really matter because as I said it isn't really a noticeable 'cost', but a utilisation of resources.

[kingweed]

16/1 think it's fair to put them in.