Moving to the next page issues

[Bobsbeer]

I guess my account will soon be deleted for breach of the TOS. Just in case I don't get chance before the white screen comes, take care guys and vape on.   It's been a blast knowing you all.   Tease-smiley

[Chrissie]

Aug 27, 2015 17:29:09 GMT *-SARIN-* said:

Aug 27, 2015 16:26:57 GMT Chrissie said:

When you first created your account, you agreed to proboards terms of service & ones of those terms of service is that you must not use an ad bloker.

There are only 2 banner ads - one at the top of the forum & another at the bottom, so you aren't bombarded by ads. If it wasn't for the ads, how do you think Proboards could continue to provide free forums?

I didn't bother to read the pages of TOS but yes there it is, tucked inside the document at 19(d).

To answer your other question they make their money by annoying users so that they eventually buy a premium account that removes the ads, which they know are annoying to users and the reason that they don't want you to use ad blocking plug-ins.  I still fail to see how using an ad blocker puts me in the category of not supporting this site as per the big yellow letters at the top of the page.  Obviously there have been issues with the advertising before due to the following at the top of the page:

"Please note, any banner ads that you see at the top & bottom of the forum are placed there, not by us, but by our host Proboards. Therefore the items advertised are not endorsed by the forum."

What would you do if an anti-vaping lobby decided to rent those spaces at the top and bottom of the pages?  In fact i'm amazed that they haven't already.

Am i going to turn ad-blocker off for this site?  Well that's for Proboards to find out, which they can't so their thinly veiled attempt at trying to control what i do and don't see is potentially pointless.  The users make the site not the provider, without users they will disappear very quickly, as has been proven in the past.  Proboards are not there for our benefit, they are there to make money, that's the reason that they provide "free" forums, not because they are just a jolly nice bunch of chaps.

I'm not having a go, it's just that along with many others we are fed up with being forced to see crap that we don't want to.  

PS.  I go into Tesco petrol stations with a mask on so that the facial recognition software can't tailor in your face adverts to me whilst i wait to pay for my fuel.

/tinhatbackon.

Without the free site, there wouldn't be any users of this forum as I can not afford to pay for an ad free forum.. And of course Proboards are there to make money - same as the vendors on here.

Aug 27, 2015 17:53:10 GMT Bobsbeer said:

I guess my account will soon be deleted for breach of the TOS. Just in case I don't get chance before the white screen comes, take care guys and vape on.   It's been a blast knowing you all.   Tease-smiley

I wont be deleting your account, but I am gutted that folks are getting so upset about one banner ad at the top & another at the bottom of the forum

[gill2009]

I don't often get incensed...but really guys...what is all the fuss about?

Enjoy our Forum...for without it, we would be so worse off.

It's a couple of banners only  

[Perpetua]

Aug 27, 2015 19:54:30 GMT Chrissie said:

Aug 27, 2015 17:53:10 GMT Bobsbeer said:

I guess my account will soon be deleted for breach of the TOS. Just in case I don't get chance before the white screen comes, take care guys and vape on.   It's been a blast knowing you all.   Tease-smiley

I wont be deleting your account, but I am gutted that folks are getting so upset about one banner ad at the top & another at the bottom of the forum

Please don't be Chrissie . . . .  I've never heard such a fuss over something really quite trifling in the scheme of things.

I've never used an Ad Blocker, nor have any intention of doing so - my eyes are my Ad Block. Simples.

[Bobsbeer]

Aug 27, 2015 19:54:30 GMT Chrissie said:

I wont be deleting your account, but I am gutted that folks are getting so upset about one banner ad at the top & another at the bottom of the forum

I wasn't thinking you would, I was meaning Proboards would if they caught me. I'm not upset about the ads on here, but I have ad blocker running to stop ads on other pages mainly. The ones on here are not too bad in the scheme of things and easy to ignore. It's better without, but if Proboards think I'm going to pay $6 a month to get rid of them, they are deluding themselves. I can well understand you not paying to get rid of them, and Proboards mustn't be too put out or they would close the site down.

[Chrissie]

For anyone using ad blocker & have therefore never seen the ads that are "bombarding us", this is what they look like -

The present one at the top -



And the current one at the bottom -



Are they really that bad? There are no pop ups at all, so surely it's got to be worth doing what lairey suggested so that your browser can find the correct part of the page to take you to

[*-SARIN-*]

RANT DELETED.

[snow]

I don't understand the issue with banner ads at all, it allows everyone here to be able to be a part of a friendly supportive vaping community for FREE, forum hosting is not cheap especially for a forum with the amount of traffic and users that this one has, moreover theres plenty of admin with this board going on behind the scenes even with proboards support. With a privately hosted board that admin time increases tenfold and thats just the backroom stuff, making sure its backed up, security patched etc. Proboards have overheads so they use advertising to defray those costs and yes probably turn a profit, and whats wrong with that? Chrissie allows vendors to come here and effectively advertise their profit making businesses for FREE in return many of them pass on a discount for forum members to use, no one seems to have a problem with that, nor do I suspect would anyone try to find a way to block those threads, if people aren't interested in them they simply pay no attention to them, and its as simple as that to ignore the 2 banner ads on the forum.

[*-SARIN-*]

Aug 27, 2015 20:42:13 GMT snow said:

I don't understand the issue with banner ads at all, it allows everyone here to be able to be a part of a friendly supportive vaping community for FREE, forum hosting is not cheap especially for a forum with the amount of traffic and users that this one has, moreover theres plenty of admin with this board going on behind the scenes even with proboards support. With a privately hosted board that admin time increases tenfold and thats just the backroom stuff, making sure its backed up, security patched etc. Proboards have overheads so they use advertising to defray those costs and yes probably turn a profit, and whats wrong with that? Chrissie allows vendors to come here and effectively advertise their profit making businesses for FREE in return many of them pass on a discount for forum members to use, no one seems to have a problem with that, nor do I suspect would anyone try to find a way to block those threads, if people aren't interested in them they simply pay no attention to them, and its as simple as that to ignore the 2 banner ads on the forum.

The major difference is that the you have to click to see the vendors advertisements, with the Proboards adverts you have no choice.  Anyway i agree with some other users, this is a fuss over nothing and i can't be bothered anymore.

[Perpetua]

Aug 27, 2015 20:39:51 GMT *-SARIN-* said:

Perpetua " I've never heard such a fuss over something really quite trifling in the scheme of things. " Then don't worry yourself over the fact that i'm using an ad blocker.

Believe me, I am not worried *-SARIN-* . . . . tough old baggage me.

What does concern me however, is the angst that this appears to be causing on the forum - now that I do find rather sad.

[*-SARIN-*]

Aug 27, 2015 20:53:07 GMT Perpetua said:

Aug 27, 2015 20:39:51 GMT *-SARIN-* said:

Perpetua " I've never heard such a fuss over something really quite trifling in the scheme of things. " Then don't worry yourself over the fact that i'm using an ad blocker.

Believe me, I am not worried *-SARIN-* . . . . tough old baggage me.

What does concern me however, is the angst that this appears to be causing on the forum - now that I do find rather sad.

You'll find that it isn't just this forum that has lots of users that are against forced advertising, plenty do and many of those people feel very strongly about it.

[Chrissie]

Aug 27, 2015 20:39:51 GMT *-SARIN-* said:

Chrissie Like i said i'm not trying to cause a problem but you are aware that a forum can go on ANY hosting and doesn't have to be proboards? Therefore they need us more than we need them, not the other way around for they would not survive without the users, we would.

I m very aware that "a forum can go on ANY hosting and doesn't have to be proboards".

However, without Proboards, this forum would never have existed. Way back in October 2009, when i was given 24 hours by the ebay community manager to remove all links to e-cigs in my ebay All About E-cigarettes community group, the only other type of forum I'd ever been on was a hosted by Proboards. So that night, even though I didn't have a clue what I was doing back then, I set up this forum using Proboards.

[*-SARIN-*]

Aug 27, 2015 20:59:00 GMT Chrissie said:

Aug 27, 2015 20:39:51 GMT *-SARIN-* said:

Chrissie Like i said i'm not trying to cause a problem but you are aware that a forum can go on ANY hosting and doesn't have to be proboards? Therefore they need us more than we need them, not the other way around for they would not survive without the users, we would.

I m very aware that "a forum can go on ANY hosting and doesn't have to be proboards".

However, without Proboards, this forum would never have existed. Way back in October 2009, when i was given 24 hours by the ebay community manager to remove all links to e-cigs in my ebay All About E-cigarettes community group, the only other type of forum I'd ever been on was a hosted by Proboards. So that night, even though I didn't have a clue what I was doing back then, I set up this forum using Proboards.

and a mighty fine job you did too. x

[gill2009]

Aug 27, 2015 20:59:00 GMT Chrissie said:

Aug 27, 2015 20:39:51 GMT *-SARIN-* said:

Chrissie Like i said i'm not trying to cause a problem but you are aware that a forum can go on ANY hosting and doesn't have to be proboards? Therefore they need us more than we need them, not the other way around for they would not survive without the users, we would.

I m very aware that "a forum can go on ANY hosting and doesn't have to be proboards".

However, without Proboards, this forum would never have existed. Way back in October 2009, when i was given 24 hours by the ebay community manager to remove all links to e-cigs in my ebay All About E-cigarettes community group, the only other type of forum I'd ever been on was a hosted by Proboards. So that night, even though I didn't have a clue what I was doing back then, I set up this forum using Proboards.

 And thank goodness you did Chrissie...or I would still be smoking 

[Raffles]

Sorry, but I don't see a problem here... a couple of ads at top and bottom when page loads... just ignore.

The ones I do get upset about are on various top company / news sites, where they just take over the screen until you click 'close'... the audio/ videos on some pages that run on auto and you have to scroll up and down to find the offending 'shite' and click 'stop'. If these ads are making money I'd be amazed, they are so irritating... nothing here to complain about.