How should PriusChat be paid for?

But THAT is not what you asked them. Heck I would have cheerfully voted that ads that pop under, pop over, expand, or play noises are evil. You did not ask that at all, you asked how the site should be funded. And simply, it is not your responsibility.

I see nothing in any of your threads that is some one in authority stating 'we can't afford to offend our advertisers, so the ads have to stay', in fact I see no one in authority in any of those threads, except Paradox does try to keep it within one thread. My theory that Danny is too busy to cope with feedback is as valid as your theory that Danny is too poor to refuse the ads. Notice that none of those threads are in the site feedback forum, because this site has no site feedback forum. So my theory that Danny has no time for feedback is at least as valid as your theory he can't afford to listen to feedback.

Seriously, show any evidence that changing how the site is financed would in anyway remove only annoying ads. (if it had no ads at all, it would have no annoying ads, but that is not just eliminating annoying ads)

You have a marvelous cart, why is it before the horse?

 

We had the same issue come up in the Nissan Leaf forum recently - we had a poll and decided to go with "A combination voluntary donations and non-intrusive ads (eg, Google AdSense)". Just like here this option got the most votes.

Funny thing with ads is - a lot of us are willing to pay for them. I for one buy local newspaper mostly for the ads.

So, the key to ads is being relevent and non-intrusive.

 

I do not suspect Danny has anything to do with the obtrusive ads, I suspect his advertisers are slipping ads that do not meet Danny's specs, and he is too busy to catch them.

And I object to that, as you make are proposing Danny lie to us in his TOS Terms of Service | PriusChat "We will not openly or covertly ask any member for money or other kinds of compensation for general access and the right to post on our site." Until you resolve this with Danny it is irresponsible to imply you can alter the funding of this site. (emphasis mine)

Oh good I was wrong.

Your claim is that every one of your earlier thread examples is misfiled?

I have tried to only claim an opinion, as I do not think either of us knows Danny's situation here. In fact I thought my position was that trying find a solution for a problem we do not have any facts on was nonproductive. Your position seems to be "Damn the facts, full speed ahead!"

I will shut up and await any authoritative reply.

 

It seems pretty simple to me: Make a donation of some minimum amount and you see no ads. Danny or the mods could choose to give a free "membership" to anyone who they considered to be providing unusually valuable information, or to be unusually helpful towards newbies.

I don't see ads anyway. But I would contribute, as I did when there was simply a "contribute" button. It could be as simple as if you contribute you get a little banner under your name identifying you as a contributor.

Of course, it's Danny's site, and he can do what he likes. Apparently he does not consider contributions necessary. Maybe, since ad revenue is based partly on the number of viewers, giving people a pass on ads would reduce revenue more than the contributions add to it. If that's the case, I feel bad about blocking them. But I just find ads annoying, which is why, when I like a site, such as this, I'd gladly contribute voluntarily to compensate for blocking the ads.

 

You are going a little hard on Danny. I have talked with him about this before, and he is very aware of the irritation caused by obtrusive ads. In the past he has removed certain advertisers because of the nature of their ads. The problem is that he does not personally select the advertisers. As you know, he contracts with advertising companies, and they supply the ads. Everything can be great for six months, then something stupid shows up, like the Home Depot ads. He can ask to have those blocked, but it's like playing whack-a-mole. He has to deal with each problem as it arises. That is a big burden for a free site.

Tom

 

Especially since he now has a mini-Cooper.

 

Agreed. Doubleclick is the Antichrist of the advertising world. I despise pretty much everything about how they operate.

Tom

 

I beg to differ: Those companies are horrid, but removing them does not insure that other ad-serving companies won't serve up obnoxious ads.

Unfortunately, it is probably not possible for Danny to contract with individual advertisers. Ad servers are the way ad-based web sites get their revenue. And considering Danny's obvious concern for this board and us, I suspect that if he could dump Double-Click and still obtain the revenue needed to run the board he probably would.

Clearly, Danny wants this board to be open, so he's stuck with ad servers. My only reason for advocating voluntary contributions is that I'd contribute, as a compensation for the fact that I block ads. I block them across the board, for all sites.

 

I just turn on AdBlock and let it do its thing. I don't understand this stuff well enough to be selective.

 

It's getting too heavy in here....

 

Perhaps make them a little more intrusive for some forums. <grins>

Bob Wilson

 

LOL... sounds like me Dad!

 

HA! You think Google tracking you on nearly every web site you visit is innocuous? Hardly. Think of the profile they have on you...

Google owns DoubleClick. Heck, I block Analytics and not AdSense! G Analytics is pure evil, well I don't the big G tracking my every movement on the web

 

Figuring out what to block and what not to block is too complicated. I just let AdBlocker Plus block everything it thinks is an ad. On sites that I like, if there is a donation option, I donate.

Does anybody know how much a site like Prius Chat actually gets each time your browser loads an ad?