NOTE: ADS ON THE FORUM (updated 26/10/21)

Roland

TTony said:

A formalised payment model  changes the relationship between the forum and its members.   ... 

This drives my thinking

fastonebaz

Oddly I'm quite enjoying the mystery surprise of what ad I'll see next.   Currently it's a choice of new tyres or crypto currency. 

PC_Dave

Rather ironically the adverts I keep seeing are
for ad blockers…

Mattharrier

The ads aren't causing me any issues, they stay where they are instead of following along as I scroll, and don't seem to be causing any issues with making pages freeze or crash, so I'm fine with them - certainly far better than many sites these days.

Kittyfrisk

OK my input.
At home, Mac, Safari, AdBlock, Ghostery & DuckDuckGo = limited search results, but minimally tracked, ad free viewing. Nice.
I am lifelong Facebook (oops, 'Meta') & ad-averse, but if you arent bothered, then that's cool, I'm not judging & would appreciate the same.

Just tried the mobile site for a change using iPhone & Google, no blocking apps.
 Moderately annoying reloading upper ad, with frankly weird content.
Ansaranda deal platform, offering "fret results in donor quenching leads to fluorescence intensity"
Alternating with 'picoquant for life science'.
I'm flattered that the algorithm has divined from a single visit that I spent some years as a lab technician & my niece has a doctorate in biological science, but really, WTF?

So, whatever is decided regarding the future of the site, to paraprase a famous quote, I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, numbered, tracked, traced, measured & have ads pushed at me 

However, a subscription model sounds fine by me as I really appreciate the effort taken to maintain the site & I don't expect this place to run itself for free or by random donations, unless that actually works.

thumpingrug

digitalscream said:

thumpingrug said:

Ok, Ive seen ads for stuff I was at least vaguely interested in now so clicked through to see what happened ( during in the course of research, you understand), and unlike other links on this site where it opens in a new tab, the ads replace the fretboard.  Knowing this I can work around it but, its the most annoying thing about them so far.  

PS.  do i get commission on the commission the you are getting if I keep clicking??

LOL at the last bit. The numbers are so tiny you wouldn't get a string, much less a pack of them

On the new tab thing...I can see how it'd be annoying. It opens a new tab on all my browsers and devices. What are you using?

Wow, this place moves on quick.

The new tab thing is an anomaly rather than anything else as all the embedded links in posts open in a new tab.  I'm using safari on a MacBook as my main browser.   I find the ads fine but at the same time would be happy with a subscription via patreon if thats the way you want to go.

Emp_Fab

Online gambling ads?  Really?  @digitalscream ;

Kittyfrisk

Aaah c'mon Emp, Lee has said already that he has been trying to block all such content. Hardly his fault that the forces of advertising & gambling are more practiced at getting round such efforts. Early days yet.

Emp_Fab

Apologies in that case.  I haven't read any of the threads in depth.  

Roland

Keep up 007

ICBM

Various aspects of the editor in Safari, iOS 15.1 now appear to be broken - the edit function doesn't work, paragraphs don't separate properly, and if you use Quote then you get HTML mode. Is this related?

digitalscream

ICBM said:

Various aspects of the editor in Safari, iOS 15.1 now appear to be broken - the edit function doesn't work, paragraphs don't separate properly, and if you use Quote then you get HTML mode. Is this related?

I don't think so - that seems to be related to the latest Safari release in 15.1. Of course, that had to happen on the same day I implemented the ads

digitalscream

Yet another update, for those who are following this - I'm going to work pretty hard on this over the weekend, with the goal being:

1 - Get Patreon set up for subscriptions (and verify that this is an acceptable use case under their ToS).
2 - Get it integrated with the forum in some way.
3 - Add image uploads in some form for subscribers.

The aim is to allow subscriptions at a low cost (both annual and monthly), which will both remove ads and let you upload images directly into the editor. As I said before, I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of people subscribing and getting nothing but what they had a week ago.

I'll also have a look at the editor problems with iOS 15.1, but I don't actually have an Apple device to even be able to reproduce it, so I'm likely to be doing it on pure guesswork. From previous experience, though, last time Apple borked this sort of thing with a botched Safari update and I fixed it with a couple of days' work, they fixed it a couple of weeks later thus wasting my entire weekend....so I'm a little loathe to spend too much time on it so soon after their release.

If I can't fix it and it's still broken with the inevitable patch release of iOS, I've got a trusted JS and Apple developer who can take a look at it (she's just not available immediately).

ICBM

I did wonder that. I just happened to get a new phone on the same day so I had no choice but to upgrade iOS straight away... I normally like to leave it a week or so since as you say, Apple seem to do this sort of thing regularly!

I’m posting this on an old iOS 12 device and the editor seems to work fine. 

poopot

digitalscream said:

ICBM said:

Various aspects of the editor in Safari, iOS 15.1 now appear to be broken - the edit function doesn't work, paragraphs don't separate properly, and if you use Quote then you get HTML mode. Is this related?

I don't think so - that seems to be related to the latest Safari release in 15.1. Of course, that had to happen on the same day I implemented the ads

Safari and 15.1 here… working the same as it’s always done for me… can’t replicate @ICBM’s issue

ICBM

poopot said:

Safari and 15.1 here… working the same as it’s always done for me… can’t replicate @ICBM’s issue

Damn, you’re right - I’ve just updated my backup phone to 15.1 as well, and the editor is still working fine. It’s some sort of issue with the new phone then…

Ah well, it will keep me wasting too much time when I’m out and about, so it’s not all bad .

digitalscream

ICBM said:

poopot said:

Safari and 15.1 here… working the same as it’s always done for me… can’t replicate @ICBM’s issue

Damn, you’re right - I’ve just updated my backup phone to 15.1 as well, and the editor is still working fine. It’s some sort of issue with the new phone then…

Ah well, it will keep me wasting too much time when I’m out and about, so it’s not all bad .

OK, it still might want looking at. Which phone did you get?

ICBM

digitalscream said:

OK, it still might want looking at. Which phone did you get?

iPhone SE 2nd generation 64GB.

Edit: fixed it. It needed JavaScript turned on. Presumably off by default now.

gatheredinsong

TTony said:

We’re probably all so used to seeing ads everywhere now, that we don’t (consciously) see them, adblocker or no.

I only just saw this thread. I must fall into this category because over the last couple days I have thought "is something different?" but not been able to put my finger on it 

digitalscream

ICBM said:

digitalscream said:

OK, it still might want looking at. Which phone did you get?

iPhone SE 2nd generation 64GB.

Edit: fixed it. It needed JavaScript turned on. Presumably off by default now.

Fantastic - thanks for letting me know. I can't believe they'd deliberately turn it off...that'd break half the Internet for their customers.

Although...it's not beyond the realms of possibility for a company like Apple. "The Internet doesn't work properly, so just install an app....".