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[Owen Bawn]

My laptop was unreadable but my phone was fine until an hour ago. Now my phone is worse than my laptop. I cleared cookies. Made no difference. I feel for the moderators who have to put up with this. I'll check in here once a day to see if this improves but it's difficult to believe that this isn't by design. Just pay and it goes away!

 

[luvmysuper]

We have stated categorically that it is not by design.
To infer that we are not being truthful about it is very insulting.

On a side note, we all pay for access one way or another, by doing work for the site, by being a contributor or by having ads. There's no free lunch, and never was. This shift to a new ad partner has had some very ugly growing pains but again...
We are working on fixing the problems and it is NOT intentional.

I'm very sorry to those of you having problems, Every time there is a post in this thread I die a little inside before clicking over to read it.
We are working on it hand in hand with the ad company and we'll keep working on it till it is resolved.

 

[never-stop-learning]

We have stated categorically that it is not by design.
To infer that we are not being truthful about it is very insulting.

On a side note, we all pay for access one way or another, by doing work for the site, by being a contributor or by having ads. There's no free lunch, and never was. This shift to a new ad partner has had some very ugly growing pains but again...
We are working on fixing the problems and it is NOT intentional.

I'm very sorry to those of you having problems, Every time there is a post in this thread I die a little inside before clicking over to read it.
We are working on it hand in hand with the ad company and we'll keep working on it till it is resolved.

Well said, Phil.

 

[Alum of Potash]

Out of control. Please, someone fix this.

 

[luvmysuper]

Out of control. Please, someone fix this.

What are you seeing? We can't tell the ad company it's out of control, fix it. I know it's tedious, but you've got to tell us specifically what is happening so we have a legit complaint to make.

 

[life2short1971]

Are you seeing something like this which just popped up? lol

 

[JaggardJ]

My thanks to the people doing the work to fix this. Have a nice day.

FWIW I cleared cookies a couple of days ago and things have been okay since then. Android + chrome (current) on mobile.

 

[B_R_A_D]

Have you logged in with a device other than your phone to compare conditions?

I spoke too soon about lurking not having ads, within a few hours it was the same as when I was logged in. I used my laptop, both logged in and lurking. The ads were the same for me on the laptop except for the ad at the bottom that affected me while typing on my phone, it didn’t affect my typing on the laptop. I’ve installed an ad blocker app for safari, zero ads for the past two days and a pleasant experience on B&B again

 

[Nick]

Are you seeing something like this which just popped up? lol

That one's annoying - Did clicking close actually close or did it bait and switch you? If the latter, that's a problem that we can address.

My laptop was unreadable but my phone was fine until an hour ago. Now my phone is worse than my laptop. I cleared cookies. Made no difference. I feel for the moderators who have to put up with this. I'll check in here once a day to see if this improves but it's difficult to believe that this isn't by design. Just pay and it goes away!

As Phil stated, categorically, it isn't. But if it was, so what? Without a doubt, there are more ads by design. The prior ad count/positioning/network was not enough to pay the bills, including the changes and updates and add-ons we're constantly working on. Having a world-class system admin accomplish all of that is not cheap, and that's just ONE expense out of many for a site of this size.

The goal is not to drive people away, but long ago were the days I'd come out of pocket to foot the server bill back when we were on a shared host and I could manage vBulletin installs and upgrades. My actual job, that pays me and my bills takes too much time, and my wife would kick my backside.

Right now, the average ad display is four ads per page, and they are (on average) about a fifth of the size of what we had with stock Google ads. The average experience has actually improved. Again, the goal is not to turn people away, we're working through the kinks, and the AI simply needs some time to tune itself.

We have stated categorically that it is not by design.
To infer that we are not being truthful about it is very insulting.

On a side note, we all pay for access one way or another, by doing work for the site, by being a contributor or by having ads. There's no free lunch, and never was. This shift to a new ad partner has had some very ugly growing pains but again...
We are working on fixing the problems and it is NOT intentional.

I'm very sorry to those of you having problems, Every time there is a post in this thread I die a little inside before clicking over to read it.
We are working on it hand in hand with the ad company and we'll keep working on it till it is resolved.

And this right here is a big problem and why I'm closing this thread. Badger & Blade has always been a private community for gentlemen held in public view, like a lawn party. The key word there is community. There are few people here that contribute to the community as much as Phil does. There are plenty of ways to not see ads... Be a mod, be an ambassador, contribute a whopping $2.08 per month. Additionally we're working on other programs and fun ways to recognize those building and giving back to the community. The contributors are voting on and giving away Copper contributorships to valued members. We recently made the Wiki Team ad free (work hard on making the Wiki top notch, give back, and you don't have to worry about the ads). We're also working on recognition for members that create great content or share great photos, buuut... the implementation of those programs in addition to taking time for the mods, takes, you guessed it, money.

This thread was critical when we first cut over, but now it's festering, so it's run its course. If you're a contributor or other 'excluded' group and are seeing ads, please PM me. If you're seeing inappropriate ads that violate our guidelines, please screenshot, click through and copy the link and then PM me both, and I'll block them. If you see deceptive ads, or the functionality makes it so you can't click away, please PM me the details. If the frequency or in-your-face nature is overly obtrusive, please PM me screenshots, while keeping in mind, the goal isn't to blast you, but the network change does mean more ads (more in line with the today's standards). I might not be able to respond to all, but I promise I will review every concern, and act on them accordingly.

I apologize for the shock. In retrospect, a change of this magnitude should have been clearly communicated, and hopefully between my daily review with our new ad network, and us calling out the problems, we can get this to a level that's acceptable for everyone and doesn't sour your experience here.