BigSoccer PLEASE stop! When I'm at work and trying to sneak in a peek at the boards, I don't need a sound clip to give it away.
Something I'd thought of but never made it back to say.... Which hurts the site more? People blocking the offending ad server but continuing to visit the site - continuing to drive pageviews for advertisers that AREN'T jerks - or people ceasing to visit the site at all because of the offensive ad content?
Exactly. This is what the message needs to be when people criticize ad-blocking software. If the ads remain suitable, quiet, and non-distracting, there's no need to block them.
I've had to redirect people from two separate threads on two separate forums today alone to here, due to complaints about them. I don't use BS in work, and my the sound on my netbook is horrific (you actually have to put headphone IN to get higher volume, if you are showing a video to somebody or somesuch), so it doesn't bother me -too- much. But this is something a lot of people are livid about, moreso than any single issue on the site I can remember. Yes, even moreso than those epilepsy-inducing ads from a few years back.
Just got it again, this time with an American Express commercial. Edit - correction, Citibank, not American Express. And just now, an Olive Garden "never ending pasta bowl" commercial. WTF!??! TURN IT OFF!!!
Joining the group complaining about them. Slows my browser down, too. Keep getting one for Olive Garden.
Allowing a company to throw loud ads that can't be muted on your site hurts your site. I figured out how to use adblock specifically for this issue, and make no apologies. I still see ads from any other advertising services that BigSoccer uses.
I have the platinum (or whatever the most-expensive) premium level is called, and I still see the AT&T ad on the front page. I believe it was true at one time that BSSC membership only covers the forums and not the blogs, homepage, or anything else. I'm guessing this is still the case.
ditto on these ads with uncontrollable sound. glad i'm not the only one. come on bigsoccer, dont be lame
Not long now until BS realises how stupid this tactic is surely... Or do they wait for members to stop coming onto the site.
I managed to block the ad with AdBlock for Chrome. No apologies. I used to cough up $35 per year, every year, for premium membership. So glad I stopped doing it. And I will never do it again.
And if BigSoccer goes under - at least you will have your integrity. Seriously, again I apologize to those who have been put out by these ads, but at the end of the day it's still a mom and pop shop where no one is quitting their day jobs and sometimes things take time to correct because we can't be managing things 24-7 like McDonalds. I would hope that folks that use the site regularly will understand that our servers are very expensive and while they may not always be crazy about having to see ads, they'll understand that the bills have to be paid somehow. I'm sure you'd survive if BigSoccer went away, but I still think it's a unique place and the soccer discussion is better for it's existence. This seems to be the same kind of attitude that's killing newspapers - not only do I expect everything to be free, I'm going to be hostile towards you if you are trying to take away my internet "free"dom -- although that wouldn't be fair to you as a generalization, because you have been a big supporter of the site regularly in the past - just not sure why you would go to the other extreme. At the end of the day, I would hope that folks who get some enjoyment out of this site would not encourage others to actively try to defeat it and would consider clicking on ads occasionally to help support the site.
This post would have been great, had you bothered to have the underlying problem of the sound on the ad taken out. I don't mind seeing ads, IT'S HEARING THEM WE ARE COMPLAINING ABOUT. Thx, Jay!
I get it - and again, I don't think it's our policy to have passively activated audio ads so I'm trying to sort it out.
Hyperbole much? Rather than chastising your users, why don't you contact http://ad.simbiotico.com/ and tell them to stop?
I think it's a little bit over the top to be complaining about the people blocking ONE OBNOXIOUS AD on your site and claim poor us, now the whole site is going to go away. You act like you're doing us all a favor and while virtually all of us are glad this site is here your first mistake will be if you guys start acting like you're not replaceable. Mom and Pop shop or not, this ad has been running for at least 4 days now and nothing has been done except chastising those of us who have done something about it on our local machines.
I don't want to be rude, I know you're doing the best you can, but a timely update as to what action you'd be taking, and an estimated timescale for when the issue would be sorted, would have prevented us all rushing for the adblock software.
Fair enough - I just feel like sometimes the fact that it's not McDonald's rolling in the dough gets lost - but perhaps I'm not doing that any favors if it just sounds like I'm chastising. Just see a lot of this kind of comment and Jeremy is smarter than the kind of poster I usually see it from so I reacted - I should have known better. I also have zero experience with ad blocking so I wasn't aware you could target one specific ad. My bad. Those ads are really annoying - at least we can agree on that!
As one of the folks who pointed out one of the ways to defeat the offending ad, I wanted to respond to this. I limit the items that are included on my block list to only the truly offensive ads. And I don't do it on a site by site basis - they're blocked for every site for every computer on my home network. Unfortunately for BigSoccer, you've been responsible for both entries on my block list - openx.org and simbiotico.com. I won't pretend that it's inexpensive - both in time and money - to run a site like this. But that's not an excuse for you to blithely accept advertisements that violate one of the cardinal rules of internet browsing. On a static page, the expectation is that until you DO something, the page isn't going to do anything - it's simply going to sit there and wait. The Levi's ad, and apparently others by simbiotico.com, violates that expectation, and then doesn't give you the option to click on a mute button to shut it up.