With Supporter status, I am nevertheless seeing a Scrivener ad on the site home page, alternating with Writing Forums promotional blocks. Is this a site endorsement of a product? This goes well beyond the random banner ads that are pushed by google ads. I don't mind supporting Writing Forums org financially, but I object to paying to promote stuff like Scrivener, much less having it rubbed in my face when I connect to the site.
I'm fine seeing that Scrivener ad, and the box with changing message on it. I'm a supporter and I have ad block on so I don't see banner ads. To me Scrivener is a resource a lot of us use. Posting resources in that square makes some sense.
I see Cog's point, though. Scrivener seems to be the only software being promoted, so it's not like there are alternating software "promos" like there should be if it were actually listing resources.
As a Supporter you shouldn't see the ads. I'll look into this - the reason is I'm using a new ad rotating system. It was supposed to hide it from Supporters but it probably hasn't because you're in multiple usergroups, not just the Supporter group. Do you think all of those square banners should be hidden for Supporters, including the on-site banners, or just actual advertisements? I guess the difference is that WF can make money from Adsense and Scrivener sales, so I see where Cogs coming from because it's an ad-plain and simple mixed in with on-site ads.
I dig the on-sight banners, as we have been discussing. I personally don't care about the Scrivener ad being there because I've been using it for years and LOVE it, but I can see where Cog is coming from. Maybe if it were just internally relevant banners? I see so many great uses for those banners as internal information points beyond the ones you've already created. Announcements for winners of contests, of the contests themselves; new staff, volunteers, reviewers, lots of things. You know I've been trying to partner with my deviantart pals to get some class-act art to make things pop!
@Cogito I added a conditional statement around the ad I hope will block Adsense and Scrivener for Supporters. I'm going to dig into it a little further though, since I thought they were blocked already. In the meantime, could you let me know if you still see them or my change has worked?
I could take out the Adsense/Scrivener ads from the location, but WF does need to generate some income. I figure showing an off-site ad 1/8th-1/10th the time should be no big deal for most people since that spot was previously only off-site advertisements (though Supporters of course shouldn't see them at all). I'm considering maybe reducing their size into a half, third, or fourth of the current size, and test out how it looks with one there, or even several stacked up. Like just this bit of the banner:
From a design aspect, I like the size they are now. Big enough for catchy graphics to go with verbiage.
I'm happy with the Scrivener ad, or any other ad that's directed specifically at writers. It's not intrusive and it doesn't demand that I click somewhere to get rid of it (I HATE having to click to get rid of an ad). The forum needs more revenue, so maybe we should have a kind of "pledge drive," the way public radio does. Try to get all those members who aren't supporters to kick in a few bucks to help out. Make everyone understand that none of this is completely free.
I can see leaving the WF-specific announcement panels visible to Supporters (although that too is open to debate - none of those announcements should be news to Supporters), but the Scrivener one is an advertisement for a commercial product, period. Supporters pay, among other reasons, to not be pestered with advertising.
I am now seeing MORE ads in that upper right corner of the main page, despite Supporter status. Ironically, the newest ad was followed by an invitation panel: Supporter Membership No Ads. Private Forum. Extra Features. Grow and Support WritingForums.org.
You shouldn't be seeing statistically more, it's done by a random generator and I haven't added any. It really shouldn't be showing you any based on my understanding, I'll keep digging. Once I figure it out I'll be sure to remove the Supporter Membership banner from Supporters too. Thanks Dave.
I don't think we should. I can't afford to kick in even a few bucks, and so it would make me and other people who couldn't afford it feel bad. 5 bucks is literally a fortune to me. (I won my supporter membership, if you're wondering.) I actually wouldn't mind seeing ads as a supporter, that's how the site makes money, no?
Talking about ads, I believe I had an ad that wasn't related to WF in that corner this afternoon. Those ads don't really bother me since they're not in the middle of the forum or anything, but I thought I'd point it out anyway.
Thanks - as a supporter you shouldn't be seeing ads (I don't consider WF forum ads as "real ads.) If it was completely unrelated it might have been a Google ad. I'm having a little trouble exempting the Supporter membergroup from the non-WF ads from a tech-perspective. If I can't figure it out today I'll have to come up with a more crude solution, but I'll work out something. My first reaction was no to any sort of drive or fundraiser, even though we did it successfully once in the past to upgrade the server/software. I really hate asking for money, and people usually hate getting asked. But honestly, this might be something we really need to consider doing. The upgrade to Xenforo resulted in us losing rankings in the search engine, which cut our visitors way down, and ultimately, revenue. This was to be expected, but it happened to coincide around budgeting/announcement of the sci-fi contest and with some personal financial issues, so the backlash from the upgrade is kinda strong. I still think it was the best move for WF long-term though, we just need to get over this hump. Unfortunately, right now WF doesn't cover all it's expenses through ad revenue like it used to. I pay the difference out-of-pocket, but times are really tough right now and I'm not sure I'll continue to be able to do so even though I'd like to. I don't want to have to choose between paying rent and paying the hosting bill. I don't like it, but a fundraiser would help a lot by guaranteeing uptime and taking a lot of stress off myself. Would this be something people would be willing to do? Our monthly expenses are around $270, but we can get buy with approximately $170 monthly if need be, which we are this month, but cutting out our third-party email server. Even if a couple people donated that'd help. Another potential way to help long-term is to link to our website, forums, and resources - it can help boost our search engine rankings and ultimately restore the traffic and ad revenue to where it can at least cover server costs. And Duchess, if we did do some kind of fundraiser there'd really be no need to feel bad at all, we wouldn't expect everyone to donate, especially if it'd be difficult to do so. No worries. And to answer your question, we do make money from ads, but the amount that one person using WritingForums.org could really contribute in terms of revenue through using our forums is probably fractions of pennies on the dollar for the average visitor So no worries, please enjoy the ad-free membership.
@Cogito on a more relevant note, you shouldn't be seeing external ads anymore. If you are, let me know. The ad rotator wasn't hiding ads for people in the unselected usergroup (supporter) because all Supporters are members of multiple usergroups. So I had to change your primary usergroup. It's not the best solution but it was the quickest. I'll try to hide external ads from everyone else who has Supporter Membership as well, but I can't guarantee I will (at least until I can find a different solution) unless you contact me in this thread or via PM. Thanks guys.
It was, sorry about that!! It was a permissions issue - I'm still trying to learn the ropes for Xenforo.
