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Thread: Covid Advertising

  1. #1
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    Default Covid Advertising

    I am considering allowing advertising on Austech to help business due to covid.

    While we are not a massive website like we once were with social media taking most traffic these days, we do however still pull in a lot of visitors via search engines. A couple of times I have been Googling for something, and come across a thread on my own website, so if I am ending up here, so do others.

    So I was wondering, and I am thinking out loud here, what if I open to free business advertising until we say get to the point where we stop lockdowns due to achieving the required percentage of vaccination ?

    I am not talking about bombarding you all with ads non stop making an unpleasant browsing experience, but maybe one at the top of the page and one mid thread or something. Do you know someone (including yourself even) that has a business that is getting smashed and would appreciate any free publicity ? I cant guarantee of course that they will get anything out of it, but its not going to hurt me or you to see a a couple of ads on the page is it ?

    I was thinking the usual old style format we had, 728 x 90 Leaderboard would suit. I don't think we even have software to run it anymore, so I will have to work something out.

    Premium Members can of course opt in or out, everyone else will see them. I would be pretty disappointed if people used ad blocker on them, given I am not making money and am simply making a small gesture to help my fellow country men, some of whom are doing it mighty hard.

    So any interest ? Know anyone ? Anyone interested in perhaps putting their skills to work and make a banner for someone in need ? It would be good to see some positive "get off your arse and help" replies rather than the usual "just leave it to admin" attitude that has prevailed so many times in the past ? Speak up, lets hear some conversation, I cant do it all myself.

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    I think to be effective, you'd need interrogate the client browser to ascertain whether or not an adblocker is in use (numerous websites do this), and pop a banner if an adblock is detected, asking visitors to the site to disable it to continue (and why, as per your explanation/justification above). If you don't do that much, and in light of how many folks have adblockers installed, it could literally be a waste of time...ie; the exposure you're trying to proffer never happens due to adblocking.

    A question I would have, is what businesses would you restrict this to? (if at all)....ie; my daughter might be into this idea, but her business is a health food takeaway shop, which isn't exactly something you'd expect to see on a technical site such as this?

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    Quote Originally Posted by wotnot View Post
    I think to be effective, you'd need interrogate the client browser to ascertain whether or not an adblocker is in use (numerous websites do this), and pop a banner if an adblock is detected, asking visitors to the site to disable it to continue (and why, as per your explanation/justification above). If you don't do that much, and in light of how many folks have adblockers installed, it could literally be a waste of time...ie; the exposure you're trying to proffer never happens due to adblocking.
    Disabling ab blockers is not so straight forward anymore. They can be built into many areas and are in my case combined with malware protection and an excessive hosts file, all of which I do not wish to or can simply disable with a few mouse clicks or simple whitelisting.
    Disabling all this is not that straight forward anymore.

    If that makes me a bad person simply because I do not want my computers stuffed up with trackers, scripts and malware, then I must be.

    Those sites you mention that block or hinder access, just get clicked away so I neither see their ads nor their content.
    It is a shame that everything today has to be about money.
    Sometimes I post advice here to help others solve technical difficulties, I don't ask or want money for that.
    But if your mafia style solution is to hinder access to this site if an ad can't be shown, then I can't be of any assistance here any more.
    Last edited by Uncle Fester; 17-08-21 at 02:20 PM.
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    I'm on the same wavelength as wotnot regarding various adblockers being used in a browser.

    I do use various adblockers myself with Firefox to reduce the popups and/or the extremely intrusive adverts on some websites.
    To know what I mean, a quick look on yahoo, news and tech review sites illuminates the extremely intrusive adverts that drives most people to adblockers.
    There are also quite a few sites that do detect an adblocker being used, and prompts the user to either disable the blocker or to allow cookies to enable proper content viewing.

    I support your gesture to allow some advertising as I'm sure they won't be intrusive.
    As long as they are tasteful, not in your face, and to a good cause to support local Aussie businesses suffering during these times. Why not.
    I would also consider using some sort of adblocker detection to display prompts for users to disable the blocker, and provide reasons why to disable; maybe also limit the viewing until the blocker is disabled.

    I'd like to help but it's a little out of my realm.

    Thumbs up from me.
    Last edited by Xplorer; 17-08-21 at 02:13 PM.
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    BTW on top of this site there is usually a yellow info 'banner' or two telling us internal info.
    This appears to be directly integrated in this forum, NOT an ad banner that is blocked.

    It currently shows for me:


    Couldn't these be used for adverting ?
    It also includes a link that could possibly be pointed to the business's website.
    Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
    Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
    Humans: Entities that are not only outdated but broken... AI-self-learning-update-error...terminate...terminate...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Uncle Fester View Post
    Disabling ab blockers is not so straight forward anymore. They can be built into many areas and are in my case combined with malware protection and an excessive hosts file, all of which I do not wish to or can simply disable with a few mouse clicks or simple whitelisting.

    If that makes me a bad person simply because I do not want my computers stuffed up with trackers, scripts and malware, then I must be.

    Those sites you mention that block or hinder access, just get clicked away so I neither see their ads nor their content.
    It is a shame that everything today has to be about money.
    Sometimes I post advice here to help others solve technical difficulties, I don't ask or want money for that.
    But if your mafia style solution is to hinder access to this site if an ad can't be shown, then I can't be of any assistance here any more.
    Uncle Fester - Admin is not seeking a mafia style advertising, the suggestion is for 1-3 adds per page.
    If you want intrusive adds where they ruin websites and viewing, try going to tech review sites, news and yahoo... to name a few.

    1-3 adds per page, that hopefully would be for local Aussie business that relate to topics this forum is about, will that really be too inconvenient and such an annoyance.


    Quote Originally Posted by Uncle Fester View Post
    BTW on top of this site there is usually a yellow info 'banner' or two telling us internal info.
    This appears to be directly integrated in this forum, NOT an ad banner that is blocked.

    It currently shows for me:


    Couldn't these be used for adverting ?
    It also includes a link that could possibly be pointed to the business's website.
    Edit: That's another possibility too. I hadn't noticed that before - maybe it is new.
    Last edited by Xplorer; 17-08-21 at 02:28 PM.
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  • #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Xplorer View Post
    Uncle Fester - Admin is not seeking a mafia style advertising, the suggestion is for 1-3 adds per page.
    If you want intrusive adds where they ruin websites and viewing, try going to tech review sites, news and yahoo... to name a few.

    1-3 adds per page, that hopefully would be for local Aussie business that relate to topics this forum is about, will that really be too inconvenient and such an annoyance.
    You are missing my point.
    I don't care about 2 or three small banners.
    It is about the increasing practice of blocking access to site content if ad blockers are enabled and the fact (in my case at least) that they can NOT be simply disabled with a couple of mouse clicks.
    Forcing people to disable protection and run their computers at higher risk is very disagreeable for me.

    Wotnot suggested that, not Admin.
    Last edited by Uncle Fester; 17-08-21 at 02:54 PM.
    Update: A deletion of features that work well and ain't broke but are deemed outdated in order to add things that are up to date and broken.
    Compatibility: A word soon to be deleted from our dictionaries as it is outdated.
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    I use Tapatalk, which doesn’t show any site ads.

    I’m not against ads for the COVID reasons you outlined, but if you have large numbers using Tapatalk, they won’t see the ads either.

  • #9
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    I understand the need for it, and, provided it is unobtrusive, see no issue. maybe registered users get an ad on the login page and a pop up every 30 mins or so. Whilst premium members get no ads apart from the login page. All others get ads every five minutes that must be dismissed before they can continue. The technical details are beyond my expertise, so I might be out of my depth here.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Quote Originally Posted by wotnot View Post
    A question I would have, is what businesses would you restrict this to? (if at all)....
    All businesses are suffering from these lockdowns, not only those that have a 'technical' subject of interest on Austech, so I presume this should be open to any business.

    I understand it's more work, but I suggest ads be approved/moderated to limit blatant spamming.

    Members only see the odd spam post slip through the cracks.

    I personally check every new Austech member registration and typically ban 6+ applications a day... before they can post.

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    I am sorry for the slow reply. I have had a fair bit going on since I posted.
    I wont be going ahead with this, apologies and I was was probably too optimistic to think I could. I am not on here very much anymore due to a number of health reasons.
    I simply have too much on my plate. One family member who already had mental health issues before covid is in lockdown over a close contact, is of serious concern. Financially, I have to keep him a float and I cannot work, so it falls to my wife to work more.
    She is just back at work after having major surgery and 6 weeks off work, she already went back 3 weeks too early and now has to carry a heavier load. We also have an elderly widowed relative who lives alone in remote central Victoria, off grid, which is also a concern due to lockdowns. Have had to run Dan's gauntlet a couple of times, but if they want to fine me for genuine care issues, they can go for it.

    All I can ask is people to step up and get vaccinated. Am not here for anti vacc arguments. No one died getting vaccinated when they were a child, it's not going to happen here either. If Vaccination rates keep going at the current rate, we will be out of lockdown before I got anything setup.

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    Can I encourage all members of Austech who have yet to sign up for premium membership to seriously consider doing so. It will, at least, mitigate some of admin's woes.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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