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 Members help other members with technical questions and problems using Writing.Com! |
by A Non-Existent User| Hello, I've used writing.com for a long time, particularly for its Interactive Stories. This feature really can't be beat; it's the best, most robust community of interactive writers on the Internet, and I really treasure it! However, the site is not without its problems. The ads that are featured here are at best obnoxious and at worst dangerous. I've caught at least two viruses from ads here on the website and there are a number of ads that pop up, pop under my current browser or make noise that's impossible to ignore and very hard to turn off. Without an Ad Blocker, this site is pretty much unusable for those reasons. In order to keep writing here and advise others to actually read and participate in the interactives here, I use an Ad Blocker and advise others to use the same. If the powers that be at writing.com exercised more quality control over their ads, making sure they were safe and reasonably non-intrusive, I wouldn't feel the need to do so. But I'm not going to risk the safety of my computer to visit a website, no matter how useful, and I'm certainly not going to recommend my friends do the same. If writing.com is so concerned about losing revenue due to the use of ad blockers, then they should revisit their ad policies and make sure that ads of a malicious, misleading, and/or intrusive nature have no place on their website. If they can't do this AND insist on putting further barriers on people who use ad blockers to make their site usable, I'll have no choice but to abandon this site and find somewhere else to be. Sincerely, TK Amis |
"Re: Irritating new Anti-Adblocker System"  For example, the amount of advertisers interested in advertising on something called "Furry Male Giant and Muscle Growth" is pretty much non-existent. ~~SM A Few Helpful Tips...  If your problem is with an item, please include its Item ID!New member? Start here! "Getting Started: Table of Contents" Find answers in our FAQ... http://www.writing.com/main/faqNeed Non-Technical Support? "Non-Technical Support Forum" |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
by A Non-Existent User| *laughs!* Well, I'm well aware of how...niche (to put it politely) a lot of the interactive stories can be. And like I said, I'm quite grateful that you guys have provided a free-for-all sandbox for us to play in. It's appreciated! It looks like the big issue here is making sure you have the funds needed to keep the site up and running. If the traffic you're getting from interactives is really that big of a resources sink, then I understand and sympathize with your dilemma. I didn't consider the fact that you guys didn't have unlimited funds to work with, or that this was an essentially mom-and-pop enterprise. I apologize for that. That being said, I have a hard time believing that you can only get intrusive and virus-laden ads for this site. There really has got to be a better way to screen ads or block the kind of ads that run on the network. The general consensus I've seen is that catching viruses and dealing with annoying sound ads are the deal-breakers here; there has to be a way to stop that from happening, and until it does you're going to keep getting resistance against the ads displayed on WDC. |
I appreciate your Upgrade purchase.  As for ads, again, it comes down to the content around which ads placed. Big brands and the other companies that have "respectable" ads have no interest in said niches. They require "family friendly" ad space and fact is, there's plenty of that on the internet; they don't have to resort to anything less than the best placements. Beggars can't be choosers and the interactive pages are the beggars, not the advertisers. After that, there's certainly a difference between just displaying ads for the fun of displaying ads and displaying ads and having people actually click them and/or buy something from the advertiser after clicking. When you've got people just traveling from page to page to page (ala interactives), any "ads" that are based on clicks and actions don't pay anything, at all. Advertisers, however, are more willing to pay for those "annoying" audio ads for the obvious reason that whether one clicks on the ads or not, some number of people are more likely to see them thus rather than pay per click for audio ads, those advertisers pay, albeit a very small amount, per view/play. In terms of deal-breakers, as it stands, we would benefit more in terms of resource reduction (thousands per month in server costs) if folks were just turned off from the interactives because we denied ad-blocking. Given the "page to page to page" that I mentioned above, it would truly reduce the load on our servers and we could cut back dramatically on the cloud resources we require to run Writing.Com for everyone else... And that perhaps puts us on a different plane than a site that was focused on profiting from interactives and their niches. At this point, we're just tired of being mooched from folks who don't want ads (bad ads as they may be) and also don't want to pay anything for the service we're providing. Indeed, this is very likely the reason there aren't a whole lot of "competitors" in this field. If there were lots of money to be made, surely there'd be a whole lot of "niche interactive" sites. Clearly, there are not. Quite simply, creating a decent interactive story platform isn't exactly rocket science.  Best, ~~SM A Few Helpful Tips... If your problem is with an item, please include its Item ID!New member? Start here! "Getting Started: Table of Contents" Find answers in our FAQ... http://www.writing.com/main/faqNeed Non-Technical Support? "Non-Technical Support Forum" |
by Past Member 'marklenthecool'| Why not have a set of safe generic ads used across the entire site :P |
| Why not have a set of safe generic ads used across the entire site :P Advertisers know on what URLs their ads are placed and discontinue sites that place them improperly. The deception you're suggesting is just as immoral as using an adblocker. A Few Helpful Tips... If your problem is with an item, please include its Item ID!New member? Start here! "Getting Started: Table of Contents" Find answers in our FAQ... http://www.writing.com/main/faqNeed Non-Technical Support? "Non-Technical Support Forum" |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
by Past Member 'marklenthecool'| I'm really disappointed that you've censored so many benign posts... I understand how hard it is to get good ads on the site, And I understand how hard it is to track down the really bad ones, may I suggest as one final possibility that you add a way for users to report malicious ads? It seems like maybe you could have a forum similar to this one where people could post screenshots and URLs of the offending ads. I think it's at least worth looking at that possibility. Then rather than just cutting all the ads that people are willing to let you use, you only get rid of the ones that are giving your users viruses, or making loud constant sounds? People are more willing to un-block ads, and you get to still use a majority of your current advertisers. Win Win in my opinion. And now I announce that I will not be speaking on this subject again, I'm done arguing about it. Its your website and I have no say, I'm just sad about this whole thing. Don't worry about future actions, I have no intention of being disruptive again. My sincere non-sarcastinc honest best wishes to the staff, users, and owners of Writing.com. I hope that this fantastic online community flourishes, and that you continue to make awesome content |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
| On January 1st, 2013, we removed the ability to create interactives from free acounts. At that time, we left a grandfathering in for accounts created prior to that date and allowed them to continue to create interactive story items. Thanks to the rudeness ( / assertion of entitlement) from folks with free accounts using interactives, we've now removed that grandfathering. From this day forward, free accounts can no longer create new interactive items, regardless of their account creation date --> Period, end of "story". So no worries, folks. We'll fix this "problem" one way or another. ~~SM A Few Helpful Tips... If your problem is with an item, please include its Item ID!New member? Start here! "Getting Started: Table of Contents" Find answers in our FAQ... http://www.writing.com/main/faqNeed Non-Technical Support? "Non-Technical Support Forum" |
| You jest yes? It is April fools day after all. I have been using this site for five years, without add-block because I haven't been able to purchase a membership. I usually disable my add block when visiting this site. Would you seriously punish those of us who follow the rules, because of those who have a bad attitude? |
by A Non-Existent User| It sounds like the people who write (and read) the interactives simply aren't wanted here, and while I understand your position it seems a shame that it's come to the point that you feel like there's an antagonistic relationship between the interactive-writer community and yourself. In the future, I would recommend just...being honest with us and presenting your issue with respect. If you had let people know the nature of your ad revenue, the unique challenges you faced with getting non-intrusive or virus-laden ads, and the necessity for interactive writers to pony up money to help keep the site going, I'd like to think that we would have come together to help out. You've provided a place for us to get together and share in really crazy subjects that have difficulty finding other homes. And I've developed friendships here I might not have had otherwise. That's worth something to me, and I gladly would have helped chip in to make the community better or more viable. I can't speak for everyone else, but I think enough people would have come into a partnership with you guys. But it feels antagonistic from OUR end when there are these ads that, frankly, suck, interfering with our ability to use the site. We're not using Ad Blockers to deny you revenue, or stick it to you because we feel the site isn't worth anything. We're using Ad Blockers because it enables us to use your site at all. Otherwise there's a very real chance of catching something, and it's just not worth that. I'm glad to pay for your site (as you now know), but I'm also getting the distinct impression that you'd rather we leave, so that's what I'll do. I'm genuinely sorry that we made the upkeep of this site as difficult as we did, and I hope that the next time this situation arises you'll engage with your community in a more constructive way. |
| Alright, at this point I'm done with the back and forth on this. I've explained our position and have been rudely (very) replied to in a number of the posts here that we've had to suspend -- not yours, but others. Yes, they've been rather antagonistic and, as I said in another post, the sense of entitlement is grinding on the nerves. I've been pretty straight forward with you in terms of who's providing the benefit to whom here. I've been pretty clear that the options for the utopian ad situation doesn't exist and that the niche interactive writers are not doing any favors to Writing.Com. I've done my best not to sugar-coat that fact while acknowledging that we'd prefer to eliminate any "virus" housing ads. At the same time, we can't turn them all off, nor can we manually filter every single ad that comes through the site. To date, noone's actually made any attempts to help us pinpoint which ads specifically have the problems or to figure out which network is yielding the bad ad(s). Past that, you've interpreted however you're going to interpret it. If you've decided you're leaving, I'll be happy to refund your paid membership in full since you just picked it up yesterday. Drop a line back to confirm and I'll take care of it for you. Best, ~~SM A Few Helpful Tips... If your problem is with an item, please include its Item ID!New member? Start here! "Getting Started: Table of Contents" Find answers in our FAQ... http://www.writing.com/main/faqNeed Non-Technical Support? "Non-Technical Support Forum" |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
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