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 Members help other members with technical questions and problems using Writing.Com! |
| I run an adblocker on my computer to keep it virus-free, and I can understand why you don't want people using it, but flashing up a dialogue box telling me to unblock ads on this site and then hiding the chapter until I do so, or click another button, is not going to tempt me to unblock the ads, as much as greatly annoy me, and, if anything, convince me to leave the blocker running. Furthermore, the claim that the ads provide a better experience in viewing the site is frankly laughable, considering that all they do is slow the site down and infect my computer with viruses, all while the experience of reading a story is disrupted by a popup announcing that I have a won a contest I hadn't even entered. I can understand that you want to disable adblockers so you can get money, but this is what essentially amounts to trying to nag people into doing so. It didn't work for blip when they made people wait an extra thirty seconds to see a video instead of playing an ad, and it probably won't work here, and it's not really fair to people like me who don't have access to a solid antivirus system. |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
| Thanks for the info. This is something that's only come up this morning, though... |
Although I can't speak to all of your concerns, I would like to say that there's no reason not to have a solid anti virus program. Avast! Is free and works fine for my everyday needs. I highly recommend it. ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
| Right, thanks. |
| There's also no reason not to have a good ad blocking software; ad blockers, antiviruses, and firewalls all work together, and none are meant to work without the other. Beyond that, WDC's site is already very cluttered even without ads, it's absolutely atrocious with them. |
by Suspended By A Forum Leader| ** Message suspended for further review. ** |
| Incredibly irritating. I might delete my account. |
| Although I also find it highly irritating, I did disable the adblocker for writing.com. Though now I'm getting the alert message AND see ads. |
| Greets, To be clear and up-front, the membership agreement that everyone agreed to when signing up since the beginning of Writing.Com in the year 2000 states clearly that ad blockers are against the terms of service. Paid memberships of the Upgraded level and above are ad free. Rather than rely on ads to support their use, members can pay to use the site. All things considered, for the amount of time and resources some folks use surfing stories, the monthly cost is well less than most forms of entertainment. The fact is this: Interactive stories are a large drain on Writing.Com and its resources. I've noted in another post that we're a small, family run site. We're not financed by big pockets and interactives are far from the primary purpose of the site and its community. Folks with ad blockers are just mooching off the rest of the site and the members who do pay and do view ads -- they're using server resources and not giving anything back. While it may be a shocker to some people, large brand advertisers that actually spend money advertising online don't have much interest in having their content appear on the erotica, fan-fiction, "sonic" and other "odd" kinds of stuff that is found in the majority of interactives. It's a plus and minus thing. Since we are not "corporate", we can and do have a very open, very "free speech" policy on the content posted. As long as the content is rated correctly under our content rating system, we let folks write what they want. That, however, does not mean people are jumping up and down to put ads on that "stuff". They for sure are not. For that reason, we're very (very) limited in what ads can go there. At this point, it is indeed as simple as this: If people don't like the interactives as they are, with an anti-adblocker system in-place, then we've just got to wish you the best of luck and bid you goodbye. Hopefully you'll find another site that's willing to house the content we've housed for over a decade at our own expense while people are paying nothing AND blocking the ads. As for any ads housing viruses or malware -- we are absolutely *not* down with that. It's not intended and it's not something we find acceptable either. If and when we find it or them, the ad network(s) providing such junk will be removed. To date I have not personally encountered any of these while viewing interactives with a free account and no, we can not just turn off all the ads because someone in the rotation is providing a bad one. It has to be tracked down and manually eliminated. 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" |
| to be clear, the issue we have with the new changes aren't that we don't want to see ads. i don't mind them at all. The problem is that many of the ads that you allow on this site are either obnoxious such as AUDIO ads that are difficult or impossible to silence, or are OUTRIGHT DANGEROUS to the health of my computer. ads that allow viruses and malware through them onto my computer. I will gladly turn off my adblock software if i could be assured that the safety of my computer was relatively assured. but as it stands now, every time i've ever used writing.com without an adblocker i've ever gotten a virus, or my antivirus began flipping out trying to stop them. |
| Perhaps you missed the part about the limited amount of ads that are available for the content in interactives. The best I can suggest is that you re-read the post you replied to. 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" |
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