Any plans to revisit letting us donate to avoid these giant annoying ads?

They definitely just upped the ante again. I'm not saying it's unreadable, but on the phone it was ROUGH yesterday.

Yeah, this is something I really need to get back to. Adsense does their own optimizing now, and I got tired of trying to keep up with them, so I just let them handle it, but I think they're getting a little overzealous, now.

It's time I got off my butt and look at the PayPal API again; they've changed/updated it a couple of times since I last worked with it. I think that maybe I need to see if some of these others, like Venmo, have a similar API, to give people some options.

Purp, maybe consider a patreon.com account. Collect donations and put up a merch shop. Just an idea, but there are enough old timers on here to throw a couple bucks each a month at you that you could cover costs and maybe pocket a little for the future. They can set up a $3 monthly recurring donation and then forget about it. Food for thought I hope.

Please, please do so, this is really, really getting irritating.

Now the pop up has to be closed every time you open a page.

I don't even try the site on my phone... too hard to navigate...

with that said... does it help you if we click on the ads?

I believe it does.


I found the setting to disable those full page vignette ads. At the least, those HAD to go because they were trashing the post-jumping feature, and that's not acceptable.

I'll never understand how companies think annoying people with ads is the best way to go(unless their strategy is hoping people accidently click on them when they try to close the ad).

It's the almighty dollar, companies today would rather pizz off hundreds of potential customers just to get that one extra dollar today. There is no such thing as customer service anymore unless it's a mom & pop operation.

qft. Mom and pop operations are, OFTEN, Godsends, because they actually care. (for the most part)

Ever try to call your customer service dept at one one of the utilities (gas, electric, phone, cable TV, etc) or one of your credit cards? They will put you through a gauntlet of prompts, choices, and questions about the reason for your call that would try the patience of Job. If you ever do reach an actual person, it will be an English-language-challenged guy in Indonesia who says "My name is Todd, how may I be of assist to you.". Then, you hang up and everybody is happy, except you.

That is precisely why I do everything I possibly can with small, local businesses. Those people know me, I know them. They care. Same in reverse - they know me.

Banking? "small" local bank with some 33 branches. I can call them and get who/what I need, within a minute or so. Tellers? Yup, they still have them. I have a great relationship with the ones at the branch I use, almost daily. They KNOW me, my business. I know them. At the drive thru, I ring the bell just to ring it. They all know "Arch is here".

Sadly, no one at Dish Network knows me, nor do they care about me. I don't have a choice on an electric supplier. Just pay the bill.

heat, propane? We have propane.......saw our delivery guy today at the store. "Hey, my barn tank is empty. Can you remember to fill it?" yup, no problem, have it done by Friday.

Every one thinks bigger is better. I don't.

I don't know if most people think big is better. Not everybody lives in a small town in the middle of farm country, so they don't have much of a choice, and you know me and that I am not disagreeing to be a dork like many around here.

I live in a mid sized city area. At one time I could find the local bank, but not anymore. They sell out to the BOA's or whatever other bank is looking to expand. In that business it is get bigger or get bought out.

Speaking of BOA, I hate that bank. My mother-in-law has her accounts there. She forwarded a business letter from them to my wife as we handle many of her affairs since she is 94 years old. Yesterday I called the customer service line. It was on speaker so my wife could hear. We were put on hold after hitting all the prompts. While waiting I told my wife that I hoped the person who answered talked like the woman on the recording and not like the "Todd" you mentioned...lol

Anyway, after a 30 minute wait I hung up as nobody from customer "service" ever answered. Probably best, as once I am ticked off I am not the most pleasant person with which to have a conversation. Now I get to go down to a local branch later this morning and try to round up some numbskull who probably won't be able to handle trust matters and sends me to someone else at another branch, who works by appointment only. I hate that bank.

Sorry for the rant.

I think its just a numbers game. Yeah, it may pizz people off, but how many of those companies are you going to remember whose ads got in the way of reading that days DT posts? And is that feeling strong enough that you would refuse to do business with them if you had the opportunity?

About 20yrs ago I got involved in a door to door sales scheme. It was volume over quality. Their sales model was that if you spoke to 300 people in a day, 50 will say yes to whatever you're buying.

Let's say the ad ratio is 500 to 1... they have more to gain with 1 new customer than they lose by annoying 499 people who probably weren't interested to begin with.

These banner ads suck...nearly one 3" banner ad for every post on some threads. Try to send feedback and no one responds.

Who are you sending feedback to?

When you try to X out a Google ad and click "Stop seeing this ad", you get a choice of replies:

* Ad was inappropriate
* Seen this ad multiple times
* Not interested in this ad
* Ad covered content

The result of any of the choices is you see that ad on every single site you visit that supports (or is supported by) Google ads.

Your other initial choice besides "Stop seeing this ad" is "Why this ad?", which then directs you to disable the Google ads from being able to collect info based on your browser history, after which you will see that ad on every single site you visit that supports (or is supported by) Google ads.

PayPal button.

Combine that with a new behavior (on Android phone), where it likes to drop those same ads right in the middle of the home screen (usually on top of Tailgate). I do the clicks to say it's covering up content and it leaves an empty box in its place.

Originally Posted by PrplPplEater

Who are you sending feedback to?

prp...what Dave said...that is what I get. Try to send feed back and it becomes a futile event.

My real bitch is showing the very same ad over and over with a 3" banner ad that stretches across the entire page, almost one ad after each post or two.

This is BS.

May I suggest folks use the Brave browser? Works on PC or phone. It's based on Chrome. Has much better security features and disables all ads by default. Disables all tracking cookies. Disables 3rd parties from tracking browsing history etc etc.

I use it exclusively and see ZERO ads on this site. Forum looks and works like a charm. I'm like full page ads? WHAT ads?!?

.02

That's good to know. My understanding is many of those more secure browsers are overly restrictive to the point it interferes with what shows up on sites.

Brave has a concept of "shields" that you can fully customize as to what you want to allow or not. It has default settings for those who don't want to mess with it as well but I have no problems with sites working properly with the lone exception of my banking. That is only because the bank website is atrocious. This site works perfect.

I generally keep scripts turned off by default on pages. This does break some sites, but to resolve its simply one click of a button and the scripts are allowed (and the setting remembered for that page in the future) and the page will auto reload and work just fine if you need/want. Works like a charm.