WHY ARE THERE CLASSIFIED ADS IN THE BODY OF THE THREADS?

[Terry Wiegand]

Hey Lamar or Peter Gariepy,

Why are classified ads appearing in the body of the thread responses?  This SUCKS BIG time.  Let's cut this out.  It is extremely distracting.  Another question for either of you guys - I see in the one thread response that the person has 555 'warning points'.  What in the world is this all about?  Underneath my avatar it states that I have ZERO 'warning points'.  Now we all know that just ain't right.  Lamar has repeatedly 'warned' me about getting on the BCA management.  But, Lamar, they deserve it!!  Come on guys - tell us all what is going on here.  I gotta tell you guys, this new forum arrangement just doesn't cut it in this guys book.  I liked the old forum better - at least I knew my way around it after about 7 or 8 years.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas  aka  Doo Dah America

[keiser31]

Maybe the two ads could be stacked at the top if we really need them. They ARE annoying.

[nick8086]

Online advertising is not generally on a "pay for exposure" model but rather is typically a "pay per click" model.

 

How much??

 

I will click alot... Love the site...

Edited July 3, 2015 by nick8086 (see edit history)

[R Walling]

 If you are not logged in, you will receive more ads than others.

[gwells]

I don't pretend that I have any detailed knowledge on the topic, but I am pretty certain Peter is simply doing what the AACA's upper management is instructing him to do to generate revenue from the forum. Thus IMO complaints to Peter about the ads are misdirected.

With 1.3 million posts and over 72,000 members, the AACA forum is not inexpensive to keep online as a free resource and the funds have to come from somewhere. The ad supported model is embraced by a large percentage of the web, as anyone who has watched YouTube videos or Ustream feeds certainly will know.

To specifically address Terry's question, IP.Board's ad integration scheme has default locations for ads in each page's header and footer areas, after the first topic in a forum, after the first post in a topic, and in the sidebar below the "recent topics" repeater. So Peter is not even close to populating all of the available ad slots.

At my forum, there are nine ads per page, though some are text ads rather than display ads.

[Guest Skyking]

The better question is, why does this post show 0 views?

[CarlLaFong]

I had an ad blocker installed. I don't see ads on any of the sites that I use. Now, the whiners may say that I am denying the site or club a valuable source of revenue. I am not. The advertiser pays for the ad, regardless of whether I see it or not. I may have been swayed by flashy ads or slick pitchmen when I was a kid but, as an adult, I only buy things that I want or need based on want or need, not hype

[gwells]

John,

Online advertising is not generally on a "pay for exposure" model but rather is typically a "pay per click" model.

Obviously, even without an ad blocker, if you don't at least click on an ad, no income for the forum is generated.

[gwells]

The better question is, why does this post show 0 views?

Where are you seeing a view count for a single post please?

[Terry Wiegand]

Carl, could you PM me about the 'ad blocker' that you mentioned in your posting.  I would really like to get something like that for all the other sites that I frequent.  You guys answered part of my questions.  What are 'warning points' about?  As I said earlier, I'm not jumping up and down with happiness over this forum upgrade.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas

[gwells]

Terry,

Just Google "ad blocker" and you'll find dozens of them.

See this thread regarding the IP.Board warning system:

http://forums.aaca.org/topic/256963-user-warnings-and-points/

[Steve Moskowitz]

Terry, I just saw this thread. Sorry, pal, unless you want dues to go up drastically someone has to pay for this site. We spend well over $50,000 a year on our servers and software and a little distraction with ads is a small price to pay for a service you get to use for free. These advertisers support AACA and other car clubs so if we continue to harp on their existence they may just decide no longer to support the car clubs you and I belong to. 

 

The tech gurus will have to answer the other questions as I am dangerous in that area! Relax, you will get use to the new forum in another 7-8 years, however, be aware that is probably when we will change it again! We are devious minded people!

[Guest Skyking]

Where are you seeing a view count for a single post please?

 

In the General Discussion heading, along the side of this post. It shows 0 views. At least where I'm looking...

[gwells]

Okay, here's why...

The thread was moved to the Forum Support area, evidently almost as soon as it was posted. That's what the arrow highlighted in red is indicating. What remains in that forum is simply a link pointing to the new location of the thread.



In its new location in the Forum Support section, it is showing 207 views as I type this. 

[MrEarl]

Hey Lamar or Peter Gariepy,

Underneath my avatar it states that I have ZERO 'warning points'.  Now we all know that just ain't right.  Lamar has repeatedly 'warned' me about getting on the BCA management.  But, Lamar, they deserve it!!  Come on guys - tell us all what is going on here.  I gotta tell you guys, this new forum arrangement just doesn't cut it in this guys book.  I liked the old forum better - at least I knew my way around it after about 7 or 8 years.

 

Terry Wiegand

South Hutchinson, Kansas  aka  Doo Dah America

 

Terry, I had lost count of all the warnings I had given you so just decided to start all over at 0. Just kidding, buddy.

 

Don't pay any attention to the Warning Points, it is a feature of the new forum software but the moderators and admin staff decided to just carry on the same way we have in the past, i.e. just communicating with individuals personally regarding infractions to the rules, etc.

 

Also, give the new forum a chance, it's just like everything else in life, the toughest part is in the beginning, figuring it all out. Once you get it figured out you will like it, I gawarantee it.

[Guest Skyking]

Okay, here's why...

The thread was moved to the Forum Support area, evidently almost as soon as it was posted. That's what the arrow highlighted in red is indicating. What remains in that forum is simply a link pointing to the new location of the thread.

ss.jpg

In its new location in the Forum Support section, it is showing 207 views as I type this. 

 

Thanks!!

[gwells]

You're very welcome, Bob.

 

Just to define my position, there are a handful of decent forum or community software packages on the market. vBulletin was at least equal to the best of them until recently. IP.Board is certainly at the top of the pile. Xenforo is another that's up there, as was SMF. There is free forum software, like phpBB, but it's less secure. At this point in time, the AACA made a good choice IMO.

 

Right now, I feel IP.Board is the best of the bunch. It's so highly configurable it's silly, and I can't believe any other company has better support.

 

Keep asking questions. IP.Board isn't fully intuitive. If you don't go exploring and clicking on things to see what happens, it will take you a long time to fully appreciate its functionality. And on the admin side, it takes a long time to fully understand what can be done.

 

IMO, as always....