I do not think that an ad by Match.com is appropriate for this web site.
[Mod Edit: Corrected spelling errors. ~BS]
Ads in the home page
The ad is on the Home Page
The ad is on the Home Page and is pretty obvious when you are not logged in! Thus it is seen by all non-members and members before they log in (unless the system remembers them)!
So far as its suitability goes, I'll leave that up to Todd and Bryan. It would probably be better if it were not there but I'm not sure what control Todd has over the ads that get displayed.
Personally, while it does seem out of place, I don't have any real issue with it. There are far more offensive ads on almost all G and PG commercial sites!
NON N-SCALE RELATED ADVERTS HERE?!
Tokeri51,
Yes I agree with you here an advert for match.com doesn't belong here on this site. I believe any advertisements on this website should be N-SCALE RELATED and not some general advertisement that could be seen on the tele, adverts like those should have no place here. I believe non N-SCALE related adverts on this site should be brought to this websites administration's attention . I truly thought website is a website for and by N-SCALERS!
Tom
)About adverts on website
Gentlemen,Your arguments
Gentlemen,
Your arguments leave a few strings untied.
First, who else exactly do you expect to advertise here? Model railroading is a very small hobby. Within that N scale is an even smaller segment. If you've got advertisers in mind I'm sure the administrators here would love to pitch their site as a place to advertise. Unfortunately, I don't see many companies within the hobby advertising online. There are very few online advertisers in the hobby and probably none that are N scale specific.
Second, how do you expect anybody to up their advertising in a faltering market? When times are tough advertising is one of the first things to be trimmed back. Asking companies to spend more when their sales are slipping isn't logical.
Third, how many of us pay any attention to the advertisements online? There are many Internet users with ad blocking software which render them moot to the purchaser. Why spend money on something people largely ignore or can't even see to begin with? Besides, how many banner ads have we clicked on in our lives because we were genuinely interested in the product(s)?
Finally, why not make a contribution to the site yourself? Many members here have their own web pages and would love to get a little more traffic to them. Certainly it's not unheard of for person web sites to be advertised. With enough income from the users then outside advertisements would not even be necessary.
~BS
Everything Brian says is
Everything Brian says is true. Now, Bryan reads every (and I mean every) post that is made here so you can rest assured he has, or will, read this thread! I am sure that he will respond to this thread and/or pass on the feelings expressed to Todd. I have no doubt he will then let us know what they plan to do, if anything at all.
If you bother to check the properties of the ad you will see it is part of Google; and as I said earlier I am not sure just how much control can be exercised over the actual ads that are shown! Of course, if you asked the folks at match.com I am sure that a model railroading forum would be at the bottom of their list of desirable sites in which to advertise!
I suggest waiting to hear from Bryan and/or Todd.
I don't think it was
I don't think it was Match.Com add itself. We need advertizers. But it was the pictures of what appeared to be very young girls. To me they all looked to be under 18 and I don't think that looks good on this site.
Anyway it's gone now. Problem solved. Who wants to put up an add to help replace its revenue?
See ya
Ron
BryanC is correct in the
BryanC is correct in the fact that we don't control what Google puts up in the Ad cycle... if an Ad is genuinely an offensive one, we can request it be removed, but Match.com would not be deemed "offencive".
As mentioned, if you're logged in, you don't see the Ads, so there shouldn't be an issue (membership benefit).
I'm sure Todd would be more than happy to hear of any alternative funding sources you have in mind.
As it is, the present funding sources occasionally fall short of our monthly overheads, and we have to put up the "Chip-In" to garner member contributions.
--
Bryan
If I may..............
I agree with 69Z28. If the girls appeared to be under 18 it could be taken to be child porn. I know that sounds a bit far fetched, but in this assinine time we live in, ANYBODY can find ANYTHING offensive. I hear about too many of these kinds of "frivolous lawsuits" all the time.
Jacko
Having spent a good deal of
Having spent a good deal of time working with Google Adsense, such advertisments are easily blocked by adding the referral domain to a blocked list. In fairness however, the ad-type you see is related to your geographic local and not the preferences of the site admin.
The contents of the ads are contextual based whereby google assess the content of a site and then places ads it deems most appropriate. If you live in an area where there are few businesses that deal in the related topic, Google selects ads from general pool and displays them in a basic rotation. Thus, if you are seeing ads that don't relate to the topic of the site, you are likely in an area that has a shallow pool of advertizers. Likewise, ads do go through seasons, and in the case of model railroading, there are peak econimic times (Christmas) that will inspire an abundance of ads.
Being an 'off' season for trains, coupled with a slowing economic environment, it's no surprise you are seeing such ads.
I personally hope the practice of running ads is not in question. Revenue generation is an important aspect of web-hosting and the fact that this site disables ads for registered users is a great gesture.
Joined: 2008-01-24