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Advertisements and Post Ratings (1 viewer)

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Zachy

What a waste!
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Hello,

I've already made a thread in the active forum members section about this, but I just wanted to let everyone know that we are bringing advertisements to this site. In fact, as of me writing this, advertisements have already been up on the site for a couple hours now. So, what is the point of advertisements? The point of advertisements are to make money. Those annoying advertisements you see on sites aren't there to take up space or annoy you (although they probably do annoy you), they are there so that the site owner can make some money. Honestly, it's not greedy. If you are actually serious about your own site, it costs a lot of money. It is by no means cheap. I've been paying alone for a while and I've had no problem with it, but I'm not going to sit here and deny that if we were to get a bit of money from advertisements, it would help with paying for hosting and make this website much better. So that's why I have advertisements on the site. They aren't there to be annoying, they are there to make some money so that we can improve the forum. Also, I'm not making a boatload of money from these advertisements. I think that I maybe make one or two cents a week. As time goes on, our advertisements will make more money, which is why I'm keeping them. Most people expect to be making $10 right from the get go, and that doesn't happen. You have to stick with it to see results.

In terms of placement and visibility for advertisements... Staff, VIP Members, Premium Members, and Bronze Members will not see any advertisements. If you're not part of any of those groups, then you will see advertisements. I only ask that you please don't use adblocker. I know advertisements may be annoying. Trust me, I was a big adblock user a while ago. But really, advertisements are important so that we can improve the site, so I'd really appreciate it if you don't use adblock. The placement is above the shoutbox or above the forum list (if you don't have access to the shoutbox). There is also one in the footer for guests. I'm not making a ton of money either. I'm not really interested into getting into specifics, but I promise you that it isn't a lot and will be used for the forum. I know the main reason people hate advertisements is because they're inappropriate or just in the way. In terms of an ad being inappropriate... If you see an inappropriate advertisement, please screenshot it and send it to me and I'll see what I can do about it. I've already filtered some advertisement categories out though because they aren't really appropriate for our topics and our userbase. So that's it on advertisements.

On another note, you may notice that there's no more like button and below there are a bunch of icons instead. These are all ratings for various responses you have when reading messages. They are only available for messages on the forum. For profile posts and profile post comments, you still have the default like button (probably for interface reasons). There's not too much to explain here. You just click one of the icons (hovering over the icon with your mouse will show you what the rating is, although I'm sure we will all get used to them eventually), and the action is applied. You get alerts for it too and such, so nothing has really changed here except some more options. :p We can add and remove ratings over time, so if you have any suggestions, please let us know. I've already taken the liberty of removing the "negative" ratings that come default with the system. These include "dumb", "bad spelling", and "dislike". Unfortunately, I see these being mainly used for abuse or to discourage/put down other users.

That's all I have to say for now. Hope you enjoy these updates and hope you had a good weekend! :)
 
Hello,

I've already made a thread in the active forum members section about this, but I just wanted to let everyone know that we are bringing advertisements to this site. In fact, as of me writing this, advertisements have already been up on the site for a couple hours now. So, what is the point of advertisements? The point of advertisements are to make money. Those annoying advertisements you see on sites aren't there to take up space or annoy you (although they probably do annoy you), they are there so that the site owner can make some money. Honestly, it's not greedy. If you are actually serious about your own site, it costs a lot of money. It is by no means cheap. I've been paying alone for a while and I've had no problem with it, but I'm not going to sit here and deny that if we were to get a bit of money from advertisements, it would help with paying for hosting and make this website much better. So that's why I have advertisements on the site. They aren't there to be annoying, they are there to make some money so that we can improve the forum. Also, I'm not making a boatload of money from these advertisements. I think that I maybe make one or two cents a week. As time goes on, our advertisements will make more money, which is why I'm keeping them. Most people expect to be making $10 right from the get go, and that doesn't happen. You have to stick with it to see results.

In terms of placement and visibility for advertisements... Staff, VIP Members, Premium Members, and Bronze Members will not see any advertisements. If you're not part of any of those groups, then you will see advertisements. I only ask that you please don't use adblocker. I know advertisements may be annoying. Trust me, I was a big adblock user a while ago. But really, advertisements are important so that we can improve the site, so I'd really appreciate it if you don't use adblock. The placement is above the shoutbox or above the forum list (if you don't have access to the shoutbox). There is also one in the footer for guests. I'm not making a ton of money either. I'm not really interested into getting into specifics, but I promise you that it isn't a lot and will be used for the forum. I know the main reason people hate advertisements is because they're inappropriate or just in the way. In terms of an ad being inappropriate... If you see an inappropriate advertisement, please screenshot it and send it to me and I'll see what I can do about it. I've already filtered some advertisement categories out though because they aren't really appropriate for our topics and our userbase. So that's it on advertisements.

On another note, you may notice that there's no more like button and below there are a bunch of icons instead. These are all ratings for various responses you have when reading messages. They are only available for messages on the forum. For profile posts and profile post comments, you still have the default like button (probably for interface reasons). There's not too much to explain here. You just click one of the icons (hovering over the icon with your mouse will show you what the rating is, although I'm sure we will all get used to them eventually), and the action is applied. You get alerts for it too and such, so nothing has really changed here except some more options. :p We can add and remove ratings over time, so if you have any suggestions, please let us know. I've already taken the liberty of removing the "negative" ratings that come default with the system. These include "dumb", "bad spelling", and "dislike". Unfortunately, I see these being mainly used for abuse or to discourage/put down other users.

That's all I have to say for now. Hope you enjoy these updates and hope you had a good weekend! :)

Can you explain what each icon does? :p
 
Can you explain what each icon does? :p
They're just reactions (i.e: "like", "agree", "disagree", "funny", etc...) If you hover over each one (assuming you're on a computer), then it will tell you what each one is. :)
 
They're just reactions (i.e: "like", "agree", "disagree", "funny", etc...) If you hover over each one (assuming you're on a computer), then it will tell you what each one is. :)

Ok, I only use mobile :confused:
 
Hm, yeah it's kind of hard to tell for mobile users. The icon kind of gives it away I guess. I can't really screenshot it with the description hovering over it, but from left-to-right:

Like, Agree, Disagree, Funny, Informative, Appreciation, Useful, Optimistic, and Creative.
 
Hm, yeah it's kind of hard to tell for mobile users. The icon kind of gives it away I guess. I can't really screenshot it with the description hovering over it, but from left-to-right:

Like, Agree, Disagree, Funny, Informative, Appreciation, Useful, Optimistic, and Creative.

Thanks; You removed all the negatives? :p
 
Loving these new post ratings! Great job Zach! :D
 
Yeh, I noticed on these ads here in the forum, I don't like a lot of these ads and I did the same thing, I blocked them. But, as this helps you getting money, despite being annoying, step by step we go far away, I'm not going to block them. Thanks for creating this forum and doing everything to stay with it even if you have to pay, very good! It's very kind of you! :D The least we can do for you is not to block these ads but is there any other way to help you? I love this forum it's amazing and turns into a good place to be! ^.^Active, good updates, good people and more! :)
Nice icons! :3 I like that! :b Although we just like, now we have more icons, so we can know more about people's opinion on our posts/threads, if it's useful, informative, etc. Great job, Zach! Keep up the good work and good luck! Thanks for informing us! c: :thumbsup:
 
Tbh they aren't for me visible on computer
That's because you have VIP Membership. They aren't visible to VIP Members. :p
Yeh, I noticed on these ads here in the forum, I don't like a lot of these ads and I did the same thing, I blocked them. But, as this helps you getting money, despite being annoying, step by step we go far away, I'm not going to block them. Thanks for creating this forum and doing everything to stay with it even if you have to pay, very good! It's very kind of you! :D The least we can do for you is not to block these ads but is there any other way to help you? I love this forum it's amazing and turns into a good place to be! ^.^Active, good updates, good people and more! :)
Nice icons! :3 I like that! :b Although we just like, now we have more icons, so we can know more about people's opinion on our posts/threads, if it's useful, informative, etc. Great job, Zach! Keep up the good work and good luck! Thanks for informing us! c: :thumbsup:
Really appreciate that, Val! The best thing you can do to help is buy an account upgrade: http://4drclanforum.com/account/upgrades Couple quick facts about account upgrades:
  • You can use any currency. So no matter where you live, you can pay with your currency. It just says the prices in USD there because most of the forum is USD and that's my personal currency.
  • You don't need a PayPal account. Making a PayPal account is easier if you plan to make a lot of purchases because it saves your information and you just have to click to pay. But, you can still enter in your credit or debit card number and other information in manually and it will work the same way.
  • PayPal and this forum are both secure. PayPal is something businesses use, and it's "the standard". It's been around forever, and it isn't just some random fraud site. So long as you use common sense, it's 100% safe. In terms of this forum, I get no information about you. I only get that you purchased an account upgrade and which one it was. I get nothing more. Plex and Rach both bought account upgrades and had (and are currently not having) any issues, so they can be my proof. :p
  • Any account upgrade you purchase will get rid of advertisements. So it's kind of a win-win. You hate the advertisements but want to support the site. Purchasing an account upgrade will get rid of the advertisements while supporting the site and giving you other perks on the site. No way you can lose in that case!
Regardless of whether or not you decide to purchase one though, it's really appreciated (I can't stress that enough) that you enable advertisements to support the site! Trust me, I know they're annoying (I used to have adblock installed myself and block them), but they really help the site out and I'm glad you recognize that. :D
 
Ah so VIP members have a disadvantage or I'm getting this wrong? lol
Simply a perk so you guys won't be bombarded without all of the annoying advertisements. Currency from these advertisements is still earned thanks to the regular forum members who view the advertisements. :p
 
I meant the post ratings
Zach meant advertisements are not seen by those with any special memberships or are a staff member. You should be able to see the post ratings once you hover over the bottom right of any post on a computer. :p
 

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