[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Jacobm

Regarding the content-ad links - like the flashing picture ads, I find these horrible to look at and distracting from the content of the page. However, I use Mozilla Firefox with the Ad-Block Extension so I have the luxury of being able to choose to block them out. I highly recommend Firefox for people who would like more control over their internet experience!

Another way to avoid the Kontera ads (the "content-ad links" you talk about) is by signing up to Steve's blog via his RSS feed and viewing his posts that way.

You used to be able to be able to do a print preview of Steve's articles and have a nicely formatted page to view and/or print out, but unfortunately the Kontera ads show up in the print preview and slightly mess with formatting of the text. Not sure whether or not Steve is aware of this (I just found out then), but Steve's just doing a trial of the ads, so if he decides to keep them I'll bring it up then.

If you (or anyone else for that matter) really don’t like the Kontera ads, I’d suggest you don’t click on them. It’s highly likely that Steve will ditch them if he finds they A) aren’t that profitable, and B) are alienating a large portion of his website audience, so make your vote by simply ignoring them, or even clicking on the Ad-sense ads instead and showing Steve that they are a superior, and more preferred method of monetising his website.

Good thing is that, as Steve says in this thread, he still plans to move away from the ad-based business model for his website and move towards a more direct sales-based model, so it’s quite possible that soon we will have very few (or maybe even no) ads to contend with. Personally I'd much rather support Steve by paying him for high quality, in-depth content that explores things in even more detail then what he writes about in his blog.

Originally Posted by ludlow

The ContentLink ads radically reduce my enjoyment of this site. Please don't make them a regular feature.

Steve stated in this thread that he was doing a 30 day trial for the Kontera ads (the ones you speak about) to see how they did in terms of ad revenue and usability, so if you have any feedback (such as what you mention in your post), now would probably be the time to make Steve aware of it.

Originally Posted by Ludlow

(And before Bruce tells me to calm down: I'm not angry, just providing Steve with one data point for how posts like this prompt some visitors to consider visiting less.)

Hehe. I hope people aren't reading my posts and thinking "he's a moderator, I better be careful of what I post", because I fully didn't intend for them to come across that way. I left my moderator authority at the door when I made those posts and was posting as a regular member of the community. It’s unfortunate that my rather laid back, light hearted nature doesn’t really come through much in my posts, but that comes with the territory of text based communication. If you'd like an idea of what it would be like to speak to me in-person, my states generally range from: ...to: ...to: (Hehe. )

Ultimately, calming people down wasn't really my goal with the posts I made. Rather, I was trying to make people aware of the different ways to look at things and maybe show that everything is generally not as bad as it seems (“good” and “bad” are very subjective by nature), and that even if it is, giving attention to it isn’t the most constructive of pursuits and that people would be much better of focusing on what they like/enjoy rather then what they don’t (unless somehow you derive pleasure/enjoyment from focusing on what you don't enjoy ).

I see great potential in both this forum as well as the rather unique and amazingly diverse community that it has developed, and I believe we’d have an outstanding resource on our hands with the forum if everyone channelled their energy and attention towards the most constructive pursuits they are capable of. I'd love to see the forums and the community move more in that direction as I think it would be of great benefit to a great number of people and would really make the forum shine.

Really, behind every one of my posts, what I'm really trying to do is be the best I can be and help others as much as I can to do the same. Sometimes that can be quite the challenge, but it's a challenge I gladly welcome.