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On 25/09/2021 at 16:52, crompton 33 said:

It's OK if the ad's where about model railway items. Or real train ticket offers But they are not just c##p that nobody is interested in

 

21 hours ago, Legend said:

Interestingly today's pop up was for Strathwood , which is the first time I've seen anything railway related.

 

Whilst I dislike the 'creeping' nature of the top adverts, I've had an advert in that space for an 16-25 railcard (I'm too old for that) and I've twice had an advert for Hornby, so some of the advertising is railway relevant (albeit the majority isn't).

 

As for placement on the screen, I can see why it would be appealing to advertisers, as it remains at the top of the screen as I scroll down, so always visible.  That's not true of the banner advert that sits under the RMWeb header, which immediately disappears as I scroll down the page.  That is obviously preferable to me as a user, but if I was paying for the adverts, I'd probably want my advert to appear on the screen for as long as possible.  I'd just rather that the advert space was there permanently rather than creeping down the page as I feel like I'm fighting with my browser for the few seconds that the advert takes to load, which is annoying.

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Who says the adverts are for useless irrelevant items.

 

I saw the words 'Pasties by Post' on one of those middle of the screen ads.  It was there just micro seconds before I dumped it.

 

What's not to like, Imagine a knock on the door and there is the postie with a pastie, (sort of rhymes) but, too late, my brain had already committed my fingers to instant click close.  I will have to wait for it to pop up again.

 

Andy

 

 

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Recently an Ad has appeared right in the middle of the home page covering much of the information.

Clicking on the close cross kills it but also kills the home page which reverts to whatever topic entry I last looked at.  This is bloody annoying and like some posters above makes you anti whatever the ad was for.

 

Pete

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23 hours ago, BlueLightning said:

 

The advertising is done by Google as Andy has said many times before, Last year Google made $147,000,000,000 in revenue from advertising (80% of their total revenue) I expect they know a thing or 2 about how effective it is.

 

Yes, I bet they know a bit about accountancy and taxation too.

 

I wonder how much of that collossal sum they made in the UK, and what percentage they contributed towards the Exchequer.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Simond said:

 

Yes, I bet they know a bit about accountancy and taxation too.

 

I wonder how much of that collossal sum they made in the UK, and what percentage they contributed towards the Exchequer.

 

 

 

I agree, it would be very interesting to know what they made in the UK, I can however tell you how much they paid in tax though, it's got just as many 0s as they amount they made, unfortunately it missed any other numbers :jester: Either way, they know what they are doing when it comes to making money with advertising (Not paying enough to the sites that display the ads helps)

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5 hours ago, Simond said:

 

Yes, I bet they know a bit about accountancy and taxation too.

 

I wonder how much of that collossal sum they made in the UK, and what percentage they contributed towards the Exchequer.

 

 

 

The former, lots.  The latter, in the immortal words of the late Paul Daniels, Not a Lot....

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Just some feed back about the video ads, Andy, maybe it will be of use for you and those in charge of the advertising during discussions.

 

These are a significant intrusion, over and above the existing very high level of advertising. They make the experience of visiting RMweb poor at best. I had though that the pop ups and very slow scroll down of the advert box at the top was bad, but having these videos on every page is vile.

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2 minutes ago, Kris said:

Just some feed back about the video ads, Andy, maybe it will be of use for you and those in charge of the advertising during discussions.

 

These are a significant intrusion, over and above the existing very high level of advertising. They make the experience of visiting RMweb poor at best. I had though that the pop ups and very slow scroll down of the advert box at the top was bad, but having these videos on every page is vile.

 

Hi Kris,

 

We're currently testing a few things and looking at how we can cap frequency based on whether the user is a World of Railways Plus member (they currently see no ads), a signed-in member (who will see fewer ads) and a non-member (who will see more ads). We are also looking to launch an 'ad-free' membership. You may not like the ads but we need to test in order to make an informed decision as to whether they say. 

 

Steve

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16 minutes ago, SteveCole said:

 

Hi Kris,

 

We're currently testing a few things and looking at how we can cap frequency based on whether the user is a World of Railways Plus member (they currently see no ads), a signed-in member (who will see fewer ads) and a non-member (who will see more ads). We are also looking to launch an 'ad-free' membership. You may not like the ads but we need to test in order to make an informed decision as to whether they say. 

 

Steve

 

Steve, whilst I acknowledge the need for advertising on the site to support its running costs, should I and possibly other World of Railway Plus members be concerned from the word in your above reply to @Kristhat I have highlighted?

 

Is a change in the offing to the 'no ad' policy for the World of Railway Plus category of membership?

 

I assume that if a change to the policy is being planned that it would take place at the time of the annual renewal for a member, rather than during an existing subscription period?  I'd appreciate your confirmation on this point. 

 

Many thanks.

 

 

Edited by 4630
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4 minutes ago, SteveCole said:

We're currently testing a few things and looking at how we can cap frequency based on whether the user is a World of Railways Plus member (they currently see no ads), a signed-in member (who will see fewer ads) and a non-member (who will see more ads). We are also looking to launch an 'ad-free' membership. You may not like the ads but we need to test in order to make an informed decision as to whether they say. 

 

I've emailed a few thoughts on this...

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10 minutes ago, 4630 said:

 

Steve, whilst I acknowledge the need for advertising on the site to support its running costs, should I and possibly other World of Railway Plus members be concerned from the word in your above reply to @Kristhat I have highlighted?

 

Is a change in the offing to the 'no ad' policy for the World of Railway Plus category of membership?

 

I assume that if a change to the policy is being planned that it would take place at the time of the annual renewal for a member, rather than during an existing subscription period?  I'd appreciate your confirmation on this point. 

 

Many thanks.

 

 

Apologies, a bad choice of words from my end. WoR+ members will continue to see no Google-type ads.

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Am I completely out of order to mention that as a Gold Member I see virtually no advertising? I think that costs me about £50 p.a., and there are other benefits, too. So call it £1 per week, or less than 14p per day. I appreciate we all have different and competing demands upon our purse, but as value for money goes, it really strikes me as a bargain.

 

And no, I have no links of any sort to the publisher, beyond meeting Andy Y at a number of events.  

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I decided to see what the fuss was all about and disabled my armada of adblockers.

 

Oh dear, sorry but its an unusable mess...

 

Adblockers back on again.

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I appreciate the need for advertising on a site that is clearly expensive to run (I run a website that I pay hosting costs for out my own pocket with 50GB of storage and I know how much that costs) but a new video add on EVERY page that you visit that, ironically, hides other adverts behind it...

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I know I've made the point before... but

 

I don't actually interact with 'BRM created content' very much, therefore I see RMweb as the 'infrastructure' to allow me to interact with content creators (my fellow RMweb users) and in return provide them with 'my content' (I would like to think some enjoy it).

 

'Our' (the RMweb membership) content also provides the reason that a lot RMweb members come to interact with BRM (and can therefore be sold magazine subscriptions, exhibition tickets, and sell related-to-model-trains advertising space to advertisers) - therefore our content has value, I don't think it entirely unreasonable that BRM 'pays' for that content in the form of subsidising the cost of the forum infrastructure*.

 

If I try to make it analogous to printed magazines, a small proportion of the cost will be the paper its printed on - I don't buy BRM because I like the paper, I buy it because of the content, but if I was providing that content in the form of articles or photos, I'd expect to be paid for that contribution. I accept that the pages of content are interspersed with pages of toy-train adverts, but I can't imagine if the printed BRM filled up with a lot of extra pages for new cars or whatever**, many readers would be happy about it?

 

Jon

 

*recognising that infrastructure isn't just server space and bandwidth, but the moderators time and software design etc)

**I was going to write ladies underwear, but that might have undermined my argument.

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I’ve just upgraded to RMweb gold - not yet checked if I have the badge. 
I don’t really object to ads, any user of Facebook or YouTube accept its part and parcel of the experience although YouTube you can upgrade to be ad free. Many iPhone apps are the same, free to users yet you have accept ads. Some of the conversations in the thread reminded me of when Mark Zuckerberg was cross examined in the US senate, one irate senator demanding why Facebook was free to users. ‘Senator, we run ads” was his response with a puzzled look on his face.

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11 minutes ago, jonhall said:

and sell related-to-model-trains advertising space to advertisers) - therefore our content has value,

 

Only a few savvy traders get that. Some just don't see the benefit in online exposure (so they don't care that much about your content really) and some don't do it because they don't like the site. Your utopian approach would suit me but it just doesn't balance the books. Sadly, your points are then arbitrary.

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