Adblock issues

[maq1988]

7 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

I ended up with both

 

Did you at least end up with double the ad revenue? :D

 

8 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

I have the invidious position of accommodating users, battling techies and trying to balance the books.

 

As a techie myself, I can only apologise. 

[maq1988]

1 minute ago, gz3xzf said:

I used a different resolution the video might encroach more or less into the forum display

 

Is your monitor a full screen (square) display or widescreen like a TV? 1280x1024 seems very compact for today's web. A widescreen resolution should push the advert to the right a bit more away from the main white text viewing area

[gz3xzf]

Just now, maq1988 said:

 

Is your monitor a full screen (square) display or widescreen like a TV? 1280x1024 seems very compact for today's web. A widescreen resolution should push the advert to the right a bit more away from the main white text viewing area

I'm a poor pensioner with an old screen, little money and bad eyesight, what can I say!😵😪😉

[johndon]

1 hour ago, maq1988 said:

 

Is your monitor a full screen (square) display or widescreen like a TV? 1280x1024 seems very compact for today's web. A widescreen resolution should push the advert to the right a bit more away from the main white text viewing area

 

I don't think it's a simple as just the resolution, I think the browser may play a part as well.  Here's 1280*1440 on my monitor using Edge and, as you can see, the advert covers a lot more of the forum text than in Brian's screenshot:

 

 

Up the resolution to 1720*1440 and the advert only very slightly encroaches:

 

 

and, at resolutions greater than that it makes much less of a difference, this is 3440*1440 and the encroachment is little different.

 

 

Whilst I've got used to it now and, to be honest, I take no notice of the content anymore, it's not the encroachment on the text that is the annoying part it's the bit where the video loads and you end up at the bottom of the page again - if Andy's tech's could sort that part out it would be good 😀

[Clive Mortimore]

6 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

I've been back again. Virtually all of the images back to the beginning of your topic would have been lost March/April (and no further ones since then) - if you still saw images in early posts it's likely that they were held in your local cache.

I haven't cleared my cache for well over a year, so should they still be there as I am not a computer expert?

 

From memory you said that the loss of photos was only for the past year and a bit. That is why despite it taking me three nights I replaced the missing images, going back to where I came across the remaining ones, which tied in with the time period you said had disappeared. Only to find later on ones going back years have gone. I did try to make my thread on this forum seem sense.

 

Then with the others going missing kept my head down and gave up. Today seeing the no entry sign because I don't want my screen full of adverts for things I would never buy (so no advertiser is making money from me as I don't click on them) just upset me.  This what my screen looks like without the adblock.

 

 

 

 

 

More advert than visible topic.

 

I don't need to see what the inside of Digitrains looks like, I was in there last Thursday after climbing up The Steep to B&H Models to find they were shut on Thursdays.

[maq1988]

4 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

More advert than visible topic.

 

The full page video adverts are kind of annoying between posts - how else do you recommend keeping the place running? You don't want to pay, but you want to use.

[Bloodnok]

I got the ad-blocker screen today too. I don't have a separate ad-blocker, just a privacy focused browser. I don't have a Gold subscription.

I did mess with the settings of the browser to see what affected the appearance of the site-blocking popup at the start, and did eventually find a setting for which it did not appear.

But ... that is all that setting changed. Regardless of what I set in the web browser, I never see any other ads than the Digitrains video. All that changes is occasionally the amount of whitespace where they might have been -- and I don't know if what I changed changes that, because ads are not static.

But for the Digitrains ad ... at no point today have I had any less than three of those videos start playing simultaneously when loading a thread. There's a minimum of two (one over the top of the other) which spawn in the bottom right corner of the window (overlapped with a post or the text entry box, depending on what is at the bottom of the page). I can close one of them, but the other cannot be closed. Sometimes I can pause it, but sometimes not even that "feature" works, and all I can do is mute it and leave it playing.
And there's one that appears full width about two to three posts down in a thread. Assuming I've jumped in to a thread with a notification or via the 'scroll to new content' feature, that automatic scroll will take me past that point, so it's also effectively an "on startup" thing.

If I were to browse the site like I normally do (opening a tab per thread I'm interested in) I will get a cacophony of noise of dozens of these videos all playing in an unsynchronised manner. I can "fix" that by muting the tabs, but that doesn't stop the data being streamed to me endlessly from ... somewhere. I'm not sure if "Connatix" is just the playback tech or actually the file host for the video, but someone is going to be down a fairly large bandwidth bill given how many times this video has played in parallel today. If the purpose of this was to cover bandwidth costs, I really hope this video wasn't self-hosted, as otherwise that will have been just a little bit counter-productive.

I assume from this discussion so far though that this isn't a common symptom, so this might be more a browser problem than a website problem. The web browser does have a "report sites that don't work properly" feature which I can try too.

[Clive Mortimore]

Just now, maq1988 said:

 

The full page video adverts are kind of annoying between posts - how else do you recommend keeping the place running? You don't want to pay, but you want to use.

From https://medium.com/bobs-economics/adblockers-do-they-really-cause-websites-to-lose-money-an-economist-explains-646de980e283

 

Quote

 

Advertisers basically pay for adverts because those adverts might increase sales of their products. The amount they’re prepared to pay is linked to the extra revenue and extra profits they can generate as a result of those adverts.

But in your case, however, the adverts are ineffective. They don’t generate any extra revenue or extra profits for the advertiser — so the advertiser isn’t interested in paying money to websites to serve adverts to you.

Really, the advertisers only want to serve adverts to people who might be influenced to buy their products. Unfortunately, they can’t target their adverts that accurately, so their adverts are also seen by people — like you — who aren’t going to be influenced to buy their products anyway.

So, whilst it is true that many advertisers pay websites according to how many times people are shown their advert — i.e. they pay ‘per impression’ rather than ‘per click’ — the amount they will be prepared to pay ‘per impression’ will depend on the mix of people who see that advert.

If this mix of people includes mainly people who will be influenced to buy the product in question, the advertiser may pay a sizeable amount of money per impression.

On the other hand, if the mix contains mainly people like you, who won’t be influenced to buy the product, the advertiser may only be prepared to pay a relatively small amount per impression.

In other words, using an adblocker may not really deprive websites of any money at all.

When you block adverts, the websites you visit will get fewer ad impressions, but the amount advertisers will be prepared to pay per impression is likely to increase, because the adverts are being targeted more successfully at the people who might actually be interested in them.

So, if you’re genuinely the sort of person who isn’t going to be influenced by adverts anyway, there’s probably no need to feel guilty about using an adblocker!

 

 

I don't want an Xmas jumper and I bet she doesn't post on this website.

[maq1988]

12 minutes ago, Clive Mortimore said:

I don't want an Xmas jumper and I bet she doesn't post on this website.

 

Then blame the algorithms used to generate the adverts, that's beyond Andy's control.

 

Ironic, that the website you use to link to justify using adblockers itself has 'You have 2 free member-only stories left this month. 

Sign up for Medium and get an extra one' at the top of the page... what's that, if not paying for content? 

 

There might not be adverts - so pay for content. Put all of RMweb behind a paywall?

Edited November 21, 2022 by maq1988
Paywall pic (removed mistyped 'not')

[Trainshed Terry]

Oh dear things are not happy in RMWeb land. I decided to go premium as I got fed up with adverts. I managed to scrape the money for the premium but I happy I did. 

 

Terry 

 

 

[Clive Mortimore]

14 minutes ago, maq1988 said:

 

Then blame the algorithms used to generate the adverts, that's beyond Andy's control.

 

Ironic, that the website you use to link to justify using adblockers itself has 'You have 2 free member-only stories left this month. 

Sign up for Medium and get an extra one' at the top of the page... what's that, if not paying for content? 

 

There might not be adverts - so pay for content. Put all of RMweb behind a paywall?

I did see that and thought a bit ironic.

[maq1988]

The author of that piece says in a comment at the side that people paying for access to the content they appreciate "seems like a great idea". If people aren't going to pay £12 to remove adverts for a year I doubt people would pay to access RMweb at all. Something (or someone) has to keep the lights on.

 

I agree with other commenters some of the adverts are distracting/offputting/off-topic. In line video is a particular peeve of mine. I would be willing to give up two £6 PECO wagon kits and instead pay for ad-free RMweb for a year.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by maq1988

[Clive Mortimore]

£12 paid , still getting a tour of Digitrains, The rose collection, a watch (haven't worn a wrist watch for about 40 years) ,a folding galaxy, something to buy now????, a bed,  unmissable November deals.

 

 

This is after becoming a premium member. What have I done wrong? 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Clive Mortimore

[St Enodoc]

2 hours ago, maq1988 said:

 

The full page video adverts are kind of annoying between posts - how else do you recommend keeping the place running? You don't want to pay, but you want to use.

But Clive does pay - he's a premium member.

[AY Mod]

2 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

What have I done wrong? 

 

You'd missed the last step, selecting the RMweb Premium theme. I've done that for you now.

[ruggedpeak]

Wish I hadn't started this thread now!

[DaveyH]

This is what Rmweb looks like on my iPad this morning without an ad blocker.

 

 

[Clive Mortimore]

5 hours ago, AY Mod said:

 

You'd missed the last step, selecting the RMweb Premium theme. I've done that for you now.

Thank you.

[Michael Hodgson]

17 hours ago, Clive Mortimore said:

£12 paid , still getting a tour of Digitrains, The rose collection, a watch (haven't worn a wrist watch for about 40 years) ,a folding galaxy, something to buy now????, a bed,  unmissable November deals.

 

 

 

This is after becoming a premium member. What have I done wrong?

 

 

What you've done wrong was paying your twelve quid!

[Haverail]

I've enjoyed being a more recent contributer to this website and I do not mind adverts but the sheer number of advert on here makes it impossible for me to concentrate on any page.  I'll be giving this site a break for a while unfortunately.

[Bloodnok]

On 21/11/2022 at 23:24, Bloodnok said:

But for the Digitrains ad ... at no point today have I had any less than three of those videos start playing simultaneously when loading a thread. There's a minimum of two (one over the top of the other) which spawn in the bottom right corner of the window (overlapped with a post or the text entry box, depending on what is at the bottom of the page). I can close one of them, but the other cannot be closed. Sometimes I can pause it, but sometimes not even that "feature" works, and all I can do is mute it and leave it playing.
And there's one that appears full width about two to three posts down in a thread. Assuming I've jumped in to a thread with a notification or via the 'scroll to new content' feature, that automatic scroll will take me past that point, so it's also effectively an "on startup" thing.

If I were to browse the site like I normally do (opening a tab per thread I'm interested in) I will get a cacophony of noise of dozens of these videos all playing in an unsynchronised manner. I can "fix" that by muting the tabs, but that doesn't stop the data being streamed to me endlessly from ... somewhere.

 

Update: I still get many videos playing in parallel, but they are now all starting muted. Still deleterious to bandwidth, but no longer headache-inducing. Definitely an improvement -- thanks to whoever made that change 👍

[KeithMacdonald]

On 21/11/2022 at 14:48, AY Mod said:

It's all a balancing act. If a site can't be viable ultimately it disappears, I (and the business) have a long term commitment to making it viable.

 

Many of us completely appreciate and understand RMWeb's need to make the website viable. So no problem with ads being served if that's the only way.

 

At the same time:

On top of what @martin_wynne said:

Many of us are on ISPs, DNS servers, routers, LANs and/or browsers, all of which can and do have adblocking enabled. That's not necessarily our choice or fault.

e.g.

• DNS sinkholes on ad-rendering servers (blacklisted IP addresses)
• Local DNS like PiHole
• Company-policy browser add-ons like Ghostery, uBlock Origin, DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials
• Browser built-in “Do Not Track” signals

RMWeb can't expect us to go messing with ISP/corporate settings to unblock things.

[Mikkel]

There's a worrying drift towards fake news in this thread. Maybe those of us with subscriptions should make it clear that they do work: If you pay and follow the instructions, the ads do go away. 

[Talltim]

Clive's contributions make the thread a bit confusing. You read his first posts and think 'hang on, he's got a gold border and he's still having advert issues'. Only when you get to the third page do you find that he has since paid.

[KeithMacdonald]

6 minutes ago, Mikkel said:

If you pay and follow the instructions, the ads do go away. 

 

This is true.

 

It's also true that ads do go away if you are using a browser (like Firefox) that has privacy features enabled (like anti-tracking). Some people don't mind the ads, but they do mind being tracked.

 

Declaration of interest:

I do know how this works, I've worked for content providers that used a variety of tracking techniques, from the classic one-pixel image onwards. Even when people paid for access. Also including how to track people who used TOR browsers, them thinking that made it private (but it doesn't really)

 

For peoples' information, it's not RMWeb that is tracking you, it's the advertisers.

e.g.

• Quantcast
• Amazon advertising
• Google tag manager
• Google analytics

 

This is how-come you can look at something on one website (often with no intention), and then wonder why the same thing suddenly appears as an advert on another website. It's not a coincidence, it's the same ad-tracking logging you across multiple websites.