Adverts

Yes, we reaise they can be annoying, but ads are required to fund the site. We are working with our advertising and ad ops people to make sure they strike the right balance between serving the advertisers' needs and not being overly obtrusive.

Thanks Andrew

I never realised just how many intrusive and annoying adverts there are until I had to stop using Kaspersky.  I use AVG now which , on here, manages to leave most stuff in the page edges.  

Can I ask a question, which I genuinely do not mean to sound obnoxious, but I feel I have to ask it...

With my other hat on, I am a member of at least four other enthusiasts forums, largely run by amateurs using V-Bulletin. None of them suffer from shall we say this site's technical idiosyncracies, and none of them seem to need so much screen 'real estate' to be taken up by ads either.

In the same way that I would expect Marantz, Pioneer or Sony (etc) to be able to make HiFi components that are better built and more refined than those built by an electrician in his shed, is it wrong to expect this forum, with professional funded resources behind it, to be at least as good as an amateur one, both technically and in terms of 'experience'?

I really don't mean any of that to sound discourteous, rude, or anything negative, and on the whole I think this is great forum in terms of content and its members. But in terms of how it works and its silly quirks, it's Goddamn awful!

Well that's scared everyone off Major.  Perhaps you should have made the questions multiple choice.  

MajorFubar wrote:

Can I ask a question, which I genuinely do not mean to sound obnoxious, but I feel I have to ask it... With my other hat on, I am a member of at least four other enthusiasts forums, largely run by amateurs using V-Bulletin. None of them suffer from shall we say this site's technical idiosyncracies, and none of them seem to need so much screen 'real estate' to be taken up by ads either. In the same way that I would expect Marantz, Pioneer or Sony (etc) to be able to make HiFi components that are better built and more refined than those built by an electrician in his shed, is it wrong to expect this forum, with professional funded resources behind it, to be at least as good as an amateur one, both technically and in terms of 'experience'? I really don't mean any of that to sound discourteous, rude, or anything negative, and on the whole I think this is great forum in terms of content and its members. But in terms of how it works and its silly quirks, it's Goddamn awful!

How long've you got?

As long as it takes...

Actually, a more pertinent question is probably how long have I got...

I thought it might be that way round...

Re the obtrusive ads, I understand people's concerns, and have already spoken to our ad ops dept to get some of them capped so (in theory) they should only be served once or twice per user. It's a difficult balance to strike: we have to have ads to pay for the site, as the alternative would be a paywall and it would no longer be free to use.

As for the technical glitches, yes they are annoying. We're hoping to move the site on to a more robust version of Drupal (our current CMS) next year, but these things take time. One thing's for sure: I'll make sure this thread is brought to the attention of the 'powers that be'.

Strongly against ads and strogly in favour of forum enhancements.

Not sure you can have the latter without the former – as The Boss said above, these things have to be paid for...

I didn't think big boss had posted on this thread?

But are you prepared to pay for them then?

Meet the New Boss...