Today, for the first time, I’ve seen advertising placed as Forum postings by ‘Sponsor’. I see them on almost every page I look at. I see as many as five phantom postings per page. When I look at a page a second time (as in after editing my post), I see more forum ads than the first time.
This is a most unwelcome intrusion. It interferes with my enjoyment of an excellent FA feature.
I will remove FA forums from my “Favorites” folder as I intend to read the forums much less often and practically cease future postings.
Note that I don’t mind ads on the forum pages, but they should never be disguised as and interspersed with member postings. That has gone beyond the limits of acceptability.
I noticed these ads in a thread too. That’s just WRONG… like catchin’ your daddy in bed with your sister WRONG - Or seeing your mom and dad’s sex video on the Web WRONG! As Tobyz1 makes clear, this crosses boundaries that should never be breached. I feel unclean! I’m going to take a shower with a wire brush!
I don’t know about the ultimatums or bizarre analogies, but we’re always open to feedback – even constructive criticism.
Obviously we’re only real because we have so many awesome members, so we’re not trying to take advantage of anyone or be insulting. In fact, you’ll notice that the ads have already been removed.
A few of us actually talked about the plan last week and the consensus was that it’d be less intrusive than the header ad on the discussions pages since people with low resolution monitors wouldn’t need to scroll down to see the first post. I had seen the technique on many other forums and was under the impression that it was the norm, so we rolled with it and thought it’d be great.
Apparently, we were wrong. I’ve even been told by mduell this evening that they were “evil” – wish he had been in the loop before!
I also want to thank everyone for being respectful of the fact that clearly we need to continue to execute a model that allows us to provide the service as well as we do now (and with continuing improvements on the near horizon). We, of course, only want to do it in a way that is relevant, appropriate, professional, and respectful.
Thanks again for the feedback & for using FlightAware. Enjoy the few remaining hours of the weekend.
Couple of things. I agree that they are annoying to no end. Get rid of them. I would rather scroll down to see the first post and have the ads at the top of the page than a random “post” stuck in the middle of a thread.
Next, toby, I have never seen you go on such a rant. Gee, wonder how you feel on this matter.
Finally, needle…THAT WAS JUST WRONG!!! Funny, but wrong!!!
I agree, they were quite annoying. I didn’t want to go off about them a la tobyz1 because I realize that it takes $$ to provide the members w/ a free site to discuss aviation to our hearts’ content, and I didn’t want to sound ungrateful for that.
Daniel, thanks for taking them off. I would much rather scroll down than have a discussion continually interrupted as you read through it by banners. It was an “improvement” that wasn’t necessary. You’ve proven once again that, even when the best solution is NO solution, FA is on top of things. Keep up the good work.
As I’d said, I’m not opposed to advertising on FA. (Without ads, how long would we have free access?). I’m not even opposed to advertising on a Discussion Forum page. (There seems to be plenty of room on the left side under the “Airport Code” entry area.) But sliding ads into the reply area as if they are postings is an intolerable intrusion upon the spirit of discussion. I like Mark’s phrasing of the situation: “EVIL”
I greatly appreciate your responsiveness to a complaint – 45 minutes to remove the ads. That was fantastic! Now, thanks to that, you can color me ‘BACK!’
