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My Stance on FA Ads
15 years ago
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This message brought to you by The Weighted Companion Cube
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This message brought to you by The Weighted Companion Cube
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I think the ad system needs some work. And I think if Dragoneer/Yak, etc were to actually think about what I suggest, they would realize that my revision ideas are likely only to help improve the current ad system.
As it stands, from what I know, ads have 2 settings: clean and mature. The only way to filter between the two is to make use of the mature content blocker in your profile settings. This effectively means that to block the mature tiered ads you have to turn off all mature submissions and browse as the equivalent of a 13-17 year old user of the site. This is a lazy and half assed effort only implemented to keep any legal hurdles from coming up and impacting the site itself.
Fact is, you're basically FORCED to have adult ads shoved into your face if you want to be able to make any use of FA in a normal capacity! For a lot of people, all this means is that ads are entirely ignored, or worse, blocked outright. I've never taken a college economics class myself, so maybe I'm wrong in assuming this, but I'm pretty sure creating incentive to ignore or block ads by enforcing a system that forces unwanted content into people's faces is detrimental to generating revenue through ads for both the ad slot seller and the advertisers that buy the slots. It also makes the users themselves unhappy with that aspect of the site.
Most people don't want someone to be able to look over their shoulders and see ads for dildos and erotic feral art. They don't want to see jailbait looking effeminate gay males with giant creepy lips and almost human faces probably made by the sleazy ClubStripes/Cocktails people. You might try to use the excuse 'Oh, but you have mature artwork turned on, and look what's in your favorites! You're a hypocrite!'. Well here's the deal: there's quite a difference.
I can choose when and where I view mature and adult site content, and generally know where it's going to be most likely to pop up. With these ads I have ZERO control over when and where they present themselves. Worse, from another economist standpoint, these ads I don't want to see are pushing out revolving content that I potentially could be interested in seeing, but with all the adult ads popping in and out all the time I'm disinclined to look at them because everything starts to look like it might be another adult ad!
So here's my ideas for how to use an intelligent ad system.
1: Separate ads into THREE tiers:
-Clean
-Mature
-Adult
If we needed it for art, doesn't it make sense to use it for ads too? Rank every ad based on how suggestive it is about its content and what it links to as well. An ad explicitly offering sexual content and adult material needs to be adult rated. The same ad merely mentioning a variety of subjects are being taken for commission and tastefully explaining most things are up for asking for in a journal or something would only merit a mature rating rather than adult. If I'm going to be offered adult content, I want it to be offered TACTFULLY and with a bit of SUBTLETY. I'm not going to buy it from the artist trying to appeal to people's dicks directly!
2: Create a new section in the control panel below the content filter for artwork. Allow the user to select what tier of ads they wish to be able to view up to of the three I listed above. This will allow users to guarantee nothing is likely to appear that offends them or makes them feel at risk just regularly using the site. And that will lead to more clicks, more views, and far, far less adblock. Sounds like a win/win to me for users, advertisers, and FA itself to me. It's WONDERFUL this site isn't covered in banners of bouncing titties and drunk whores, but even if what's up doesn't compare to that crap, it's still ad content a lot of users really aren't even interested in. Keep that junk out of the way of the decent ads if a user wishes it.
3: Add a section somewhere allowing a user to click to go to a page that will show all of the month's ads that their current ad content preference gives them access to. Make a mention to check out the new ads each beginning of the month post made by the
account. These measures will allow even more access to ads. Sometimes I've seen something that piqued my interest, but was too late to get to it before the page finished loading onto another one. Do you have ANY IDEA how annoying it is to try to randomly generate that ad you can't hit the back button to refind? I would totally look forward to checking the enw ads each month to see what new and exciting things might have come up, and I'm sure other FA users feel the same way!
So what do you think? Do my ideas hold any water? Do you know of anything that might be any better? Tell me what you think!
FA is a great site, but I think there are always things that can be done to make it better for everyone involved with it.
Let's hope the update for the writers of FA comes soon and well implemented! :)
As it stands, from what I know, ads have 2 settings: clean and mature. The only way to filter between the two is to make use of the mature content blocker in your profile settings. This effectively means that to block the mature tiered ads you have to turn off all mature submissions and browse as the equivalent of a 13-17 year old user of the site. This is a lazy and half assed effort only implemented to keep any legal hurdles from coming up and impacting the site itself.
Fact is, you're basically FORCED to have adult ads shoved into your face if you want to be able to make any use of FA in a normal capacity! For a lot of people, all this means is that ads are entirely ignored, or worse, blocked outright. I've never taken a college economics class myself, so maybe I'm wrong in assuming this, but I'm pretty sure creating incentive to ignore or block ads by enforcing a system that forces unwanted content into people's faces is detrimental to generating revenue through ads for both the ad slot seller and the advertisers that buy the slots. It also makes the users themselves unhappy with that aspect of the site.
Most people don't want someone to be able to look over their shoulders and see ads for dildos and erotic feral art. They don't want to see jailbait looking effeminate gay males with giant creepy lips and almost human faces probably made by the sleazy ClubStripes/Cocktails people. You might try to use the excuse 'Oh, but you have mature artwork turned on, and look what's in your favorites! You're a hypocrite!'. Well here's the deal: there's quite a difference.
I can choose when and where I view mature and adult site content, and generally know where it's going to be most likely to pop up. With these ads I have ZERO control over when and where they present themselves. Worse, from another economist standpoint, these ads I don't want to see are pushing out revolving content that I potentially could be interested in seeing, but with all the adult ads popping in and out all the time I'm disinclined to look at them because everything starts to look like it might be another adult ad!
So here's my ideas for how to use an intelligent ad system.
1: Separate ads into THREE tiers:
-Clean
-Mature
-Adult
If we needed it for art, doesn't it make sense to use it for ads too? Rank every ad based on how suggestive it is about its content and what it links to as well. An ad explicitly offering sexual content and adult material needs to be adult rated. The same ad merely mentioning a variety of subjects are being taken for commission and tastefully explaining most things are up for asking for in a journal or something would only merit a mature rating rather than adult. If I'm going to be offered adult content, I want it to be offered TACTFULLY and with a bit of SUBTLETY. I'm not going to buy it from the artist trying to appeal to people's dicks directly!
2: Create a new section in the control panel below the content filter for artwork. Allow the user to select what tier of ads they wish to be able to view up to of the three I listed above. This will allow users to guarantee nothing is likely to appear that offends them or makes them feel at risk just regularly using the site. And that will lead to more clicks, more views, and far, far less adblock. Sounds like a win/win to me for users, advertisers, and FA itself to me. It's WONDERFUL this site isn't covered in banners of bouncing titties and drunk whores, but even if what's up doesn't compare to that crap, it's still ad content a lot of users really aren't even interested in. Keep that junk out of the way of the decent ads if a user wishes it.
3: Add a section somewhere allowing a user to click to go to a page that will show all of the month's ads that their current ad content preference gives them access to. Make a mention to check out the new ads each beginning of the month post made by the
account. These measures will allow even more access to ads. Sometimes I've seen something that piqued my interest, but was too late to get to it before the page finished loading onto another one. Do you have ANY IDEA how annoying it is to try to randomly generate that ad you can't hit the back button to refind? I would totally look forward to checking the enw ads each month to see what new and exciting things might have come up, and I'm sure other FA users feel the same way!So what do you think? Do my ideas hold any water? Do you know of anything that might be any better? Tell me what you think!
FA is a great site, but I think there are always things that can be done to make it better for everyone involved with it.
Let's hope the update for the writers of FA comes soon and well implemented! :)
As for the last, I agree whole-heartedly, but I've had a little less trouble finding an ad I overlook, I just pay attention to the ads a little more until I see it again.
Yeah, I suppose I could be patient and wait for an ad to appear again, but I'd really just like to be able to see what's new every month and bypass random luck altogether. XD
But a 'back button' on ads? O_O Seems a stretch. :3
tt's true the ads contribute to site upkeep, but any user who were to want to change their ad viewing options is trying to keep the ads in a range they find suitable for viewing during their use of the site. This in turn actually generates more likelihood of an ad working on them and getting them to go look at it. These ads are not pay per click, so they really depend on the users coming across an ad that interests them rather than drives them off.
I wasn't asking for a back button on ads. XD
I was mentioning that hitting the browser's back button to try to get back to an ad that had caught my interest was futile as it randomly put up new ones anyway.