Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Reminder for people with ad-block

Lots of people (including me) use an ad-blocker by default. This means we don't see any ads on the site whatsoever and - depending on the kind of ad-blocker - they don't get loaded at all and cause less hits and clicks.

I'd like to support RPR by leaving ads visible and I can think of a few others who share this sentiment, so I have rprepository.com whitelisted by my adblocker.

However, most folks who sign up don't even realize ads existed. Maybe it would be an idea to make the home info include a piece of text that makes users aware of the ads? And, with the recent news update suggesting players can submit their own ads for cheap, it can instantly include info on that too.

Thoughts? Good idea? Bad idea?

Thank you! I very much appreciate your wanting to support the site.

Although the site will always be free for people to use, many people don't realize it's not free to produce, maintain or host. At the moment ads are our only method of recompense and reimbursement (although that will change in the very near future, as discussed in the news post you're referencing). I know ads are really annoying, but they're part of what makes a site like this survive. So thanks to everyone for putting up with them and an even bigger thanks to those of you who follow an ad when it looks interesting. For those people who maybe have never considered anything about their ad blockers beyond that it's convenient, there's a great article here on the topic of why ad blockers can be devastating to the sites you love

I will definitely consider adding a "Did you know" relating to ad blockers. It's not entirely clear to me yet how prevalent ad blockers are here, and I certainly understand the temptation to use one. I'm not going to insist or pitch a fit, all I'll say is that if you think the work being done on the site is worth a few pennies, I'd sure appreciate being whitelisted. Actually, I will make a broader statement: if there is any site anywhere that you visit and like, and they are giving you their content for free, consider white listing that site in your ad blocker too.

And, going the other way, if you ever spot an ad that jiggles or flashes or makes noise or does anything else especially annoying, tell me right away and I will ask the advertiser to find somewhere else to peddle their wares. I've done it more than once already.

The reason I started using adblockers was mostly because of DeviantArt. A lot of people got infected with spyware and trojans from their ads, so every ad is by default malicious to me these days.

I can't speak for others, but I can imagine I'm not alone on this. I'm sure people will have no problem whitelisting RPR if you make it obvious you're only interested in genuine ads.

So I'm all in for this idea~

The ads on the site really aren't intrusive at all, and most of the time I don't even notice them.

8( I'm the same as Sanne. I use Ad Blocker to keep my computer safe.

I love RPR though! I've turned the blocker off for this site. The ads are so small! I was expecting long flashing bars of "BUY MORE VAMPMIRE IN YOUR AREA!!!!4" or similar

Do they sell vampmire in bulk now? It must be for halloween. Who couldn't use more vampmire on halloween? Because I am imagining it is like a sticky mouse trap for vampires, something they get mired in.

I understand there are legitimate reasons for ad blockers, for sure, which is why I'm not feeling all butthurt about them. Heck, there are even some browsers that have no capability to display images or anything ad-like at any time, because they are text-only and read the contents of a page aloud for the blind. Yes, the blind are on the internet! And even with a normally unobtrusive text-ad, if I couldn't scroll past it in a hurry and instead had to listen to my computer read them all aloud before it got to the good stuff, I'd have an ad-blocker up so fast the internet's head would spin.

I am glad people seem to think they are unobtrusive or at least reasonably sized. Flashing and jiggling and sound are totally prohibited here, if you see an advertiser sneaking that stuff up report it immediately so I can throttle them.

Because your ads pay for this sites very existence there are a couple tricks you can use to serve content on the site dynamically that requires deactivation of add blocking to use the site itself. You may also be able to serve adds in Iframe which sometimes bypasses ad blocking. It stands to reason that the few people who have been honest enough to comment on ad blocking are in the extreme minority. Serving ads like your are from project wonderful and Google is fairly safe from viruses as those two organizations create their own add code and don't just accept java and flash from third parties. That having been said to where a particular link may lead or redirect is always a gamble.