Author Topic: I want to try an experiment on the site for March 2012 (Read 93371 times)

KynloStephen66515 · « **Reply #25 on:** February 17, 2012, 12:47 PM »

Also I'll add that it annoys me when sites have "paid premium" memberships that are add free--just bugs the heck out of me..
-kunkel321 (February 17, 2012, 11:33 AM)

I always thought that was fair enough...
-tomos (February 17, 2012, 12:36 PM)

Agreed...I always look at it like "Wanna use our stuff for free, we show you ads...wanna help us by donating....then we will reward you by removing them for your account"

Never bothered me before, and I will admit, I have even clicked a few, purely to help the website, even if it is in a tiny way...All those clicks add up!

tranglos · « **Reply #26 on:** February 17, 2012, 01:19 PM »

Also I'll add that it annoys me when sites have "paid premium" memberships that are add free--just bugs the heck out of me..
-kunkel321 (February 17, 2012, 11:33 AM)

I always thought that was fair enough...
-tomos (February 17, 2012, 12:36 PM)

Same here, fair enough. But non-supporting members may see it differently :-)

How about a small refinement: when someone registers (and you must register to post), they initially don't see ads - maybe for a month. A trial period, as it were. After a month (or whatever length of time), they start seeing ads unless they have donated. That way everyone can experience the ad-less site and make their choice.

That leaves out only unregistered visitors, who require a separate decision.

Potential problem with this solution is people complaining that OMG, DonationCoder has gone evil with ads! after they've been registered a month, just because they didn't read the ad policy when registering. That could be alleviated by injecting a short reminder on their login and posting screens, such as "You registered n days ago. In m days, dc will start showing ads on some of the pages you visit. Click here to learn why."

tranglos · « **Reply #27 on:** February 17, 2012, 01:23 PM »

...but I'd be OK with an egalitarian Ads For All policy, too. Egalitarian is good.

KynloStephen66515 · « **Reply #28 on:** February 17, 2012, 01:36 PM »

Also I'll add that it annoys me when sites have "paid premium" memberships that are add free--just bugs the heck out of me..
-kunkel321 (February 17, 2012, 11:33 AM)

I always thought that was fair enough...
-tomos (February 17, 2012, 12:36 PM)

Same here, fair enough. But non-supporting members may see it differently :-)

How about a small refinement: when someone registers (and you must register to post), they initially don't see ads - maybe for a month. A trial period, as it were. After a month (or whatever length of time), they start seeing ads unless they have donated. That way everyone can experience the ad-less site and make their choice.

That leaves out only unregistered visitors, who require a separate decision.

Potential problem with this solution is people complaining that OMG, DonationCoder has gone evil with ads! after they've been registered a month, just because they didn't read the ad policy when registering. That could be alleviated by injecting a short reminder on their login and posting screens, such as "You registered n days ago. In m days, dc will start showing ads on some of the pages you visit. Click here to learn why."

-tranglos (February 17, 2012, 01:19 PM)

Hmm, you pose a very intriguing point which poses some very deep thoughts.

This would, however, require mouser, to implement the experiment for much more than a month.

This could actually be a good topic for my idea of a DoCo Research Collaboration (DoCollaborate) Project.

Realistically, this should run for around 6 month, if mouser wants some usable data at the end of it. 1 Month will simply not provide enough to be of any use to anybody.

The mathematics behind something like this, are of great interest and are quite complex.

This could also help find out how Socioeconomic's (Adj. Relating to or concerned with the interaction of social and economic factors.) come into play, within communities like DonationCoder

*edit*

...but I'd be OK with an egalitarian Ads For All policy, too. Egalitarian is good.

-tranglos (February 17, 2012, 01:23 PM)

For those wondering:

Egalitarian: Adj. Of, relating to, or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.

wraith808 · « **Reply #29 on:** February 17, 2012, 02:02 PM »

Egalitarian is good.

For those wondering:

Egalitarian: Adj. Of, relating to, or believing in the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.
-Stephen66515 (February 17, 2012, 01:36 PM)

Yeah... I go for the whole philosophy that egalitarian is the equivalent of putting your head in the sand. Especially when some contribute and others don't.

tranglos · « **Reply #30 on:** February 17, 2012, 02:22 PM »

Yeah... I go for the whole philosophy that egalitarian is the equivalent of putting your head in the sand. Especially when some contribute and others don't.
-wraith808 (February 17, 2012, 02:02 PM)

Spoiler

Yeah, and some are productive members of the society, while others are not... I've seen it before. Where it leads is no good. Best let's not go there, I can retract the adjective if it helps :-)

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #31 on:** February 17, 2012, 05:56 PM »

In the interest of simplicity, why not just bracket the ads with a line of text (top and bottom) that says:
xMonth Ad Experiment ends in xx Days.

...Then link the text to this thread.

tranglos · « **Reply #32 on:** February 17, 2012, 06:45 PM »

How about a small refinement: when someone registers (and you must register to post), they initially don't see ads - maybe for a month. A trial period, as it were. After a month (or whatever length of time), they start seeing ads unless they have donated. That way everyone can experience the ad-less site and make their choice.

-tranglos (February 17, 2012, 01:19 PM)

Hmm, you pose a very intriguing point which poses some very deep thoughts.

This would, however, require mouser, to implement the experiment for much more than a month.
-Stephen66515 (February 17, 2012, 01:36 PM)

Yeah, I was thinking long-term there. For the experiment, it has to be ads all the way, I guess

Interesting idea there in your linked post! The Great Ad Experiment probably does fit the bill.

Ath · « **Reply #33 on:** February 18, 2012, 09:45 AM »

Hm, just for the experience, I'd be interested how it works out, so I'm saying yes to an experiment with ads.

Some personal experience with ads:
I've been the admin of a free forum for 3 years now. The only reason it can be free is because of the google-ads that occur on all pages that are shown. It's the consequence of using that free forum service.
I have no control over the content, frequency, size, placement etc. of those ads at all, also the consequence of choosing that free forum-hoster. If I'd want control over ads, or eventually remove them, I'd have to either buy a contract with that same service so I can continue to use the same url and forum data, or move to another hosting service and set up my own forum there and start over from scratch (I wouldn't like to throw that away, 60000+ messages and 700+ users

).
But I'd need paying/donating customers (members) to be able to pay for the hosting, and because it's a mostly 'more mature female audience' (subject is machine embroidery, Dutch language only, the estimated average age is well over 50), and it's been free from the beginning, that would probably cost me over 80 percent of the current users, so that's not an option I'd want to even consider. And I'd be forced to either close that forum down, or introduce ads to pay for it...

The current ads are on the top and bottom of every page, usually pretty on-topic with the forum-content. Hey, as a 'regular visitor' I even get google-ads with that kind of content on other sites that use google-ads

Innuendo · « **Reply #34 on:** February 18, 2012, 10:32 AM »

Also I'll add that it annoys me when sites have "paid premium" memberships that are add free--just bugs the heck out of me..
-kunkel321 (February 17, 2012, 11:33 AM)

At least that setup is more logical than the one they have at Ars Technica. Even the paid memberships receive ads & still have to live by the threat that if you're found to be running an ad-blocker you run the risk of being banned from the site.

Mouser's not a tool. I trust that he'll do what's right for this site. He's always exhibited good judgement regarding the site's direction in the past & I'm confident he'll exhibit the same good judgement in the future because, you know....he's not a tool.

kunkel321 · « **Reply #35 on:** February 18, 2012, 12:23 PM »

Also I'll add that it annoys me when sites have "paid premium" memberships that are add free--just bugs the heck out of me..
-kunkel321 (February 17, 2012, 11:33 AM)

The reason this bugs me is that I seem to jinx any site that I pay to join. For example MouseTrax was a site hosted by a Microsoft MVP, who would regularly post VBA how-to videos. Of course you have to pay to get the premium content. As soon as I joined, she stopped posting content. Same with Gizmo's Tech Support Alert... As soon as I join, he closes shop and merges with Win Secrets. I guess it's just "regression toward the mean." I dunno...

wraith808 · « **Reply #36 on:** February 18, 2012, 08:03 PM »

^ But you're already a supporting member

mahesh2k · « **Reply #37 on:** February 18, 2012, 11:17 PM »

To add some more points to this thread. Following ad placement areas are more likely to generate some clicks.

Position 1: Under the forum nav bar or inside first post under headline.

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/6305/74position.jpg

I want to try an experiment on the site for March 2012

Position 2: At the end of first post.

http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/1386/99position2.jpg

I want to try an experiment on the site for March 2012

Note: 700p x 80 text ads and Text link slots will perform much better. If you're going with adsense then don't go with image ads or flash/video ads at all. They're annoying and surfer will hate it for sure. I am sure by now you have figured out the text link ads, contextual ads setup in adsense.

I don't know if you're paying attention to the analytics stats. If you can create SMF plugin that checks high traffic(Top content, High exit/entry, medium bounce rate (50-90%) pages from your analytics stat and only show ads on these pages, then that is also going to help in terms of revenue. You don't have to place ads on any other pages than that, or you can simply show ads to search engine users.

KynloStephen66515 · « **Reply #38 on:** February 19, 2012, 12:21 PM »

In relation to the above, I agree that they are some of the best places for advertisements, however, if you where to put them in between posts, they MUST be made to be distinct as advertisements, as those can generally seem to be a part of the thread, which...can be misleading, and put people off reading threads.

One thing that could be done, is, when a user is a guest, or a non-supporting member with < X posts, they must view an advert before they can view a thread (With a skip button of course) and also be made to view an advertisement prior to posting or replying. Those are to ad placements that will receive a HUGE view count (And if you get advertisers who are on 'Pay Per Impression' you will be seeing some massive numbers for those.

IMHO, Pay Per Impression coupled with Pay Per Click ads in prime locations, could bring in quite a lot of income for DonationCoder...and as we all know...The more funding DC gets, the more it benefits everybody involved, because mouser will then be able to afford to include more top features that take money and time to implement.

We all know that advertisements that fool the user into thinking they are part of the content, are some of the worst in the world...and I have even posted about it here on the forum (Don't recall when, but the link is somewhere) and they can drive people away from the forums and website they are on...so, where possible, I think we need to avoid them at all costs

wraith808 · « **Reply #39 on:** February 19, 2012, 12:57 PM »

I personally don't like ads between posts... just my

I hate the way it interrupts the flow of posts.

mouser · « **Reply #40 on:** February 19, 2012, 03:48 PM »

Appreciate all the thoughtful comments, but just to keep us grounded:

I do not want to put ads permanently on DC, and do not intend to do so, and won't be doing so.
I do not think we get the kind of daily traffic that would bring much income from ads (we have 35+ gigabytes a day of downloads of our software, which is pretty huge, but we do not have so many daily readers, the way a popular blog does)
This is really just a matter of being curious, nothing more.

rgdot · « **Reply #41 on:** February 19, 2012, 04:02 PM »

35GB a day??

mouser · « **Reply #42 on:** February 19, 2012, 04:25 PM »

To be more accurate, last month we averaged 29.20 gigabytes per day.

I want to try an experiment on the site for March 2012

rgdot · « **Reply #43 on:** February 19, 2012, 04:33 PM »

So many missed the site when it was SOPA protest day

KynloStephen66515 · « **Reply #44 on:** February 19, 2012, 08:15 PM »

lol, I love the spike the day after protest day

mahesh2k · « **Reply #45 on:** February 20, 2012, 03:22 AM »

We all know that advertisements that fool the user into thinking they are part of the content, are some of the worst in the world...and they can drive people away from the forums and website they are on

It depends how you are looking at making money off ads. Annoying ads placement are the one that pays the most. Any other position is usually ignored and the point of CPC becomes useless. In case of CPM ads you can place them anywhere and they're going to earn you money. That is not the case with CPC ads. People are adblind and unless you annoy then it's hard to get click. Nobody clicks on ads in footer but they do in top nav and sidebar. You have to place where they get clicks irrespective of what people think or get annoyed. If it's about money, so have to be played with it's rules. CPC is not about what people like, it's about where and how people click.

One more point that there are some discussions in donationcoder where swear words are used in quotes. Adsense usually don't show on pages with swear words. No matter how mild they are, there are cases where people got booted due to excessive use of swear words.

anandcoral · « **Reply #46 on:** February 20, 2012, 06:51 AM »

Mouser, after all the discussion (we may continue), I think you got green light for the experiment. Only thing 50-50 is type and placement of ads.

While the discussion here was going on, I did a little research and found that we (the geeks, if you allow me to say) are more worried or rather know about the type / placement of the ads, but the general users take it as the norm and not exception or do not care about it.

In my office when I pointed out about the ads slowing down the page load or looking annoyed, most gave me surprised look. On saying that I can hide these ads with some scripts, they did not show any enthusiasm. In fact they put me on dock that if their work is hampered, I will be responsible.

Good Lord. I know, I use many scripts and addons and may not even see the ads on DC pages, and these people just plain accept it.

We know html, so we know ad script and placement. They do not know html but know that their site opens and works ONLY in IE6 and they will use it, period. Forget about security and html5.

BTW, I am not going to poke my nose to them again.

Regards,

Anand

mouser · « **Reply #47 on:** February 20, 2012, 06:53 AM »

Anand,

I'm afraid your experience is typical -- most people do not seem to care much if they are bombarded by ads because it has become our normal way of existing.

40hz · « **Reply #48 on:** February 20, 2012, 08:57 AM »

Just something I've learned and would like to share based on my experiences when conducting 'studies' or 'experiments' for my own purposes, or on behalf of clients:

In any experiment, the test subjects go through it for real.

Sometimes there are consequences and lingering issues left in the aftermath, despite informed consent going in, and awareness that "it's only a test" during.

Therefor, to my mind, any experiment involving people, or a community, should be approached with a fair degree of caution. And for a specific reason. Or with a goal in mind.

And...that's about all the input I have to offer on this.

That said, I'll be happy to go along with whatever gets decided.

TaoPhoenix · « **Reply #49 on:** February 20, 2012, 07:52 PM »

Same here, fair enough. But non-supporting members may see it differently :-)

How about a small refinement: when someone registers (and you must register to post), they initially don't see ads - maybe for a month. A trial period, as it were. After a month (or whatever length of time), they start seeing ads unless they have donated. That way everyone can experience the ad-less site and make their choice.

That leaves out only unregistered visitors, who require a separate decision.

Potential problem with this solution is people complaining that OMG, DonationCoder has gone evil with ads! after they've been registered a month, just because they didn't read the ad policy when registering. That could be alleviated by injecting a short reminder on their login and posting screens, such as "You registered n days ago. In m days, dc will start showing ads on some of the pages you visit. Click here to learn why."
-tranglos (February 17, 2012, 01:19 PM)

This is interesting. Make it 91 days. Everyone is hooked on "30 days" because it's a round number. But that's not how the psyche really works. Anyone can get enthused about something for about 3 weeks-ish. In the modern "Sign up, post 30 comments, vanish" mentality, they weren't a quality audience anyway. I'm actually fading myself, having spent my initial spurt of energy.

So making it 91 days (To be cute) you leave the newbies with "It was free but I moved on", a nice feeling. Then the regulars start to think "Yeah, I need a few things coded, I better plan a little donation", but it takes a few weeks to really lock that in. I know I'm screwed either side of Rent Week. So then the 30 day timer is too fast. If they make it to 90 days, they're a member, I'm prob getting close; Then they can decide to deal with ads or "get on with it and Donate, at which point the ads go away".