There is a reason why adblock is so popular... Most sites have ads that are in the middle of pages, in the middle of important info, or in a place where it's easy to misclick on the ad. Subeta was one of the sites to not have these sort of ads. Only at the top where it wasn't invading anything. This was commendable and made me respect Subeta for that decision.

But now, we have ads in the middle of our dashboard... I consider that intrusive. If you absolutely must have that ad in the dashboard, at least put it under all of the users' widgets where it's not invading anything important. Not everyone can afford a GA either to remove the ads.

As a bonus, why in the world are there ads in Spanish on a site where you can only use the English language?

Please don't say to use adblock and CustomCSS to solve this. I'm fully aware of their existence. I'm bringing up this discussion because I'm concerned this ad could be a precedent for more intrusive ads and/or intrusive marketing. I thought the responses were going to be a lot different than the actual ones.

Screenshot of ads

Didn't Keith try the sidebar ad thing already a while back? Same situation happened - users got upset, he gave up on it and removed it not long after.

Basically what I was thinking too. He tried this before, we all hated it because it was super intrusive, and he got rid of it.

People aren't going to suddenly not care and accept it if it failed so badly the first time. Just saying

Doesn't affect me since I have a GA, but I will say it's ads like this that drove it to using an adblocker.

I allow non-intrusive advertising through ABP, and I don't think these ads would be allowed past that.

I've noticed this a couple of days ago and it's really annoying! I remembered that Subeta did do this advert in the sidebar a couple of times but removed it as it coincided with the customCSS that disabled the advert which also made it inaccessible to do this plot event at the time. Apparently the removal was temporary but I don't see why put it back as so many users hated it as its placement is so awkward!

I understand that Subeta does need money and whatever but these advert standards are very intrusive. Also some ads can be very harmful so putting it in the sidebar is more likely to mis-click than the other ads which is not good.

It wouldn't be so bad if it were someplace else on the sidebar - lower down or something, right now it's just obnoxious.

Yeah, this is pretty annoying. At the very least I'd like to see it shoved below your widgets, but removing it altogether or finding a better place on the page to advertise would be a bigger improvement.

I think the ads are just based on your location, or whatever location you've set using VPNs ot whatever. I always get local ads when I'm no longer a gold member, it would be pointless to show europeans american-based ads and vice versa.

I agree that the ads shouldn't intrude the sidebar we created for our needs. I kinda feel like this has been discussed and fixed before, like two years ago.

Agreed 110%. It's obnoxious having both the ad at the top of the page and ad on the sidebar staring me down everytime I go to a new page. Lower it on the sidebar if we must have it.

I agree with what everyone is saying. Very intrusive, eyesore to look at, remove it or lower it on the dashboard

I have Ad Block and I still see the "Remove This Ad" text right in the middle. Not even Ad Block saves you this time. I noticed the same text at the top of a page and that isn't too bad but I hate the split in my widgets.

Even when blocking the text, there's still the space:

Screenshot

Yeah I very much don't like this. Last time the ad was placed in this location, everyone was upset then and asking for the same compromise of it being at the end of the sidebar. I believe Keith said that it doesn't work the same when it's down that low or something? Because people don't load it or something? (Not sure just vaguely remember something like that)

I don't like ads in general because I have a jumpy hand that causes me to misclick on things (why I also like confirmation popups on here...) and in the past this misclicking has caused me to click on ads and get viruses. Putting an ad in a place where users are clicking the MOST, in their sidebar... that's just asking for that kind of trouble.

If there needs to be 2 ads on the page why not put a second one underneath the one that is already at the top? Like 2 of those long rectangular ads one on top of the other. I guess it'd be a little annoying to push the actual page content down even further but having ads contained to one space would be better, imo, than shoving one in a user's personal sidebar.

The irony of there being an ad in a language that players are not allowed to use on Subeta is not lost on me

So, the sidebar ad has been a thing before and users shot it down... I completely agree with what said based on this thread and human nature:

- I live in the U.S. though. Florida does have a large Spanish population, but English is the main language unless you're in a Spanish neighborhood.

And on top of this, in my experience the people that frequent the forums are ones that have been on subeta the longest. So there's PLENTY of us around here that remember how bad it was the first time around. Thank god for adblock. I can ignore the 'remove this ad' text for the most part. I have the halloween theme, so the text color blends in a lot with the BG

/* hides sidebar ads " */ -inner-dash > { display: none; } -inner-dash > div[id=widget]{ display: block; }

The first line hides everything in the sidebar's "dashboard" panel, and the second line forces the widgets back into view. Together, this gets rid of the obvious (the visible ad, and the "remove this ad" text), along with a few extra things that cause that weird space you mentioned.

[edit]

I wish changes like this would be announced properly. Yes, it's obvious once you log in and see the ad, but there's more to it than that. Why is the ad back? Is Subeta really that strapped for cash? Is this permanent, or are you testing different locations for it? Are there plans to add more in the future? These are all things you could address in an announcement that could maybe keep people from freaking out.

Thanks for the CSS! It would be nice if it didn't have to happen but thanks!

You're a bloody life saver, thanks so much for the CSS!

Thank you for the CSS! :)

I noticed this ad last nite and it was definitely intrusive to me. What kept happening is that I'd click on something in my sidebar, but as soon as I'd click, the ad would load, and the sidebar would jump, and take me to someplace I wasn't trying to click. That must have happened a million times, I was about to tear my hair out!

Thank you for the CSS! It's really helpful! ^^

That was such an eyesore!