What would you think of a PoliticalForum with commercial advertisements?

Some of the other forums I frequent (non-political) cover costs by earning revenue through advertisements. I find that these ads (pop ups) can be annoying, yet it only takes a second to close them out and get back to what I was doing. The pop ups are but one form of advertisement these forums implement. There are adds all over the place at these other forums, and also hyperlinks within text. The upside though, is that these other forums seem to be free of technical issues (I don't mean to imply that funding is the reason for tech issues here).

What would you think about our forum being funded through commercial advertisement, as opposed to donations?

BTW, I pose this question on my own, out of pure curiosity.

 

If you are a non donor then I think you already see those ads. I remember seeing them years ago. I hate advertisments on websites, by the way.

 

A lot of forums are set up that if you are viewing you will see ads, but once you log in they disappear.

I don't see any problem with that, if it improves the forum tech.

Some might think seeing ads would deter new posters though. Sites with lots of ads do seem to cause IT issues for users and give the impression of being money oriented and therefore less trustworthy.

 

I use ad block plus, so go for it

 

DisADvantage: It slows down loading, and more. Independent platform of free speech is very important in historical times like these (system must not have an option to boycot of block this political forum) Commercializing means connect to this system (banner clicks via companies that have bankaccounts via a system bank. Are there independent banks and ad companies?) It's also clear that there is not a single rich person that wants freedom, they are all connected (via their bank accounts) to the system. One rich freedom lover could setup an independent bank, and a freedom platform/forum online. The system banks keep them as their best friends, by giving them the highest interest.

 

I think I wouldn't see the ads or pop-ups regardless, and I'm surprised that so many people do not block them. Doing so makes the internet bearable, like it used to be back before commercialisation infested it to begin with.

 

Scrolling by print ads doesn't bother me at all......clicking on a vid and having to sit through a 30 second advertisement does though.

 

I was on a forum that was free, but you had benefits if you donated. Those who donated didn't see the ads, and could do quicker searches. Other perks too...that I can't remember.

If you didn't donate, searches were slower, you had ads and no perks.

 

Already slow servers, Ads will sink this site. I wouldn't do it.

 

I can see here not any problem because PF needs money and it is OK if it get it per adds.

 

The forum has enough problems with duplicate posts and slow loading (sometimes its really slow), all we need is ads to add to the problem.

 

I wouldn't mind if it is limited to an advertisement appearing at the top of every thread, but I would hate it if it was pop ins every five minutes!

 

Do you know anything about business? You do realize the big advertising initiatives on the web such as Google Ad Words have things called... standards. Please list for us all the lovely household names that would want their wares advertised next to this... http://www.politicalforum.com/current-events/274687-kenya-kid-socialist-traitor-racist-2.html That was in the "Current Events" section. I have never been to the "Civil Rights" section.

If this forum wants any kind of reasonable paying advertising the mods are going to have to get on the ball and clear out the crazies. Unfortunately based on a casual scan of the billions of threads posted on here daily they mostly seem to come from a small cadre of crazies. Not that many people regularly visit forums of any kind and only a tiny minority of people go to political forums.

The problem with this thread is the same problem we have throughout this forum. It seems like this is a place for partisan hacks to congregate. A lot of the forum members don't seem to be very well educated or have a real understanding of how complex things in business and the economy work. I mean I can't believe how long this thread has been up here and no one pointed out the obvious about the offensive nature of the posts. No one will pay to advertise on this forum... ever. The only thing that can be done is the mods can start booting all the crazy extremists. And considering they make up the most active portion of this forum there would be only a fraction of the posts and threads left.

I have no idea what the point of this forum is. Hardly anyone is educated. 95% of the regular posters don't want to discuss anything intelligently. The moderating is weird to say the least. Anyway sorry for interjecting reality into your bubble. You may now return to fantasy of this forum,s commercial viability. LOL.

 

I was about to post a topic like this.

I don't know about pop-up ads, but some sites run banner ads at the top of the screen - I wouldn't mind that at all.

 

It is a forum run on principles and not influenced by biased corporate sponsors which makes it better than others.

Those ads will be selling out to the Man and ruin it, I'm sure it was always considered as an option.

 

My issue is that the forum owner should try and get the most from the available recources as possible to help with costs. Adds sponserships. Exclusive forum subscriptions for paying members based on payment levels.

 

If it helps you pay for a new server then great, I block all ads anyway so not going to bother me.

 

I agree on that point. But, from a performance and financial view ads may be necessary to make the forum viable over the long haul. If ad revenues were used to improve bandwidth and server performance and perhaps pay for some part time support work:

First, no popups and no ads that are really just frames that show content from remote sites.
No political advertising.
No single advertiser should control more than 10% of ad space.

I think with these restrictions in place advertising would be both palatable and desirable without corrupting the purpose of the forum.

Ideally we could run this well solely on donations but, let's face it, most of us are cheap SOBs and we'll tolerate advertising just like we do on tv as long as it doesn't interfere with content.

The real question is who, other than political organizations, would advertise here? eBay? Groupon? I doubt many companies would pay up front and it would take a lot of work be the admins to create the ppc links. Would you be willing to let PF collect and sell your PI so it could be used to personalize ads?

It's a risky thing. The kind of thing that could make this one of the great forums on the internet or send it crashing into oblivion.

 

It is up to whoever owns the site(who is that, do they post?), if they want to put ad's on, there are ways and means, but I think the site is slow enough, and has enough technical probs, without adding more likely flash ad's to it, which would further slow it down, and render it a waste of time.