New policy with respect to advertisements

[teknitroxdiver]

If you read a lot of threads as I have done in the decade I have been on ScubaBoard, you will see which businesses have really mastered the art of using SB effectively to promote their businesses. The ones that I think do the best job are first and foremost positive and effective participants in threads in general. They step in and offer good advice in a friendly way. They do not disparage others or come across as insulting. They become model citizens in the SB community above all else. They do not hide their business affiliation, but they don't flaunt it, either. They are not constantly shoving it in your face, a practice that only builds resentment. When people become interested in using the services they offer, they are inclined to go to them for those services, simply because they respect the person for the general quality of their posts.

Occasionally in threads people will ask for recommendations--does anyone know a good [XXXXX] in this area? When that respected poster replies in a non-assertive way that they do offer that service, no one complains, and frequently others will chime in to support that offer.

Occasionally, but only occasionally, this respected member of the community makes an announcement about a special event being offered. No one minds.

I heartily recommend this approach for people wanting to promote themselves through this forum. Participate in SB in a way that builds the respect of the community and that respect will carry over to your business. If people think the only reason you are on SB is to push your business on them, it will be quite the opposite.

And on the other hand, you have Beaver Divers, who have solidly convinced me and many others to never spend a single dime with them.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337 using Tapatalk

 

[ilakowalska]

Hm, this is not good news

 

[MRadke]

It would be nice if there were a way the banner and sidebar ads could be controlled. The more high tech and elaborate the ads get, the slower the pages load. I also don't think I should have to do a malware and cookie sweep after every visit to scubaboard. Some of the ads are so invasive that the computer will start verbal advertising even after the browser is shut off. Scubaboard is not alone in this. I have stopped visiting the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal newspaper site for the same reason.

---------- Post added February 26th, 2015 at 06:18 AM ----------

For the record, I don't have a problem with advertisers who have identified themselves adding content in relevent threads. There are enough militant users of this board to beat back any vendor that gets out of line.

 

[The Chairman]

We don't allow sound in any of our ads. I don't think Google does either. Also, we will reject ads that are going to load too slowly, that or tune them up to perform correctly before we post them. A lot of the Google ads you see are a direct reflection of the products you have searched for on the Webs. They are trying to give you what they think you want. Sometimes it agrees with the topic you are participating in and sometimes it doesn't.

 

[MRadke]

I understand what you are saying about why the particular ads show up, but I can't understand why it is a problem here, when other sites that I frequent tend not to cause problems.

When I loaded the page now, Norton gave me notice that plug ins were being blocked. I'm not sure that this is a considered a virus, but it sure does slow the site down.

 

[The Chairman]

Can you send a screenshot to support@scubaboard.com, please? You're not giving us enough information to go on here. The only 'plug-in' that we use is Flash and that's pretty common. Some Mac and Linux/Android devices don't like it much, but it's native for most windows machines.

 

[MRadke]

Can you send a screenshot to support@scubaboard.com, please? You're not giving us enough information to go on here. The only 'plug-in' that we use is Flash and that's pretty common. Some Mac and Linux/Android devices don't like it much, but it's native for most windows machines.

I believe that I have the problem solved. I blocked adobe flash and haven't had any more issues.