4 ms·

The thing that struck me about the Ars approach was the reaction to legitimate concerns about security, tracking and so on: "too bad." As in, ads are what they

by rue 17y ago

The thing that struck me about the Ars approach was the reaction to legitimate concerns about security, tracking and so on: "too bad." As in, ads are what they are: the site does not really care whether they are useful to the advertiser nor how they affect the user so long as they get paid. An unfortunate attitude to project, particularly when trying to come up with solutions to this problem could be really beneficial. Not that they have an obligation to care, of course. They did at least suggest that a monthly subscription might be forthcoming, so something good might come out of it in the end.

mrkurt 17y ago
I'm sorry the response sounded like "too bad" to you, because that really wasn't our intent. We do care about how ads affect users. We heavily Q&A our ads and they're vetted at multiple levels before they show up on the site. Not only that, but we have more aggressive ad policies than any comparable site I've seen. The pushdown ad that Techdirt mentioned, for instance, is against our ad guidelines because it expands without user intervention. When an ad ends up on the site that violates our guidelines, we get it removed very quickly. It's an unfortunate fact that the ad ops people will occasionally put an ad meant for GQ on Ars, so you'll end up with something that expands by itself, does a popup, etc. They're never malicious, but oftentimes violate the Ars guidelines. Part of our "solution" to this problem is better educating users about the economics of ads, the effect their ad blockers have on us, etc. It seems to be working based on a small 4 day sample.
- rue 17y ago
  > I'm sorry the response sounded like "too bad" to you, because that really wasn't our intent. We do care about how ads affect users. We heavily Q&A our ads and they're vetted at multiple levels before they show up on the site. Not only that, but we have more aggressive ad policies than any comparable site I've seen. The pushdown ad that Techdirt mentioned, for instance, is against our ad guidelines because it expands without user intervention. I was sharpening the point a little: from what I understand, Ars does indeed have reasonably well-behaving ads when it comes to essentially the aesthetic side. The underlying privacy, security and psy-op/propaganda problems remain, though, and the sense I got from staff comments was that those were simply the Unchangeable Facts of Advertising and nothing could be done about it. These are by no means easy problems to solve, but I think projecting understanding those concerns and figuring out viable alternatives ("having a conversation" about it with the userbase, if you will) can go a long way. > Part of our "solution" to this problem is better educating users about the economics of ads, the effect their ad blockers have on us, etc. It seems to be working based on a small 4 day sample. I have no doubt! I think a big banner would have been a better way to do it to begin with, but the subsequent article addressed that part adequately. I will subscribe once the short-term version comes out.

by rue 17y ago

mrkurt 17y ago

I'm sorry the response sounded like "too bad" to you, because that really wasn't our intent. We do care about how ads affect users. We heavily Q&A our ads and they're vetted at multiple levels before they show up on the site. Not only that, but we have more aggressive ad policies than any comparable site I've seen. The pushdown ad that Techdirt mentioned, for instance, is against our ad guidelines because it expands without user intervention. When an ad ends up on the site that violates our guidelines, we get it removed very quickly. It's an unfortunate fact that the ad ops people will occasionally put an ad meant for GQ on Ars, so you'll end up with something that expands by itself, does a popup, etc. They're never malicious, but oftentimes violate the Ars guidelines. Part of our "solution" to this problem is better educating users about the economics of ads, the effect their ad blockers have on us, etc. It seems to be working based on a small 4 day sample.

rue 17y ago
> I'm sorry the response sounded like "too bad" to you, because that really wasn't our intent. We do care about how ads affect users. We heavily Q&A our ads and they're vetted at multiple levels before they show up on the site. Not only that, but we have more aggressive ad policies than any comparable site I've seen. The pushdown ad that Techdirt mentioned, for instance, is against our ad guidelines because it expands without user intervention. I was sharpening the point a little: from what I understand, Ars does indeed have reasonably well-behaving ads when it comes to essentially the aesthetic side. The underlying privacy, security and psy-op/propaganda problems remain, though, and the sense I got from staff comments was that those were simply the Unchangeable Facts of Advertising and nothing could be done about it. These are by no means easy problems to solve, but I think projecting understanding those concerns and figuring out viable alternatives ("having a conversation" about it with the userbase, if you will) can go a long way. > Part of our "solution" to this problem is better educating users about the economics of ads, the effect their ad blockers have on us, etc. It seems to be working based on a small 4 day sample. I have no doubt! I think a big banner would have been a better way to do it to begin with, but the subsequent article addressed that part adequately. I will subscribe once the short-term version comes out.