Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-5070188-20151202130010/@comment-452-20151212154110

I was fine with text and image ads, then websites started having popups, so I blocked popups. Then websites started having autoplaying flash ads, so I disabled flash in my browser, probably before wikia even existed.

I specifically use ad-blocking on wikia to improve page loading speed, and due to all of the tracking scripts that are loaded on every page view. I've tested wikia with and without my adblocker enabled: it's faster with the adblocker enabled, therefore I enable it. Every now and then I disable my adblocker to check that wikia hasn't snuck any ads into the content area, and every time I do I notice pages load much slower.

I'm sure the revenue gained by other people viewing my content far outweighs the ad revenue lost by me not seeing the ads.
 * Besides which: any time I see an ad on a non-shopping website, I actively choose to avoid that product. If there are Coke ads everywhere, I will choose Pepsi.  If Wikia defaces the wiki I edit with intrusive ads for another franchise: I will never play that game.  So, by me not seeing the ads, the subject of the ad actually benefits, because I will only consider buying products I have not been pestered about.  I was interested in seeing The Force Awakens, but due being constantly bombarded with ads everywhere, I'm no longer going to bother seeing it.

I use ublock origin, and haven't seen the anti-ad-block notice. I imagine that my custom filters and blocking whichever script they're using to show that message, so if you see the message I suggest adding these to your custom filter: speed.wikia.net/* speed.nocookie.net/* I forget which ones are specifically for wikia, but there may be things in this list which don't apply. Due to a recent change wikia made, one of these filters now blocks the visual editor from loading, but I don't use it anyway, so I have no reason to figure out which one it is. If you choose to use these filters, and want to use visual editor, I suggest removing lines one-by-one until visual editor loads. (Obviously the twitter and facebook domains are for blocking embedded content and aren't the source of the ad-block message, but others may like to block them anyway.)
 * .doubleclick.net*
 * .facebook.com/connect/*
 * .google-analytics.com*
 * .googletagservices.com*
 * .qualaroo.com*
 * .quantserve.com*
 * .scorecardresearch.com*
 * .wikia.com/__are*
 * /mercury_ads_js
 * /mode-css.js
 * /mode-javascript.js
 * /theme-solarized*.js
 * /worker-css.js
 * /worker-javascript.js
 * VideosModule*
 * abtesting*
 * ad_mix_experiment_js
 * bam.nr-data.net*
 * beacon.js
 * beacon.wikia-services.com*
 * community_page_entry_point_js
 * community_page_new_user_modal_js
 * connect.facebook.com*
 * connect.facebook.net*
 * controller=Optimizely*
 * ext.syntaxHighlight*
 * facebook_client_fbtags_js
 * facebook_client_xfbml_js
 * fandommetrics.com*
 * flow_tracking_create_page_js
 * getThumbImages*
 * global_footer_js
 * globalshortcuts_js
 * insights_module_js
 * jserrorslog.wikia.com/*
 * loggly.com*
 * newrelic.com*
 * optimizely.com*
 * platform.twitter.com*
 * portable_infobox_builder_template_classification_helper_js
 * portable_infobox_js
 * template_classification_in_edit_js
 * videos_module_js
 * videos_module_js*
 * visit_source_js
 * visual_editor_tour_experiment_js
 * wikia-beacon*
 * wikia_in_your_lang_js

If someone else wants to try these one-by-one to find which specific script loads the anti-ad-block nag, please share your results.

Edit: Thanks for your concern 68.41.43.52. I doubt their message is software specific, but since I haven't seen it, I haven't looked into it to find out how it works.

The best thing they could do to attempt to circumvent script blocking is to merge all their scripts into a single file - which is something they should already be doing, as it would improve loading time.

In any case, they're unable to determine the cause of half of my bug reports unless I work it out for them, so I'm confident that I'm better at playing whack-a-mole than anyone employed by Wikia.