Forum:Wikia "survey" advertisements? What?

Tonight I saw this odd "Wikia" message in what is usually an advertising slot:

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/4334/whatfo.th.jpg full size Clicking on the "survey" link takes me to this page:

http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/2483/suspicioussurvey.th.jpg full size My question is: what the heck is this, and why has Wikia put their name on something that is so blatantly associated with external advertising? Is this a new tactic of theirs to trick people into giving information to their advertisers? I find it insulting that Wikia would abuse the trust of their users that way by putting their logo on something that is not really a message to the community. ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 02:42, May 9, 2011 (UTC)


 * It's revenue. Surveys make money and wikia loves money.--


 * It will only get worse with time. -- 04:24, May 9, 2011 (UTC)


 * As always, if you don't like it, you can complain via Special:Contact. I hoped one of the privileges of having a login would be able to avoid this kind of stuff, but apparently not. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 9 May 2011 2:05 PM Pacific
 * Don't logged in users not see ads?  Random Time  21:08, May 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * That first picture begs to differ.--
 * Some large wikis have ads for logged in users. Other important wikis will sometimes have ads, for example, I've seen them on Combine Overwiki.
 * Logged in users only usually see ads on the main page, but you can select in your preference to see them everywhere (many staff have them turned on so we can look out for problems and so on). Occasionally, other ads will be shown to logged in users - but that's unusual (and probably the result of someone clicking the wrong button ;) -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 01:36, May 11, 2011 (UTC)

One thing that makes me suspicious about this "survey" is that Wikia never says how they are going to use the information or who they are going to sell/give it to. I always thought that companies had to have some kind of disclaimer when collecting information that could be associated with a specific user (like these guidelines). Wikia never says whether this "survey" will be attached to the user/IP address that filled it out for targeted advertising, or if it is just for generalized, anonymous statistics gathering. Gardimuer { ʈalk } 17:53, May 10, 2011 (UTC)


 * Gardimuer: "why has Wikia put their name on something that is so blatantly associated with external advertising?" - that's an odd question :) Advertising is a key part of what we do, so of course we want to work out how well we are doing it and what we should be doing differently.
 * These surveys are a way for us to understand more about the people seeing the ads. We're always tweaking our system and the ads we show, and trying to get the balance right between showing ads and encouraging editing and reading of the site... so we want to know the effect of our various changes and experiments. We are using Survey Monkey, which does record the IP of the people responding, but the information is just being used to get accurate survey results. What we are interested in is how people react to the ads, what they notice, and what type of people looking at the ads. We are not selling this information, or using it to target ads to specific people. Hope that answers everyone's questions -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 01:36, May 11, 2011 (UTC)


 * Sannse, why are these appearing for logged in users though? Logged in users do not see ads so they cannot accurately answer the questions.--


 * Actually, they do but the ads are only limited to the Main Page/Home. — subtank  ( 7alk ) 16:34, May 11, 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you Sannse, for letting us know. Perhaps it would be better if Wikia included that information as a note in the survey.
 * To clear thing up for others, I see adds because I have "Show all advertisements" checked in my preferences. Since I am an administrator of a wiki, I feel it is my duty to know what visitors to my site will be seeing so I will know if something is wrong. ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 18:38, May 11, 2011 (UTC)


 * Godisme: as far as I know, you should only see these if logged out or if you have the "show all ads" preference turned on (although if we are asking about main page ads that are visible to everyone, we may show a survey to other logged in users at some point).
 * Gardimuer: our privacy policy is here, and I've also mentioned your feedback to the people working on this - possibly they can include a link to that policy in future surveys -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 22:23, May 11, 2011 (UTC)


 * Folks, that's why Wikia forces a redirect to the main page every time you delete a page: to force you to see those ads even if you unchecked the "show all ads", and why they refuse to delete that annoying redirect. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 18:51, May 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * The forced redirect's never happened to me. Is that a "monaco feature"  Random Time  19:45, May 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it's a oasis feature. It does not happen on Monobook (yet another reason to use it!). But shhh!, don't tell it too loud. --Ciencia Al Poder (talk) -WikiDex 20:21, May 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I don't think Sannse knows exactly how and when the ads (or surveys) appear to logged in users, but they definitely do. My real concern is these popup/slidedown/over-content ads that have started showing up. I've now seen what appear to be survey slide out ads that appear to be unrelated to Wikia, so they are pure ads and not information gathering. -- Fandyllic (talk &middot; contr) 13 May 2011 5:33 PM Pacific