Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1824272-20151212103441

Just the other day, I had to be signed out of Wikia (unrelated issues with my browser), and before I signed in, I noticed something atrocious happening.

Wikia is now blocking page content for anonymous users until they answer a survey (or say no at the very bottom of it).

Humongous banner advertisements? Fine. Hiding our wiki's background for large advertisements on the side? Fine. Videos that show up on the bottom-right and take up a bunch of space on top of everything? Fine. But preventing people from seeing our content? And you guys wonder why we community admins continue to recommend AdBlock to all of our users?

As one example, on Acepedia, AdBlock (which shows a number for the ads it's blocked) specifically blocks around 25 advertisements per page load. (EDIT: As it turns out, I only get 1 or 2 ads blocked on the Community Wiki.)

I have a lot of appreciation for Wikia and its services, and Acepedia wouldn't be what it is without Wikia. There's a bunch of other wikis that are what they are today thanks to Wikia, like the TARDIS Data Core or Wookiepedia. And to run these services, I completely understand that there needs to be a source of revenue. But this is going too far. You're interfering with people's ability to actually interact with our content. You're causing everyone's data usage to skyrocket - not all of us are on broadband with unlimited usage. The mobile website is an even worse offender, and I have to wonder if the mobile website was simply designed the way it is specifically so you guys can push more ads down our throats.

Please, guys, take a leaf out of Acceptable Ads. I want to see Wikia thrive, and I want to turn off AdBlock and support it. But as long as advertisements are going to be this prevalent, this choking, and this numerous, I can't do that on a good conscious and I will continue to recommend AdBlock to all of my users. Something needs to change. 