Community Central talk:Advertising on Wikia

Advertising was added to Wikicities today. There are currently a few glitches. If you see the ads at the top of the page above all the content, please do a hard refresh of the page (ctrl and F5 for example), which should update it and move the ads to a column on the right. Please add any other issues below. We hope to have these resolved soon and apologize for these temporary formatting issues. Angela 21:51, 14 Jan 2005 (PST)

Macintosh users: Safari users, empty your cache -- that often does the trick. --DavidFeng 02:27, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * The problems reported yesterday with Safari seem to be resolved today. (I don't have enough time today to test much, but it looks good on the pages I've been to so far.)  -- RJ 07:59, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)

More details on clearing your cache are at Wikipedia:Bypass your cache. Angela 18:34, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)

Pay to remove advertisments
Could Wikicities offer the option of a monthly payment to keep advertising off a site? The amount could vary depending on how much bandwidth is used, if necessary. It may be appropriate to provide a PayPal (or similar) account for users of the Wikicity to contribute. That way, if enough users choose to contribute a small amount to the site, it will remain advertisement free.


 * This sounds like a fine idea to me. Also possibly allow the Wikicity to choose what advertisements it wishes to publish/profit from, it addition to paying Wikicities to keep off Google ads.  GChriss 04:23, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Stylesheet issues
I can't even go to the bottom of the page when editing due to the problems with advertising. If there is no alternative to advertising I will simply have to close my wikicity.
 * I've replied via email since editing is a problem for you. Angela 05:44, 29 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * 1) The ads force right floating images and category entries to be shifted to the end of the page
 * 2) The ads appear above the edit box, so you need to scroll down too far to edit
 * 3) Public service ads are included, seemingly without reason
 * I have a comment on the PSAs, that's what google does when it can't figure out what to put on your page. You can, however, have a secondary adserver which google calls instead of putting in a PSA, which isn't a terrible alternative.  --Me at work 21:05, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * If the PSAs bring in no money, should we have them at all? Angela 18:34, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)

- user:Jasonr made some changes to the placement and tested it in Firefox and IE on Windows at 800x600 and 1024x768 resolutions. Le t me know if you get any other formatting problems. Regarding the public service ads... Those are something Google is doing. It is my understanding that they will go away after a few days.
 * Can you get it so there's edges on the box then? The ads make the box not touch the side of the page, so it's like a box open on one end and it just makes my eyes hurt at the bad style :( --Me at work 21:05, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * I agree. The missing edge is weird. Angela 18:34, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * There are still problems with everything coming after the ads under Linux/Konqueror 3.3.2; the column-content is sized correctly to fit the space, but it still appears below the ad - GreenReaper 05:11, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * I tried adding style float:right to the column-google, but that shifted the content left as well without resizing it. GreenReaper 05:41, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * This page also has problems on at least IE/Windows - GreenReaper

OmniWeb and Safari on Mac OS X are rendering the pages with a massive column of blankness next to a right-aligned tower ad, followed by a shrunk text. Only the top tabs and the left navbar are still "normal". --DavidFeng 08:27, 15 Jan 2005 (PST) looks like it's fixed. --David

Also, google rules state (somewhere) that you can't put the ad on pages you can only see after you're logged in, so ads cannot (by rules) be on preferences pages or admin only pages. While it's doubtful they'll find out/do anything, I have heard of a user losing his account, but as that's FOAF, I can't verify it. --Me at work 21:05, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * I think the ads should be more aimed at visitors, not editors, so removing them from user pages, special pages, and edit pages, might not be a bad idea. I don't know how easy it is to do this though. Angela 18:34, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)

There's a problem here in IE6/Windows - the adverts go over the footer rather than extending the height of the page. - GreenReaper 22:21, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)

We're getting less space to edit and to put content as a result of this ad at the right side of the page. We used to have the rest of the screen to the right of the navbar to edit at will; we're now having like 20% that taken away, not just with the ad in its place, but even after the ad. An edit a few edits back (which BTW got the categories/edit problem where it was) made all the text come right after the ads. We should have it like that without the ad problems with that edit (sorry if I'm making someone around here confused). BTW, if USD 100 was all that was required for a year, I'd be more than happy to pony up the cash (maybe a bit more) :-) --DavidFeng 10:22, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * That Section Edits prob has been resolved. Thanks for lightening response. :) Do stuff on the fly with a Treo 650 so those come handy. Rman JackRman Jack 12:04, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)

CSS Fix Suggestions


width: 120px; /* to replace the current 15% */ }   margin: 2.8em 125px 0 12.2em; /* push away from right 125px */ /* width: %65; // remove this accursed thing */ /* border-right: none; // remove this as well */ }
 * 1) column-google {
 * 1) content {

Now, it does not look terrible! Edit: I did not miss anything else, just retested on a fresh. /:Edit I hope you like it/use it! --Me at work 18:25, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * I would also like the width to be corrected as above. When the user has a wide screen, it takes up too much space. When it is narrow, the ad overlaps the content. Which isn't good. :-) -- GreenReaper 00:18, 18 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * It appears these fixes have been implemented! Refresh if you don't see them.  :) --Me at work 09:19, 18 Jan 2005 (PST)

Alternatives and suggestions
There was a suggestion on peace-l to use the PayPal donation program on peace: as an alternative. Angela 09:15, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * I think paypal would be good, too, if people actually gave the money . . . don't know how many would, though. But it could be another option. GreenReaper 10:17, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)

A suggestion was made on my talk page to use the button ads on edit pages. Personally, I don't think ads on edit pages are useful at all. If people are about to edit something, they ought to be allowed to do that without distraction. Angela


 * Yes, I didn't see talk:advertising yet, I guess that's because they're brand new. Ads are still on edit pages, but I was saying, what if i'm editing and i want to learn how to buy edited films for my family without swear words (actual ad i saw just a min ago) and maybe that's related?  just kidding... --Me at work 20:59, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)

A suggestion in an email to me was to allow wiki users to pay to have the ads removed. Angela 09:21, 15 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * This was my suggestion and I strongly recommend it. I would be most willing to pay a reasonable support for the wiki and the excellent support. I could manage up to $10 per month. Even if it had to be more than that and I couldnt afford, I would like to have the option. Josep


 * Following the Biz Model of countless other "Free" Net Services (like NetZero, for example) having the option to pay a reasonable fee would seem a natural progression. Ad-Free option would be sweet. Been here just 2-weeks & already fond of it. IMHO, best thing since indoor-plumbing, Net-wise.

I remember coming across an estimate last year that within a single day most are subjected to some 18,000 Ad images. Humans are really good at filtering-out the annoying or unwanted. This is why cutting-edge advertising is currently focused on the possibilites of what is called Memetic Marketing. Dare I say that a Wiki environment can be readily perceived as a prime candidate for such a technique which is taken as far less obtrusive, much more effective, & can actually be educational. Just a thought. Rman JackRman Jack 12:08, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)

Examples

 * http://creatures.wikicities.com/index.php/Norndoll
 * http://creatures.wikicities.com/index.php/Category:Creatures_games
 * http://creatures.wikicities.com/index.php/Hebe_Norn

Diff pages
The ads are very problematic of diff pages. They make the diff completely unusable. Is there a need to have them on every page, or would having them on content pages only suffice? (example) Angela


 * I looked into this problem, it is because the diff blocks are set to take up half the middle thing and don't auto adjust properly. You can see this attitude when you open a sidebar in firefox, they create a horizontal scrollbar because of the way they exist.


 * I suppose the real problem exists in the core code as it doesn't support a right 'toolbar', this is mentioned in the page when you try to switch the side that Monobook doesn't support it. If you got some real css smarties (lol) on the team to fix monobook, then I suppose the left side toolbar will be fixed.  Otherwise, all I can say is you're in a windowed mode or have a sidebar open...  The chance that this will happen to a normal user is rare...


 * Actually, this is a problem with tables too, as I'm looking at the dif rendering and there's nothing about table width in there, only table cell coloring. Create a page with tables and you'll get a similar problem.  I don't know how you'll get them to show up only on content pages, I was just going to suggest you drop a googlead button underneath the toolbox, as that was the original intent.  --Me at work 21:23, 16 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * This also appears to be a problem when looking at pictures. See Calgary:Image:The_Ranche.jpg for an example.  The page seems to size wide enough to have the ad to the right of the picture, but it plunks down the ad over top of the picture if the browser window is not big enough.  This is really annoying.  --JamesTeterenko 18:44, 20 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * I just encountered this problem too. (Was trying to patrol a page.  Even after I did all kinds of adjustments to resize/rearrange the page, so I could see under the ad bar, the "mark patrolled" link did not appear to be there.  (I've had some occasions where that seemed to be inconsistent before, so it's possible this is due to some other cause.) --RJ 10:00, 21 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * This is even a bit of a problem on pages which use  tags... --Sgeo 13:37, 26 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * This is in response to the newly added 'example' link. I dislike example links.  That's like saying "This page has horizontal scroll!" and the original person is running at 800x600, while the person who checks into it says "Looks fine to me" and they have 1600x1200.  The problem will not show up for everyone, it depends on the width of the browser.  If you have a browser a mile wide, you can make it so you won't have the problem with the ad on the diff pages, while someone with an inch wide browser will (those are extremes as figurative language).  Please upload screenshots in the future so that everyone can see things the same way you do, thanks :).  An alternative to this is to specify specifics, such as "I'm running Firefox 1.0 fullscreen on my Mac OS X 10.3 at 1024x768", so that you can get something similar, probably by resetting the screen size for testing.  The reason I say include the OS, is because for some reason firefox for linux sometimes makes the text about 2 sizes too small... --Me at work 16:55, 27 Jan 2005 (PST)


 * I added a screenshot at first (see above), but then thought that was less useful since you wouldn't be able to check whether the bug had since been fixed without a link to what the screenshot was of. Angela 18:23, 27 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * If that page is still messed up for you, that sucks. It looks fine to me in Firefox at 1280x960 in Windows XP.  I guess you're at 1024x768?  --Me at work 18:35, 27 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * Yes. Angela 19:19, 27 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * I don't know if this goes against your new advertising TOS which says you cant remove the ads, but here you go. Get "Nuke Anything", the Firefox extension (if you use firefox) and right click the google ad's top block to 'remove item'.  This is a one time occurance and the ad will reappear on a page refresh or whatever.  This would be useful when the ad gets in the way, while allowing you to
 * See the ad and possible things for you to click on if you want, it is context sensitive and such
 * Remove the ad from the page temporarily, after you have checked for anything you wanted to click.
 * Also, the google ads are currently telling me that I could get some "Political Advertising" "Negative ads, strategies, and high-profile campaigns" as well as get some "Republican Political Ads" "Learn why Stevens-schriefer has helped elect more GOP than any firm". I don't know if it's showing me USA ads because I'm in the USA, or because it'd show them to anyone.  :-/ --Me at work 20:16, 27 Jan 2005 (PST)
 * It's based on the content of the page, not where you are from. I'm not sure if telling people about Firefox features is breaching the TOU. I guess if you put this in the site notice and told every visitor about it, it would be more of an issue than telling editors about it on a page such as thing. Angela 21:28, 27 Jan 2005 (PST)

Message from Jason:
 * Fixed bug 62 - ads on diff pages. The diff pages were often unreadable because of the ads.  I had to do several things to make it work right. I had to change the main.css so that it included style info for content blocks with ads and those without, then I had to change the scripts to use the correct one depending on whether it was a diff page or not.
 * Bug creates new bugs (#content customizations must be duplicated to #content_withads right now). Suggestion: keep "content" the same.  The only thing different between #content_withads and #content is the margin, so why not make #content_noads and have it be the 'margin' for the current #content, this way you use two classes (content content_withads / content content_noads) and have a main class which holds the 'common' lines.  This would fix one main thing for me, the rounding of the borders that i had set up under #content.  Of course, the name _withads is bad for me, i would prefer _ads and _noads myself, but I am going with the standards already laid out.  I hope this fix can be made, as it would make things backwards-compatible rather well with the customizations at meta:user styles, such as User_styles. --Me at work 14:37, 30 Jan 2005 (PST)

Top versus sidebar
Since "the core code doesn't support a right 'toolbar'", I've been noticing lots of problems: backwards languages (as Angela is already aware), and also floating tables.

Maybe a better solution, if the agreement with Google allows for it, would be for an advertising space along the top margin of every page. At least this wouldn't interfere at all with text and flow of the article.Zabek 20:16, 8 Mar 2005 (GMT)


 * I think Jason has just got the toolbar to appear on the right (on he.miqra anyway). Having the ads at the top might be more annoying since it would force all of the content down, meaning users would need to scroll more often. Angela 20:25, 8 Mar 2005 (GMT)


 * In my Firefox the adds are still appearing over (covering) the righthand toolbar in Hebrew. Also take a look at en.miqra to see what happens when large tables aren't forced within the middle space.Zabek 20:37, 8 Mar 2005 (GMT)


 * I've copied this to 89. Angela 20:36, 9 Mar 2005 (GMT)

Thanks! Now that the sidebar is working better in Firefox at least (see the note I left you on your user page), the more acute problem is tables that are not forced within the middle space. Should that be noted as a separate "bug"? I think it is a more fundamental problem.

Thanks again. Zabek 06:54, 10 Mar 2005 (GMT)


 * I've replied at User talk:Zabek. Angela 04:45, 12 Mar 2005 (GMT)

Category?
Should the Advertising page be in the policy category? --CocoaZen 12:35, 28 Mar 2005 (EST)

Survey on "Link Units"
I don't have much opinion on either the usual ads on the right or the trial "Link Units." But I do prefer for the Google search box to stay. Maurreen 07:05, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
 * I find the "Link Units" obtrusive the way they are now. I prefer the Google Ads on the right. If the Link Units have to stay, they should be separate from the toolbox and not replace the Google searchbox. KainNiemand
 * I agree with KainNiemand - if they have to stay, they should be but in there own little toolbox on the left. I've also been having some innappropriate link ads being displayed on my wiki. Also, the Google box should at least stay for my Wiki - being the Google wiki and all... Finney 21:16, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Survey Questions

 * 1) Do you prefer the Link Units on the left to the adverts on the right?
 * 2) Do you feel the Link Units are in the right place on the page?
 * 3) Do you want the Link Units to be more separate from the sidebar?
 * 4) Do you see any point to the Google Search box or would you rather it was removed?
 * 5) How would you feel about having the Link Units instead of the Google Search box?
 * 6) How would you feel about having the Link Units on the right instead of the left?
 * 7) If the Link Units were on the right, would you prefer them above or below the normal ads?

CocoaZen's Responses
--CocoaZen 21:30, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
 * 1) Yes.
 * 2) The right place, but I'd prefer them in a separate box below the toolbox instead of the same box.
 * 3) On the left sidebar, but yes with a bit of separation from what has been there.
 * 4) I am happy to have the Google search as well as Wikicities.  (Would be ok Google search wasn't there.)
 * 5) Ok.  Maybe a good order would be (1) navigation with Wikicities search, (2) toolbox, (3) ads by Google (link units) with Google search (and regular ads?)
 * 6) Prefer them on the left and let the content section get wider - without the ads (is that an option?  Could the ads go under the link units on the left?).  If not, would put them on the right at the top of the ads and put the Google search there too.
 * 7) Link Units above the ads.  (Google search, then link units, then ads.)

Thanks to everyone who responded to the survey about our advertising.

There was a small majority for keeping the Google search box, so although it brings in basically no money at all, this will be staying for now.

Finney, CocoaZen, me at work, and KainNiemand all thought the "Link Units" should move if they were going to stay (separated from the content more and/or in their own box). There was a general feeling that link units were better than the ads since they are less imposing.

Unsurprisingly, the Link Units brought in far less money than the normal Google ads (around 8 times less), so it's not good as a long term option. It would be interesting to trial them again in a different position, taking into account the opposition at having them look so much like they were part of the sidebar. I won't do that immediately however. If anyone has any more feedback, feel free to give that here or on the mailing list.

The Link Units have gone for now, so if you can still see them, try refreshing the page or logging in. Angela (talk) 03:31, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Multilingual Content & Google Ad
On some multilingual pages, there is no Google ad (e.g. 首頁, scratchpad:2cm:Home, and translation:病気な薔薇). On some, there are Google ads (e.g. ウィキシティーズ and Начална страница). Can anyone figure out why? &mdash; Danielwang 14:02, 3 Jul 2005 (UTC)


 * Google only supports these langages so content in other languages is likely to not generate ads unless Google confuses it with one of their supported languages. Angela (talk) 05:07, 10 Jul 2005 (UTC)

Explanation of a sentence
what does "sponsored search features from the wiki in a way which means other users can not view these" mean?—Danielwang 06:53, 22 Jul 2005 (UTC)
 * It meant the Google search box but I've removed it since it's covered by "advertising" anyway. Angela (talk) 06:47, 30 Aug 2005 (UTC)

Potentially Inappropriate Ads
I run the DisneyWiki, and upon arrival at the Main Page, the Google Ads bar on the right lists ads... all for sperm banks. I don't approve of that kind of ad, especially on a DisneyWiki, that is meant to be family oriented. It's not right. --Lyght 04:37, 4 Oct 2005 (UTC)
 * Ouch. I've had some similarly weird ads over at Gameinfo for umbilical cord blood banks or some such nonsense, and the closest keyword on the affected pages was "heart". I think in cases like this Google needs to be informed (however that's done) so they can reassess the keywords used for such ads. Now while I can just see the connection between Piece of Heart and Cord Blood (however tentative it may be), I can't see how any words being used to describe Disney could pull up that. Or perhaps there's a way to get Google to only feed ads with a certain rating... that would also be a way to prevent this in future, if such a feature exists of course. Garrett 14:40, 5 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * If you tell me the problem URLs, I can prevent ads from those sites. If it is more a general issue and there aren't particular URLs causing problems, I'd suggest writing to Google Adsense about it since they control the ads, and are perhaps not aware of the inappropriateness of some of them. Angela (talk) 04:14, 16 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * I just found one example that was pointing to medical-central.org. I'll block this one, but please let me know if there are others. Angela (talk) 04:14, 16 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah, I didn't know they could be specifically blocked. I'll be on the lookout. Ah, I found some already... (See note below):
 * www.FertilityStories.com
 * www.cordbloodfacts.com
 * www.necryogenic.com
 * These are all from Gameinfo, on Special:Upload at that (?!?). Garrett 07:16, 17 Oct 2005 (UTC)


 * For the sake of clarification, please let me point out that the above-mentioned sites are legitimate, it's just that it seems inappropriate for these ads to appear on Gameinfo. The site owners would probably like to know as well, since they're probably spending a good deal of money advertising on sites like these.


 * I've done some research and found a parameter that can switch a "safe" filter on for ads. It's not a documented feature, and I'm not sure if it actually works, but I'm looking into making it available for wikis where the ad content needs to be censored. - Jasonr 06:32, 16 Oct 2005 (UTC)