Forum:Advertisements

I having a bit of a concern over some of the advertisements that are appearing on the Runescape Wiki. The ads that I'm of particular concern over are some of those that are from gold sellers, sites which encourage blatant violations of the terms of service with the game and can be argued as being scams with links to organized crime.

For those not familiar with gold sellers or the practice of gold farming (sometimes spelled pharming) this is where a group of folks try to get together and collect as many "resources" that they can sell... for real money (dollars, euros, pounds, etc.) and not the in-game virtual money. Where the organized crime comes in is mainly in the method for accomplishing this task. Many of the larger gold farming organizations go to 3rd world countries and hire people to play these on-line RPGs (like Runescape, but other games are having a problem with this), where the pay is usually some pathetic wage like 50 cents per hour or even considerably less. That might seem well and good, and some would argue that this is helping to support folks in these 3rd world countries where economic opportunities are limited. But it gets worse.

Not only do these gold farming companies set up accounts that are staffed by 2-3 "shifts" of workers running the accounts 24/7/365 (tying up server resources with usage patterns very different from ordinary users... one reason the gaming companies hate these folks), they often pay the gaming fees with stolen credit cards, or use the cash that comes from folks who attempt to use the services of these companies for money laundering and other illicit purposes. This is assuming that somebody who gives their credit card number over to a company located in a completely different part of the world (they are usually based in Africa or China) is even going to deliver the "in-game gold" that is promised, or the other "services" that they are asserting to be providing.

Jagex, the company who operated Runescape, was told about two years ago that they had to make significant changes to the game to stop these gold farmers or that the credit card companies would stop doing business with Jagex due to excessive charge-backs due to credit card fraud. Simply put, they were told that they would have to face bankruptcy if something didn't happen to get rid of these gold farmers in some manner.... and they reacted with some drastic changes to the game mechanics as a result.

The point is, these are companies that Wikia really should try to distance themselves from if at all possible. These advertisers are explicitly targeting the Runescape Wikia as that is their market (or marks as it were), and I'm certain that similar kinds of companies are targeting some of the other gaming wikis as well.

To add insult to injury here, Jagex has been collecting a list of popular fan websites and has declined including the Runescape Wikia in its list explicitly because of these advertisements that appear on a common and regular basis. Essentially, for all of the extra revenue that Wikia might be getting from these gold sellers via the advertisements, they are losing additional page views for this and the other Wikia websites that could be coming if a nice prominent link was in place on the "official" website for this game. I'm not saying that removing these ads would get the link put on, but it certainly was a major factor in deciding to not list the RS Wiki in the first place.

My question is thus: Given these are advertisements that I don't think Wikia would want to be having on their webpages (I'll let somebody at Wikia make an official policy pronouncement on this), where might a user go to bring information like this to the attention of the Wikia staff to look into removing these ads? What about other "objectionable" ads? Mind you, I'm not objecting to the use of advertisement in general, but there are some companies that go too far and need to be reigned in. --Robert Horning 15:13, 31 August 2009 (UTC)


 * If you see any advertisements, please do the following:


 * Firefox instructions
 * 1) Right click on the ad
 * 2) If the Element Properties box appears then copy the URL shown for "Image Properties - Location:". It's probably a very long URL so be sure to copy the whole line.
 * 3) If a Flash player menu appears (which is likely for animated ads)
 * 4) *Ignore the Flash menu
 * 5) *On the Firefox toolbar, click "Tools" => "Page Info"
 * 6) *Select the "Media" tab from the Page Info pop-up
 * 7) *Look through the list of address for a very long URL, its probably the longest URL in the list
 * 8) *Copy that URL
 * 9) Note the URL of the wiki where the ad was spotted and the size of the ad
 * 10) If convenient, send a screenshot of the ad as well
 * 11) Collect the above data into an e-mail and send it to community@wikia.com and your removal request will be evaluated.


 * Internet Explorer instructions
 * 1) Right click on the ad
 * 2) Click properties
 * 3) Copy ad URL. Hint: You can click on the URL and press "CTRL-A" to get the whole thing at once
 * 4) Note the URL of the wiki where the ad was spotted and the size of the ad
 * 5) If convenient, send a screenshot of the ad as well
 * 6) Collect the above data into an e-mail and send it to community@wikia.com and your removal request will be evaluated.

I hope this helps. Wikia will become aware of the problem, and make sure these will be deleted. Also, be sure to also note that these Gold Farmers are forbidden (consider copying a link to this post). Mark (Tedjuh10) - Talk 15:17, 31 August 2009 (UTC)