About an ad column added in the left margin

[caronmi]

Dear administrators of UE forum,
Recently I surprisingly found that there is a commercial ad. column added in the left margin of the forum home page. Sometimes it is some training centers' ads, sometimes even a dating site! Personally I think it is an eyesore which ruins the academic atmosphere of this forum. And I don't know whether this has gained a permission of the Chinese network operators or these ad companies have donated to UE forum to gain this space for advertising.
Anyway, I hope our forum become better and spare no space for these improper information.
Wish you all the best!
Sincerely, Caronmi

[Raymott]

Dear administrators of UE forum,
Recently I surprisingly found that there is a commercial ad. column added in the left margin of the forum home page. Sometimes it is some training centers' ads, sometimes even a dating site! Personally I think it is an eyesore which ruins the academic atmosphere of this forum. And I don't know whether this has gained a permission of the Chinese network operators or these ad companies have donated to UE forum to gain this space for advertising.
Anyway, I hope our forum become better and spare no space for these improper information.
Wish you all the best!
Sincerely, Caronmi

Welcome to capitalism!
What annoys me is that since the weekend, these ads (and the "likes" box) are obscuring the main posts, so that I often have to click on them to move them off the text.

[Red5]

Hiya,

Actually, it's less about capitalism and more about covering the significant costs of running a large and successful free site like this.

I've now switched off the ads for members with more than 10 posts. I hope that sends the right message to our regular users.

[Barb_D]

Please remember that members join at no cost and have access to free materials, resources, and just about unlimited help from people who expect nothing in return (except sometimes we like to know that our answer was helpful).

However, there are costs to providing that. Would you prefer to look at a few ads, or to pay a monthly fee for being a member here? I think ads are a better option!

Facebook (free for members) certainly has ads. Yahoo and G-mail (free for members) and the others e-mail sites have ads. Someone has to pay for the expenses. Let it be the advertisers and not the members!

[Verona_82]

I'm not against ads at UsingEnglish, but there has been a text display problem that I've faced since the ads were launched. The bigger one on the left and those smaller ones at the bottom covered some text, which resulted in having 'like' and 'share' buttons relocated to the top of a post, with the ",,, and,,, like this"-message relocated as well, creating a mess. Pressing the 'refresh' button helped, but not always (I'm currently using IE 8) If everything stayed in place and didn't move, I guess I'd find it okay to be reminded that I might need to reclaim my brain some day.

[Raymott]

I'm not against ads at UsingEnglish, but there has been a text display problem that I've faced since the ads were launched. The bigger one on the left and those smaller ones at the bottom covered some text, which resulted in having 'like' and 'share' buttons relocated to the top of a post, with the ",,, and,,, like this"-message relocated as well, creating a mess. Pressing the 'refresh' button helped, but not always (I'm currently using IE 8) If everything stayed in place and didn't move, I guess I'd find it okay to be reminded that I might need to reclaim my brain some day.

Exactly my point. I'm not even complaining about capitalism (which is probably a good thing, the alternatives considered) or ads - only that recently they have been placing themselves on top of the posts - and that is something that does get my goat.

[caronmi]

I'm not against ads at UsingEnglish, but there has been a text display problem that I've faced since the ads were launched. The bigger one on the left and those smaller ones at the bottom covered some text, which resulted in having 'like' and 'share' buttons relocated to the top of a post, with the ",,, and,,, like this"-message relocated as well, creating a mess. Pressing the 'refresh' button helped, but not always (I'm currently using IE 8) If everything stayed in place and didn't move, I guess I'd find it okay to be reminded that I might need to reclaim my brain some day.

What you've mentioned is exactly the point.

[Red5]

I'm not against ads at UsingEnglish, but there has been a text display problem that I've faced since the ads were launched. The bigger one on the left and those smaller ones at the bottom covered some text, which resulted in having 'like' and 'share' buttons relocated to the top of a post, with the ",,, and,,, like this"-message relocated as well, creating a mess. Pressing the 'refresh' button helped, but not always (I'm currently using IE 8)

I've checked the forum out in Firefox 4, IE 9 and Chrome and have never seen this issue. Can you try refreshing your cache (Ctrl + F5 on a PC)?

[caronmi]

Please remember that members join at no cost and have access to free materials, resources, and just about unlimited help from people who expect nothing in return (except sometimes we like to know that our answer was helpful).

However, there are costs to providing that. Would you prefer to look at a few ads, or to pay a monthly fee for being a member here? I think ads are a better option!

Facebook (free for members) certainly has ads. Yahoo and G-mail (free for members) and the others e-mail sites have ads. Someone has to pay for the expenses. Let it be the advertisers and not the members!

Thanks for reminding. Yes, I do remember we free users are kind of in a condition of "no pains but with gains"... But please believe me I am not complaining, as long as the ads don't bring inconvenience to our regular use. The real intention of this thread was to suggest a solution like moving the ads to the top of the page, or a removement of those dating sites, which has nothing to do with our theme of discussing English.
Thanks again.

[caronmi]

Hiya,

Actually, it's less about capitalism and more about covering the significant costs of running a large and successful free site like this.

I've now switched off the ads for members with more than 10 posts. I hope that sends the right message to our regular users.

Thanks! I really think it is a wise solution and can encourage users to post more and discuss more. And I will be gratitude and pleased every time I log in UE forum because as a regular member, I'm feeling that my advice won't go unheeded.
Thanks again.