To discuss anything which relates to the FLYER Airportal or the magazine
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User avatar
By Rob P
#1669416
No, she seemed concerned not to drop the jar of hand cream (?) she was carrying. I thought the rubber gloves were a bit odd.

Meanwhile, I have to confess I have taken to viewing the forum in a window narrowed to the width that excludes the scrolling ads at the RH side

Rob P
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1669594
Crikey, I think I may have to surrender my grumpy tag, you lot are making me feel inadequate :D

I do agree that the ads have probably reached a level where they are in danger of becoming counter productive and a couple of steps back might create a suitable balance. In particular the wobbly column at the right hand side is distinctly off putting, otherwise it's not too much of a problem. The eclectic mix of content adds to the entertainment :-)
User avatar
By G-BLEW
Boss Man  Boss Man
#1669602
As mentioned, we're looking at a few things and running some tests, I'll report back in a week or so.

Thanks

Ian
PS @Paul_Sengupta How many tabs?
Sooty25 liked this
By Cessna57
#1669613
johnm wrote:Crikey, I think I may have to surrender my grumpy tag, you lot are making me feel inadequate :D

I do agree that the ads have probably reached a level where they are in danger of becoming counter productive and a couple of steps back might create a suitable balance. In particular the wobbly column at the right hand side is distinctly off putting, otherwise it's not too much of a problem. The eclectic mix of content adds to the entertainment :-)


Thing is, it wouldn’t take a week or two to back out the wobbly column would it? Would take about 30 mins.

The “tests” are to see how many of us leave.

Why not come and join us on Facebook? I’m not a big fan of social media, and have an account for “pilot stuff only”, so even if you don’t like Facebook for other stuff you can just join the pilot group.

What we’ll lose that we have here is the ability to search.

It’s odd, I have a magazine subscription, I understand the forum is free and runs at a loss, so the rest of the business has to cover it, but with volunteer mods and spare time programmers I presume the overhead is hosting?

What’s that £35 a month ?

so in a world where you lot moan if a landing fee goes up 60p, I can’t see this place becoming subscription.

However, I can’t believe that SkyEcho wouldn’t pay £35 a month to add a tag line to the forum.

I’m typing this on an iPhone on a train. It’s bearable on an iPhone. I’d not bother to visit if I was sat at a desktop.

Anyway, long and short of it (it’s been said before) it’s not our trainset. Live with the adverts or leave. Simple as.

The footfall is now being monitored, it’s not reduced, so the adverts stay. Simple as.

I’ll probably have the odd look in the next week or two, only if I’m on an iPhone, and I’m not often on a train. Meanwhile, the shrivelled fruit is welcoming these days.

All the regulars have said “this is ridiculous”, the response is “we’re not changing it back”, you can’t get clearer feedback than those who make up the backbone of the site telling you you’ve got it wrong. So don’t pretend you want feedback.

(Of course, it could have been changed back while I type this, I’m on an iPhone, so I can’t tell)
Nick liked this
User avatar
By Miscellaneous
#1669620
I'm unsure whether you want feedback or not @G-BLEW ?

My view is that many of the ads are completely inappropriate for this platform. It is often said that care is necessary in not having certain posts and opinions associated with the rest of the business. If it were my train set I'd be concerned about the impact and impression the random ads and click bait were having and creating on and of the rest of the business.

At present it comes across more as desperation than sensible targeted monetising.

So far ads for the complete range of Iveco trucks (including articulated), loans, PPR, click bait for false news, breast enlargement, Russian women, countless holidays (although no gay ads as Paul S) and what ever the below is…and that's just for starters.

Image
User avatar
By Sooty25
#1669621
I'm a member of a couple of other specialist forums and both have different membership models.

the first has two options;
1. free membership in which you endure adverts like we see here.
2. paid membership which turns off all of the advertising blocks.

the other,
1. only carries relevant advertising from advertisers that pay directly to the forum operator and they are all static adverts.
2. runs a voluntary sponsorship scheme, where you have a choice of sponsor levels which show up as a "badge of honour" under your avatar.

This site at the moment,
the right hand side bar scrolling as you do is extremely distracting and for me, seems to be full of video style adverts that are constantly changing, also very distracting.

The between thread adverts, I can live with if I have to as long as they stay small and static.

Oh, and I do occasionally click on the odd advert to drop a few pennies into the Flyer pot especially if Google serves up adverts from my competitors! :thumright:
User avatar
By defcribed
#1669629
The changes do seem to put the site/forum into a different category for me.

It was reasonably well constructed, easy to read, and the adverts were all aviation related. No problems.

Now I'm afraid it just feels like part of the 'junk web', where you're actively having to fight past intrusive advertising to find real content.

What's next, autoplaying video ads with sound?
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User avatar
By G-BLEW
Boss Man  Boss Man
#1669630
Cessna57 wrote:Thing is, it wouldn’t take a week or two to back out the wobbly column would it? Would take about 30 mins.

The “tests” are to see how many of us leave.


Honestly, it's comments like this that make me want to run more ads!

1. It's a test to see
- How the ads settle in (ie what tweaks might be necessary if we keep them)
- How much revenue they generate
- What the feedback is

2. If you think we could run this forum on a £35 a month tagline you're very much mistaken, it cost a lot of money to set up and integrate, it takes up huge amounts of my time and the time of others in the office (and yes, HUGE amounts of the volunteer mods time). I currently employ 3.5 soon to be 4.5 sales people, they sell the ads in the magazine, the ads on two websites, the ads on email newsletters and exhibition stands at nine events, I might (jokingly) think they could work harder, but their time isn't best spent selling £35 ads.

3. It frustrates me that after being a member for a while, some of which was used to promote PAW (let's not go there again), you are happy enough to come along and suggest people go to Facebook instead! Talk about no tolerance.

4. I have to look at the business as a whole. The publishing world has changed dramatically over the past decade or two and any publisher has to consider all possible revenue streams, (Misc, your comment about 'desperation' because of wrongly targeted ads is part of the test of the programatic advertising, which can be tweaked).

5. We're a small business that needs to make money to survive (25 years in March!), I doubt this website will ever generate a huge profit, but it can't all be done for nothing.

Ian
AndyR, johnm, TheKentishFledgling and 10 others liked this
By Nick
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1669652
@G-BLEW G
I logged in on my desktop yesterday evening and what a shock, with those flashing ads in the RH column. I did try to use the forum but they were so distracting I just couldn't, so I did what I had to do and tried my phone again.

I understand you need revenue and I accept we have to pay one way or another but I think this design is counter productive on 2 counts.
1 It is going to drive forumites away from your site.
2 The way the ads are presented we are being driven away from them as well.

Look at the AFORS site the ads are all around the sides of the content but they are stationary ie not flashing or flickering, they are just there. Every so often I will click on one that appeals to me, so that works.

Take U tube, every so often an ad will appear with a box saying content, will play in 5 seconds or skip ad even better. But I have control and no flashing images. I have even subscribed to a couple of things. That is a success!

I have cancelled Facebook... I have looked at other forae. BMAA... Microlight forum... etc but cancelled them due to the troll posters and poor moderation. This is the ONLY forum I am happy with. Good and fair moderation..(Yes, I have checked just what I can get away with who doesn't), the members I have met so far, seem an ok++ bunch and there is a fair balance of banter. And above all Lots of helpfull information when required. I don't need the forum , I enjoy looking at it and joining in. But I WILL cancell my membership if it stays like it is. Although I don't want to.

It's just like a club really. I will go further than that A valuable institution!

One other thing, with the flickering ads on the desktop. How will that affect anyone with epilepsy?

Nick
User avatar
By rikur_
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1669670
G-BLEW wrote:
Honestly, it's comments like this that make me want to run more ads!

Now there's an idea.
The number and type of adverts should be linked to how many 'likes' or 'dislikes' you earn.
And each time you mention Brexit or PilotAware you have to sit through a 30 second full page advert for a PPI claims service, until you can continue to use the forum.
Bill Haddow, cockney steve, Pete L and 1 others liked this
User avatar
By G-BLEW
Boss Man  Boss Man
#1669678
rikur_ wrote:
G-BLEW wrote:
Honestly, it's comments like this that make me want to run more ads!

Now there's an idea.
The number and type of adverts should be linked to how many 'likes' or 'dislikes' you earn.
And each time you mention Brexit or PilotAware you have to sit through a 30 second full page advert for a PPI claims service, until you can continue to use the forum.


Brrilliant :-)

Ian
User avatar
By Sooty25
#1669706
that's one way of getting rid of those threads! :D
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