Proboards is going to block your view

[Pebbles]

Proboards is soon going to block your view till you disable adblock when you visit a proboards forum by putting up a fullscreen overlay on your forum , for guests and existing members. Yes you can dismiss the fullscreen overlay and other ways of how they will try to make you disable adblock but in the end does that even matter? In my opinion it does not, because this can and will make people not even bother registering and also can and will make existing members not even bother with proboards forums in the end because if people don't want to disable their adblock, even though they got the right to do so, why in the hell would they stick around on a forum that is utterly annoying constantly asking you to disable it?.....

full statement;
http://support.proboards.com/thread/622449/ad-blockers-on-proboards

if you ask me, this is just a sad attempt to make people like me, proboards users, pay them and go for their free ad service or even sign up for their pro plan forums.net.

Are there any other forum softwares that do this to your forum when people got adblock enabled? as far as i know there are not and that is also exactly why right now, once again, i am extremely frustrated with the fact i EVER chose proboards to make my forum and there is no ''free'' freaking way out

 

[Joshua Farrell]

Honestly, their sole income is based off of the ads, and any other income that they generate from their white label service (which actually doesn't have enough people paying into, to generate the income to match the income from the ads). Plus in that same thread you listed, they said themselves, that they will only be putting up their white list request from ad block users once an hour (or once per session, whichever is less), and it will only show up when you go far enough into the forum to get the message (when viewing a thread). Plus they aren't yet implementing it. They mentioned it will be a week or more before they begin doing it, so that users and admins that are on the support board, can take time to decide whether or not they want add the forums they are browsing to their ad blockers' white list, or go and pay for the personal 2.99 a month adfree experience.

They also mentioned that for anyone that is a registered member, that is logged in, they will only get a floating bar to remind them to whitelist proboards. And honestly, that isn't intrusive for members.

When using anything free in general, you agree to use their service as is; which includes any ads they put up to cover costs of running the service. In this case, they are entitled to do what they are finally doing, because it is their service; not yours.

Have you noticed the message on top of our forum, when browsing here? That message is only there to help those who do block ads, to decides whether or not they want to continue blocking, or support the forum. To my knowledge, that hasn't "forced" anyone to leave our forum; only to make them aware that the decision they make, affects the forum they are browsing.

 

[Deleted member 4320]

I'll just block the pop up then, or never visit a ProBoards site.

So many people seem to forget that if you don't want people to block ads, don't have annoying ads on your site.

I've said so many times, I will pay for content if it means I don't have to see ads.

 

[Pebbles]

They also mentioned that for anyone that is a registered member, that is logged in, they will only get a floating bar to remind them to whitelist proboards. And honestly, that isn't intrusive for members.

members will also get the fullscreen overlay....

Logged in members will not be presented with the full screen overlay when loading a page. Instead they will get a bar that floats at the bottom of the screen asking for their support. When the bar is clicked, the overlay that guests see will be displayed, which again can be easily dismissed with one click.

meaning, if the floating bar doesn't make you change your mind, they will put it in your face full time
and even though i understand what ads do and why they need them.... doing it this way is just ridiculous because a fullscreen overlay will annoy people and will drive some people away eventually / those who do not want to disable adblock - which again should be someones rightful choice?

 

[Joshua Farrell]

They also mentioned that for anyone that is a registered member, that is logged in, they will only get a floating bar to remind them to whitelist proboards. And honestly, that isn't intrusive for members.

members will also get the fullscreen overlay....

Logged in members will not be presented with the full screen overlay when loading a page. Instead they will get a bar that floats at the bottom of the screen asking for their support. When the bar is clicked, the overlay that guests see will be displayed, which again can be easily dismissed with one click.

meaning, if the floating bar doesn't make you change your mind, they will put it in your face full time
and even though i understand what ads do and why they need them.... doing it this way is just ridiculous because a fullscreen overlay will annoy people and will drive some people away eventually / those who do not want to disable adblock - which again should be someones rightful choice?

As I mentioned in a part you didn't quote from my post:

When using anything free in general, you agree to use their service as is; which includes any ads they put up to cover costs of running the service. In this case, they are entitled to do what they are finally doing, because it is their service; not yours.

Whether or not you stay is your choice, but it is their choice to do what they are doing. They have gone years without a notice on the forums they host (17 years btw), in regards to their users viewing or blocking ads. Since they are finally going ahead with a notice that only shows up once an hour for users blocking ads, I do not see how that can be more intrusive, than a message that shows up for every page load you do, while you have adblockers enabled.

 

[Pebbles]

I do not see how that can be more intrusive, than a message that shows up for every page load you do, while you have adblockers enabled.

a message not as annoying as it does not block your view on fullscreen mode 🙂

i get it that it is their choice to do this and they got the right to do so but do you even get my point that enough other people, apparently you not included 😛, will find it annoying to see a fullscreen thing pop up even if its just once or twice?

that can and will annoy people and i think i am not wrong to be afraid that it is going to have an impact on guests even bothering registering , even if it only pops up once.

To my knowledge, that hasn't "forced" anyone to leave our forum; only to make them aware that the decision they make, affects the forum they are browsing.

i think it is weird to compare a small normal message with a huge full screen overlay that they are about to implant because such normal small message is not and will not be viewed as annoying as a fullscreen overlay will do.

its great you got all the knowledge about ads and don't mind such messages but there is lots of other people that do not know anything about why ads are even there and will only find a fullscreen overlay message annoying as hell.

 

[John]

I'll just block the pop up then, or never visit a ProBoards site.

So many people seem to forget that if you don't want people to block ads, don't have annoying ads on your site.

I've said so many times, I will pay for content if it means I don't have to see ads.

Literally this. I don't seem to understand why people cannot get this. If you want people to whitelist your website/forum, have non-intrusive ads. I don't adblock every site (I try to give a little help to small forums); however, if there are ads all over the forum, I'm not going to whitelist the site. Why? I hate ads; they give me malware and other fun stuff like that.

I, personally, will never use a free forum host. If I decide to move someday, I can't do that. They don't allow things like crawlers, and they do their best to keep ads on your homepage. If (when) I decide to make a new forum, I'll use a paid host that will allow me to change whatever I want - and that will allow me database control.

 

[Pebbles]

I, personally, will never use a free forum host. If I decide to move someday, I can't do that. They don't allow things like crawlers, and they do their best to keep ads on your homepage. If (when) I decide to make a new forum, I'll use a paid host that will allow me to change whatever I want - and that will allow me database control.

i wouldn't of chosen freaking proboards , i rather would of gone with ipb or mybb but not everyone can afford paid forum softwares or even hosting for a free one such as mybb 😛 and unfortunately i am one of those people 🙁
sure things can be cheap but i got no income right now so yeah....

i regret chosing proboards lol, i should of gone with jcink

 

[Gus]

Their platform is garbage and so is their policies.

 

[Joshua Farrell]

Their platform is garbage and so is their policies.

Their policies are half based on ad companies like google.

 

[Marie 1988 Forum]

How pathetic can you get? Ads are the reason forums survive good think I don't post on such forums anymore

 

[Joshua Farrell]

Wow you guys, freaking out over a simple reminder that pops up once an hour if you have ad blocker enabled. On FP, the reminder shows up for every page load. Also on Proboards, they have no ads that interrupt your viewing of any forum you are on, so I don't know what is the matter.

 

[Lord Saru]

I really dont understand the trouble here. Yes, I would be happy if the reminder was removed but no, I wouldnt fight over it.

 

[Tindris]

There is no such thing as unlimited generosity in the world. Especially not in today's society. The reason for this is sad, but true: Nothing Is Free, Ever.
Just because you can freely host your free forum on their server, doesn't mean it isn't costing them anything. Every click you make, every thing you do, every member who joins and posts, it is costing ProBoards money. Money that isn't appearing from thin air.
So where do they get their money from? The one thing they cannot charge you for, ads. But then someone invented the lovely Ad Blocker, which is the thorn in the side of all forum communities. So now their revenue stream has been cut. How else do you suggest they fix this than attempting to remove the thorn?
Sure, ads are annoying, but if you have the right kind they aren't intrusive. I think this brings us to the bigger question, how should online advertisements be regulated so they are more appealing and not an irritation? It is beyond me why we allow 90s style graphics in ads online nowadays. It isn't needed and its downright ugly.

 

[Smokey]

I went with ZetaBoards solely for the reason that ProBoards never really appealed to me.....I started there and left as soon as I discovered InvisionFree back in 2002. 🙂 Did a lot of moving around since then but yeah ZetaBoards has been a service for many years now and I highly doubt they'd ever put such an intrusive ad on their platform, I can easily disable and block the ads ZB puts on their service. They still get money from me because most months I'll pay for premium for my forums.

 

[Mozzie]

There view for adblock is easy over come. You can set it so no website can detect it.

 

[Makefort]

I'll just block the pop up then, or never visit a ProBoards site.

So many people seem to forget that if you don't want people to block ads, don't have annoying ads on your site.

I've said so many times, I will pay for content if it means I don't have to see ads.

This is the best statement concerning this issue. You force people to disable ad-block, and spam them with popup in the face. That is not how things should work. And if they honestly made a deal such as 1$ per month do disable ads, they might as well make more profit this way than with ads. There are always ways around annoying sites that warn you about your ad-block and they block the content. On regular sites it is easy to deal with, you could just right click, inspect element, remove that. As for forums, you would probably have to do it on every topic you open which would be equally annoying. I would just ignore the site.

Ad-blockers were made for a reason. If people who live from ads can't understand that reason, they can start packing their bags. They wont last that long. If they do, their income will surely drop down a lot if they used such measures.

Just implement the paid subscription to remove ads for 1 or 2 $ a month. Even if it was 5$ it still isn't much, although I have seen a lot of forums with 2$ / month and they are doing just fine.

 

[Jason76]

Maybe ProBoards could force some sort of non-traditional ad on people that couldn't be blocked. For instance, a forum link (a link to a board that is really a redirecting link) would do the job.