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Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads.
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Subject: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,Mike Yates Date: 14 Sep 19 - 06:21 AM Have I picked up a virus? Or are there adverts now appearing among the MC threads? |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: David C. Carter Date: 14 Sep 19 - 06:36 AM Mike Yates. I have seen a few of these too.There's One this morning on the Song writer thread.I don't think it is a virus. David |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: David C. Carter Date: 14 Sep 19 - 06:47 AM Unless I've got the same as you! Cheers. David |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Stanron Date: 14 Sep 19 - 06:58 AM Lots of info about this in this thread; https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=166452&messages=33 An ad blocker sorted it out for me but setting it up was not straightforward |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: DaveRo Date: 14 Sep 19 - 07:50 AM And thIs thread: https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=166495 |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: keberoxu Date: 14 Sep 19 - 05:42 PM Thanks for saying something, regardless -- it is reassuring to know that I'm not the only one. It shocked the heck out of me to see adverts embedded within the texts of POST WITHIN THREADS. How that happens I do not know, maybe one of those things that I am better off not knowing anything about. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,Mike Yates Date: 15 Sep 19 - 02:21 AM Like keberoxu, I too don't like seeing adverts within the thread texts. Is this now Mudcat Café policy? If so, then I do not think it a good idea. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: JHW Date: 15 Sep 19 - 05:53 AM There's just been a thread on this. I don't mind ads; I can ignore them, I've never bothered trying a blocker. They appear beside lots of sites often trying to sell you something you've been looking at elsewhere and decided against. None on my Mudcat screen today. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST Date: 15 Sep 19 - 08:40 AM Does Mudcat get paid more for the ones we click on? I tend to click on ones I'm not interested in or ones I don't approve of in the hope I'll get more like that, which I find quite easy to ignore & to dent their advertising budget. It'd be better without ads but I guess its probably complicated to have it set up as options 'view ads , get it free' or 'pay subs, get no adverts' |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Jack Campin Date: 15 Sep 19 - 09:06 AM They've been much more intrusive in the last couple of days than ever before. Makes threads very hard to read on my phone and there is nothing at all I can do about it. Except that if you write things that advertisers don't want to tie their product to - killing Trump, terrorist bombings, raping children or voting for Nigel Farage - at least some of them will do a content search and bugger off. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Jack Campin Date: 15 Sep 19 - 09:09 AM Hey that worked! No ads at all after I posted that. Perhaps I should ad something about electoral fraud and suggest where you might go for an abortion in the Deep South? |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Richard Mellish Date: 15 Sep 19 - 04:06 PM I've just installed an ad blocker, but that presumably prevents Mudcat from getting any revenue from the advertisers, making the whole business a waste of everybody's time. I have donated money to Mudcat in the past and I'd be happy to pay a reasonable subscription. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 15 Sep 19 - 05:06 PM I wish they didn’t interrupt people’s posts. All it does is set up an aversion reaction and breed resistance - as in “I will be DAMNED if I ever use that product/company”. Didn’t Madison Avenue & Co. learn about overkill and the resulting negative associations back in the fifties? Top or bottom of web pages is OK, within someone’s message text is not. It just makes me click out of Mudcat altogether and go elsewhere. And as others say, this seems to have spiked lately. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST Date: 15 Sep 19 - 05:50 PM I do send Mudcat a few shillings. I've no idea how much it helps. It'd be interesting to know in very rough figures £what it costs to keep mudcat on the road ÷ number of posts per year & adverting £revenue ÷ number of posts per year |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: DaveRo Date: 16 Sep 19 - 03:21 AM Jack Campin wrote: if you write things that advertisers don't want to tie their product to ... at least some of them will do a content search and bugger off.Advertisers may monitor the sites their adverts appear on, but they will complain to Google and Google will complain to the publisher (i.e. Max). On a site like Mudcat, which includes user-generated content, Google will hold the site responsible for ensuring that ads are not placed next to content which is offensive. Google monitors that and the site will get a warning if their content policies are violated. Enough warnings and the site's account will be closed. One way that Google recommends to prevent juxtaposition of ads and potentially objectionable content is to only put ads on pages with no user content. In the Mudcat context that would be the threadlist pages. That would decrease the revenue quite a lot, I should think. Other ways are to censor content with word-blacklists, closely moderate posts, ban users... So yes, it might work - but could have unintended consequences. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: JHW Date: 18 Sep 19 - 04:43 AM On another similar thread there was an ad actually within the text of a post. From WWF, I'm a member anyway but that is a put off. cf Bonnie Shaljean post. Yahoo put a fake email at the top of your inbox that is really an ad. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Steve Shaw Date: 18 Sep 19 - 04:52 AM I had an ad depicting a graphic image of a crucified Christ with a reference to passion and a caption enjoining me to "make her scream all night." I don't look at porn and I don't browse websites for saucy sexy things to buy, and I don't think I'd been discussing either sex or religion, so it's anyone's guess where that came from Thank God I'm an atheist, that's all as can say. Lots of websites have ads, but ads that split actual posts in half are a move too far in m'humble. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Steve Shaw Date: 18 Sep 19 - 04:54 AM Reading specs, where art thou? :-( |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Dave the Gnome Date: 19 Sep 19 - 04:55 AM Having previously said it didn't seem to hit my Kindle Fire using Salfari, it now does! I have switched to using Firefox with Adblocker Ultimate, on the same device, and it is a lot better. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: JHW Date: 26 Sep 19 - 04:40 AM They have multiplied. On various threads today (Sept 26) there have been sometimes two ads within someones post, one even a video ad. Don't know if Mudcat gets a cut or if they are just rogues. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: DaveRo Date: 26 Sep 19 - 06:09 AM Dave the Gnome wrote: I have switched to using Firefox with Adblocker UltimateI'd not heard of that so I did a bit of googling. It appears to be a knock-off of another ad-blocker called Adguard; this is being investigated by Mozilla: https://github.com/mozilla/addons/issues/1078 As I've mentioned elsewhere, Firefox's tracking protection should suppress the Google Adsense ads on Mudcat without using an ad blocker, though ad blockers like uBlock Origin or AdBlock Plus are more effective elsewhere. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 26 Sep 19 - 06:57 AM Does anyone actually read them, or click on them, or feel tempted to buy whatever it is they're selling? I just scroll past, in irritation, and don't even look - so it means they're counter-productive, and do absolutely nothing except set up an aversion reaction. And, I've noticed, they're random, popping up here, then there - and now, everywhere. The thing that bugs me is that they interrupt the meaning of what the poster is trying to say (which is the point of any forum), obstructing and manipulating my thought-flow away from the point of the person's comment. And I resent being hijacked, and having my own messages mutilated. So I fight back by actively withholding my attention from them altogether. But the effort of doing so leaves a nasty, toxic aftertaste, which I then associate with their product. I did actually used to look at the ads in the top or bottom of pages - but this new thing pisses me off so much that I skip them all, wherever they are. How are the sellers-of-stuff going to earn anything when people begin to actively resist? I can understand why sites want/need adverts, and that's fine, AS LONG AS THEY STAY IN A CONSISTENT PLACE OUTSIDE THE FRAME OF THE MESSAGES. I've always avoided ad-blockers, never feeling sure of what I'm signing on for or letting into my computer. Also, I've tried to play along with sponsors, and click on things that interest me. But no more. (And I can't see how that option is going to generate income for anybody either.) Anyone got a top recommendation for MacOS laptops & iPads? If we could go back to the good old days of not having our posts (and my temper) swiss-cheesed, and keep the advertising to the top/bottom/margins, I would forswear the blockers and try to support them. But not when they pollute actual content, or my mental harmony. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Andrez Date: 26 Sep 19 - 08:09 PM Hi Bonnie, for my MacOSX laptop using Safari I use Ghostery, AdBlock and Adblock Plus and get zero Ads on web pages. Adblock itself also lets me block specific elements on a web page so they just don't appear at all after being blocked. Its very easy to use too and I don't see any noticeable slowing down of browser speed. I also use Firefox as I'm not running the latest version of MacOSX and my current version of Safari sometimes has trouble with newer websites. That said I also use Adblock Plus here and it does the job just fine too. No ads at all on pages with the capacity to block specific elements on a page works well here too. Hope this helps. Cheers, Andrez |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 27 Sep 19 - 04:47 AM It sure does. Cheers, Andrez! Actually, there was one intrusive advert I did welcome. A particularly vile post in one of the political threads got bisected by a cartoon-y drawing of a giant bladder and urethra, and the words, in large caps: WEAK URINE? Brilliant. Hey... does Apple do any selective ad-blockers, so you can just have them on stuff you don't like? Didn't think so... |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Andrez Date: 27 Sep 19 - 07:52 AM Hi again Bonnie, I dont think Apple does any selective Ad Blockers but AdBlock, the one I use with Safari lets you block specific things on a given page so if you don't like a particular image or pop up or whatever you can selectively block that item. The link is: https://www.getadblock.com . All I can say is that it works for me and I have a pretty much fully Ad free experience on the websites I visit regularly, like the 'Cat. New pages, well, if I need to use them as a one off I can ignore them. If I need to come back a few more times, I use the selective AdBlock feature. Best try 'em out and see how they work for you. Good luck. Cheers, Andrez |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: DaveRo Date: 27 Sep 19 - 08:14 AM On iPads, Backwoodsman said in this post that he'd had success with Firefox but not Safari. But things might have changed since then. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Jack Campin Date: 23 Oct 19 - 04:48 AM Just noticed another problem with these things. When writing a followup to a thread, the only way I can make a quote is by "select all" for the message I'm replying to, "paste", edit the hell out of it to get just the bit I want to comment on, and then put tags round it to give it a distinctive typestyle. When there is an ad in the message (as there usually is for long messages now), I can't even do the first step - "select all" doesn't work. Which means I often have to defer replies for a few days till I can get to a desktop computer. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: JHW Date: 23 Oct 19 - 05:55 AM Do these intruders PAY Mudcat a washer or two for the space or are they simply rogues? |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Vic Smith Date: 23 Oct 19 - 06:53 AM Have they disappeared or is it just me? I have just scanned through the longest current thread "The current state of folk music in UK" at over 350 posts and there is no advert there. Two days ago of my thread about my radio programmes on Rocket FM there was an advert right in the middle of my playlist at 17 Oct 19 - 04:42 PM which was totally incongrous and frankly quite irritating. I was on the point of leaving Mudcat, but when I looked again it was gone. Can we have an explanation from on high to explain the situation? |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: DaveRo Date: 23 Oct 19 - 07:40 AM Jack Campin wrote: When writing a followup to a thread, the only way I can make a quote is by "select all" for the message I'm replying to, "paste", ...Can you select 'Printer Friendly' below the message and copy from that? I just tried that with Safari on an iPhone 5. A mid-thread advert does not appear in the Printer Friendly version. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Jack Campin Date: 23 Oct 19 - 08:07 AM Good idea. I'll try it. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Joe Offer Date: 23 Oct 19 - 08:11 PM I wish I had an answer, Vic. It seems to vary with various browsers and equipment. I have no trouble with my desktop computer, but my phone and tablet are awful. It may take a while for Max to figure out how to outwit Google. Joe |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 23 Oct 19 - 08:40 PM I have no problem either.... Sincerely, Gargoyle Perhaps, sustaining contributors....are exempt ... |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Joe Offer Date: 24 Oct 19 - 05:14 AM Hey, I'm a "sustaining contributor," but I still get bugged by ads when I do Mudcat on my phone... But for many years, Max has been able to keep Mudcat out of the financial problems that once plagued us. Once upon a time, I'd send Max a thousand bucks a year, and many people worked hard to gather other contributions - and yet we were still behind. We still need donations. But for many years now, Mudcat has been financially stable. Most of that is due to Google ads. The ads can be annoying at times, but they pay the bills. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 24 Oct 19 - 01:50 PM That's fair enough, but can they be kept to the margins outside the posts and not interrupt the actual comments? That's a new wrinkle, and one step too far for me... |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 24 Oct 19 - 05:21 PM If Max need Mo I sure he reap By the bushel full. Please post the current 2019 address for cash/check contributions. Sincerely, Gargoyle I am sure Pound, Euro, Punt, and Duhrm are welcome....what about Krone?
But we tried living on donations for years and years, and donations were never enough. Donations are still welcome and are very helpful, but we have to rely on Google for stable income. Be assured that Max does not intend for the ads to be in the middle of messages - Google puts them there (and pays us for them), and it sometimes takes some fancy programming to tame Google down. -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: gillymor Date: 24 Oct 19 - 05:43 PM garg, click the catfish playing the fiddle on the Home page upper left for the pertinent donation info. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST Date: 24 Oct 19 - 06:37 PM Do we know if Mudcat get more $$$ if we click on the ads? |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Joe Offer Date: 24 Oct 19 - 07:25 PM I believe Mudcat does get more money if we click on ads - at least, that's the way it used to be. I did a "view source" on a particularly annoying page, and there was no HTML coding in the middle of the interrupted messages - there was a javascript at the end of the page. I did find one ray of hope: When I clicked the "refresh" button on my browser (circular arrow), the offending ads went away. (one time, it took two clicks) -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 24 Oct 19 - 07:37 PM ... and popped up elsewhere in the thread! At least on my screen. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 24 Oct 19 - 08:09 PM If ever there were a non-profit worthy of a grant... Sincerely, Gargoyle Financial books are closing ... grants need to use it ... or lose it
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: keberoxu Date: 07 Jan 20 - 06:43 PM Yo! Felipa! Over here! you're a little late to the party. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Joe Offer Date: 07 Jan 20 - 09:13 PM Yup. We still got dem ads. I don't like 'em, but they pay the bills. Joe |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Jack Campin Date: 08 Jan 20 - 05:31 AM Erectile dysfunction drugs advertised in Korean and forklift repair services? Google must be getting desperate. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Mr Red Date: 08 Jan 20 - 08:07 AM I used Chrome on a public library computer and found intrusive adverts in the middle of posts. Google insensitivity as ever. In future I will use FireFox Portable only for Mudcat. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,PeterC Date: 08 Jan 20 - 08:48 AM I get the in thread ads with Chrome on my phone but not with Firefox on my laptop. I do get ads at the top of the page with Firefox so not totally blocked. Regarding content, the publisher can control this in their Google account and block topics such as "adult" and "political". If advertisers are mis-classifying their ads then complaints need to me made to Google (with screenshots). Some ads pay per view and some per click, you can't tell which is which. DO NOT post encouraging people to click on ads, Google regard this as fraud ansd can and do ban publishers if such posts are allowed to remain online. Peter - Former Adsense and Adwords user. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,Peter C Date: 08 Jan 20 - 08:50 AM D'oh! next thread I opened the in-thread ads were back. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: keberoxu Date: 09 Jan 20 - 02:24 PM refresh |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,Pseudonymous Date: 17 Mar 20 - 06:34 AM I have seen an ad with the text 'conservative folk singers' and a picture of Brian Peters holding up some of his merch. Usually on the top right hand side. Don't know how that came about. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,Starship Date: 17 Mar 20 - 10:26 AM There are people out there who could politicize the phone book. It has ever been thus. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,akenaton Date: 17 Mar 20 - 11:22 AM I've got the one about "Conservative Folksingers" too. Well worth a read!! :0) |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: Vic Smith Date: 18 Mar 20 - 04:09 PM I have seen an ad with the text 'conservative folk singers' and a picture of Brian Peters holding up some of his merch. Usually on the top right hand side. I never click on internet ads as a matter of principle but judging from the thumbnail, it was one taken by me when Brian was at Lewes Folk Festival and if it was, guess what? My permission was never sought. |
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Subject: RE: Adverts on Mudcat Cafe threads. From: GUEST,Redneckred Date: 18 Mar 20 - 10:32 PM I, like almost all others, find pop-up ads annoying. To the extent that they're just a reality on the net, however, I' quite prepared to put up with them for the sake of a site like Mudcat. |
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