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From: Carlsbad
, 122 months, post #41 |
As a general rule, if a site politely asks that I not block their
ads, then I will make a reasonable attempt to comply with their
request. However, my complaint with writing.com's ads is that they
are typically flash-based, animated, and frequently advertise
offensive or misleading content. Before I installed adblock, I
frequently ran into ads for "male enhancement" pills, "adult"
dating services, "lose belly fat quick" spam, bogus car insurance
offers, and at least one pornographic popup in Czech that appeared
to show an elderly man attempting intercourse with a rotisserie
chicken. I have no issue with advertisements that are
non-intrusive, consume relatively little bandwidth, and are
tastefully constructed regardless of their content. But I do not
appreciate my browser being hijacked by the virtual equivalent of
an alien facehugger.
StoryMaster, I believe that you just want to keep your site
running, and turn a fair profit doing so. I suggest that you
examine the possibility of more thoroughly screening your
advertising services, add the option of purchasing a
relatively-cheap membership that disables ads altogether, and
generally try to be more understanding of your customers' concerns.
If the bandwidth/storage use of interactive stories is too high, I
recommend a few options. First, consider hosting the text of
stories offsite, and retrieving it on demand, perhaps using
something like Amazon web services. This could reduce the load on
your own systems without too much overhead, but it might be tricky
to implement.
Another option might be to auto-delete interactives that meet a few
specific criteria, such as:
1) Fewer than 20 chapters
2) No updates or additions within 6 months
3) No trees deeper than 3 chapters
4) Bad review scores from an average of at least 5 reviews
I don't know if you already do this or not, but this may eliminate
a substantial proportion of the interactives that are created then
abandoned by their authors. You could also add a rule than no one
may create their own interactives until they have added at least 25
chapters to those of other authors, which would at least slow the
exponential growth of these stories.
While we are discussing your site, might I also add a few other
suggestions? I would really appreciate a log of what stories have
been deleted, so that I don't pull my hair out looking for
something I added to. Also, the ability to search within the text
of chapters would be nice. It would also be cool if you could tweak
the layout a bit in interactive chapters and make them scale better
for smaller monitors. Just a suggestion.
I really hope that you do not take your site offline, nor remove
the interactives. I have been going to your site for almost 5
years, and I would hate to see it vanish down the memory hole.
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From: cj
, 122 months, post #42 |
Carlsbad, I suggest that you post your suggestions on the
writing.com website forum. I'm not sure that StoryMaster will visit
here again - s/he seemed a little off-put by our site here.
Besides, the place for suggestions to any website is via the
website's own contact / forum.
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From: guest (President Obama)
, 122 months, post #43 |
Seriously? You guys really think that some guy puts in a Nickname
without any verification and you actually believe you're talking to
that person?
Ha ha. Well, this is the President of the USA and I say you
shouldn't believe everything you read.
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From: guest (Joe Biden)
, 122 months, post #44 |
If you mean Storymaster's post, I don't see any reason to think
it's fake.
If you mean someone else's post... well... I'm not sure which other
post you would mean.
Anyway, it's an honor to meet you, Mr. President.
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From: guest (Jones)
, 122 months, post #45 |
The reality of the situation is that if the ads his site are
serving up are unsafe, HE'S THE ONE AT FAULT.
Blaming users for protecting their computers and devices is
IDIOTIC.
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From: guest (Vlad Putin)
, 122 months, post #46 |
"I don't see any reason to think it's fake"
Dah. But you be better thinking "why this be real?" In my country,
we not think things real so easy.
Viva Ukraine.
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From: DivineBandit
, 122 months, post #47 |
I'm actually not opposed to paying $20 a year for Writing.com.
However, I'm worried that this rest of the WDC interactive
community might not stick around, leaving my investment kind of
meaningless.
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From: guest (Common Sense)
, 122 months, post #48 |
"The reality of the situation is that if the ads his site are
serving up are unsafe, HE'S THE ONE AT FAULT.
Blaming users for protecting their computers and devices is
IDIOTIC."
Stop saying that, you can repeat it as many times as you want and
it won't make it true you CAN'T get a virus from an advertisement
IF your computer is properly protected. Which it SHOULD be in the
first place.
Saying you got a virus from an ad is like saying you got fat from
eating mcdonalds. Yes you can get fat if you eat too much mcdonalds
but if you're not over eating and doing the proper amount of
physical activity then you will be fine.
The fault doesn't lie with writing.com but with you if you get a
virus.
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From: guest
, 122 months, post #49 |
Common Sense? More like Common Dolt. Of course you're going to
defend him. You've already made it perfectly clear you're in bed
with the ad companies.
"Stop saying that, you can repeat it as many times as you want and
it won't make it true you CAN'T get a virus from an advertisement
IF your computer is properly protected. Which it SHOULD be in the
first place."
Yeah how about no. I'm sorry but you're completely wrong. People
should protect their computers. However if a company hired people
to break into your house and steal all of your possessions people
would be outraged and the company would be liable. Even if the
house doesn't have a security system.
I'm not even sure why you think it's okay for a site to host ads
with viruses. I guess you also think it's okay for companies to
infect our food with viruses because "Everybody should protect
themselves by getting vaccinated".
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From: guest (Hey guest)
, 122 months, post #50 |
Do you think they host viruses cause they like viruses or cause
they mean people?
I no think coke or Pepsi really want as space like that.
May be it tuf to find better.
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From: guest (tsn)
, 122 months, post #51 |
What I find funny about the site is how they're trying to fund it
through memberships. The ads weren't that annoying (on mobile at
least), but they've put up messages pointing out that premium
members have ad-free surfing.
It seemed that didn't work because they've made the text bigger!
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From: guest (tsn)
, 122 months, post #52 |
Took a look at the paid memberships. The first tier "allows ad
blocker use!" yet the second tier is ad free anyway(and more
expensive)...
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From: guest
, 122 months, post #53 |
They seem to be further curbing access to site features if one
isn't logged in (even compared with a free membership). Or I could
be mistaken. I've canceled my free membership as I was spending too
much time there, among other reasons, so maybe this will get me to
quit entirely.
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From: guest (Akira)
, 122 months, post #54 |
I don't know if the allegations regarding malware laden ads is true
or not, but as someone who operates a web-based business for a
living, you can't knowingly serve malware laden ads to people,
there's absolutely no excuse for it.
It's up to the site owner to make sure the content on their site is
safe.
From my perspective, its also a mistake to be hostile to a
community/free members who add content, because you're going to
chase away potential paying members.
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From: guest (Common Sense)
, 122 months, post #55 |
"Common Sense? More like Common Dolt. Of course you're going to
defend him. You've already made it perfectly clear you're in bed
with the ad companies."
I said I work with them on a daily basis I don't work in them or
for them.
"Yeah how about no. I'm sorry but you're completely wrong. People
should protect their computers. However if a company hired people
to break into your house and steal all of your possessions people
would be outraged and the company would be liable. Even if the
house doesn't have a security system."
Ad companies don't purposefully lace their ad's with malware. Your
analogy is also flawed. Of course people would be outraged if
anyone tried to break into their but not protecting your computer
is like not putting any doors or windows on your home in the first
place which is stupid.
Malware is slipped into ad's when a user puts it into the ad that
they want to host through the service. It's not something that the
ad companies are doing themselves and they remove ads and ban users
from their services when they catch this being done.
Simply stated it has nothing to do with writing.com. Storymaster
CAN'T use services like google adsense which would have safer ads
because of the content that is being allowed on the website so he
is forced to go with less reputable services.
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From: guest (Jooce)
, 122 months, post #56 |
I don't really Understand all the fuss here..I get why there is a
problem sure...but why haven't you just unblocked the filter that
writing.com uses as the detector for if you are using an adblock..
I just did what I assume nearly everyone else does when they have
an issue.....(Insert generic Search engine Here) Keywords:
Writing.com, Adblock, Problem.....3 mins of searching....solution
found
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From: D.A.W.
, 122 months, post #57 |
"Stop saying that, you can repeat it as many times as you want and
it won't make it true you CAN'T get a virus from an advertisement
IF your computer is properly protected. Which it SHOULD be in the
first place."
That is blatantly false, these days there isn't a single anti-virus
or anti-malware suite comprehensive enough to keep you safe any
more, but don't take my word for it. Any, computer expert will tell
you the same thing, read this article for more info:
http://www.webroot.com/blog/2012/02/23/why-relying-on-antivirus-signatures-is-simply-not-enough-anymore/
The safest route is sandboxing your browser and other
internet-accessible apps and even that isn't fool-proof.
"Ad companies don't purposefully lace their ad's with malware. Your
analogy is also flawed. Of course people would be outraged if
anyone tried to break into their but not protecting your computer
is like not putting any doors or windows on your home in the first
place which is stupid."
Uh, that's only half the picture, yes sometimes site owners (or
'hackers') inject viruses into the ads, but there are a lot of
disreputable agencies posing as legitimate companies who start out
with innocuous ads then attack once their clients have dropped
their guard.
http://www.bullguard.com/bullguard-security-center/internet-security/social-media-dangers/malvertising.aspx
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From: guest (DudeLove)
, 122 months, post #58 |
Haha, and now a countdown has been added so if you have adblock you
actually wait 5 seconds to load each page. I guess the extra click
just wasn't annoying enough.
Between all that nonsense, and actually berating and belittling
people who use the website, it's as if he just decided to put up a
great big sign saying "Please no one come to this site anymore". I
mean at this point, might as well just pull the plug.
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From: guest (Anon)
, 122 months, post #59 |
As somebody who has a fair few interactives comprising a couple
thousand chapters, I'd appreciate it if anybody can suggest an
automated means of backing them up. I would be more than gutted if
the interactives got taken down.
It's a suprise and shame that a site hasn't come along in all these
years that offers the same service as writing.com. I've always been
uneasy regarding the long term viability of the site - despite
having one of the most valuable domain names on the internet, it
comes across as rather inept and shambolic, as though it is owned
by a group of grannies trying to run a book club at their local
church.
I got the impression that the fetish aspect of many of the
interactives is unwelcome, which makes me think the owner are
probably religious. While this doesn't bother me, it wouldn't
surprise me if they one day decided to just delete everything
un-Christian.
So yeah, if somebody has a program capable of backing up the
interactives, I'd appreciate it massively.
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From: guest (Anon)
, 122 months, post #60 |
I should add that I do actually have a yearly membership and
believe that writing.com deserves to be refunded for the hard work
they do and the cost of their servers, and I would like to see the
site do well out of concern for my own interactives and the time
and energy other people have put into them. Knowing that the
interactives are still going to be there tomorrow is important if
I'm going to continue funding the site though.
I have actually suggested several ways for them to monitize
themselves better on their official forums, but was always shot
down. First of all, they need to give more function to the GP
system, so that it actually has a use.
The sponsoring system also needs revamping. You can stump up GP to
sponsor an interactive, so that it is advertised about the other
interactives, and every time somebody clicks the sponsored item you
pay a set amount of GP. Yet only the top six interactives with the
highest GP sponsor get displayed though, so all that happens is
that a small number of interactives that nobody cares a fuck about
stump up stupidly high GP-per-click amounts (20 cents per click)
and get the advertising spots. Since nobody ever clicks on them,
they never have to actually pay any GPs, and they can just squat in
the advertising section for months and months and months. Items
like 'A Day in the Life of...' which has had 140 chapters added to
it in TEN YEARS, the last of which was added 9 MONTHS AGO. There is
no reason for it to be taking up a valuable advertising slot, since
nobody clicks on it, thus the site doesn't benefit from it being
there.
Meanwhile, if an actually interesting interactive actually stumps
up the vast GP-per-click to match the vast price of the top 6
sponsored items and get inside the advertising bracket, it will get
so many clicks that your GP reserves are drained in hours. What the
site needs to do is ensure that their is a turnover of sponsored
items, so that the 6 of the top 50 or so sponsored items are
selected at random to be displayed, so that you don't get this
obnoxious overinflation of sponsorship prices.
I would also like the ability to automatically grant a self-defined
amount of GP to people who add chapters in the same way that
reviews can be rewarded. It would save me so much hassle. I like
rewarding people for contributing chapters (even if its just with
pointless GP) and even though it only takes a few clicks, those
clicks start to add up, until you're spending a load of time and
effort trying to keep track of which chapters you have and haven't
rewarded.
Other things I would happily spend GP on is the ability to add
additional choices to the end of chapters, as I find the
5-5-3-3-2-2-2-etc limitation on choices restictive at times. If I
could pay maybe 1000 GP to add an extra choice to a single
chapters, so the first chapter could have six choices for example,
I'd happily do that and would probably blow loads more money on the
site since I've always got more ideas than I know what to do with.
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