Advertising - Reporting bad ads

[Sunshine]

I'm looking into this; it's really not an issue of the ad covering the recent posts box, instead an issue that something is blocking the scripts that generate those blocks. I know people in firefox/chrome sometimes see this issue because of noscript, but I'm not sure yet what the cause is in IE.

Sorry, and I hope to find something soon In the mean time, though, if you go to "What's new?", you get an even more awesome list of recent posts!

[dfarrall]

I dont have any information for you sadly, but some of the ad's are almost crashing my firefox. Runs fine till i come on MMO then occasionally it will just freeze up till i close it.
Now blocked them with adblock and problem is no longer there.

[yovmit98]

The advertisement for Salt covers the cata drop down box.

~Cheers

[Simca]

I dont have any information for you sadly, but some of the ad's are almost crashing my firefox. Runs fine till i come on MMO then occasionally it will just freeze up till i close it.
Now blocked them with adblock and problem is no longer there.

I think you're probably having problems with these ads: http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/8514/flashad.jpg

I just reported it to Bibi's email address listed.

[staart]

Im browsing from my mobile now (Samsung Galaxy) and a huge ad with dutch government content was blocking half my viewport in the middle of my screen not making me able to click on anything. (And theres no X or something to close the ad) What about this?

[Longview]

Side panels here link to Wowstead on-click when there's two wowstead ads up. Cleared cache and cookies, still same issue.

[Onatala]

I'm looking into this; it's really not an issue of the ad covering the recent posts box, instead an issue that something is blocking the scripts that generate those blocks. I know people in firefox/chrome sometimes see this issue because of noscript, but I'm not sure yet what the cause is in IE.

Sorry, and I hope to find something soon In the mean time, though, if you go to "What's new?", you get an even more awesome list of recent posts!

It does not really help me as much when I click "What's New?" and error says that I can't search for another X seconds. I would refresh the page and still says the same "can't search for another X seconds" even its well past 30 second rule.

It is a very poor solution you're offering. Why can't you just remove that side AD or move it to another location or page? Or remove the time restrictions on search.

That ad blocking new recent posts is very very annoying and has been there for months now.

[Sunshine]

The ad isn't the problem. It's something in your browser blocking the scripts that generate the recent posts list -- they're just completely missing, not "covered up".

I've reported the problem to our devs, but there's nothing else that I can do for now other than suggest a different browser (Chrome is awesome; Firefox is also nice).

[Stormrage]

I can't view the blue posts / recent forum posts with this ad

[Onatala]

The ad isn't the problem. It's something in your browser blocking the scripts that generate the recent posts list -- they're just completely missing, not "covered up".

I've reported the problem to our devs, but there's nothing else that I can do for now other than suggest a different browser (Chrome is awesome; Firefox is also nice).

On the contrary, the ads IS clovering up the recent post box as the recent posts are not missing. When you load the page, you can see the recent posts along with recent blue posts for a second or two before the ads start to load the image then the ad image covers up the recent post box. 2/10 times it would load as normal then the rest of the time it would look like the image above this post.

Lets put it this way, the page structure is loading the template boxes as normal but the ads is acting like it doesn't obey your template box size restriction so it gets streched from screen to screen.

Have you tried to put a force size limit on the template? If that is not the issue, have you looked into the flash ad size restrictions? The problem only occurs after the ads loads the image.

[Sunshine]

Okay, I did a bunch of testing myself, and I see what you're seeing -- you're right, it's a different issue than the one earlier with the scripts being blocked.

I can only replicate it using Compatibility Mode, though -- are you using it? If so, turn it off! From what I've seen, IE8 renders it perfectly every time, and I've heard the same is true about IE9. (Of course, this could be the randomness associated with any intermittent problems...)

[Chaoshvy]

if you're running firefox just DL the add-on: Ad Block Plus from the firefox website and it will block almost all ads, a few like mlg may get through but its really nice.

Doesn't Ad-block make websites lose money since you actually aren't seeing the ad? If this is true then I think that would defeat the whole purpose in this situation. We don't want MMO-Champ to LOSE money. :P

[Torodo]

Starting today on the Home Page, I noticed a square flash player box appearing above the opening list of blue posts. Within seconds the list is inaccessible as the video automatically plays with sound and remains floating over the list after it is done.

I tried right clicking on it to get a to the properties area and find the URL per your instructions, but I simply cannot find anything with that information. There doesn't appear to be any setting that will make it disappear either.

The two most common adds are for a new movie and a cereal commercial.

Just thought you would want to know that some advertiser is circumventing the ad rules you posted in this thread.

---------- Post added 2011-02-08 at 08:31 PM ----------

I just realized the ad that is floating over the recent blue post list is supposed to appear to the right of it. For IE8, if one views your home page with compatibility mode ON, the add will float over and hide that top list.

I turned off compatibility mode and the ad now reasonably appears to the right of the ad, but it auto-starts with sound. Some of the ads can be loud and very annoying. Aren't advertisers suppose to require a click to start their ad playing?

[Sunshine]

Yeah, the compatibility mode is really annoying! ><

If you see something auto-start without mouseover/click, post a screenshot here and we'll ask them to get rid of it.

[Theslaya]

I can't view the blue posts / recent forum posts with this ad

my problem is the same as ^ stormrage there. but the ad is is showing me right now is a religious ad. on the initial is says mormom.org but, if the video starts it has a address at the bottom of http://share.saymedia.com/mormon_daisy

[Sunshine]

Turn off compatibility mode; it should fix the coverage problem.

As for the religious content, not sure if we're going to have that removed, but I'll pass it on.

[terrih91]

ok so when im looking at the front page theres an add that cancels out the blue tracker and recent forum posts is anyone else seeing this? i dont mind seeing adds its just when i gotta go thru the blue tracker link to see recent forum posts then it becomes annoying. mods can anything be done?

[Sunshine]

Assuming you're using IE8/9, turn off compatibility mode (click the 'broken page' icon to the right of the address bar).

If you're using IE7, upgrade your browser.

[stvitusdance]

Long time reader, first time poster. I love the site and I feel bad blocking ads because I want it to make money and prosper

To get to my point, the problem with script blocking and the site freezing the browser for multiple people seems to be due in large part to the ads and the Flash Player. There are more than a few of ads that throw reference errors and usually time out. This in turn can (and usually does for me) cause the Flash Player to crash and depending on where this happens in your page scripts could prevent subsequent scripts from executing which can freeze up the entire browser or at least one tab of it in Chrome's case.

Using Flashblock in Firefox or Chrome tends to correct the problem for me, but like I said I don't want to block page views for you guys

[Sunshine]

If you end up getting those and can get the URL of the ad (which might be difficult in some cases), it would help us weed those out; there's probably some bad subset of them we can ask to have blocked. I personally don't have direct control over which ads are shown, but I'll make a note of it to those who do.