Please whitelist ZAM ads?Follow

Rating posts on the feedback forum was disabled. Every other forum still has them. You can see this thread for details.

What you are describing with the ads has nothing to do with load time. It has to do with an ad using too much CPU, or, possibly something wrong with your computer.

If it is the ad, please read the ad feedback thread and send me a screenshot so that we can determine if the ad really is too resource intensive.

in my opinion an ad should be nothing more than a clickable graphic and if that was the case there would be no resource intensive ads. If something is so resource intensive that it is slowing down your pc then there is issues, and the ad is doing more then just showing an ad.

And the fact that the site relies on someone reporting to an admin to then take notice to take the ad out after searching it down after enough people report just the right info with screen shots and times and locations and gps coordinates of their mouse cursor at exact system times in their timezone.... is not a solution.

How about a "report bad ad" button that does it all automatically, and have the ad immediately blocked as soon as a single report is done, and even that will be to slow as it still took 1 person to be effected by what ever malicious content that provider was pushing because the ads were not fully checked.

How about an automated script server side that tests the ad for sound. Load the ad and if there is sound on the sound card then kick the ad, or load the ad and if the thread consumes x amount of processor power then also kick the ad. There are several tests that could be automated but even then its not enough as there are ways around the tests and there will always be at least 1 person effected by a malicious ad and even 1 person is too many.

Alla hasn't been part of the site for around a year now.

To put it bluntly, begging for users to whitelist your site is offensive.

We block advertisements and other crap because we don't want to see it. You should not be coding your way around that to force unwanted messages onto your users. It's simply rude.

Now stop it.

That is probably the single most idiotic comment I've ever seen in this forum.

Granted, I don't come here often, but damn. If the cake wasn't a lie, that would definitely have taken it.

To be fair, that's not 100% true (or maybe it is for him specifically, but it's not generally true). If someone is contributing to the forums/databases/etc and helping to improve the site, they are helping to increase traffic, which will result in more revenue. Even if someone isn't directly contributing financially, they may be indirectly by donating their time.

Completely agree with the rest of your post though.

I found it easier to blacklist a certain image then whitelist ZAM ads... I'll just stick with using my bubbly personality to give people a reason to visit ZAM.com :D

Joph, I'll be the first to hand you a pitchfork if the day comes, and I know that the owners, or previous owners, of the parent company did some questionable things back in Allakhazam's time, but if we stopped supporting the site altogether, it would just get shut down and then where would we be?

It's the lesser of two evils.

Now, if they continue to not acknowledge user feedback and such, I'll hand you that pitchfork and go torch some ****. Until then, however, I'll support it.

Oh, and this isn't meant as a threat to anyone, or a stab at the moderators here. You guys take orders from higher up and I understand that. In other words, please don't ban me.

I'm not looking for a pitchfork and I don't usually sit around ******** about the site, much less trying to tear it down. But I don't subscribe to any warm fuzzy notions about the motives of the Powers That Be either. I spent seven or eight years supporting the site even during periods where I wasn't playing the games as a voluntary "donation" to Alla as an individual. These days, the Powers That Be have drawn a much sharper line between business/consumer and so my consumer cooperation/dollars are something for the business to earn. Either they develop a successful plan to get those dollars from the consumers or they don't.

Edited, Dec 17th 2010 11:53am by Jophiel

I hope so.

Holy crap did I laugh my *** off over this one... That's the biggest load of crap I've ever seen. I worked in a call center where we charged people exorbitant amounts of money to remove viruses and spyware that were normally generated in one of three ways: Downloading stuff you shouldn't, ****, and ad-laden websites. And most of them had a fully working, fully updated anti-virus program.

Acutally, there were times in the past where there were interstials and pop-unders from this site. I can't thank you enough for getting rid of them. However, I have to agree with Jophiel:

I have been debating letting my premium status lapse and not renewing this time. It'll be sad to see my lovely inline pictures go away, but since Alla has chosen to listen less and less to their posters about the visual changes they are making to the site, and more and more to the "Powers That Be", I just don't know why I'm donating anymore. 3 bucks a month is really nothing, and while I appreciate some of the things we get (another thread for that), I can't see donating to a company that doesn't listen to its users.

More like "If every wannabe Flash guru that doesn't know how to code/draw in Flash properly, and causes Flash to widely be seen as bloated crap would just die...

I'd be really curious who you choose. I mean, selecting people could lead the site down directions the populous at large don't want to see. I can see making an advisory committee of some of the long-time members here, but then the newbies would just cry that some "clique" is running the forums...

Honestly, for all the crap that comes from the open suggestion threads, there are some good opinions in them as well.

You missed the issue that Alla had a few years back. I can't remember when, but it was long ago enough that I think Pikko was still posting news updates consisting solely of items added. The ad infected a few hundred thousand users. It was an ad that the company Alla used at the time had checked, but they were hit with the traditional outsourced bait and switch, a common practice. Basically, Scummy Ads Inc. submits version 1 of the ad, and ensures that the agreement they sign with Ad Pusher Inc. says that they get to remote-host the ad. Ad Pusher scans the ad, green-lights it, then after a rotation or two, Scummy Ads Inc. swaps in for an ad that has the same size as the green-lit ad, but has an added surprise inside, or features a new script that runs from the remote location.

So much fun, playing Russian roulette with ads, hence why I don't.

I wouldn't call downloading something you should, viewing **** (and by ****, I mean those free with 10 forwards each with 20 ads... you know the ones, not penthouse or playboy) or ad-laden websites as a responsible site. No, I wouldn't call us ad-laden.



When did we have interstitials? I've been responsible for all the ad coding for ZAM for almost 6 years now. I have never been asked to implement them.