ads are breaking the view entirely and covering posts and the thread

[Bo Kristensen]

See attached. iPad pro 12.9 using chrome.

 

[Methodical Management]

We’ve been unable to replicate the issue you’re encountering. Are you only seeing this on specific pages? Does this happen when you use Safari?

 

[the coolness]

Just to add to this a year later...

I'm suddenly getting intrusive ads Everytime i go to a new page.

I mean they are constant. I'm on chrome on mobile. Android user. Relatively new occurrence

 

[Methodical Management]

I've reported the units in your screen shot. It could take a bit for any changes to take effect, due to caching and reproduction. If the problem persists, just let me know.

As you know, ad revenues are necessary to keep the site online, a task made more challenging by the pandemic.
We recently changed providers to improve ad quality (more known brands, less "one weird trick" clickbait trash), and any major change of this nature will require tuning.
Some publishers are all about yield. For them, ads like the ones in your screen capture are ideal, given their superior payout rates.

We're committed to delivering a high quality experience to our fellow community members and working closely with the new provider to ensure that's the case.
I appreciate everyone's patience and continued support.


For those who'd rather not put up with ads at all, be advised that we also offer an ad-free subscription option: https://niketalk.com/account/upgrades

 

[Rockabilly Zombie]

Yeah I’m also experiencing lots of adds. Different sizes. Including interstitial / redirect type of ads. Don’t get me wrong I totally get the need for ads but this seems extreme. I feel like my screen is bouncing all over the place as I’m scrolling because of the adds loading.

 

[Methodical Management]

I feel like my screen is bouncing all over the place as I’m scrolling because of the adds loading.

We load in the ads last, so on slower connections that can cause the page layout to shift. To prevent this, we'll need to reserve space for each ad, based on the largest possible ad that could be served in each slot.

The tradeoff is that the smaller ad sizes would be accompanied by more blank space around them. I think it's worth it compared to the experience of having the page jump around as new elements are loaded in.

We'll be addressing this in our next site update, which should be applied later this month.


As for some of the more intrusive ads, one of the advantages of the new ad provider, beyond the improved ad quality, is that we have the ability to exercise greater control over the site's advertising.

For example, we now have the ability to adjust ad frequency - so the more intrusive ads have been set to only appear once per user per hour while we evaluate their performance.

Right now, we're trying to figure out what works well and tune around that.


We're all doing our best to keep things going in these challenging circumstances, but I don't take anyone's patience or loyalty for granted.
That's one of the reasons why we are working so quickly to address feedback and offering everyone a legitimate means of "opting out" while continuing to support the site via the ad-free subscription.

To reiterate: we pool all the subscriptions and donate everything less only payment processing fees (e.g. PayPal, credit card fees).
It's not about profiteering. We're just trying to keep the lights on and deliver the best possible experience we can.



We're limited in a way that many other sites aren't, because our core community members visit so many times per day that any minor inconvenience is amplified - like trying to run a marathon with a pebble in your shoe - and we don't have the scale to do the types of high-yield direct sales campaigns that major sites do, so we need to rely pretty heavily on network advertising.

Last year, we got a lot of complaints about these types of ads:

With network ads, we have to trust a largely automated system to enforce proper quality control, and the results are sometimes less than ideal. To make matters worse, because these systems are "personalized," no two users have the same experience and reproducing a problematic ad can be extremely challenging.

Some of the ads we've run over the past couple of years have included content that people found disturbing, and we don't want the ads to look like supermarket tabloids. We take it personally when users are exposed to offensive content as a result of visiting our community. All the effort our team pours into moderation can't end where the advertising begins.

If we can get the same revenue benefits from one video ad per user per hour compared to multiple impressions of a gross "dad finds giant worm inside tree" ad, I think that's worth it. When we reduce the scope of advertising to higher end units/sponsors, they can be more intrusive at times but we also have a much better idea of what ads are being run on the site. Last week's HBO Max/Chi City takeover campaign was a great example. Yes, everyone saw those ads in every single ad placement for a few hours, but because of that we knew we were running ads for something that's of interest to many users, which is clearly preferable to something sketchy. We wouldn't have had access to a campaign like that in previous years.


It's going to take some work to really dial in what works best for our community under the circumstances, but we believe that our new partnership here gives us access to greater control and quality that we can use to strike a better balance than we've been able to offer in years past.

Feedback like yours will help us get there.

 

[tmay407]

Is this your preferred place for me to talk about how terrible the experience on this site has become? Only took me two ads to get here from the link you posted. Here’s one of them.

 

[tmay407]

More ads…can’t even read a god damn thread any more.

 

[BaltimoreLove]

Hey brodi I’m getting non stop weird pop ups

 

[BaltimoreLove]

Meth some of these adds a little too much and they’ll be the same add popping up over and over ... also I’m getting A lot of weird baby adds and I don’t got no kids is there any way to fix that ?

 

[Methodical Management]

Hey brodi I’m getting non stop weird pop ups

If you post a screen shot I can take a look.

Meth some of these adds a little too much and they’ll be the same add popping up over and over ... also I’m getting A lot of weird baby adds and I don’t got no kids is there any way to fix that ?

Some ads served by Google are personalized based on your browsing history and other factors. You can try clearing your cache/cookies.

For those who'd rather not put up with ads at all, be advised that we also offer an ad-free subscription option: https://niketalk.com/account/upgrades

 

[beacon ave south]

I get nt needs ad revenues, but come on man. Might as well have us watch a 30 sec ad before entering a thread at this point

 

[tigo0240]

I'm getting "Complex Networks" ads on desktop that take up the bottom 1/8th of my monitor. They're resource hogs and have false "X" tabs in the corner that redirect me to a Draft Kings site.

Obviously the ads are essential to the site, but that "X" out fakeout is pretty scummy.

 

[Methodical Management]

I'm getting "Complex Networks" ads on desktop that take up the bottom 1/8th of my monitor. They're resource hogs and have false "X" tabs in the corner that redirect me to a Draft Kings site.

Obviously the ads are essential to the site, but that "X" out fakeout is pretty scummy.

If you see this again, take a screen shot and I’ll report it.

 

[tmay407]

Been getting redirected to this site damn near every time I try to load a new thread on here today, including 4 times trying to load this page. Even going back to this page (about 100 taps of the back button on my iPhone), it redirected 4 separate times trying to scroll through the thread.

I’m not trying to watch porn, just read a few threads on here.

Even just redirected me as I was typing this.

 

[Methodical Management]

This issue has already been reported and our advertising partners are working to resolve it ASAP.

We appreciate your patience.

 

[tmay407]

Ads are back at it…

Most of time they take up half the page.

The other half of the time they decide they want to take up the whole page.

Only got redirected to half or full page ads 3 times trying to post this message.

Just got this pop up while making sure my post went through correctly.

 

[Methodical Management]

Thank you for the report. Though I haven’t encountered any full screen examples myself, I can confirm that some ads are exceeding our specified parameters.

The issue has been reported to our advertising partners. Your patience is appreciated as they work to resolve the problem.

 

[tmay407]

I don’t think Nako reported it, but confirmed it’s happening to him in the College Football thread with the half screen ads.

Also got this one trying to go back to that post.

 

[tmay407]

I know I’ve wrongfully jumped on you in the past about these ads Methodical Management , but I appreciate you looking into it and constantly working to improve the site experience. Just got another half page ad pop up filling the screen I was typing in posting this response.

 

[Methodical Management]

I know I’ve wrongfully jumped on you in the past about these ads Methodical Management , but I appreciate you looking into it and constantly working to improve the site experience. Just got another half page ad pop up filling the screen I was typing in posting this response.

It’s frustrating to have a bad experience on any website or app that you’ve come to rely on.

I use an ad-supported layout myself, as does the rest of the team, so we’re encountering these issues just as you are.

We’re doing all that we can to address the problem as quickly as possible.

There are a lot of misconceptions about online advertising based around the assumptions associated with old media, as if someone approached me with an offer to run these half-page ads on NikeTalk in exchange for $X and I chose to sell everyone out. That’s not how it works.

Our online advertising inventory is currently handed by Complex. Given that we share a similar audience, they’re able book high quality campaigns across their network, but given that there’s so much inventory it’s inevitable that the majority of ad spots will be filled using automated third party networks.

Right now, it seems that some of these ads are exceeding the boundaries we specified for our footer unit. Unfortunately, it’s not something we can correct ourselves. We’ve brought this to the attention of our friends at Complex, citing posts like these to help document the issue, but given that not everyone works 365 days a year, we’ll likely need to be patient for a couple of more days before this can be resolved.


As a reminder, though the overwhelming majority of our fellow members utilize our free, ad-supported site and we’re committed to making that a great experience, we did create an ad free subscription option to ensure that everyone has a choice:

It’s available here:

https://niketalk.com/account/upgrades

Advertising revenue supports NikeTalk’s expenses, so we donate the account upgrade fees (less any applicable taxes/PayPal costs) to charity. Just this past week, we donated $1,500 to Doctors Without Borders.


Regardless of which option you choose, we appreciate your continued support for the community.

 

[tmay407]

It’s frustrating to have a bad experience on any website or app that you’ve come to rely on.

I use an ad-supported layout myself, as does the rest of the team, so we’re encountering these issues just as you are.

We’re doing all that we can to address the problem as quickly as possible.

There are a lot of misconceptions about online advertising based around the assumptions associated with old media, as if someone approached me with an offer to run these half-page ads on NikeTalk in exchange for $X and I chose to sell everyone out. That’s not how it works.

Our online advertising inventory is currently handed by Complex. Given that we share a similar audience, they’re able book high quality campaigns across their network, but given that there’s so much inventory it’s inevitable that the majority of ad spots will be filled using automated third party networks.

Right now, it seems that some of these ads are exceeding the boundaries we specified for our footer unit. Unfortunately, it’s not something we can correct ourselves. We’ve brought this to the attention of our friends at Complex, citing posts like these to help document the issue, but given that not everyone works 365 days a year, we’ll likely need to be patient for a couple of more days before this can be resolved.


As a reminder, though the overwhelming majority of our fellow members utilize our free, ad-supported site and we’re committed to making that a great experience, we did create an ad free subscription option to ensure that everyone has a choice:

It’s available here:

https://niketalk.com/account/upgrades

Advertising revenue supports NikeTalk’s expenses, so we donate the account upgrade fees (less any applicable taxes/PayPal costs) to charity. Just this past week, we donated $1,500 to Doctors Without Borders.


Regardless of which option you choose, we appreciate your continued support for the community.

I know I’ve been a **** to you in the past about the ads issue, but I sincerely apologize for that and know it’s obviously not something you’re trying to do or wanting for your base. Appreciate your detailed response and the work you’re doing and have done to keep the board going. Thank you for looking into it!

 

[frink85]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature but it involves ads messing up my view.

These ads that appear on top of content and say to "scroll to continue reading" but it just stays covering up posts until the bottom of the ad. Any fix or workaround?

 

[tmay407]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature but it involves ads messing up my view.

These ads that appear on top of content and say to "scroll to continue reading" but it just stays covering up posts until the bottom of the ad. Any fix or workaround?

I’ve been constantly getting half-screen pop up ads on my phone, but they at least close now when I hit the X in the corner. Annoying, but easy to work around. Trying to get my MacBook back up and running for when I travel, so might (hopefully…?) be able to replicate these desktop issues soon. If Meth wants to buy a new WiFi driver for my laptop to test it I’d appreciate it

 

[Methodical Management]

I'm not sure if this is a bug or a feature but it involves ads messing up my view.

These ads that appear on top of content and say to "scroll to continue reading" but it just stays covering up posts until the bottom of the ad. Any fix or workaround?

That ad type is supposed to scroll along with the page - but remain in its fixed location and not overlap site content. In other words, you shouldn’t see anything below the “scroll to continue reading” unless you’ve scrolled it up above that line.

As this is a rendering problem, it’s possible that using a different browser would correct the issue as a short-term workaround.

We are in the process of replacing our current ad partner entirely. I expect to complete this transition by the start of August - or earlier if at all possible. Unfortunately, this isn’t something I can comment on freely as it has become a legal matter.

I appreciate everyone’s patience and understanding as we work to improve the site’s advertising.