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On October 03 2015 06:06 myRZeth wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2015 16:30 FiWiFaKi wrote: Glad that you gave a heads up, but I will continue to use adblock (though I have purchased TL+ in the past), for the following reason:
In the BW days, there were no ads, and from what I remember, the number of users on TL at once hasn't changed much. The features offered seem more or less the same from what was in the past (minus liquipedia and bigger TL team), but I was under the impression that all, or at least most liquipedia positions were unpaid, and I wouldn't expect the forum website to be covering the cost of operation of the team, rather the sponsors like Razer would.
So that's the missing gap for me, it's not like the cost of servers magically increased 10 fold. So while I have nothing against TL being a business, and when there's opportunity to make money in relatively innocent ways, to make that money... But I don't see why it's something that's necessary when it wasn't necessary in the past.
Not trying to start some big debate, just sharing my thoughts, I still have respect (if that's the right term here), for the people who white list TL, I just prefer the cleaner experience since it's something that I don't feel is a necessity for the site to survive (due to my point above).
edit: Also not exactly fair giving examples of the most ad-filled gaming websites, versus common ones like reddit, steam forums, playdota.com, dotadev, dotafire, dotabuff... Actually I just went through like the first 8 links with a google search "dota 2 forums", and all the websites had less ads than TL, so it's kind of misleading. Like sure, there's less ads than on sketchy porn and news sites, but certainly, when comparing gaming communities, TL is above the curve in terms of number of ads (or at the very least on the curve), so playing the "hasn't accepted the industry standard" card is kind of a low blow. I very much support this statement.
It's pretty disrespectful if anything. "you guys want to make money to support your business, well i'm going to cheat you, sorry"
"i'm going to cheat you because i think i'm entitled to it, LOL"
i don't use adblock on any site i visit because if i bothered to go there in the first place they deserve credit for that. sorry i just can't comprehend or support anyone who uses adblock, on teamliquid or any other site
it's not even intrusive at all
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On October 03 2015 23:51 Rimstalker wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2015 18:23 Shock710 wrote:On October 02 2015 22:09 R1CH wrote:On October 02 2015 09:24 sagi wrote: Do you get money from ads displayed or just clicks? I don't mind having adblock disabled for sites like this, but is it for nothing as I've never clicked an ad and I'm quite sure I never will. Most networks pay per view so even if you don't click it still helps. does refreshing the screen help, if i have one those drinky bird things that go up and down on my f5 key do u guys get views like that? the company I work for has a campaign targeting feature called 'frequency capping', where you can say how many times in a certain time window we are allowed to show the same ad to the same user. A typical setting is '3 times per 8 hours'. Websites selling inventory typically have a 'waterfall' solution, where they try to sell to their premium customers first, and then start offering to lower bidders and at the very end of that there is the dumpster category that is filled with '10 things you should never eat to lose belly fat'. Prices at the very top could be (depending on who you are) up to several dollars for 1000 impressions, while at the dumpster level, you are looking at cents per 1000 impressions. So with your birdy, you'd be driving prices down for TL. This is written from a real time bidding perspective, of which I know that Teamliquid does it to a certain degree. wow thats pretty interesting thanks :D
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On October 04 2015 00:04 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2015 22:48 Dumbledore wrote: to get to the Streams now I have to scroll down for ages. I'd be hard pressed to think of a more inane complaint if I tried.
Please justify how my complaint is silly. You clearly don't know anything about good webdesign if you think hiding one of the most valuable content boxes is a good thing.
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I dont know what happened but I think this happened since this new ad. I watched Netflix and had TL (homepage) in the background. After one hour I got an warning that I haven't enough free RAM (I have 4GB RAM). I opened task manager and saw that one of few chrome.exe* used 2.4GB RAM. I closed TL and it decreased to standard 0.2GB.
I do a 2nd try now. After 10min its 0.24GB. Looks like TL is eating something .I never got a warning before. Edit: 15min later, it is still at 0.24GB. Idk what happened, maybe a specific ad or chrome didn't work properly. I don't care about 0.2 or 0.25 GB.
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On October 04 2015 00:04 Doodsmack wrote:Show nested quote +On October 03 2015 22:48 Dumbledore wrote: to get to the Streams now I have to scroll down for ages. I'd be hard pressed to think of a more inane complaint if I tried. Those complaints are legtimate... The new ad placement doesn't please everyone. I understand the need to increase revenue to keep paying everyone that works at team liquid but why not put the ad on the left side of the screen, then we'll see how much forum users enjoy the new intrusive ad? TL Calendar and featured stream list is an incredible tool to keep up with day to day events and it's impairing the use of it.
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On October 04 2015 23:35 desRow wrote:Show nested quote +On October 04 2015 00:04 Doodsmack wrote:On October 03 2015 22:48 Dumbledore wrote: to get to the Streams now I have to scroll down for ages. I'd be hard pressed to think of a more inane complaint if I tried. Those complaints are legtimate... The new ad placement doesn't please everyone. I understand the need to increase revenue to keep paying everyone that works at team liquid but why not put the ad on the left side of the screen, then we'll see how much forum users enjoy the new intrusive ad? TL Calendar and featured stream list is an incredible tool to keep up with day to day events and it's impairing the use of it.
it is a great tool which is why its legit to monetize it.
extremely specialized information costs more money than very mainstream general information.
want to read a magazine about standard street automobiles? its $5 want a magazine about the Canadian Stock Car Competitive Scene? its $25. ( thanks Inside Track Motorports News )
TL.Net's "value added" to SC2 esports is right in line with ESPN.com's "value added" to Major League Baseball. ESPN.com is about $11 more per year than TL.Net and i get ESPN the magazine mailed to me.
i can follow baseball in depth via 20 different web sites... drill down on each player.. get detailed stats.. and really dig into any MLB game being played. ESPN.com is the best place to do this by far and they want $41/year. Same with TL.Net except they want $30/year and there are not 20 other places to go with comparable features.
considering that MLB is a very mainstream and SC2 is really specialized i'm a bit surprised a TL.Net subscription is less expensive than an ESPN.com subscription.
are the writers on here the 2nd coming of Josphe Pulitzier? hardly... they aren't on ESPN.com either but u get well researched in depth content.. stats.. play histories etc on both sites.
TL.Net's request for $30/year is 100% reasonable and then this issue just goes away. if u can't afford it turn off ad block and accept the fact that everyone in the esports ecosystem has to make a buck or the ecosystem dies.
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I really don't understand these adblock users vigorously defending themselves as if they were doing something great. As long as the ads are not popping all over the place and reducing my computer's performance (which is usually doesn't happen with the websites I frequently visit), why would I block them? It's not like they are physically hurtful to my eyes and they bring money to the websites I like, thus making those websites more likely to exist in the future.
TL is extremely decent in the amount of ads shown. As far as I am concerned, you can triple the amount of ads and I will still not care. The only thing I want is no sound and no popups and self-enlarging ads and that's perfectly maintained on TL, with obtrusive ads being removed swiftly.
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I end up with some of the ads blocked because I have Flash set to not autoplay.
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On October 06 2015 04:03 opisska wrote: I really don't understand these adblock users vigorously defending themselves as if they were doing something great. As long as the ads are not popping all over the place and reducing my computer's performance (which is usually doesn't happen with the websites I frequently visit), why would I block them? It's not like they are physically hurtful to my eyes and they bring money to the websites I like, thus making those websites more likely to exist in the future.
TL is extremely decent in the amount of ads shown. As far as I am concerned, you can triple the amount of ads and I will still not care. The only thing I want is no sound and no popups and self-enlarging ads and that's perfectly maintained on TL, with obtrusive ads being removed swiftly. i hate ads and always have adblock on, but i certainly do not intend to justify it like other fools are doing. luckily, TL had the insight to allow all ads to be blocked with a TL+ subscription. the website looks very nice without the ad clutter. people should really consider it if they hate ads and like TL, and stop making bullshit excuses for using adblock.
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On October 06 2015 04:03 opisska wrote: I really don't understand these adblock users vigorously defending themselves as if they were doing something great. As long as the ads are not popping all over the place and reducing my computer's performance (which is usually doesn't happen with the websites I frequently visit), why would I block them? It's not like they are physically hurtful to my eyes and they bring money to the websites I like, thus making those websites more likely to exist in the future. there are silly arguments on both sides. yes, there are adblock users who brag pointlessly about using it, but there are also absurd apologists who sound like they should be working for the RIAA/MPAA calling adblockers cheats and criminals. if someone is going to call me a cheat for controlling what i put on my screen in my free time, then yeah i'm going to defend myself.
the internet is a competition to monetize people's time and attention. i understand that's how it works and i understand TL is just doing the business they have to. but that doesn't mean i have to approve of the system, and i don't feel i will ever owe it to anyone to have unwanted ads on my screen. brand awareness is a form of mind alteration and if i have the opportunity then i'm going to refuse. sometimes you don't get to refuse, and oh well, the system wins those rounds.
i don't hold it against TL for working the system they exist in. that's the game of life for everyone, no matter who you are. but if you think adblock is "immoral" then maybe grow up
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On October 02 2015 16:30 FiWiFaKi wrote: Glad that you gave a heads up, but I will continue to use adblock (though I have purchased TL+ in the past), for the following reason:
In the BW days, there were no ads, and from what I remember, the number of users on TL at once hasn't changed much. The features offered seem more or less the same from what was in the past (minus liquipedia and bigger TL team), but I was under the impression that all, or at least most liquipedia positions were unpaid, and I wouldn't expect the forum website to be covering the cost of operation of the team, rather the sponsors like Razer would.
So that's the missing gap for me, it's not like the cost of servers magically increased 10 fold. So while I have nothing against TL being a business, and when there's opportunity to make money in relatively innocent ways, to make that money... But I don't see why it's something that's necessary when it wasn't necessary in the past.
Not trying to start some big debate, just sharing my thoughts, I still have respect (if that's the right term here), for the people who white list TL, I just prefer the cleaner experience since it's something that I don't feel is a necessity for the site to survive (due to my point above).
edit: Also not exactly fair giving examples of the most ad-filled gaming websites, versus common ones like reddit, steam forums, playdota.com, dotadev, dotafire, dotabuff... Actually I just went through like the first 8 links with a google search "dota 2 forums", and all the websites had less ads than TL, so it's kind of misleading. Like sure, there's less ads than on sketchy porn and news sites, but certainly, when comparing gaming communities, TL is above the curve in terms of number of ads (or at the very least on the curve), so playing the "hasn't accepted the industry standard" card is kind of a low blow. Well, what's changed is that now people work on TL full time, and that TL has to pay for the pro teams they hire. That hasn't changed my user experience very much, but it might have changed others'.
It would be interesting to know if TL's teams cost them money, break even, or make money. I mean, I guess the business model is that if they have a team, people will come to the site and see their ads. But it almost feels like the basic reason for the existence of the website is to have those teams, which is intensely circular.
As far as the people working full time, previously they were just volunteers. To some degree those volunteers are the people who became paid workers. If they continued on the previous model, there would be nothing to pay but server costs, and to a large extent the website still is volunteer driven, by virtue of being a forum. Even for front page content, I'm pretty sure it's still volunteer based.
I don't really care about soundless, safe ads being included in the layout, it just seems worth it to point out lots of these costs have been invented. If gosugamers and those other sites have less ads, it's because they're not actually trying to pay a staff to fly to events, or a progaming team's operating costs. But that's TL's vision. It's less a business than a bunch of friends try to make their dreams come true. At the same time, being a member of these forums and caring about that vision are not the same thing, which is why I think the adblock is high, and a lot of people aren't going to care that Elly the elephant is sad you aren't supporting ESPORTS. So getting the same people who produce 99% of TL's content and appeal to also buy TL+ or click on your ads to pay for something that isn't part of what's interesting about TL for them, is kind of wishful, and certainly, as the quoted posts points out, a different experience from ye old TL.
Or maybe I have it backwards, and the TL forum is somehow the money sink which everything else TL does is throwing money at to keep going. As far as I know that info isn't public.
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Did the Elly reminders go away? I normally have ad-block off for TL, but when I turn it on, I don't see the reminder anymore. I also don't see it on my very old Ipad where I have javascript turned off because safari crashes all the time when I have javascript turned on.
Why not serve local static advertisements underneath the normal ads? One example would be to advertise for TL+. That way, if someone has ad-block on, they will still get TL+ advertisements. By signing up for TL+, they won't get the TL+ ad or normal ads. You can also do this for items in your store just by serving an ad directly from TL without any 3rd party interference and tracking. Just make the static image clickable and will take you to the correct Store page or TL+ signup page. Pretty much exactly like Heyoka's example image in the very first post.
This way seems a lot more relevant to your user base and doesn't rely on everyone turning off ad-block from the goodness of their hearts. And since it would just be a static clickable image, it's not going to piss off any reasonable user unlike some obnoxious auto-play ads or ads that have very taxing scripts which bog down computers.
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The ad on the right looks awful on an iPad
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Video ads on the right side bar are slowing my Firefox browser to a crawl. (41.0.1, Win7, Flash is up to date, etc. etc.). I don't have video problems on other websites (twitch, video ads, etc.). I have 50+ Mbps internet connection. While video ad is loading, Firefox is almost frozen across all tabs (can click, but may take 20 seconds to respond).
Any ideas? This is very frustrating.
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On October 08 2015 00:51 tritonice wrote: Video ads on the right side bar are slowing my Firefox browser to a crawl. (41.0.1, Win7, Flash is up to date, etc. etc.). I don't have video problems on other websites (twitch, video ads, etc.). I have 50+ Mbps internet connection. While video ad is loading, Firefox is almost frozen across all tabs (can click, but may take 20 seconds to respond).
Any ideas? This is very frustrating. I had the same problem so I set Flash to not play automatically.
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much reasoning, plenty moral dilemmas. i just block you when i get banned or warned and i don't necessarily agree with it.
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Can you put CSS "display: none" on the ads if we have adblock? It shows as a big empty area for me
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Johto4729 Posts
You do not seriously ask us to improve your experience whilst you block ads, do you?
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2774 Posts
On October 06 2015 11:15 Chef wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2015 16:30 FiWiFaKi wrote: Glad that you gave a heads up, but I will continue to use adblock (though I have purchased TL+ in the past), for the following reason:
In the BW days, there were no ads, and from what I remember, the number of users on TL at once hasn't changed much. The features offered seem more or less the same from what was in the past (minus liquipedia and bigger TL team), but I was under the impression that all, or at least most liquipedia positions were unpaid, and I wouldn't expect the forum website to be covering the cost of operation of the team, rather the sponsors like Razer would.
So that's the missing gap for me, it's not like the cost of servers magically increased 10 fold. So while I have nothing against TL being a business, and when there's opportunity to make money in relatively innocent ways, to make that money... But I don't see why it's something that's necessary when it wasn't necessary in the past.
Not trying to start some big debate, just sharing my thoughts, I still have respect (if that's the right term here), for the people who white list TL, I just prefer the cleaner experience since it's something that I don't feel is a necessity for the site to survive (due to my point above).
edit: Also not exactly fair giving examples of the most ad-filled gaming websites, versus common ones like reddit, steam forums, playdota.com, dotadev, dotafire, dotabuff... Actually I just went through like the first 8 links with a google search "dota 2 forums", and all the websites had less ads than TL, so it's kind of misleading. Like sure, there's less ads than on sketchy porn and news sites, but certainly, when comparing gaming communities, TL is above the curve in terms of number of ads (or at the very least on the curve), so playing the "hasn't accepted the industry standard" card is kind of a low blow. Well, what's changed is that now people work on TL full time, and that TL has to pay for the pro teams they hire. That hasn't changed my user experience very much, but it might have changed others'. It would be interesting to know if TL's teams cost them money, break even, or make money. I mean, I guess the business model is that if they have a team, people will come to the site and see their ads. But it almost feels like the basic reason for the existence of the website is to have those teams, which is intensely circular. As far as the people working full time, previously they were just volunteers. To some degree those volunteers are the people who became paid workers. If they continued on the previous model, there would be nothing to pay but server costs, and to a large extent the website still is volunteer driven, by virtue of being a forum. Even for front page content, I'm pretty sure it's still volunteer based.I don't really care about soundless, safe ads being included in the layout, it just seems worth it to point out lots of these costs have been invented. If gosugamers and those other sites have less ads, it's because they're not actually trying to pay a staff to fly to events, or a progaming team's operating costs. But that's TL's vision. It's less a business than a bunch of friends try to make their dreams come true. At the same time, being a member of these forums and caring about that vision are not the same thing, which is why I think the adblock is high, and a lot of people aren't going to care that Elly the elephant is sad you aren't supporting ESPORTS. So getting the same people who produce 99% of TL's content and appeal to also buy TL+ or click on your ads to pay for something that isn't part of what's interesting about TL for them, is kind of wishful, and certainly, as the quoted posts points out, a different experience from ye old TL. Or maybe I have it backwards, and the TL forum is somehow the money sink which everything else TL does is throwing money at to keep going. As far as I know that info isn't public. Since TLpro and TL.net are separate both financially and organizationally, TL.net is still almost purely unpaid volunteer staff except for severely needed maintenance staff. Ads are meant to cover these maintenance costs including server hosting costs for the website (and Liquipedia). It doesn't take long to figure out why additional ad space is required.
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