New 4E ad causing problems

[DaveMage]

Each ad position will have a toggle of it's own. They can be enabled or disabled in any combination.

Excellent!

I like seeing the top banner ad - every now and then I see something cool to click on.

But I hate the new right bar ad. Hurts my eyes.

 

[Henry]

They must be throwing in a fair amount considering that every single page I've gone to in the last 10 minutes or so has that ad and ONLY that ad. Where'd all the other ones go? [not really a complaint, just an observation]

I imagine that the ad revenues haven't been exactly "showering in" ever since the announcement of 4e. With the fate of the GSL being totally unknown until late April/early May, and with people in a holding pattern over what products to release after 4e breaks, I'm betting that the ads have been very, very slim, if at all. No product = no ads!

I remember several days here and there that NO ads showed up, and I don't think that was any sort of bug.....

 

[Merkuri]

Like Storminator, my first reaction to the ad was, "Wow, the big boys have decided to advertise here! That's great!"

As long as EN World doesn't start using those ads that break out of their designated areas and float over what you're trying to read I'm okay with it. Heck, a while ago I added EN World to the list of sites exempted from my ad-blocker. Me looking at a few ads is a free way of supporting a site I love, so I'm all for it!

And it doesn't look that bad in the "player handbook" theme, which is what I use. (I find orange on black to strain my eyes... everything looks striped when I stand up from my PC after reading EN World on the default font.)

 

[Alzrius]

The ad unto itself doesn't bother me at all, flash animation or no. It's the fact that it squeezes the rest of the page that's just discomforting. If it were a horizontal ad at the top or bottom of the page, I wouldn't be here mentioning it.

 

[vic20]

I'm excited that the site is getting an infusion of money.

That said, the HTML implementation as an entire layout column is really unfortunate. The readability of the site suffers in a way that makes the ad itself look bad.

 

[GQuail]

As others have said, it's cool that the website is getting some cash in (especially since, as others have noted, adverts have been a bit rarer of late - I recall someone commenting ina nother thread that they took their advert out of circulation becuase it was the only one going and they were getting fed up of using their own impressions ;-) ) and it's good that Wizards are advertising here. And, since I let my community supporter account lapse a bit ago, I probably shouldn't be whinging anyway. ;-)

What's not cool, though, is squishing every page and losing a good 6cm of screen space to insert an extra ad; especially when the same product is being advertised up the top. I know it's cash and all, but I seem to recall a Wizards ad causing problems before: didn't they have a too-long banner ad for a short story collection a couple of years ago? I remember that messing up the way I viewed the page, at least.

If it's short term and it's somewhat essentially cash, then I guess I can't complain: to be honest, I haven't been about the site as much as I used to of late anyway, so it wouldn't bug me as much as it would have a year ago. But it makes every page of the website look weird to tell me to buy something everyone here is either already gonna have, already gonna want to get or has decided not to bother with - so, community supporter or not, I feel a small whinge is in order. ;-)

 

[hong]

Looks fine over here. Think of of it as an incentive to upgrade to a REAL monitor, people!

 

[Tim Tellean]

While the ad could have been prettier, I say let it stay.
If it keeps EN World going and all I have to do is see it then I'm all for it.
No harm, no foul.
Cash the check I say!!

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I don't really mind the compression all that much, and I much prefer it to the stretching from top banner that ads WotC ran some months back. At least I don't have to scroll side to side to read posts.

 

[Arnwyn]

Ads = fine.

Ads that are poorly placed and obtrusive = not fine.

Suggesting that the complaints are about the ads themselves and not the tremendously bad placement is disingenuous, AFAIC. The one to the right is indeed poorly placed. That's it, that's all.