man just when i thought u guys couldnt get any more ad's per page u guys throw one at th ebottom of th wepage that lays over the page.
wouldnt be that bad if it only showed up once,but everytime i click on a new page the dam thing comes back.anyway ui guys could make this thing only show up one time ???????

edit------------------------------------------
nm just relized after i loged in the ad went away

 

Its not just the new ad that is annoying, All of the ads are annoying, along with the new layout, with HUGE forum list, with too mutch text to easily destinguish what is waht, and so on, so forth. FYI TGO sucks now. I have stopped refering people here, I send them to other f-body sites.

 

Looks to me to be an ad that is only targeted for unregistered/logged out users. Your screen capture shows you're not logged in.

Given that it is only shown to unregistered/logged out users, and is geared towards promoting this site, I don't think it's horrible. BTW, I had nothing to do with the ad, so I'm not defending myself.

I've seen many sites that do such tricks to get people to register or log in.

Edit: I must admit that I'm not exactly in support of some of these decisions.

 

The only reason for it is to get members to sign up for the forum.

And yes, you should only see it when you are not logged in.

Also, if you are not logged it you should be able to close it every time it appears.

 

If anything, it will irritate the hell out of them.

To quote Tom Petty..
"You got me in a corner
You got me against the wall
I got nowhere to go
I got nowhere to fall

.....

You're jammin' me, you're jammin' me ,
Quit jammin' me"

Even Adblock can't get rid of all the crap you keep adding.

It's annoying. Honestly.

Not everyone wants to log in or be tracked via cookies for advertising purposes just to view the boards.
And.. who wants to close the same ad on every page the veiw if they aren't logged in.

No one wants that crap (ads) jammed down their throats.

This messageboard is almost turning into radio. Shove ads in your face more than music to force you to pay for (satelite :sp?: ) radio so youcan finally hear music again instead of crappy annoying car adverts.

The next step here is become a paying member to remove all the site ads.

No thanks.

I have been on here since 1998 (different name before the great meltdown) and this board, as current... is crap.
No matter how great the board programming is, the member count, the speed....
Without quality members (past and present) contributing.. the board is ****... you have MySpace quality content.

I'll shut up here.. this board is headed in a flaming downward spiral at it's current rate.
Not my opinoin.. it's how I feel.
I'm not a gambling man but, I'll bet I'm not the only one who has this (or a similar) feeling

 

vBulletin checks to see if the user is logged in, as it has always done before. there were no additional cookies created for the sign up. And the content of Third Gen isn't created by us the administration. The entire site is based upon user interaction. We have just open a couple more outlets for you to express your interest in ThirdGens. So if you are not satisfied with the information, pictures, and videos on this site, I suggest you speak with your fellow members.

Personally, I've been quite interested in the videos and pictures. I think the vBGarage was one of the best additions to this site. It has definately made it the #1 resource for anyone looking for pictures of Third Gens.

 

that add was very annoying and it wouldn't let me x it out. the only reason i was logged out was because the scroll bar was gone and the reply button was missing also. another thing that has gone wrong is half of attached pics are gone. how is a guy supposed to do a brake swap when the pics of the spindle mods are gone. i love this sight and the way it is structured but all these little thing are annoying the heck out of me

 

Can i get a link to the page that has images missing so I can see what or where it is being broken.

Thanx

 

To be honest, the changes that were made on Friday left the boards broken for IE users. I can understand the user's frustrations because of this. I wasn't involved with the changes so I'm not quite sure where the problem is. There was so many changes to the templates it makes it a large task, especially not being involved to know what was done.

I was able to get a "fix" for the issue with logged in IE users having no scroll bar. But non-logged in users still face that problem and that appears to cause the new banner to not have a close feature.

FireFox works OK. But I'd imagine we have quite a bit of IE users here.

Example is attached.

Clicking on the Ad itself does nothing. It does not close, nor does it even allow the user to register.

 

OK, I found and "fixed" the problem for non-logged in users running IE 6 that didn't have a scroll bar. It was the same piece of code that affected the logged in users, but it was in a different template.

Still more work is needed, but atleast it's getting better.

 

I agree about 90%.

I am not typing this in a "loud voice" or a mean-spirited tone. Not at all.

I'm 50 years old, mild-mannered, community oriented, work at a print shop/weekly newspaper, an avid car nut and on these boards since Christmas 1998.

I have also contributed funds to get the site back up after its two big crashes a few years ago.

I do not want this site to fail. I would almost wager I probably want this site to succeed as much as anyone here, including the owners.

That said, my personal livelihood depends on advertising dollars. This site needs advertising dollars also.

However, I firmly believe this site is stepping over the "good taste" or "what is necessary" boundaries of placing more and more ads whenever and wherever possible.

I have a feeling the "must sign up to be a member---or else" box is a way to show more members and get more money for the ads.

It seems to not matter that more and more ads are causing problems.

I believe that is what is going on in my situation in the threads I have started concerning my IE locking up.

Last night's meltdown on IE not loading properly was just a glitch. I've seen those before...but, the general path this site is heading does not bode well, in my humble opinion.

My IE froze several times on this site last night...when I was able to get on.

One of those times, I was able to catch my lower address bar line...

It started to load normally. Then the address changed to " Downloading picture https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/cron.php?rand=507608..."

To me, that says it was loading normally, then a picture (probably from an ad my security software did not want to allow) tried to download and froze my IE.

Am I close?

How does the last four or five sentences tie in with the previous thoughts?

It seems my problems may be "All about the money" in the end.

This site, with its strong google ties (and google tracking cookies which I don't like-my anti-big brother side coming out here), its need for more members (to show advertisers big numbers), may indeed be "cutting its own throat".

There are fewer thirdgens remaining everyday. My opinion is many, if not most of those thirdgens are ending up in the hands of less-experienced enthusiasts, quite possibly lower income scale (which probably includes me).

I believe this site should be absolutely as easy as possible to navigate. Folks visiting this site should be able to get (or give) needed info quickly and without hassle. We need to be working on our vehicles. If that means fewer ads, please consider that.

I don't have the time (and lately the patience) to keep reloading this site when it freezes. Will I stop visiting here? I don't think so---unless it becomes too difficult to get info.

The original idea behind this site was to try and keep the thirdgens on the road.

I fear, and hope I'm wrong, but it seems now the idea behind this site is "All about the money".

Am I wrong?

jms

 

JMS,

The owners have made it very clear, that they bought the site from Dirk, as a buisness venture, they are here to make money from all of us. period.

Like so many people on the site, I've been here for what seems like an eternity. TGO used to be my homepage, I used to come here all the time. The new ownership, has turned me off to that. I rarely come here now, its only when I am really bored, or I get a PM.

The site is going downhill faster than I would have imagined. The interface has become cluttered, there are ads everywhere, and now the contents sucks. The tech has gone downhill, whenever I correct someone who misinforms people, I get immediatly jumped on for being mean, for not letting people express their opinions, or being negative. The site is failing to deliver the techinical content that it used to. Searches have become cluttered with BS threads, by people who have no idea what they are talking about. Many of the long time members, who had good information, have moved on to other sites.

I'm going to stop talking about it, I am sure hte owners/admins don't want to hear my opinion. But, like you, I am a long time member, who has also noticed the decline of TGO.

 

As I posted in the other thread, you are about the only person who has reported having this exact issue. While I don't disagree with the TGO being loaded up with Ads (and I don't exactly like it myself), I can still browse this website/forum with a 300 Pentium machine - which is quite outdated.

With as large of a group that visits this place, there is bound to be members who will have issues that certainly due to their own computer. It's possible that the TGO site just pushes your computer to expose the problem.

There is an issue with IE running choppy on some member's machines, which is something to do with a template change Xoxide made months ago, but totally freezing up did not seem to be a common issue.

I still think you may have an issue local to your computer because I've not read anyone else with your exact issue. Your Norton Security would be my prime suspect. I've used that utility before with certain issues that didn't get resolved until fully uninstalling that utility. Just as TGO loading up with Ads, you are "loading up" your machine by running those types of utilities and they do not come without problems. I'm not saying people shouldn't use such software protection, but use of those types of products usually don't come without issues.

I would suggest you atleast disable the software (and make sure it is disabled) and see what happens.

 

why in the hell would someone sign up with this site as it is with that thing in the way???? oh or the free camaro ring tone.... wtf?????

 

I will start off by saying that i have not been here as long as the other members that have commented but i have been here before the change in ownership. "TGO used to be my homepage, I used to come here all the time. The new ownership, has turned me off to that." This i think is true to many of us, i know for a fact it is true to me, TGO used to be my homepage, i used to be here every second that i had free time and now it is just when i NEED to find info...

In the message boards section i think getting rid of the POPULAR THREADS area would get rid of the clutter that someone else was mentioning...

As for the freezing, there was a period of time that the site WOULD NOT LOAD it would not load for a second, this happened for about a month for me i dont know about other people but i almost gave up on the site complelty.

I havent experienced the ad that they are talking about BUT i do know that if i was someone who just came to the site i do not want to read the free signup, 30 seconds, whatever cmon if they are going to join they are going to join because of the site content not cause you are NAGGING them to. I hate that stuff.

I have also gotten a few threads where the pics didnt come up but i just blamed that on a crappy connection or something but i am starting to doubt it.

I would hate to see this site fall, it is my main resource for my car as i am sure it used to be for many people.

 

Examples would help. I've reviewed old and new threads and attachments in those threads load fine for me.

If the images don't load that aren't hosted on TGO, it's beyond our control. Remember that there are a lot of members who have been using cardomain.com to host their image. This is called "hot-linking". If those images fail to load (and I've seen A LOT fail to load), it is beyond our control as TGO isn't hosting the image. A lot of websites try to prevent hot linking because it costs them bandwidth.

 

I agree. If I wasn't a member, and I came to this site for the first time, I wouldn't even consider signing up. The only reason I'm here is because I've been here long enough to know that there is good info here, if I feel like digging through the search feature. I used to visit a few times a day, now it's more like twice a week unless I get a PM or a reported post.

I'll shut up as well, as I don't think anything is going to change the new, commercialized version of this site.

 

While reading your post, I came across some statements that I would like to clarify.

When you sign up to be a member you will see that somewhere around 33% of the ads on this site disappear entirely. We do not want people to sign up to gain an advertising advantage. We want people to sign up to keep the site growing in membership so it can be around and active for a long time to come.

this is how vBulletin runs some cron jobs, and is why you may see it a few times. If the cron job isn't completing or slowing down the page load then this needs to be addressed. Thank You for notification.



Yes we use google to gather information about our site. I'd say 85% of the web pages people commonly visit use some sort of google analytics to gather information. The extent of my knowledge of how google actually does it's tracking via cookie or ip tracking is unclear. But it's widely accepted and neccessary to how members are reaching our site.

From the vBulletin standpoint, we moved the exsisting advertisers that used to be near the header of the page, making it more timely to scroll to forum content to the right hand column. This allowed the advertisers to roll with the content of the site and offering less obtrusive placement for ads in the future. Other than that vBulletin is structured exactly how the default skin is layed out.


95%, if not more, of the content on this site has been created by it's members.
Personally, I think the content here is robust and insightful. We would not have purchased this site if it wasn't. SInce that point I feel the content for ThirdGen specific vehicles has grown and improved the site. (example: organization of Tech Data and images of ThirdGen vehicles)

If you could give more specifics about the content that you feel unworthy of this site you should notify the admin. We'll be more than happy to work with you to make it better.

All car owners must begin somewhere. To shut them out for being uninformed or asking questions that you find to be elementary makes me agree with those that think you are being mean. With continued reactions like that I can see why members have decided to leave the forum and to have others consider you mean.

#1 reason why we have moved to a server that is at least twice the machine we have had before.


As for that banner at the bottom of the page. It's not an advertisement that we placed to earn money off of. We want to see more activity on the site. By having members we loose exposure to google ads but we gain alot of new content to keep everyone active. Many of you have stated that the ThirdGen is showing it's age and popularity. Our goal is to keep the ThirdGen alive and bring in new car owners. A car with this much personality should be an instant classic and if the site continues for many years then it opens more doors and opportunities for people to have a ThirdGen as a restoration vehicle.

 

Will sombody move this G&^%$#darn add from this site. It is thoroughly in the way.Thank you

 

I wish I knew which ad you were talking about.

screen shot please

 

That is part of it, you have tried to eleminate white space, and fill it with ads. While you don't want an over abondance of white space, you needs some to create seperation between key points that you want noticed. I do this for a living, if you were willing to pay me or my companies rate, I would be happy to give you more insite. The truth is, there is TOO much on the front page of the forums, and finding the key informations is very hard, you have to actively search it out. Key points that you want people to notice, should be intuative.

I now that 99% of the content comes from members. I didn't say otherwise, there is still a TON of BS content, that is flat out wrong. Whenevery I try to point out the content is wrong, I get jumped on by other members, and the Mods.

I said nothing about questions, that is what the site is for. What I have is a problem with uninformed people, giving out answers that are wrong. Again, don't presume that I am mean to everyone, I only get that lable when I correct someone who misinforms someone else. The mods and admins are so caught up on making everyone "feel" welcome, that misinformation gets spread like a wildfire. There are many times, that myself and others have posted the information, only to have some newbie come in, and post misinformation. I point it out, I'm the bad guy.

 

The placement of our ads are decided through research along with trial & error. The places that ads do exsist are not ground breaking or overly obtrusive. In fact they are quite the standard when working with Content Management Systems and Forums.

I believe that is how everyone should be making new comers feel. If someone is knowledgable about ThirdGens then they will realize that information may be incorrect. It's not about telling someone that they are wrong, it's better to suggest them to proper sources which correct the information that they are giving. This will signal to people reading the post that the information maybe incorrect while still giving the poster a chance to come back and correct the information on thier own.

 

Um , I just signed up and this is my first post.

The popup is exceedingly annoying and I registered just to get rid of it. My usual way of approaching a forum is to "lurk" as an unregistered user for sometimes a week or more perusing the FAQs and articles before actually registering and posting questions. I do this as a community service to registered forum users so I'm not flooding the board with questions that have been asked over and over again. It gives me a chance to see what etiquitte is expected of me as well.

I think you may find one of two things with that ad- one, you may drive away potential forum members who aren't as computer-savvy as I am, or two, you will get a lot of new members who are posting "HI HOWE DO I CHANG OIL IN MY CMARO THX BYE !!!!11!!!1".

Much like shopping before you buy, lurking is an important part of the forum process and your ad is a bit of a "pushy stereo saleman". That's too bad because from what I've seen this site is a great find for someone new to fuel injection diagnosis and performance. It came recommended to me from another forum.

I'm not trying to hate on this site or bash anyone at all (it'd be a lousy first post)- Just letting you know it may be an ill placed effort.

Mark.

 

The ad placement may work for creating hits, and getting them noticed. That does not mean the front page is overly cluttered. The forum names are hard to destinguish quickly and easily. I find the front page overly busy, and that is one main reason, it is not longer my home page.

I am done with this discussion, I made my opinion once again known, I am not hear to argue with you about it. I am also not going to argue about how I respond to posts, or your opinion on it. I have voiced my concerns about what I feel is driving many long time members away, and once again, you have shown that your and other owners/admins view, is that of one that is not willing to listen, instead you just defend, and tell me I am wrong. How many posts are in this section, that are related to the layout and formatting of the page, and the advertisements, and the busyness. I think that is proof enough, that something about the page is no appealing to the users. You have your user feedback, do with it what you will. But, once again, you have turned me off to TGO, I was starting to come back a little, and post again. But, I think I'm done. I hope for your own sake, and for the progression of this site, that you learn to not take a defensive stand, and instead start listening to the feedback being offered.

I will also point out, that at my company, this is why we do pre-production tests of formats and lay-outs, we get customer feedback on all new products, and specificly with how they interact with the interface. We also do studies on our clients use of our products, and watch them use existings products to devolope our new ones. Intuative-functionality research, and so on so forth. You have to understand how people interact with your site, to really make changes to the format, that can benifit both your users, and your company. This is very simple, and anyone who is in software or website design should understan. Now I am sure that your company doesn't have near the resources that my employeer does, but frankly you are getting your feedback, and instead of using as a way to enchance and devolope the site, you are trying to defend the very things your users are screaming about.

 

Great points, you have adversely shared your opinions but have you ever heard of spell check

 

With a forum this large it is impossible to get everyone to agree on everything.

Well I take that back. I'm sure all members here will agree that a sight with no ads at all would be the best. That obviously isn't going to happen.

And instead of saying

Maybe you can be a lil more specific as to what feedback you are talking about. Obviously, this is a thread about the new "AD", but it's not really an advertisement. It's a tool of action for guest to become new members.

Other admin and moderators give in depth reasoning for new sections not to be created.

As for forum color, if we were to please everyone our forum would look like a rainbow.

So your suggestions are being heard and we have implemented a couple ideas, vBgarage so people can show off thier rides, removing some of the ads because they cluttered the site too much, and blocked some ads from being displayed because thier content was irrelevant to the site.

Dewey - I'm sure being part of an internet firm that is much larger than we are you can easily understand that there will always be some form of resistance to change and that you can not please everyone.

 

I completely understand that you can not please everyone. I also understand, that you hear complaints, you change them, and then you hear complaints from the people who like it they way it was. I deal with it, day in and day out.

The thing that drives me crazy, is the hot topics bit under each forum name, the main page has become a HUGE mess of text that runs together, and is dominated then by the google ads on the top, the sponsers ads on the right, and a big banner up top. That is why I said, you should use some white space to seperate key points. If you had a some seperation between forum names, and were able to quickly access and look the forum lists, that would be a huge improvement.

I know you need to balance making the ads noticable as compared to making the forums the dominant peice. I think there should be a balance, and that from a users standpoint, having the forum list easily viewable, and also being able to quickly determine which forum is the one they want, would go a long way.

I would also think that it is fair to say, that having the google ads right at the top of every page, is another thing that a large number of users are not very keen on. It also takes space away from displaying the forums (remeber, that is what people are really here for. You will want your ads were they see them, as part of what they are looking at). I would bet, that if you sat down, and watched 100 users as they navigated thru TGO. 90 of them, for their first move when they hit the forums page, is to scroll down, to view the forums lists. Since they only see the first 3-4 (assuming 800x600 resolution). This moves the google ads, that you want them to see (Because this is your money, right?).

I think putting the adverts on the side was a great move, it puts them where they need to be so they are still in view when "using" the site. If you could condense the forum list, so you could quickly see the 10-12 most used forums without scrolling, then the site becomes much easier for people to navigate, and it allows you to better place ads, without people scrolling right past them, to view the content.

Just my opinion.

EDIT: Just as a case in point. One of the most used forums (57k posts or so) is the general tech forum. at 1024x768, to even get this forum on the list, you have to scroll so far down, you can not see a single of the sponsors links, nor the google ad.

82 Iron Duke -- pff, I ignore the spell check on TGO, when I'm on corner-carvers, I live on the spell checks. I try to fit in, with whatever site I am at. ;-)

 

I agree, the new add that pops up and stalks you when you arent logged in is EXTREMELY annoying. I have an older 300 mhz pentium also with 128 mb of ram and my computer CHOKES trying to load that. Also it locks up over the top post, not sure if thats intentional. I didnt sign up to be a member the first day I came. And had I had to fight with this, there is no way that I would have. I saw that there was some really cool information on here and kept reading. Eventually I wanted to participate, and signed up. Keep adding advertisements, and you wont have new members at all, no matter how much you try to push them. I know that this is unlikely, buy If there is even a notion of charging people for less ads, or even a single pop up, I will no longer visit here again, with many others I assure you, there are enough resources at other boards, and google, to suffice. I know this is a business venture for you but if there is very few people that even come here, no one will want to pay you for ads. While my comment may seem meek, and I may not have a ton of posts, I have certainly learned alot, but this board is quickly traveling a slippery slope.

 

therealmark - you wouldn't happen to know Dewey, would you?

I only suggest this because your IP address connects with a corporate/educational website that deals with architecture of computer related designing. Webpages, interfaces, etc. This is something Dewey brags about in this thread. Your timing to sign up could not have been more convienent.

For privacy reasons I won't release the url, i can respect that. But I would like to mention that the site I was refered to still uses Iframes, an image map for navigation, and does not include a Cascading Style Script. The first two are virtually done away with and the CSS is pretty much a standard now days.

Tad1214 - I couldn't agree with you more about charging people. I think that would be the end of this site if we did, because of the reasons you have listed above. And a simple way to combat that thing at the bottom of the page is to simply check the remember me box on vBulletin.

 

I do not think i know him. I can also absolutly promise you, that if their site has frames, it is not the company I work for.

 

No, I didn't think you worked for them. They are based out of Switzerland and you are from Oregon. That's a long ride to work, even for a 300HP ThirdGen.

Being in the computer field myself I just know how clicky and defensive we can all get, and how sometimes we get friends to come in and support our argument to make us look better.

I wasn't saying it was true, I was just pointing out an observation that I found overly coincidental.

 

Yes we do get defensive about our work, I do to, but I also have people to remind me when my "good" ideas aren't so good. I am trying to just point out some things, that I think would make the user experiance better, and could potential make the ads less intrusive, while getting them placed in a way, that they still generate traffic.

I actualy don't do much web work anymore, i work on the back end of things. I am a unix and cisco (CCNP) geek. In a former life though, I worked for a flash studio.

 

PUUUULLLEEAAAASSSSSEEEEE lose the ad at the bottom of the page.

I can understand it popping up on the home page but not every page I try to open! Not to mention it covers up 2-4 thread topics that used to be easily viewable. I understand the site has undergone design/supporter/owner changes but that new blue banner is not user friendly at all. Nice car, bad banner.

Ed

 

I gotta agree with most of the complainophiles here. I hate that stupid banner.

I don't always wanna log in, I like to just read. Especially when I'm at work.

There are so many people who have a love/hate relationship with TGO. We didn't like it when Dirk went **** on everyone, (which spawned 3go and ne3g among others) but know there is no other place with all the technical info that there is here.

Now we can't even lurk without being reminded of why we can't stand TGO sometimes.

You should let those other thirdgen related sites have copies of every post and article and picture and all the archives on your servers for free. It's the only fair thing to do.

That way, we never have to come here anymore. HAHAHAHAHA! I'm a smart@ss! Also, it's probably against the TOS to find clever ways to beat the swear filter, but I never bothered to read it. :finger:

 

If the banner must stay (not my decision), I'd think once per session would be better. Having to click the banner off each new page view is a bit excessive.

It might be against policy for Administrators and Moderators to ban members and their spare accounts for the fun factor, but I didn't bother to check either.

 

You seemed to have missed my point.

I've been here quite long enough to be able to understand where the content of this board comes from.
I certainly don't need it explained to me by you.

It is the new ownership disheartens me alot quite frankly.

This site was founded quietly by people sharing a passion for these cars and helping others with the same interest. No advertising was needed yet it grew and grew. It had a few hard time but, once the meber matured and the site became tech.. it became more than a good site.. it became great.

What made it great ?

The members... who made the content. Intelligent people. Experienced people. People with a passion for these cars.

Thats where the content came from.

Now, it's about profit. Advertising. Commercialism.. such a beautiful thing.

You're running off the people that made this site once so great.
The new members, you don't care about who you attract.. new members are $$, are lazy slackers who can't figure out how to distinguish their *** from a hole in the ground.. best of luck to them using the search.

No experienced people left to answer the questions new people are to lazy to search for. They are sick of the in your face advertising, ack of quality members drawn it from it and answereing questions for the 1'th time by those people.
You're now generating locked, repetitive posts, junk posts about 'my dubs', 'OMG whatever on Ebay', etc or, people giving misinformation because they are just guessing or don't know.
Even if you are literate enough to use search, there's nothing left but locked threads of the above garbage. It becomes a cycle.

Hell.. people are to lazy to scroll all the way down a page to see if they are making a duplicate post anymore.
For that matter, even the full question of the original poster in a thread.

Where is the content then ?

It is the new members that are being attracted that is dragging the content down.

I apologize for seeming a little jaded about this and I'm not directing this specifically at you but, where does it stop ? When will there be enough ads ?
For the sheep.. I'm sure it works.

For the intelligent people that made this board what it was... it's annoying.

You know the expression "Keep it simple, stupid" ?
It pinpoints the fact that simplicity is important.


And, untill you can make vBGarage searchable like the lost 'Readers Rides' section was... it is far from #1.

JM(simpleminded)O though.. I'm sure it will be disregarded in the order it was recieved.

 

Just to clarify again the purpose of the footer image.
First off it's not an advertisement, we make no financial gain off of having it placed there. It's sole purpose is to get new members and build a larger fanbase of ThirdGen vehicles.

As for the site and advertising before we took over. When you are logged in the only ads that weren't here before is the google banner below the header and the text links near the footer of the page. The exsisting advertisers have been moved to the side of the page.

And since ~95% of the content is created by members, we really cannot control how good the search results are for relevant content.

 

It is an advertisement for thirdgen.org, a crappy one at that, the car is sweet though.

Thats a pretty bad way of going about it. People will join the site if they like it. Forcing it down their throats will only cause them to leave.

Yes, thank you for not gumming it up between each post, or every 3rd or whatever. I know you have no control over them, but alot of the google ads are quite pointless.

I know you cant control the content of the searches, but, you are pushing away any memebers that are intelligent and would have contributed good info for searches. If they were smart enough and knowledgeable enough to be good with third gens, they likely have the smarts to see the big stalking banner at the bottom and hit the back arrow.

You are killing your site, keep bringing on the ads! We dont want any intelligent new members anyways, right?

 

I think you missed deadbird's point again:

 

Just to clarify, it is still annoying. I was in the office today, and that this is bloody bothersome.

Most of us felt much better about being annoyed by them, before we know the sole purpose was for some company to make money. Dealing with advertisments to keep a not-for-profit site, that we got value from, was one thing. Dealing with them, so a corporation can make money off the content we provide, is a diffrent ball-game.

You could start by trying to keep the people who provide the information. Instead of being defensive all the time, listen and address the complaints you are hearing. This is not the first time this conversation has been had in here. I also feel confident in saying, this isn't the last time. Scan thru the people posting, and complaining about this. You have TGO supports, Mods, many users that have been here for 5+ years. Those long time members are the basis for this site, the reputation it has, the technical information that is here (your meal-ticket). What bothers me, is that instead of trying to talk to people about the issues that have been brought up, you argue YOUR point. Keep it up, I am sure that this site will be a real money-maker, once all the people leave, and you have no technical information left. It is going to turn into a useless site, where a bunch of know nothing kids, compare cardomain sites, and jerk each other off.

 

The point that everyone misses, Dirk sold TGO for a very good reason, he could no longer afford to fund it. As TGO grew and web traffic increased, it required more cash for equipment upgrading etc. TGO was a victim of its own success. Unfortunately, without some method of funding, Dirk was tired of forking the bill.

He tried donations, etc; but that only help out partially, and then for only a short period of time.

There are only TWO WAYS TGO can remain online; either members must pay a subscription service OR TGO must utilize advertising. Take your pick. I can tell you, if there was a membership/subscription service there would be LOUDER SCREAMS than there is now. I doubt TGO would last very long as a "subcription fee" site.

In all honesty, if Xoxide had not bought the site from Dirk, I suspect Dirk was close to "calling it quits" and ready to pull the plug. Then where would TGO be? Just another "dead Internet website" like so many others that have come and gone.

Unfortunately, there are no free lunches in this world. Unless a venture can generate enough cash to pay the bills or have the support of a major philanthropist, it goes out of business. Until TGO can become a registered charity, receive government funding and issue tax deductible receipts for all the donations it receives (dream on), it needs to generate revenue from some means to keep operating.

I spent many years early in my career working as a Receiver in Bankruptcy (I've actually have been called "the Grim Reaper"). Each company that I was sent in to "re-org" always had the same problem, more expenses than revenues. And without some means of TGO generating enough cash to pay the lights, the lights will go out.

So take your pick, some advertising to keeps the lights on? Or have Xoxide just turn out the lights? Because without some advertising, Xoxide will not fund TGO and there will not be any TGO. Then all this "great technical information" will just go down the drain and be lost forever.

Frankly, if I was the controller of Xoxide (and later in my career I have been the Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance for a number of companies), I would be challenging the CEO why Xoxide bothers wasting any time or resources on TGO and recommend that we bury it and move on to better ventures.

 

we are not complaining about having adds we are complaining about the must sign up banner and how cluttered the sight has become.

put the must sign up banner only on the front page and do a little r&r on the page layout would help a lot.

you are doing some good thing but a few bad decisions are overshadowing them.

 

You may not be complaining about the advertising but others were. I was addressing those complaints.

 

I was complaining about that one. I was also complaining about the placement and layout. Did you read the entire thread? Maybe the part where I commented that I thought moving the sponsor links to the right hand side, was a good move. I am glad you seem to be successful, but do not assume the rest of us are stupid. We all know the need to make money to pay the bills. What I don't like, is the layout, the clutter, and the fact that I have to scroll for pages, to get to the forums that I actualy want to use.

 

Sounds like you are complaining about the ads based on your original post

Funny, but I didn't specifically quote or mention you (you just assumed ). I quoted deadbird and he does say "Now it's about profit. Advertising. Commercialism..." which is what I was addressing.

But, as for your comment about no longer referring people to TGO but to other F-Body sites, I notice in this post you made on Dec 23/2005

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/casc...s-old-man.html

You were already tellling people to go other F-body websites back in Dec 23/2005 in that post.

Xoxide didn't buy the site from Dirk unti the spring of 2006. So, even before Dirk sold the site, you were already directing people to go elsewhere and not to use TGO.

 

wow you are going to extreme lengths to smear Dewey. how long did it take to find that thread. during that time you could have filed a complaint to xoxide that the board members are rioting because of the must sign up banner.

 

It took all of 10 seconds...it's the top post on the Cascade (NorthWest) Board which has been seldom been used since they created their own board a couple of years ago and started to direct everyone to go there instead of the TGO Regional Board.

As for smear, it strikes me that you guys were doing it to Dave, JT & Xoxide. I've been to friendlier bar fights.

I think you guys need to step back and take a deep breath. Because the other option is "NO TGO"...and that would be the biggest shame of all.

 

Wow, there is a bit of wrong information being posted in this thread.

I think the ad situation now is fine. In my opinion, they are all in good places.

 

Only people in the PNW, cascadecrew really outgrew being just in the TGO sub-forums, so some of the locals set up a forum, so the northwest folks could BS, and socialize without having non tech info on TGO.

That very well may be. We are giving feedback on things that bother us about the site, is that not what this forum is for? I thought it was a place to sound off and discuss what is we like/dislike about the boards. I am one of the few people in this post, that has given BOTH possitive, and negative feedback, I also offered suggestions as to what could be done, to make the user experiance more enjoyable, while still allow TGO to pay for itself. That is more than you have done. You have yet to offer any sort of useable advice, other than to explain how you would run a company if you were the CFO. I'm sure glad that CFO's don't make all the choices in software and website design, because generaly CFO's are not qualified nor trained in anyway, to understand user interaction with sites or software.