[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.

   So there seem to be more adverts on the web page than there used to be.   I don't mean people putting SPAM into the forum disguised as a proper forum post,  just plain adverts in their own little sections of the web page.

    It's a nuisance and detracts from the website  BUT .... OK - We can see why that might be needed.   Web sites do have a cost to run and maintain.

   Have you (administrative staff) tried being a bit more selective about the adverts you allow in the middle of the web page?   Would you consider doing it?   I suspect you have, so the examples section below is probably irrelevant but I'm just including it to explain why the question is worth asking.

   Examples of what you could do:   You have some affiliation with Cambridge University,   run adverts for courses at Cambridge.
   Blacklist (prevent) car advertisements for fossil fuel vehicles,  allow electric vehicles, bicycles, hydrogen fuel vehicles maybe.
   Identify a few organisations you would not mind being associated with,  e.g.  National Science Museum,  CERN, other educational establishments maybe.    Run their adverts for staff recruitment, courses being offered, special events  etc.

   - - - - - - - -

Identify key moments when the user should be able to concentrate on the genuine forum content and ensure there are no adverts at those times.   Examples:   When clicking on "view the most recent forum posts" make sure there are no adverts stuck on the bottom of the page that could be misleading or accidentally clicked on as if they were recent posts.    Similarly, when replying to a post, adverts can get in the way of scrolling through the previous posts and trying to extract quotes.

Overall:   By allowing adverts, your revenue may have gone up.   However, your user-friendliness has gone down.   Have you kept statistics about the number of new users you are now attracting and/or the number of existing users you are retaining?    The forum is less attractive now.

Best Wishes.     

[Zer0]

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[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi again.

    These adverts seem to have seriously slowed down performance.   Move the mouse over something and you really wait for the drop-down menu to appear, click on a thing and you start to wonder if the computer has actually crashed.    Presumably some (Google based?) server somewhere in the world gets accessed, the web content from the Nakedscientist end of things is analysed, a choice of relevant advert is finally made and then all the data for some high resolution and sometimes animated advert is eventually fed back the other way and re-assembled by some server to display the final web page.   It's a noticeable delay.   
     Are the administrative staff unconcerned about this?   It's a mild inconvenience for me but for some people it will be a physical barrier to using this site.    Nakedscientist's frequently go out of their way to involve schools or organisations from countries that might be described as developing economies.   That's great but what are you doing to address the problem that is known as "Digital Inclusion"?   Some people do not have a fast internet connection and may be charged by the kilobyte to download the irrelevant data that is used to make the advertisements.   Digital inclusion is comparable to inclusion of all other kinds.   We would not tolerate it if you forced a disabled person to crawl up a flight of stairs just because someone had a cunning plan to display an advert on every step - but you have done almost exactly that.

Rant over.  Sorry.

[alancalverd]

a choice of relevant advert

As I've spent many happy hours denigrating battery cars and self-identification of convicted male rapists as women, I find your hypothesis questionable. Right now my enjoyment of the forum is mitigated by two adverts, for padded brassieres and electric cars!

[Eternal Student (OP)]

Hi.

Yes I do get the humour.   
   I still have to mention that the decision about "relevance" has got more to do with what THEY think they can sell to a user of this forum and not what YOU would choose to see as an advert.   
   Actually, Google (if that's what they are using) is amazingly efficient at targetting adverts, they know what you might be thinking about buying better than you do yourself - just from analysing your cookies (browsing history), some words or phrases you seem to use often and any personal information you may have deliberately or accidentally given over.  Their psychological profiling is second to none.   I think I'd better stop talking.

Best Wishes.

[alancalverd]

Judging by the advert that accompanied your last posting,  Google thinks you are a bit of a tit!

I've also been searching on line for porcelain floor tiles, so Google is now trying to persuade me to buy vinyl flooring - why?

I've never bought anything that was advertised on television, and only one thing (an excellent flying jacket) that was advertised on the internet. Searching for what you want on Amazon or eBay is civilised. Unrequested shouting is fun in a live marketplace but intolerably rude online or in the middle of a TV program.