Sure, I understand the need to advertise but is it necessary to allow such garbage on this website?
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Why do you allow this garbage to be advertised?
- Thread starter WallToWallMacs
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From the FAQ
What do I do about annoying ads?
MacRumors uses an advertising service that supplies ads from a pool. We do not select the specific ads shown or the specific advertisers who participate.
If you find a particular ad especially annoying (e.g., an ad that is oversized, obscures the page, moves around, or has sound), let us know by posting a screenshot in our Site and Forum Feedback forum and telling us the URL it links to. Using this information we can ask to have it removed from the ad pool.
If you find all ads annoying, remember that ads support the site and allow us to provide free news, rumors, and discussion, and that ads are suppressed for paid members. See How do I contribute to MacRumors.com? above.
What do I do about annoying ads?
MacRumors uses an advertising service that supplies ads from a pool. We do not select the specific ads shown or the specific advertisers who participate.
If you find a particular ad especially annoying (e.g., an ad that is oversized, obscures the page, moves around, or has sound), let us know by posting a screenshot in our Site and Forum Feedback forum and telling us the URL it links to. Using this information we can ask to have it removed from the ad pool.
If you find all ads annoying, remember that ads support the site and allow us to provide free news, rumors, and discussion, and that ads are suppressed for paid members. See How do I contribute to MacRumors.com? above.
It doesn't change the fact that the advertisement is blatant fraud - are you saying that Macrumors and its editors condone fraud?
No. If you read the FAQ, it says MacRumors doesn't select ads, they come from a pool service and instructs members what to do to have specific ads removed.
Yes I did hence the screen shot - I would have thought it was pretty easy to find who provided said advertisement. The said advertisement links to http://goodhousekeeping.com-rt.co/e/indexau2.html
Reading - but not understanding yet. The selection of ads has been outsourced to a 3rd party. MR has no say over what ads appear on the pages.. the ones you see are automagically selected by an algorithm used by the 3rd party, who pays MR for the privilege of using the space.
At least that's how I understand it. I too have been annoyed by an ad. Sometimes refreshing the page changes the ad.
The problem with the ad is its deceptive URL. Both the URL and the target webpage imply that their source is Good Housekeeping, but they clearly are not.
MR can definitely pull particular advertisements, and, IMHO, that's a reasonable request for this particular ad. If REs can be blocked, I'd say anything with a target domain of *.com-rt.co should be nuked.
What exact browsing history causes one to get advertisements with deceptive targets?
What exact browsing history causes one to get advertisements with deceptive targets?
Doesn't really matter. Whatever Google thinks might make you more likely to click on an Ad about Ellen or tabloids in general. And deceptive targets seems to be a fairly regular occurrence in the ad world.
I'm not arguing the merits of the ad. I've seen it popping up in other places too. I actually have no idea what it's about - I haven't read the text in the ad much less clicked on it. However, the OP seemed to think that MR chooses each and every ad that it accepts - which was the model used traditionally by magazines and newspapers.
I don't know how much control MR has...but I will accept your statement. But the proper response in this case is not to rake MR over the coals for accepting an ad - since that is not how it works. Instead people should be asking MR simply to block certain ads once they've been identified.
What exact browsing history causes one to get advertisements with deceptive targets?
Someone browsing a subject matter that the deceptive ad happens to be promoting?
But the truthfulness of ads is an issue.
Please educate yourself before making claims like this. MR definitely has control over what ads appear on this website. Go back and look at this thread from this forum. You will see that Quibids ads (and all penny auction ads) have been removed from MR's feed. I make it a point of flagging these deceptive ads, and I haven't seen any in at least 9 months.
It's definitely within the purview of MR readers to flag advertisements they dislike. Arn and the admins can decide whether or not to remove those particular ads from the feed.
Yep. Any ads they don't want their users to receive can indeed be flagged. It's just a question of what policy is set on the site for particular ads, and how persistent users are at flagging those ads when they appear.
I haven't seen anyone raking MR over the coals here.
Because they already told the OP how to report it to get it removed if he didn't like it. They aren't going to vet every ad that gets deployed.
Yet @snberk103 told us that someone was getting raked over the coals.
If you looked back at the Quibids thread noted above, you'll see two things:
1. There was an explicit decision made to not allow penny auction ads on MR.
2. There was indeed much effort to whack all of the individual penny auction advertisements. It took vigil over the span of many weeks to locate all of the identifiers of advertisements. While I haven't seen any penny auction ads in a long time, odds are high that some will pop up again at some point.
I really don't know what you mean by "vetting". I don't think you understand the process by which particular kinds of ads are weeded out from the MR ad feed.
You are right, I don't. I do, however, know from the other sites that I admin with feeds similar to MRs. Follow the directions above and the ad is removed from the pool, easy enough. That being said, I have never been able to preview an ad before it was added to the pool.
Not sure what the big problem is, if you don't like it, report it.
Agree^^^
Apparently, the horror of actually seeing some ridiculous ad is a bit overwhelming.
And, at the risk of sounding like I'm shilling for MR...one of the perks of paid membership is NO ADS!
No it's not an issue. I agree the ads are likely untruthful. Many ads are untruthful. We agree that these ads are not fully respectful of the truth. Perhaps I have a higher tolerance for untruthy ads. Since I start with the assumption all ads are untruthful, the stupidly untruthful ones don't really stand out much.
I apologize. Perhaps I shouldn't have oversimplified for someone who was figuring out how the ad system worked. It is true that MR can make and enforce policies regarding certain classes of ads. Though they do not control the initial placing of an ad, unless it falls into one of the classes already dealt with by an existing policy. So, yes they do have some control.
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I may have a lower tolerance but, I was thinking of statements like:
Could you please express your point without hyperbole? Nobody else here is overwhelmed. Are you?
And, at the risk of sounding like I'm shilling for MR...one of the perks of paid membership is NO ADS!
But you do have the horror of viewing the worst of those ads in discussions here. How do you do it?
Actually, I prefer seeing advertisements on MR. As you may be unaware, the majority of advertisements here are on-topic. I don't view many computer news sites; I learn a fair amount from those advertisements. Odds are high that I contribute more to MR through ad revenues than you do with your paid membership.
Could you please express your point without hyperbole? Nobody else here is overwhelmed. Are you?
But you do have the horror of viewing the worst of those ads in discussions here. How do you do it?
Actually, I prefer seeing advertisements on MR. As you may be unaware, the majority of advertisements here are on-topic. I don't view many computer news sites; I learn a fair amount from those advertisements. Odds are high that I contribute more to MR through ad revenues than you do with your paid membership.
Why should I eschew hyperbole? It is easily identified, and it's use constitutes a legitimate form of written expression for calling attention to what might be considered an absurdity.
I'm happy to stop using it if you might tell me why it should not be used as a rhetorical device.
I'm glad that you like the advertising. You are correct that I am not aware of it's value, as I do not see the ads, and don't like seeing ads anywhere. I offered a suggestion for actions that might be taken for those who do not like the ads. Since you like the ads, just ignore my suggestions.
I'm sure that you contribute more than I both financially and in terms of interesting and informative content.
Try to say that 5 times fast. I just tried, and it sounds funny
I always thought it sounded a bit like sneezing!
But what an elegant verb it is and how gloriously expressive and descriptive
.."eschew"; I love it. In the right place, expressed in the - appropriate tone - sometimes no other verb will suffice
..
Because it contributed nothing to the discussion. To say another way, if you strip away the hyperbole, there's nothing left.
Nobody is experiencing any sort of horror. The OP had an objection to a particular advertisement. I pointed out why his objection was legitimate: the advertisement was implying an endorsement of the product by Good Housekeeping which was completely false.
Because it served no purpose in the discussion.
The suggestions are a non-sequitur to the OP's request. He made a request, and the admins and moderators will act on it as they see fit. All of the chatter about whether this ad is more or less truthful than others is pure noise. Ditto for those who chime in about those experiencing the "horror" of advertisements on the website. In a perfect world, the admins would set up a private mechanism for reporting problems that members have with advertisements (but I understand why they just have them put in the forum here).
Your contributions other places are great. I just don't grok all of the crosstalk in these discussions in advertisement reports. Posters reporting advertisements they object to should just report them. If their information is complete, that should be end of the discussion. Period. Arn, the admins, and the moderators will decide what if anything they should do with that report. Any sort of commentary about the report serves no purpose in the discussion.
We don't get a vote in what the admins do. If we do want a vote, we would become an admin.