Ad changes coming

[Da Nag]

Howdy all,

We're instituting a change in the next week or so with ads. Yes, there will be more of them.

In short: The directly sold ads you see up top take an inordinate amount of my time, and given my lack of attention to managing them - the revenues are now close to zero. Truthfully - I've just other priorities in life these days. Mike and I have decided to bring on an ad agency that will manage things, and since they'll be taking a cut - more ads.

Here's the deal, though. Yes, it would be great if you whitelisted us in your ad blockers if you run them. No, we're not going to put any of those annoying "You're running an adblocker, please turn it off" messages up. If the ads bother you, block them. I'd be a hypocrite to suggest I don't run an ad blocker myself, but I do disable it for sites I want to support.

One of the ads you'll see is somewhat annoying and perhaps surprising the first time you see it. It's called a "Web interstital" ad unit, and according to the ad agency - it will happen no more than once per visit to the C-Brats. Basically, it pops up an ad when you click a link here, i.e. opening up a topic from the list on the home page. An ad will pop up with an "Open" or "Close" button. Clicking "Close takes you where you were going and you won't see it again. Trust I'll keep an eye on this thread for feedback and if there's an uproar, we'll have it disabled. Here's an example:



Now, a bit of good news to offset this annoyance.

I've been absent here for quite a while. I've checked in routinely, but missed a lot. That's what happens when you're boatless I suppose. The last C-Dory I had that got used was my 22 and it's been gone since 2014. My relatively brief venture in Nordic Tugs made clear I'd made a mistake - for me, lots of people love them. Still, once that boat was gone I wasn't sure if I had any boating days left in me. That all changed a few weeks ago...a very special C-Dory is headed my way in a couple weeks, but you'll have to wait for that post elsewhere - it deserves its own discussion.

Anyway, for better or worse - my involvement at the C-Brats will increase. I'll never catch up to Dr. Bob, but I'm looking to be more involved with my old C-Brat pals, along with all the new ones I've yet to meet. And, I've now plenty of motivation to get the promised site upgrades going that are years overdue.

Will

[Robert H. Wilkinson]

Just keep doing whatever is necessary to keep the doors open! We thank you.

Congrats on that other new thing thats on its way that we aren't talking about yet! When you had your Nordic Tug for sale I think I bought a couple extra lottery tickets! It was a beautiful boat and you had done a lot of upgrades.

Regards,

Rob

[colbysmith]

If more folks used the tip jar, would that help? This is a great service. In fact Harvey and I were discussing C-Brats when we were together touring at NWMI last year. Concern being, what happens to this great site when you and Tyboo are tired of keeping it going. Glad to hear you are getting back into it. So much good stuff archived here, it would be a shame to lose the site. Thanks!!! Colby

[Hunkydory]

Yes, whatever it takes to keep it going. Very glad you & Mike are still willing to & you, Will being more involved again.

Jay

[NORO LIM]

On my Samsung tablet the ads mess with my page layout and with navigating around the site. It is more than annoying. It makes the site pretty much useless.

OTOH, on my desktop, I have no issues at all because I installed an ad blocker. Kinda hate to do that because it defeats the whole purpose of the ads, i.e., paying for the site. I will just have to remind myself to increase the amount and/or frequency of my deposits in the Tip Jar.

(I posted this same thing on another thread just started on the same subject - http://www.c-brats.com/viewtopic.php?t=31405 - just to try to corral the discussion a little.)

[Da Nag]

[Robert H. Wilkinson]

I may have discovered a hiccup - normally I use the google search as it is much quicker than searching through the 3,000 possibles that the other search shows you. Now google shows the results but when I clic on them a message tells me that google is blocked.

Has anybody else had this problem?

Rob

[NORO LIM]

[Da Nag]

[colbysmith]

Yep, same here. Can’t remember exactly how it happens but seems like if I link a different way or click a second time it works.

[colbysmith]

Ok. This is how it goes for me. I'll use the enhanced by Google search in the upper left corner. Once the various site links come up, I click on the one I want. Bam, get the error message. But if I right click on it to open a new tab or a new window, it works. Colby

[bobjarrard]

Hi all. Just a note that the new ad policy is way too much for me. I have supported the Tip Jar and would be glad to pay a premium for a no ad page but the constant barrage of ads both top and bottom on this site means that after many years I am going to end my poor attempts at being a C-Brat. Hope all goes well with you.
Bob Jarrard

[colbysmith]

I did get a few ads the first day, but I haven't seen any since. Perhaps I have an ad blocker that is working?

[Alyssa Jean]

Ads are popping up left and right for me. More annoying than most sites.

[Robert H. Wilkinson]

The banner adds at the top do not bother me - they have been there for years now. The pop up adds only take a quick clic to remove. The banner at the bottom may not have bothered me with my old lap top or desk top but with the smaller screen of my notebook and tablet they do shrink the usable screen even smaller to the extent that reading a long post requires more scrolling.

Not a deal breaker - just an observation! Now off to eat cake - apparently I'm a year older today.



Rob