Online Advertising Questions

[md16185]

With lots of sites online with banners/popups, that go to links, why do most all the forums online not allow online advertising? Isn't this kind of a double standard, in a way, this kinda hurts the market? Showuld ppl do annoying pop-ups, instead of just saying, "check out such and such"? And when alot of the banners and pop ups being scams for spam marketters, where are the online business ethics?!

[pip22]

Not sure what you mean by "double standards" in the context of forums which don't carry banner-ads. The purpose of this forum is to allow computer users to help each other with problems. We get bombarded with advertising all over the web and if it was allowed to bombard us on this forum it's members would soon get fed up with it and seek help elsewhere. needless to say it wouldn't be long before the membership count dropped too low to make it worthwhile having the forum at all. And that would be a sad day for all of us.

[Miz]

Maintaining a forum isn't free. Since online forums like this one don't charge users, something or somebody has to pay the freight. Many have advertisements in order to defray expenses. They get paid to put ads on the pages, you know.

When ads are included in posts, the poster is getting free advertising that legit businesses are paying for. That would be a double standard.

All it takes is to enter into a contract with the owner of the forum to run ads on his/her forum site and pay for the space like all the other advertisers.

[md16185]

So you're point is, if posting ads in the posts was overlooked, other places would be like "why place banners, if all we gotta do is post?!"

[Miz]

Yes, that's part of it.

The other part is that it's not fair to those who pay to advertise to let others advertise for free.

Once word gets out...and it doesn't take long...that what they're paying for is being given away for free to others, businesses will move their advertising money to someone who will treat them right.

[md16185]

what determines which forums get lost of people?! It seems like so many are dead..

[Miz]

The most successful computer help forums I participate in that get a lot of traffic are well policed by attentive moderators who keep things on track. Posts that violate the forum rules are quickly removed, posters who violate the forum rules are warned once and, if they persist, temporarily banned for a few hours to a week or so. After that if they persist, they're permanently banned.

It takes a good-sized staff of volunteer moderators to keep a forum running smoothly. Moderators seldom get any thanks for their work. More often, they get griped at for whatever injustice a user has decided they have committed. My experience has been that very few users who violate a forum's rules have ever bothered to read them.

It also takes moderators who are committed to keeping the board running smoothly, leaving their egos at the door. As soon a a forum gets even one power-crazed moderator who starts using his or her power for personal vendettas, things can go downhill within weeks, if not days. Once a forum gets a bad reputation for that sort of thing, it's very difficult to survive.