Are you going to request or require ads on the hosted sites too?

No.

I know! maybe the staff could add a page called, "where to buy supplies" or something of the sort that represents a link page to different suppliers. similar to the system on the official TI page.

I guess this is OK. I don't really mind the ads.

When I saw the title, I just thought "as long as they're not Google..."

Google ads are one of the first things that go in my hosts file as they are by far the most annoying sort, as they tend to be used inline with the rest of the text.

Give me a fit-inducing animated GIF any day, at least it made no pretences.

We hope to *avoid* putting it inside a block of text, preferring to do stuff like putting it on the sidebar of the homepage.

Well, you seem to be part of the minority... I'll take text-based ads over annoying flashing GIFs (or worse, Flash... but then again I don't have Flash installed anyway :-p) any day, and I know I'm not alone.

I second that. Flashy GIFS are destracting from the main content.

Or make you sick

unless you're epileptic, then it could be even worse

Right to the ticalc logo at the top there's nothing but a white space, I'm sure you could fit google ads in here, as long as htey are white. Otherwise I think you should have them right between the navbar and the news. I remember several years ago saying ticalc will never have ads, but imo it doesn't matter, as long as they are not too disturbing and that they are not popup. Plus those who cannot see them can use their ad blockers anyway if they use Firefox or Opera

wow i didnt knew they were alerady here, I think the ones between files and news are fine, I dunno for the ones in the right side bar tho x.x, maybe they should be made slightly smaller

Wow. I think it's been a couple of years since I actually posted anything at this site.

I don't have any problem with ads, as long as they aren't flash ads or pop-ups.

One thing I've seen implemented at other sites with varying degrees of success is a system where people who donate x amount of money don't see ads for y amount of time. (y was indefinitely in some cases.) It's something to consider if you decide to keep the ads.

Yes, I believe slashdot does that.

No popups. That's all I can say. There's nothing worse, and some can't seem to be blocked. I have IE blocker and Norton Internet Security pop blocker, I can't seem to stop them all. I even tried disabling java and they continue.

I don't recall ever having a problem with popups with Firefox. The thing to disable is Javascript, not Java, but that will cause a lot of sites not to work properly or at all.

In Firefox (or any Mozilla), just turn on pop-up blocking and disable popups on certain events, like on page load. You can disable some events in about:config if you'd like. In about:config, all of the events for pop-ups are in the setting "dom.popup_allowed_events". The defaults work OK, though, so just turn on the pop-up blocker and it should work.

Instead of ads, you could offer a "priemium hosting plan" with like 100 megabytes and a nicely placed link on the homepage and a domin of <whatever>.ticalc.org.

I would pay at least maybe $40/year...

sorry, it should say "domain", not "domin"...

Hey, I already have tigcc.ticalc.org. :-p
(Well, technically Sebastian "has" it according to the contract, but I'm the current admin.)

While it saddens me that it has come to this, if this is what it takes to keep this site alive, I'm for it.

I use Adblock with Firefox anyways so it's not like I see anything there ;)

Precisely: ticalc.org hosts ads and Adblock blocks them; ticalc.org stays in operation and I don't see any ads; The best of both worlds!

...until Google realizes that our users *aren't* actually seeing the ads, and stops paying us.

They already know this. Adblocks works in a way that google never realises the user hit our page at all. So it's just a matter of us not getting paid for those users.

Adsense pays per-click not per-hit. People who adblock ads aren't likely to click on them anyway.

- Alex

From link:

"Google puts relevant CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM (cost per thousand impressions) ads through the same auction, and lets them compete against one another. The auction takes place instantaneously, and, when it’s over, AdSense automatically displays the text or image ad(s) that will generate the maximum revenue for a page -- and the maximum revenue for you."

So I'm not sure exactly how it applies in our situation, but Google *does* do ads based upon impressions (where ad blockers *would* hurt us.)

I really don't see why everyone is so upset about them, I didn't see them until I read where they were. They're so (lack better word) out-of-the-way that there's nothing to gain by adblocking.

I'm not adblocking, I don't plan to adblock. Pop-ups and flashing annimation are a different story but what we have is fine.