Dumb, dumb, dumb, de dumb, dumb.

[rjh01]

Not sure, but see this thread Dumb, dumb, dumb, de dumb, dumb.

It is a good question. Some people assume the answer is yes. I cannot see any other answer. But I know so little.

 

[The Atheist]

2) Eventually, Creators realize that website is a money drain, as it costs money for hosting and Community is unwilling to donate money for what they perceive as a free service.

You must have missed the forum collections from members.

And, for the record, I am also a loud critic of the Forum ads. But, I am willing to compromise: I will complain less often about the ads, if they can somehow manage to make the Forum more reliable with the income they generate. Is that too much to ask?

That plus a disclaimer would probably silence all opposition.

rjh01 - nice list!

 

[The Atheist]

And today - another true classic:

This is JREf's own site, and here we have an ad masquerading as a product endorsed by JREF. There is no difference between the two product placements - one an ad for a JREF cruise, the other, an ad for an alt-med fraud.

Advertising psychics is one thing, but advertising a product which is encouraging people to try alt-med for something like high BP instead of advising to see a medical doctor immediately is ..........

I can't get the right word for it; I've been through farcical, hypocritical, appalling, ridiculous, disgraceful, outrageous and traitorous, but none of them is sufficient alone.

Horror admission for a Grammar Tyrant, I know.

 

[Morrigan]

So was I. Wall of text posts drive me nuts. Especially when it's one which you know from experience will be boring, irrelevant and trite.

Fair enough, but why can't you just plain ignore the post, instead of going the juvenile route of "too long, didn't read"? (At least you didn't go fully 4chan-esque with the "tl;dr" reply) It just strikes me as a lame response.

 

[chillzero]

This is JREf's own site, and here we have an ad masquerading as a product endorsed by JREF. There is no difference between the two product placements - one an ad for a JREF cruise, the other, an ad for an alt-med fraud.

Well, have you contacted the JREF about it, as they requested so they can act on it, or are you just complaining about it here where none of us can do anything?

 

[rjh01]

The good news is that I have sent Jeff an e-mail (at 1:06 am Thursday GMT) suggesting he keeps an eye on this thread. I have not had a reply back from him. It could be that he is on holidays. In which case the psychics have advertising until he gets back and acts on this thread and my e-mail.

I have no idea what The Atheist has done so I suggest he gives a reply to your post as well. But please do not be too hard on him. Most members do not even look for obvious reasons.

Edit. The Atheist already has answered Chillzero's question. See post 25, where he answered the same question from me.

 

[SimonD]

Well, have you contacted the JREF about it, as they requested so they can act on it, or are you just complaining about it here where none of us can do anything?

Has anyone sent an e-mail to Jeff about the advertising and got a reply? I never did and I still see the same ads that I complained about.

E.T.A - I think that there is a real problem. It is like James Randi is saying "I hate Woo, but I don't mind making money out of it."

 

[rjh01]

SimonD.
Please see post 37

2. I have sent an e-mail to Jeff about these ads and this thread.

 

[SimonD]

SimonD.
Please see post 37

I did see your post. My question still stands - is anyone getting a reply in relation to the e-mails that are being sent to Jeff? Sounds like you didn't get a reply either.

I yet to hear of anyone getting a response. I understand that Jeff is a busy man, but it only takes a moment to send an e-mail to say 'got your e-mail, will action 'x'.

I have the time to send Jeff e-mails about the ads on this forum, but I don't want to be wasting my time (and Jeff's) if he isn't (or doesn't have the time) to do anything about it.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This is a serious dilemma, and it is not confined to the JREF site. I just called in my local public TV fund raising marathon complaining about them for putting on an hour long infomercial in an effort to raise money. These can be iffy but this one was outright snake oil sales. A woman who sells snake oil cures for all the supposed toxins you are exposed to donates a few free books to encourage donations and gets a free infomercial on a 'credible' TV station.

But consider this regarding the JREF ads, no money is generated unless people click on the link. And clicking on the link results in JREF money, but if no business is generated, then it only serves to cost the vendors for unproductive advertising.

I think the ads may have a silver lining. In the case of this forum we could start threads debunking the ads. People would click on the links to see what we were debunking, and, clicking the links generates money.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Another thread complaining about the ads? Haven't we got tired of this already?

I'm not commenting on the ads until I see one.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

2) the members here, those who post, are generating the content from which the keywords our taken. It's JREF's platform, but it's our content, and the 'our content' part is the bit that's being used to generate woo advertising. If most posters here write about things that they consider harmful to society, how is it not a betrayal of our hard work to promote those self same harmful things to the very people we seek to educate?

I don't want to debunk psychics if I know that my words will encourage ads for psychics. I don't want to write here about homeopathy if those posts will attracts ads for alt med.

Note to self: Make a lot more posts about porn.

 

[arthwollipot]

I pay NO attention to ads or popups. Anywhere!

Nor do I, but we are not representative of the vast majority of the world's population, quite a few of whom are demonstrably stupid.

 

[rjh01]

I did see your post. My question still stands - is anyone getting a reply in relation to the e-mails that are being sent to Jeff? Sounds like you didn't get a reply either.

I yet to hear of anyone getting a response. I understand that Jeff is a busy man, but it only takes a moment to send an e-mail to say 'got your e-mail, will action 'x'.

I have the time to send Jeff e-mails about the ads on this forum, but I don't want to be wasting my time (and Jeff's) if he isn't (or doesn't have the time) to do anything about it.

Give the man a chance. He probably is on holidays, playing the computer game 'real life.'

However I did receive a reply back in October when I sent him a similar e-mail. So, yes I am confident he will send a reply to me.

 

[Wowbagger]

That plus a disclaimer would probably silence all opposition.

Yes, a disclaimer would be very nice, too!

I seem to recall the Forum had one, the first time they tried the Google ads thing.

 

[The Atheist]

Fair enough, but why can't you just plain ignore the post, instead of going the juvenile route of "too long, didn't read"? (At least you didn't go fully 4chan-esque with the "tl;dr" reply) It just strikes me as a lame response.

Probably is!

Then again, I happen to be quote passionate about this subject - ask around, I've made several friends discussing skeptics who have uncensored advertising on their sites for several years.

Because of that, when a noted obfuscator starts doing his stuff in the thread, I can't resist a little prod.

Well, have you contacted the JREF about it, as they requested so they can act on it, or are you just complaining about it here where none of us can do anything?

No, and I've explained several times why I won't do that. The main reason is that it's a completely pointless, and possibly self-defeating, exercise.

But I have already said that in this thread.

This is a serious dilemma, and it is not confined to the JREF site.

Unless you're watching a tv station dedicated to promoting critical thinking by reaching out to the public and media with reliable information about paranormal and supernatural ideas so widespread in our society today, then I don't think the analogy fits.

Tv is a horrible medium, full of ****. I expect to see ads for all sorts of pseudoscience on tv, often in ads for women's beauty products, funnily enough. And diets.

But you're at not being confined to JREF.

Bad Astronomy has had them for ages. A coincidence that they recently re-started at JREF?

My pal Miss Whiplash has a blog with psychic ads on as well, but at least nobody ever goes there, so it doesn't matter.

Lots of others.

Most newspapers suffer from it but don't care, but then again, when did newspapers last care about truth over revenue? In a dying marker, to boot.

I seem to recall the Forum had one, the first time they tried the Google ads thing.

You might be right, too. I'll see if I can procrastinate going back through management threads longer than you to check it out.

 

[Wowbagger]

You might be right, too. I'll see if I can procrastinate going back through management threads longer than you to check it out.

I don't recall exactly what the wording was, but it was something from Jeff Wagg, saying something like "Take a look at these ads. There is a lot of woo out there. Think critically". or something to that extent.

 

[The Atheist]

I don't recall exactly what the wording was, but it was something from Jeff Wagg, saying something like "Take a look at these ads. There is a lot of woo out there. Think critically". or something to that extent.

You're succeeding in out-procrastinating me so far - I've just been trying to find the thread which discussed it all last time around. I thought Jeff Wagg had started the thread, but no dice.

I seem to recall that disclaimer going in after complaints as well?

Still not ideal to my mind, but a huge improvement on the BP @ JREF which was still up this afternoon. Maybe they're getting good business out of it?

 

[rjh01]

Expecting perfection at all times and instantaneous response at all time is, in my opinion, an unreasonable position.



I can think a myriad of things that could be worse but since, like your scenario, they haven't happened it's rather irrelevant to a discussion about what actually is happening.

Unfortunately, AdSense doesn't tell me which ads were clicked. The total take was $101.04, and I assure you that the JREF will be donating that money (and far beyond it) to another needy skeptical organization.

There will not be ads on the forum if you log in. Ever. The fund raising campaign guaranteed that.

But for non-members, we're going to do a trial run for ads. The JREF is a non-profit and has to look for revenue wherever it can. This might be a good source of revenue.. it might not.

But bottom line is, it won't affect any of our forum members, so long as they login. And even if they don't, they're pretty unobtrusive.

We're not even twenty four hours into this experiment, and we've learned some things.

1) This seems to pay. Based on what I've seen so far (and this is too preliminary to take seriously) these ads will generate $20,000 for the JREF annually. That's more than enough to fund the scholarship program, for example.

2) AdSense doesn't let me control the content much. I can block up to 20 sites, and that's it.

3) Clicking the ads does take money from them, and give it to us and Google. However, I am in no way encouraging anyone to click ads. That's called "click fraud." Please don't spend your weekend clicking ads thinking that you're making the JREF money.

4) Rebecca is exactly right with her concerns. If were we just interested in making money, we'd be giving our OWN psychic readings. Clearly this is not our mission.

Perhaps the concept of advertising works, but AdSense just isn't the way to do it. More experimenting...

You're succeeding in out-procrastinating me so far - I've just been trying to find the thread which discussed it all last time around. I thought Jeff Wagg had started the thread, but no dice.

I seem to recall that disclaimer going in after complaints as well?

Still not ideal to my mind, but a huge improvement on the BP @ JREF which was still up this afternoon. Maybe they're getting good business out of it?

Found a few old quotes that may be interesting. Did not find the one I was looking for.

 

[Darth Rotor]

I can't get the right word for it; I've been through farcical, hypocritical, appalling, ridiculous, disgraceful, outrageous and traitorous, but none of them is sufficient alone.

Horror admission for a Grammar Tyrant, I know.

Ironic.