Advertisements?

[Administrator]

A quick poll to see if you would like/dislike advertisements. Here a couple of examples how it may look like:

[Indiana Jones]

If needed I would prefer precious metal advertisements, but hate the usual financial BS advertisements.

[Blondie]

If it is what is needed to ensure the forum exists, then I guess ads are a necessary evil.

Otherwise, in my opinion, they are undesirable.

[Administrator]

The reason I raise the question about advertisements, is simple: it would be nice to create a cash-flow high enough to pay for the hosting costs.

Currently I am exploring the possibility for Google's adSense, but I have no clue about the cost/benefit ratio. There is a cost (people being discouraged due to the adverts), while the benefit remains to be seen. Instead of adSense, a direct sponsor might make more sense.

It is research only at this stage - so let's run this forum for half a year, and then evaluate the donations.

[jeroenvoc]

Go ahead with them (I'll probably block them), if that's what you need to break even on the hosting. I think most of us will accept them, knowing that you'll need to find something that covers the costs.
If I'm correct, Google adsense pays per click, I don't think you'll get a lot of clicks. Find some advertising-scheme that pays per view.

You can also ask for payment in Gold from the members

J.

[bailouts4ever]

Go for it! No question. Still I'd advice to pay for the hosting fee with fiat and safe the revenue from ads in PM

[Administrator]

Go ahead with them (I'll probably block them), if that's what you need to break even on the hosting. I think most of us will accept them, knowing that you'll need to find something that covers the costs.
If I'm correct, Google adsense pays per click, I don't think you'll get a lot of clicks. Find some advertising-scheme that pays per view.

You can also ask for payment in Gold from the members

J.

You describe what I think most of the participants will do; be OK, or be annoyed by them, but most likely not click them. If you are annoyed, then you get an ad-blocker, and you are done. Funny, I've never been on the other side. I hate advertisements myself, and have an active advert blocker running when browsing. So searching for alternatives. But, pay-per-click is probably not going to be worth the effort, if the amount of clicks keeps low. The essence is that the forum has to be free, and attractive enough to bind people. Try to offer additional benefits and services, that people might be willing to pay for. That's the idea at least.

[Indiana Jones]

Go for it! No question. Still I'd advice to pay for the hosting fee with fiat and safe the revenue from ads in PM

fiat is a hoax .... it's called electronic money

[Spruitje]

We can make a deal: what if all members click once a day on one of the ads?

[Gwyde]

Adds are OK,
- provided they don't slow down the forum
- provided they don't take up so much screen space as to compete with the content
Currently there is open space left in the central space of the headers