The Monroe banner ad...

[Phantom]

is very disruptive, and interferes with the functionality of LT- It is always on top of the pull down menus-

[kestrel74]

Yeah, I just started getting that too....What a PITA. Let's all chip in and BUY LotusTalk Back !!

[EliseAtLeast]

Yeah, I hated it. Who on LT will buy a Monroe shocks and struct anyway

[Mr.C]

Originally Posted by Phantom

is very disruptive, and interferes with the functionality of LT- It is always on top of the pull down menus-

+1

[RoadDad]

Problem = Monroe banner ad
Solution = Firefox + Adblock Plus
Result = I have no clue what the Monroe banner ad is as I've never seen it .


EDIT: Yep. There it is. Right in the middle of the "blockable (and therefore blocked) items" list .

[alil'britdifferent]

Originally Posted by RoadDad

Firefox + Adblock Plus

<-----

[zygotesoup]

Originally Posted by RoadDad

Problem = Monroe banner ad
Solution = Firefox + Adblock Plus
Result = I have no clue what the Monroe banner ad is as I've never seen it .

+1

EDIT: just viewed it in IE8... holy $hit... extremely annoying. anything for a buck

[Vampyre]

never see them .. thanks to IE pro blocker!

[zygotesoup]

Originally Posted by Vampyre

never see them .. thanks to IE pro blocker!

back to work steve!

[lotus69f2]

Originally Posted by EliseAtLeast

Yeah, I hated it. Who on LT will buy a Monroe shocks and struct anyway

I'm going to buy a set of monroe shocks right after I join Goth Scene the #1 Alternative dating community. This ad cracks me up

Seriously, I purposely avoid web site that have obtrusive ads. THe monroe one meets those qualifications. I don't think I'd avoid Lotus Talk, but I do think the the people who provide ads should be contacted and asked not to post obtrusive ads.

[...m...]

...very disruptive design; poor usability...

[RacyTracy]

I have forwarded this thread to the administrator.....

[Administrator]

I will see what I can do about blocking it from this site. Most likely the ad will only run for a couple weeks either way. I will try to have it blocked before then. Thanks for the input.

Nadeem

[kestrel74]

Showed up again tonight......man that's annoying !

[BR111]

worse is the annoying Adobe Flash 9 errors. Am I the only one that gets them ("look at local host or remote host", or something to that effect)? It only happens with this site and something to do with the annoying videos (I know: "Log In")

[shay2nak]

there's a "close" button when it drops down.

[lotus69f2]

Originally Posted by shay2nak

there's a "close" button when it drops down.

It doesn't matter that there is a close button. In genereal - not limited to ad on LT - any ad that automatically expands and covers content just because it was rolled over is annoying. As are the embedded ads where a word within text is highlighted and rolling over it brings up a window - or clicking on it thinking it was an embedded link to a related site only to find it was a link to an advertiser is also highly annoying. Also any ad that has flashing or action continuosly that acts to distract from the content the user is at the web site for (game, news, article) is also annoying.

I know the reason they exist, but when I go to a site that has a preponderance of these types of ads I quickly determine whether the annoyance factor outweighs the benifits. If I am at an online gamin site and every ad that appears under the game has flashing that does not stop I will never go to that gaming site again, because it is impossible to play a game - which for me is usually nothing more than a time filler an therefore unimportant - when there is a continual visual distraction. There are several racing news web sites that I no longer visit for this reason.

So far I find LT to be very beneficial in term of useful information as well as fun. I do find the Monroe ad to be obtrusive and annoying. I also don't like the embedded ads. At this level though I find a great deal of benefit to using LT so I put up with the annoyance. However, if the Monroe ad is the start of a trend to more and more annoying advertising you can bey I will stop coming.

It seems from comments made by others that there is sofware that can filter all of this stuff out, and I guess I'd benefit from it, but it seems to me that I shouldn't have to continually set up software and play with sttings to keep obtrusive advertising out of the way of my web browsing experience. Rather the advertisers themselves and the adminstrators of the web sites should police themselves to ensure that the users of the sites can get from the site what they wanted in the first place and not come away from it annoyed.

[...m...]

...the greatest problem with rollover ads (be they embedded links or expanding banners) is that they transform a site's usability into a twitchy labyrinthine videogame of carefully steering one's cursor at all times to avoid touching any of the hot spots, lest the reading experience be obtrusively interrupted with obscuring advertising content; they're no better than popups in that regard...

...i'm glad that lotustalk allows registered members to turn off the embedded links and tone down the quantity of banner ads, as it's reasonably usable once set up thusly, but unfortunately that option isn't at all apparent to the casual visitor - if i hadn't set up my account before the autoguide ad content makeover last year and were coming here for the first time today, i can say without hesitation that i wouldn't come back to the site a second time due to its default pervasive disruptive advertisements...