I'm thing of putting Google Ads on this site. Why? Not to make money--I doubt it would offset the cost of my hosting. But the regulars here may have noticed I haven't been around much. I've just lost interest in being so active. Putting some ads on the site will be a fun little project for myself that might motivate me to be more active.

Note that whilst I've somewhat lost interest, the forum isn't at a risk of being shutdown. I actually wanted Inkscape.org to take ownership to ensure its longevity, but they already have plans to create a forum using a different package.

Anyway, how does the community feel about seeing ads on this site?

microUgly wrote:Anyway, how does the community feel about seeing ads on this site?

Why don't you add this as a choice to the poll then, if that's your question?

[edit] sorry if I was nitpicking - I'd rather choose between plain yes and no without having to agree with your implicit opinion what the intention of my choice is[/edit]

[edit 2] [/edit 2]

If this could motivate you, do it! we all know google ads
And i think there's no need to have another inkscape forum, this is pretty good!

Does this means we'll be getting Ads for WOW Gold and Designer Handbags around the posts, and not just in them?

I dislike ads of any kind. It distracts from the purpose of any website or forum.

...but they already have plans to create a forum using a different package.

I know when you started this, as an "unofficial Inkscape forum", you fully realized this might happen. And I'm sure as your usual gracious self, you would never complain. But personally, I'm thinking it's their loss; a little compromise, and they'd already have a successful, active forum

I thought I was following the discussion on the dev mailing list but now it seems that I've missed something. This kinda always was the official forum as far as the users were concerned (because there wasn't one on the inkscape.org website). And when you offered the ownership to the Inkscape team the relationship only got stronger.

Is this about upgrading to Drupal 6? Using drupal forum infrastructure just means the information from this forum will be migrated, but it will not be lost. That's how I see it, it would be crazy to just throw this away I don't think anyone had that in mind, if migration is to happen anyway (it's a lot of work). Most likely it will remain as it is, or am I misinformed?

Ted Gould wrote:I think this is a great idea. I'm not sure of a plan that will get us
there. Where is inkscapeforum.com currently hosted? What kind of
resources does it need to run?

--Ted

Diederik van Lierop wrote:Yes please! Then we can finally get rid of these ugly and unusable
sourceforge forums!

BTW, may I thank you for your contribution to the Inkscape community?

Diederik

heathenx wrote:I think this sounds like a great idea. I refer a lot of people there. It's a great place to ask questions and learn new things. Not sure if my vote matters but I would recommend microUgly maintain some kind of a leadership role (mod, maintainer) on that forum if it does move over to inkscape.org. He is well respected and it would be in great hands. :)

I don't read this as 'We have our own plans'!? ;-) Why not invest your skills into a smooth migration to a new CMS and bug the devel-list again about the plans for the web redesign after the 0.47 release (instead of dealing with Google Ads bread crumbs that - well - the bots already are doing for free? ;-)

~suv vigilant as always!

When were the first 2 quotes made? I know the last one was recent. I don't think I remember ever being on an Inkscape sourceforge forum

Why are you guys so much against ads? They certainly won't be about wow gold
They'll probably be about drawing tools and tutorials. Although I don't like ads, especially when they're on every corner, I successfully ignore them, and I think it's been proven that people ignore ads when looking for a particular thing on a website. Still they can create a small revenue if there's enough users and if microugly wants them he should have them!

prkos wrote:When were the first 2 quotes made? I know the last one was recent.

Ted's: Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:56:36 -0500
Diederik's: Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:14:34 +0200
and I forgot:

Aurélio on Mon, 27 Jul 2009 wrote:Nice attitude! I think is good for the project to hug the forum.

prkos wrote:Why are you guys so much against ads?

Personally? I'm an internet fossil from the pre-Google age (gopher, line-mode browser and Mosaic) and have never fully reconciled myself to the web as it is today. Yes, I know how to ignore and block ads as many others do, but the argument 'I do it because I feel bored' provoked long forgotten opposition… Now it is time to crawl back into my cave. ;-)

I don't mind ads and if it can at least contribute to the time you've put into this forum then all the better.

However, I think there's a bigger issue at hand which some have already addressed which is integration with the official website. Once 0.47 is out I think there should be more attention paid to the design/redesign of the website.

On a similar note I remember reading on Deviantart about a Inkscape redesign contest. Did anything ever come out of that?

prkos wrote:They certainly won't be about wow gold

Why not? The purveyors of WOW Gold already seem keen to advertise their wares to us; it's certainly the most common item mentioned in the forum spam.

Spam isn't the same as Google ads. Google ads are content sensitive, they look at the page to find out what it's about, then show ads that are relevant to that content, that's why I mentioned drawing software, maybe tablet ads too since there is a lot of threads about those, maybe mac os too etc. Just look at what gets discussed on the forum, the ads should be relevant. Try to inspect some websites with ads and see if it's true.

Spammers are usually bots (not human) that submit what they want, they aren't targeting a particular site topic, they will post where ever they can (crack captcha protection).

The contest designs are all accepted, but the big issue is to code them into a Drupal theme. There were people on the list who said they would pitch in (I'm one), I don't know how far it went, I think there's a test website where themes can be sent. I'm only half way through and don't know when I'll have time to finish it, but I'll finish it even if it's the last thing I do! * *

prkos wrote: the ads should be relevant. Try to inspect some websites with ads and see if it's true.

They aren't. They're consistently stupid so as to be effectively random. The original post of this thread could throw up an ad for "Inkscape". It could just as equally throw up ads for schemes to "make money", "lost interest" in whatever, "motivation", pills "to be more active" or for "longevity". microUgly can tune some of this out, but I don't think it's the sort of thing that's going to motivate more interest for him.

:shrug: I don't care that much, really. Ad-Block tunes most of it out; I find the web intolerable without it. But the thing is, if it annoys me, I'll stop coming here. To who's benefit is that?

prkos wrote:Is this about upgrading to Drupal 6? Using drupal forum infrastructure just means the information from this forum will be migrated, but it will not be lost.

It was perhaps a poor assumption on my part, but whilst there was the acknowledgment suv quoted, it seemed that what was going forward didn't involve this forum. Which is fine--but if I was mistaken about the intentions, it's not like the cards are off the table and the forum won't will disappear in the meantime. I would like to be involved with helping to push things along, but I'm not reliable these days That's kinda why I'm offering the forum up to Inkscape.org.

In regards to ads, I'm not concerned about the impact they would have on the experience here--they wouldn't be implemented in a way that was distracting or inhibiting. But I am concerned about how it might impact peoples attitude towards the forum. People may dislike it out of principal.

microUgly wrote:Anyway, how does the community feel about seeing ads on this site?

I've seen a number of people who loudly refuse to see ads even on FLOSS related websites, because they don't like ads as such. I personally find this quite childish, but anyway to me ads are perfectly fine when they are placed smartly and visually fuse with design. That way they don't cause much disturbance.