Blog piece: Ads, Supporters, Endorsements and Bandwidth Throttling

[raul12]

I think the whole endorsement system might be a bit flawed as you previously stated, however i think that a more accurate gauge for awesome mods could be found in the tracking function, whenever you track something you do so because you care about the mod, about it's future updates or because you simply find it interesting. If many people care for and/ or find a mod interesting other people should know about it, even if they havent downloaded the mod yet.

 

A most tracked tab should be completely an amazing contribution to the site

[Nadimos]

How about adding categories to our tracked files on the website?

[Marclious]

I am new here. How do I donate directly to The Nexus/Robin himself? I can't see an option for that.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Wouldn't it be helpful if you placed an add at the bottom of the main page? Out of sight, out of the way, but you still get the money for it.

 

This won't fly with all ad providers though.

 

I said I'm working in the ad providing business already. Our big business partner we're creating the platforms, servers and tools for a while ago also had a "public" system running where you could register your site, place our ads there, and gain a monthly revenue according to how many impressions, clicks and sales we tracked for the individual booked ads inserted into this site's code structure. However, the point is, as this system was entirely public, open to everybody who had a website, and it was real money we're talking of here, you can bet the big business company behind us had a whole department of investigators doing nothing else but visiting newly registered sites, as well as regularly re-visiting long-time customers' sites, and checking if our ads are placed in proper locations, not hidden or obstructed, and that the clicks weren't coming from any click-generator-bots or something. What I'm after is, if they found their ads placed down on the bottom of the site, "out of sight, out of the way" as you call it, they so would've excluded the site from partnership in no time. This you can count on.

 

I doubt other ad providers are that different in this regard. Place the ad "out of sight" and they will not pay for it.

[generalsnus99]

Good post by Dark0ne that gives insight into what goes on behind the planned changes and the reason behind them.

 

Personally I recommend all my friends and all of you to use and allways use:

 

NoScript

Ghostery

adblockplus

 

The reason for this is simple: Security, privacy and control. These program all allow toggling allowing or disallowing what is stored, run and gathered on your computer while browsing the internet.

 

When i type in an adress in my adress window ( or click a link in bookmarks ) I expect to end up at that site, recieve data from that site and I also expect the site to actually have integrity enough to try to control what kind of data it sends my way. Since years back when you enter a commersial site you will download data not only from that site you are visiting but a multitude of other domains like small trojan horses more or less hidden, only visible were your browser shows its activities.

 

I actually dont mind that if I trust the site I'm visiting, but it doesnt stop there.

 

When visiting a site some ad companies actually think its ok that 6 other sites that show images and text to me, behind the scenes need to run scripts on my computer not visible to me, not needed to show me ads in text or picture form, that I must accept to store cookies from sites and domains that I never intended to visit and are more or less invisible to me as a user visiting the site, not showing what kind domains these are and what the purpouse of storing data on my computer is used for. That ad companies expect to have the right to track my movements gather data of wich sites i visit, when i visit them, how long i stay and all kind of data they can collect by cookies and by running script on my machine. Data that they then sell to others or use it to target you with specific ads.

 

Ads can simply be shown with server side scripts, they dont need to run script on your computer.

 

Its here NoScript comes in, first of all, NoScript is not targeting ads, infact when running NoScript you are able to see ads just fine! NoScript was created to stop maliciuos code from be run on your machine, it is better then any Antivirus commersial or free at what it does simply because it takes the radical step of stopping all scripts to be run by the browser on your computer, it gives you the power to control and determine from occasion to occasion or from site to site wether you want scripts to be run from that domain.

It doesnt discriminate ad sites, it just gives the power to allow wether or not you as a user want to trust a domain to be able to run scripts on your machine. A control and power that should be with end user and only her/him, not some stranger on a domain you never intended to visit.

 

The only reason why Dark0ne mentions NoScript, even though it doesnt target ads or disable ads in any way, is because how ad companies try to find out wether or not you are using an adblocker. How they do this is that they need to run scripts on your machine, because the adblock app is invisible to them as it should be, you shouldnt leave information of what kind of software is running on your machine just by visiting a simple website, wether or not ads are being shown is invisible to them. Even with scripts run on your machine it is impossible for ad companies to know wether or not you are using an adblocker.

The script they run is included in the ad, its just a small code bit that send a confirmation back to the ad service domain that it has been run, If you on the other hand havent allowed this domain to run script on your computer that allows them to send and recieve data they interpet that as you have an adblocker wich you might not be using. To me its insane to even give away the control to any unknown domains to be able to run scripts on my machines, domains i dont intend to visit or trust while browsing the web.

 

Some people might point out that by having programs like adblockers, it is necessary for ad companies to be able to run script on your machine, how can they otherwise tell thier clients they take money from that their ads reach out to consumers. Then again i might point out that adblockers came about as a reaction to aggresive, intrusive and unwanted ads that used every exploit they could and in some extrem cases install malware, adware, hijack browsers and run malicious code on users computers. I might also point out that since when have newspaper ads garanteed that the reader reads the ads? The only time i read ads in newspapers is when they intrigue me, they have to be wellwritten, stylistic, or present information in a way thats not annoying or idiotic. It is in my hands wether or not i chose to indulge myself in the message of the ad further. Infact, adblockplus have since a time allowed ads to be shown. Yes thats right, non intrusive ads from companies that fullfill a criteria for what kind of ads they show are whitelisted and pass through the filter of the adblocker but still giving you the power to reject intrusive aggrevating and suspect ads, giving it back to you the end user/consumer/target without being forced to allow who ever to be able to run scripts on your machine. They way I see it is that this is a battle we only can lose if we allow ad companies run amok, force them to change their ways instead, we have that power, dont let them invade your privacy any further, then showing you ads.

 

Where does nexus fit in all of this?

 

I dont claim to know how to deal with ad companies, but the way i see it, nexus has a product that ad companies want, It has tons of pageviews/visitors, and that is what the hard currency is. Nexus like almost all the bigger site's that started as purely internet sites, is a site offering user created content ( like google, youtube and facebook ). Even though the people running the site, coding, moderating and helping users out do a wonderfull job, work on it every waking hour, thats only a small procent compared to the masses combined effort who take time to create mods, write in the forums, commenting, endorsing and giving feedback to mod authors. Because thats the user created content, thats what make this site intresting, living and constanly having new things and thats why we all come here to the nexus sites and enjoy them, and thats the hard currency, thats the source of interest of ad companies.

 

Dark0ne pointed out a simple truth in his post about not having ad revenue and income from premium members: ".... Nexus would no longer exist. That’s not scaremongering, that’s just a fact."

 

No one wants that i think, but just as you and I come here and are apart of that hard currency we have power and so does the nexus sites that wield that currency, If we dont like something the nexus does we might stop visiting, and I hope that nexus have the power to be able to chose an ad company that offer non intrusive interesting ads and can garantee that the ads it provide is safe for the end user. If they get offers from ad companies that dont fullfill those criteria perhaps these ad companies shouldnt be getting any of the hard currency imho forcing them to better their product and giving back control to sites and communities and us the people who are targets of the ads.

 

I dont mind ads that present a product in a tastefull way that dont need to run scripts on my computer, I think after reading Dark0ne's post that all the things he presented sounds great for the future of the site and shows that he he cares about the community giving it time to explain why and how things work.

 

However I think certain ad companies that expect people to turn off security applications like NoScript is going to far and should be told off, i dont understand people today throwing themself on the ground to be stepped on by these companies falling in with the company quire thinking the internet would stop to exist if adblockers are used not even thinking about standing up for themself demanding what they have the right to: Security, privacy and control.

 

 

(Just want to point out that all this just poured out of me and might be somewhat offtopic from Darkones post. No english is not my mothertounge so sorry for the spelling, I would also point out that this is ofcourse my subjective opinion you dont have to agree with all of it immediately. ;) )

[BAV]

It's quite interesting that the reason I use an ad blocker is Nexus!! A while back it had a very irritating ad with loud sound and music that would suddenly start while you were browsing, made me jump more than once. I actually downloaded ad-block specifically to block ads from here, no other sites ads had annoyed me that much.

So now I suppose I will have to hope that the noisy ads have gone and unblock The Nexus!!

 

Any way thanks to the nexus for getting me to look for ad blockers in the first place :-)

[UulayBladewield]

You know what? This article was awesome. I love it any time a website/company/organization is straight forward about their intents and their needs/wants. Besides me wanting to help this site (I use it for Fallout and Skyrim mods, and used to use it for Oblivion!), this article made me IMMEDIATELY sign up as a supporter. $1.60 US is a very tiny price to pay for all the hard work and effort you and your team have put into a site that has done nothing but bring me great joy. Without the Nexus, Skyrim and Fallout are just vanilla, buggy, mediocre games.

 

Thanks, Nexus, for all you do! I'll be sure to use the endorsements system more often, and only on mods I truly love.

 

Cheers!

[skitlz]

I remember when clicking on advertisements was like playing Russian roulette; you'd either get to look at the product that may interest you, or get 423,827 viruses. On top of that many ads had security holes that affected you even if you did not click on said ads.

 

It's because of this that I use an ad blocker, and while it is cutting into a website's income, I'm much more concerned with keeping my computer and personal information safe. Perhaps these security issues are no longer an issue, but it's just not worth the risk.

 

/endrant

 

I just donated now that this has been brought to my attention, though I have no use for an increased bandwidth since I just play Skyrim when big files download anyway. I've been using various Nexus sites for quite some time so I feel like I should give back for that reason alone.

 

Hopefully the measures taken to test for adblocking won't bog down the actual browsing experience, though.

Edited February 8, 2013 by skitlz

[Gariandos]

You know, if people would be more open to their intentions like Nexus, people would be more willing to trust them when they do stuff like this. It makes them much more likely to help them out.

[vladislos]

I wish people had an endorsement system so I could endorse YOU. This article cleared up things I didn't even know I didn't know about. In reality all this means for me is that I will be more involved in the endorsing system here on in, but the transparency it demonstrates elevates me from simply cheery I've some new options to gobsmacked how much of a gently caress you give about us. Kudos!