LeatherGryphon said:

Any bets on how long before we have to pay to subscribe to use the forum?

My guess is they will add a few more advertisements and try to charge people money to get rid of the ads.

frank0314 said:

richardandtracy said:

One of the reasons I liked coming here to the forums is the lack of adverts. They are horrifically intrusive on many sites. My local newspaper (Kent Messenger) blocks browsers using adblocker & then makes it impossible to read articles due to intrusive adverts. Net result is I don't visit & I don't buy the paper like I used to because I'm so irritated by the adverts online.

It is an honest lesson for DAZ to learn.

Regards,

Richard.

Like the great majority of websites on the internet have learned? I can't go to a site without ads. I just have to live with it and today's business practices. Whatever the leaders in the industry do, the others will fall in line. Do we have to like it? No, but inevitably have to live with it unless we give up online services.

I don't do farcebook because of ads. In fact I don't do any social media due to ads. For me, ads are an unwelcome intrusion that I don't accept. DAZ is welcome to do all the ads they want on the forum, it is their space after all, but I shan't see very many because I don't need or want to see them. I will be disappointed if they return (I can't see any at the moment), but I wouldn't stay. I used to regularly go to The Fountain Pen Network, a hobby I adore and moderated as a volunteer there for 7 years, but they started taking ads. Not been back for a decade other than an annual check to see if they still do. On the bright side, restarting ads will save me a lot of money in the long term. At least with this hobby, until I find another. Regards, Richard

ColinFrench said:

Charlie Judge said:

I can understanding DAZ using ads to support what is otherwise free to the user.

Sorry, but I'll have to take the other side -- Daz sells products and a tiny part of the profit from its sales can be used to run the Gallery and Forum.

I can see both sides of this. On the one hand, you're correct that while Daz STUDIO might be free, DS is just a loss leader for the assets available in the store. Unlike Facebook, Twitter et al, Daz sells products directly to the consumer, and theoretically that should underwrite things like the forums and gallery. On the other hand, the forums and gallery are entirely free to the user, and I see some justification in running ads to offset those costs.

Sven Dullah said:

Umm, are you guys still seeing forum ads? They disappeared for me without using any ad blocker. Too good to be true, or a temporary glitch?

A space opens up for them, and they auto-hide themselves. SOMETHING is still happening, but I'm not seeing the actual ads. I'd prefer even that didn't happen, but it's still an improvement.

ColinFrench said:

Richard Haseltine said:

If you get adult or otherwise iffy ads, privately or when using your own ID, please send the details to us (via a forum post or a PM) and we will flag them for Daz, who can block specific ads.

Richard, I hope you read the following post in the manner I wrote it -- I'm not mad at you or Daz, I'm not yelling at anybody, I just want to highlight the absurdity of the suggestion you and other mods have made.

With all these obstrusive ads, Daz has made choices which are extremely customer-unfriendly. And now you want us to take the time to do the job that Daz itself should be handling? Sorry, but Daz can do its own work.

A really simple solution to porn ads or cypto-schemes etc appearing in the Gallery and Forum? Get rid of the ads!

Daz doesn't have fine up-front cotnrol of what is shown (I think they can set some category/type limits, but those are clearly not reliable). They can block specific ads, however. Getting rid of all ads or keeping them is not a decision on which we have any say, however.

PerttiA said:

Sven Dullah said:

Umm, are you guys still seeing forum ads? They disappeared for me without using any ad blocker. Too good to be true, or a temporary glitch?

I haven't seen them at all, not at work with W10+Chrome and not at home with W7+Yandex (Opera)
When loading a page, it leaves a space for a second at the top of the page, but even that goes away before the page has fully loaded.

Ok, same here now...so there is still the space reserved for ads, which is why I fear they might be back, after DAZ filter the most offending NSFW stuff?!

Sven Dullah said:

Umm, are you guys still seeing forum ads? They disappeared for me without using any ad blocker. Too good to be true, or a temporary glitch?

I'm not seeing them now. Hopefully they are gone. 

Sven Dullah said:

Umm, are you guys still seeing forum ads? They disappeared for me without using any ad blocker. Too good to be true, or a temporary glitch?

I haven't seen them at all, not at work with W10+Chrome and not at home with W7+Yandex (Opera)
When loading a page, it leaves a space for a second at the top of the page, but even that goes away before the page has fully loaded.

Charlie Judge said:

I can understanding DAZ using ads to support what is otherwise free to the user.

Sorry, but I'll have to take the other side -- Daz sells products and a tiny part of the profit from its sales can be used to run the Gallery and Forum.

And the ironic thing about this situation is that customers posting things in the Gallery and Forum provides free advertising for Daz Studio, showing what it can do and enticing new users to buy stuff. If users are driven away, Daz will not reap that benefit.

Richard Haseltine said:

If you get adult or otherwise iffy ads, privately or when using your own ID, please send the details to us (via a forum post or a PM) and we will flag them for Daz, who can block specific ads.

Richard, I hope you read the following post in the manner I wrote it -- I'm not mad at you or Daz, I'm not yelling at anybody, I just want to highlight the absurdity of the suggestion you and other mods have made.

With all these obstrusive ads, Daz has made choices which are extremely customer-unfriendly. And now you want us to take the time to do the job that Daz itself should be handling? Sorry, but Daz can do its own work.

A really simple solution to porn ads or cypto-schemes etc appearing in the Gallery and Forum? Get rid of the ads!

I saw ads yesterday in the gallery and forum. Today I don't see them. Have they been removed, or is my ad blocker just working better?

Umm, are you guys still seeing forum ads? They disappeared for me without using any ad blocker. Too good to be true, or a temporary glitch?

Any bets on how long before we have to pay to subscribe to use the forum?

DanaTA said:

Has DAZ been hacked?  Or are they actually putting ads at the top of the forum page?  I never saw this in here before today...

 

No, not hacked. Google provides the ads but DAZ provides the slots for them to do it. The ads are in the gallery also. 

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/674796/gallery-ads-popups#latest

frank0314 said:

richardandtracy said:

One of the reasons I liked coming here to the forums is the lack of adverts. They are horrifically intrusive on many sites. My local newspaper (Kent Messenger) blocks browsers using adblocker & then makes it impossible to read articles due to intrusive adverts. Net result is I don't visit & I don't buy the paper like I used to because I'm so irritated by the adverts online.

It is an honest lesson for DAZ to learn.

Regards,

Richard.

Like the great majority of websites on the internet have learned? I can't go to a site without ads. I just have to live with it and today's business practices. Whatever the leaders in the industry do, the others will fall in line. Do we have to like it? No, but inevitably have to live with it unless we give up online services.

frank0314,

Respectfully, let's get ourselves grounded here. Comparing the traffic on the Daz Forum between pre-, in- and post-pandemic, we've all seen a drop. That is, people do "give up online services". Granted that community traffic is part of the lifeblood for Daz, do pop up ads encourage people to stay? Do they grow visitor traffic? Do they promote adoption of the Daz ecosystem? This is the feedback we're giving you -- it doesn't do us any good on that front.

Sure, ads bring revenue, a bonus during lean times. We acknowledge that this good for Daz. But do things have to be a false choice between no advertisement versus out-of-control advertisement? Couldn't we have more tageted scheme. For example: (a) only ads promoting Daz products; or ads only in the Forum and not, say, the Gallery. Some sites (eg. Instagram) have sophisted ad-opt outs that let the account holder shape the ads they see. If this were feasible, couldn't we have one like that too?

Richard Haseltine said:

Pitmatic said:

Cris Palomino said:

Pitmatic said:

WOW used an incognito browser to look at the forums without ublock and I got an advert for an adult entertainment site WTF absolutley no point telling people to have modest images in the gallery and then have that pop up!

Could you possibly screenshot for us if you get an ad like that again? 

Now this pops up on incognito mode a lot and similar adds one of which did have someone looking for their contact lenses 

I am a sad old internet user i am not "interesting" and tend to look art art sites print publishing and design stuff, tanks and plane restorations and stuff about cars (sometimes i dabble in trains dont tell anyone!) which youtube thinks means I am right wing and want to watch opinion channels of people wearing tin hats and I get a lot of adds for soap powder.

I like chocolate but never get adds for them

In a private window, depending on just how good it is at blocking Google (or how willing Google is to act as if blocked), you are going to get generic ads. If you get adult or otherwise iffy ads, privately or when using your own ID, please send the details to us (via a forum post or a PM) and we will flag them for Daz, who can block specific ads.

 Richard thats the thing in a private window i get genric adds for soap powder, cars, films and ring doorbell clones going to to other websites but here i get "different" adds its almost as though the google algorhythmy wotsit is making a judgement based on what people might do with what this websote sells and frankly an AI system looking at the catalog would assume most of the use cases are in that ballpark.

Ipad pro using DDG.  Not seeing any ads on forum.  On a win-10 desktop, ad-blocker seems to work but just tried posting a render to a contest.   Cloudfare msg saying  (504?) Daz3D.com server error.   

Are they related?  Load ads.  Unable.  Load ads.  Unable.  Load ads.  Timeout.  Cloudfare: "DAZ3D.com is not responding."

---

I usually don't complain because it's pointless, but perhaps management needs to re-evaluate.  No active DAZ forum would be irreplabable loss of collective memory in my opinion.  DAZ would lose revenue if casual users are unable or unwilling to ask about products, get help & so on. 

The sad part is that I doubt upper management gives a flick about its established customer base.  There's always new customers and new customers probably tend to buy more as they fill runtime library.   Just my two cents. I hope I'm mistaken and being too cynical.  : /

In the forum I am ok with it. A company wants to make money.

In the gallery.. it is way too distracting.

I actually found it using Google Image search lmao if you have the image on your computer screen in google you can right click and "Search Image with Google" for a matching image! Very cool feature but it can me hit or miss sometimes depending on the image used.

Pitmatic said:

Cris Palomino said:

Pitmatic said:

WOW used an incognito browser to look at the forums without ublock and I got an advert for an adult entertainment site WTF absolutley no point telling people to have modest images in the gallery and then have that pop up!

Could you possibly screenshot for us if you get an ad like that again? 

Now this pops up on incognito mode a lot and similar adds one of which did have someone looking for their contact lenses 

I am a sad old internet user i am not "interesting" and tend to look art art sites print publishing and design stuff, tanks and plane restorations and stuff about cars (sometimes i dabble in trains dont tell anyone!) which youtube thinks means I am right wing and want to watch opinion channels of people wearing tin hats and I get a lot of adds for soap powder.

I like chocolate but never get adds for them

In a private window, depending on just how good it is at blocking Google (or how willing Google is to act as if blocked), you are going to get generic ads. If you get adult or otherwise iffy ads, privately or when using your own ID, please send the details to us (via a forum post or a PM) and we will flag them for Daz, who can block specific ads.