Well, this is just a suggestion, and certainly not a business-savvy one or anything, but maybe if the authors of the comics got a small(very small) cut of the money generated by the ads? I don't know how the system works, but if someone's making money off of the ads on their page, and you still get the majority of the profit(enough to cover costs).

If the amount is by pageviews, then people (if they're getting a cut) would be working even harder to generate more pageviews, to draw people into the site, so that would mean an even larger revenue for you in the end. I believe that's how Helium works.

It's just a suggestion, and like I said, I don't know how the system works. It doesn't bug me as much, this new ad placement. If you can set up a pay-account system, too, that should help.

umm… The profile ones are fine, and everywhere else, we can live with those. But inside the comic template instead of at the top or bottom or sides is just too far. No other host has a scheme that intrusive that I've seen.

A voluntary column add like Keen used to have would be OK… :(

Livejournal do something interesting, too. They have the basic option- no ads, no extras, and then their paid membership, with all the extras… and then the third option, where you agree to display ads in return for SOME of the extras.

I think that's pretty cool.

I would say that even the adds that were between comments (when that was experimented with) were less worrisome to comic makers than adds right underneath their comics. Personally I find it intrusive and quite disappointing. :(

I am just peeved about the placement also…It isn't even centered and is really an eyesore on our main, Marital Bliss??? page, I mean it really throws off the design and I'm sure I'm not the only one. I also know what you mean and completely agree about it seeming like you are endorsing a particular comic by having it in your comic template.

(Does Gods of the Arrr-whatever own your souls or something…I'm sure the people that make it are very fine folks, it's just not my cup of java…and their ads are everywhere on this site and it bugs me that they have been the only “featured” Creator Interview on the “News” tab since I got here…) Just threw that out there since it's kinda' relevant.

Obviously, the placement within the “creative space” is causin' quite the ruckus. If we all voice our hesitations and disappointment over the level of selloutyness, maybe they'll let the ginormous ones at the top and bottom serve as adequate…

Regarding “The Gods of ArrKelaan” maritalbliss; they are a founding comic on Drunk Duck and are entitled to some free advertising and featuring. :)
In this case though, GOA, Kiss, Wtachdogs, HBN and adds for any other comic that come up are only being used for testing purposes.

I think we're pretty united in our disapproval (as active comic creators) and as long as it continues to be voiced in such a calm and polite manner such as this it's fine. Whether anything comes of such protest is yet to be seen, but if people's feelings are made clear in a non-confrontational way this thread will be ok :)

fern
Too bad there's no edit button.



We need more degrading ads.

round

A very creative protest. ^_^
This is fine so far but will be locked if it gets too silly or obnoxious ok?
So no more image protests for now.

Just register your thoughts on the subject and this can be a good forum for gauging DD comic creator's views on the matter.

I'm sorry Volte, I love DD a LOT, but not this particular instance. I hope you understand. :(

I for one DO want ads everywhere. The ads are wonderful and I wish we had even more!

Platinum Studios and Drunk Duck forever! yay!

At least give us the option to erase the adds from our comics through the HTML format.

maritalbliss
(Does Gods of the Arrr-whatever own your souls or something…I'm sure the people that make it are very fine folks, it's just not my cup of java…and their ads are everywhere on this site and it bugs me that they have been the only “featured” Creator Interview on the “News” tab since I got here…) Just threw that out there since it's kinda' relevant.

People that know us know that we are extremely conflicted and hesitant to say anything, because DD has been awesome enough to place ads for us but at the same time we do not feel that it's the right place for an ad either. You're right, it looks like you endorse whatever is down there.

At the same time I also aknowledge that DD is a free hosting site that does stuff that no other hosting site will do for you, such as reserve tables at WW for any DD artist that wanted one. That cost DD thousands of dollars, I would imagine. Try to get that from Comic Genesis, Comic Dish, or Smackjeeves.

I wonder if an ad in the comments area would be a good compromise, rather than right under the comic image. I mean, we all read the comments all the time. I think if it was there, there would be at least a little less intrusion. Plus, it would probably get MORE views, because people always go back to look at the comments.

And for the record, the Creator interview is broken and stuck on Ronson. Not our fault. ;)

SpANG
At the same time I also aknowledge that DD is a free hosting site that does stuff that no other hosting site will do for you, such as reserve tables at WW for any DD artist that wanted one. That cost DD thousands of dollars, I would imagine. Try to get that from Comic Genesis, Comic Dish, or Smackjeeves.

As the owner of Comic Dish, I can definitely back SpANG up on this statement :) DD is the only one that makes enough money to do anything like this, and this is a huge thing. That's why I encourage people to voice their concerns, but see how it goes. Volte's doing this all for the people here, so give it a chance :)

Yeah, I agree with what pretty much everyone else is saying. I have no problem with advertisements on the site, I know that DD has to pay for itself somehow - that's fine! The ones on the search and browse, front page, profiles, and top and bottom of the comic pages? I have absolutely no problem with those. The one that's right underneath my comic, breaking up my comic and my next/previous buttons and making it look like I personally chose to put it there? I have a problem with that one.

If it absolutely has to be on the page, I would even be happier if it was moved down under the creator comments area. I don't like to have things flashing and blinking at me when I'm trying to look at a comic. It's extremely distracting.

Okay everyone… I totally understand your viewpoints on this. I'm going to spend a little time processing all of this and try to think of some compromises.

I can handle putting up ads on the front page. I'm used to that. What I don't like is the ads on my profile page.

If you're going to do that, you could at least have the courtesy to ask.

ZeroVX
What I don't like is the ads on my profile page..

Profile pages aren't the same thing Zero. The add isn't as intrusive there, the whole feature is more recent, no users design those layouts for themselves, and people don't go there to see creator content.

Good on you Volte. I hope something better can be sorted out :)

ZeroVX
I can handle putting up ads on the front page. I'm used to that. What I don't like is the ads on my profile page.

If you're going to do that, you could at least have the courtesy to ask.

I don't see the big deal about the one on the profile page, but maybe that's just because I never look at profile pages, ever. As far as I can see, it goes under the description and it's on top of the currently non-functioning trophies. Like OO said, you have no real say over the design of your profile page, you can't alter how it's laid out, so it's not as personalized as a comic page is.

Actually, looking at it right now, I think it's one of the better placed ads that are currently floating around the site. It doesn't look completely out of place because it's not pushing content around.

And thanks, Volte. I hope something gets worked out. :kitty:

Volte6
Okay everyone… I totally understand your viewpoints on this. I'm going to spend a little time processing all of this and try to think of some compromises.

I would like to just suggest that if the ad has to be under the comic (because that is the sweet spot) AT THE LEAST ad something that identifies it as being a DD ad and not a ad that the comic owner placed there.

Volte6
Okay everyone… I totally understand your viewpoints on this. I'm going to spend a little time processing all of this and try to think of some compromises.

Just avoid pop-up ads and I'll still be happy. XP
….mmh, probably.

..The white border is just making it even worse. :(

silentkitty

ZeroVX
I can handle putting up ads on the front page. I'm used to that. What I don't like is the ads on my profile page.

If you're going to do that, you could at least have the courtesy to ask.

I don't see the big deal about the one on the profile page, but maybe that's just because I never look at profile pages, ever. As far as I can see, it goes under the description and it's on top of the currently non-functioning trophies. Like OO said, you have no real say over the design of your profile page, you can't alter how it's laid out, so it's not as personalized as a comic page is.

Actually, looking at it right now, I think it's one of the better placed ads that are currently floating around the site. It doesn't look completely out of place because it's not pushing content around.

And thanks, Volte. I hope something gets worked out. :kitty:

I don't like the profile one even more so than I don't like the comic ad, which I definitely dislike. The reason is it goes: my personal comments, AD, and then MY personal trophies. I just feel like it looks like I'm personally saying “check out this ad”.

Which is why I don't like the comic page ad. My comic > AD > My comments… same thing.

If key placement is an issue - which it was mentioned - then I suggest optimizing some of the header content. There's A LOT of wasted space up there. I mean, there's about a 800 x 200 space at the top of this page dedicated to saying ONLY: “Forums” and the forum bread crumb… and then A LOT of blank space. That's key real estate being used. Even if you broke that space in half with tables, that's 400 x 200 advert space. Which wouldn't be too much of an eye sore. Same thing with the Search, News, Forums, Games etc etc etc tabs. They're nice and I like the look. But if it's those or the middle of my comic page, I think a reduction there can be made which will open up some nice 200 x 100 space.

And, these changes should be mega easy if this site was designed right. May the change to the 1 or 2 templates used and then you're 1 dreamweaver click and a full upload away from being fixed.

Or, what about advertising on the forum redirect page after you make a post? That's just a bunch of blank space. Make the redirect a few seconds longer and put a few banners there… can't hurt.

You know, at the very, very least… couldn't you add a “sponser” tag like you have on the header banner? That way at least it'd be crystal clear it wasn't a user-endorsed advertisement…. which is, again, my chief beef.

Thanks,
~Jerome~

EDIT: I just noticed that “advertisement” WAS added above the adverts in our comics. Well done. That more or less satisfies me enough to just wait and see what happens. Thanks admin

I don't really care about the comic page advert, but the one on Search and Browse seriously messes things up.

I wasn't going to complain again But I'll say this; it's taking advantage of the DD userbase in a cynical way. Don't take us for granted.

But then again, why not take it further:
Entire comic pages could be turned into advertisements using Java to “watermark” them, then make the whole page link to whoever.

This would be simple to organise and implement I imagine. Not every page would have to have it either, you could space it out to one in every 3 or 4, but that will be an even more prime spot than anywhere else on the whole site and makes excellent use of the DD userbase and the visitors they draw to the site. ;)

I just don't understand what would make you click these Ad's anyway. I barely ever click advertisements, and even more so when the Ad is for crap like “flirtomatic.com”.

Why would a date site be linked with a comic site?

Oh wait, I get it. Haha.

maybe replace the gray bar under our comics with adverts
no one uses that interface really

Personally I dont see too much of a problem with ads except for few places. My only suggestion is… please cut back on flash ads like WoW. There is some places where flash ads looks good and other places where it doesnt.

I play WoW and I love the game, but you're putting way too much of their ads into DD.

Ok, Memmey and Strongbad. You are DD users like everyone else and you've been here a while now, but…
you have to realise that people who work hard at creating comics here at DD have lot more to say about adds on their comic templates than users such as yourselves who aren't really at DD for that particular service so much. ok :)
(I know you have comics here Strongbad, but they're not really as much to you as most of the rest of the people in this thread)

So if you want to contribute to the discussion in a worthwhile way, consider it from the position of the people that do, since it's the adds on user's templates that this whole thread is about.

I can almost picture the scene of how it happened:

In a dimly lit, cigarette smoke-filled room, a group of Drunk Ducks sit around a table staring into their beer…

“Dude, this blows.” One says, “Have you seen the hit counts on the site? We need a way to get money off of those guys. I got a letter that the water company is going to turn off the water again.”

“Man…” says another.

“Wait…I've got it! We could have ADS!” Another duck exclaims.

“ADS? Why the hell would we want to have a disease?” scowls the first duck.

“No, man. Ads. As in advertisements. I just said it all in caps because I was excited.”

“Oh.” The duck blinks. “Ads for what?”

“Porn.” One duck suggests. “People always click on porn ads.”

“Wait, wait wait. We can't do porn.” A duck replies. “At least not unless it was the classy kind…you know…viagra or something.”

“Viagra isn't porn.”

“Ok..” The first duck scrbbles on some paper, “Porn it is. Now..where do we put the ads?”

“Everywhere!” One of the ducks exclaims.

“No..we can't put them everywhere..they might miss an ad. We need to put them somewhere we know people will go and click.”

“Um…we could put ads on all the comics? A duck asks hopefully. ”You know..right where the person's comic would be?“

”No..no..why would someone go to a comic page to just see an ad? No..“ he sighed, ”No, we have to…trick them somehow…“

Everyone thought in silence.

”I know!!“ A duck jumped up, spilling beer. ”We'll put them right above the navigation buttons! That way someone is bound to click on the ad by accident..and we'll make a fortune!"

Cheers arose from everyone.

The identities of the ducks involved have been changed to protect the innocent. No ducks were harmed during the creation of this silly story. We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.

ozoneocean
So if you want to contribute to the discussion in a worthwhile way, consider it from the position of the people that do, since it's the adds on user's templates that this whole thread is about.

I was just giving a personal opinion. That is all. I can, however, see how ads in that area might be a problem for people who set up custom templates and stuff.

Now can I be accepted by the general populous?