ozoneocean
Is that all? Those are some good suggestions. What do people think of them? Could we hear from both sides please?
You missed mine :(
Physically detach it from the comic and comic actions block. Keep it in the area, but just make them not physically attached.
Also add “Drunk Duck Sponsor” instead of just “sponsor”.
With those two, if it has to stay there, it wouldn't be as bad, simply because it now looks removed from the content. That's really my big beef with it. I don't LIKE the placement, but it's the fact that they're making it look like it's a part of my page that sort of irks me.
Just like the examples Nick gave, the ads in those pages, though kind of annoying in their placement, are clearly separate from the content, and that's not as bad.
As for the others, I don't think that other placements will be as advantageous to DD. Under the nav buttons won't work because if you have your nave buttons on the side of your comic, it will totally mess up your template. Under the author's comments can be subverted by not putting the comments there, or even have them on a separate page. Above user comments can be subverted just as easily.
I do very much like the choice of vertical vs horizontal banner, as you can then choose that which suits your site better.
And I do very much agree about the content of the ads. If it's all G rated and not annoying, then really it's not that bad.
Ultimately, DD put the ad there because it was the most visible and the advertisers wanted it. There really is no other place to put it, so keeping the content G and separating it from the content physically is probably the best thing to do.
In my opinion anyway :)
And only slightly off-topic:
ad
1841, shortened form of advertisement. Long resisted by those in the trade, and denounced 1918 by the president of a national advertising association as “the language of bootblacks, … beneath the dignity of men of the advertising profession.”
It's a short form that has been around so long that it's been accepted into the language, and is even in the dictionary as a
proper word (albeit an abbreviation).
Pic, even though it is in the dictionary, is categorized as
slang. ;)