I note today that suddenlylarge  banner ads are appearing on the bottom of the screen that change every few seconds and cannot be stopped. The seem to come from Google.They block the viewing area of the forum in part and are extremely annoying. If this is the future of AVSIM then I am out. Is there a way to prevent these?

Greg

Agree they really get in the way, expecially when viewed on my Android tablet.  😟

Don't have that problem here at all. But then I do have AdBlock installed, so that might be why.

2 hours ago, Freo said:

I do have AdBlock installed, so that might be why.

That is why!

I use Firefox and they have a list of Firefox  recommended Ad Blockers. But their information on all the ad blockers states that the ad blockers will all have access to my logins and passwords, so I decided not to install one. The bigger issue is that AVSIM which has  used unobtrusive in line advertising for all the years I have been a member suddenly switches to the most obnoxious form of ads, banner ads that take up about 25 percent of my viewing area, overlay forum text and constantly change the display so as to distract attention to them and away from forum content, and cannot be made to go away. This tells me a lot about AVSIM management and how little it cares about alienating its customers. I was hoping that any AVSIM members who feel upset about this move will make their opinions known to AVSIM management here. I should not need to add an ad blocker that can see my passwords to solve this assault from Avsim. And indeed if this persists I will be making the decision that the content here is not worth the aggravation and switch to other flight sim forums.

Yes, they are becoming a distraction across too large an area of the screen on my iPad.

4 hours ago, greg100o said:

I use Firefox and they have a list of Firefox  recommended Ad Blockers. But their information on all the ad blockers states that the ad blockers will all have access to my logins and passwords, so I decided not to install one. The bigger issue is that AVSIM which has  used unobtrusive in line advertising for all the years I have been a member suddenly switches to the most obnoxious form of ads, banner ads that take up about 25 percent of my viewing area, overlay forum text and constantly change the display so as to distract attention to them and away from forum content, and cannot be made to go away. This tells me a lot about AVSIM management and how little it cares about alienating its customers. I was hoping that any AVSIM members who feel upset about this move will make their opinions known to AVSIM management here. I should not need to add an ad blocker that can see my passwords to solve this assault from Avsim. And indeed if this persists I will be making the decision that the content here is not worth the aggravation and switch to other flight sim forums.

We in AVSIM management believe there would be nothing quite as "alienating" to our users as someday reaching the point where we would have to close the site down and lose the years of archived knowledge and the downloads that have accumulated in our forums and library. To that end, we are working to stay ahead of the power curve w/r/t revenue vs costs to keep the doors open--not just today, but for the long term.  We are proactively exploring the available means to continue making the forums and our extensive file library available--without cost--to an expanding user base.  Many of the folks who've been around a while will remember another flight sim site that let its user base grow beyond the site's ability to support it, and that resulted in restricting download speeds and limiting the number of connections available to users unwilling/unable to buy a "premium" membership.  We knew the site less-than-affectionately as "all nodes busy" back then, and here at AVSIM we don't intend to go down that path.

Data center site hosting, bandwidth, storage, etc do not come free, especially as we find ourselves using more and more of it.  The costs of providing our free community services are substantial, given our usage now often exceeds 1500 simultaneous forum connections and terabytes of monthly download bandwidth.  We need a revenue source that scales up together with the costs of increasing usage, or we risk seeing demand for our services outstrip our ability to provide them.

We're still actively looking for the right workable balance between our resourcing needs and our user base's preferences.  Both are important.

6 hours ago, greg100o said:

I use Firefox and they have a list of Firefox  recommended Ad Blockers. But their information on all the ad blockers states that the ad blockers will all have access to my logins and passwords, so I decided not to install one. The bigger issue is that AVSIM which has  used unobtrusive in line advertising for all the years I have been a member suddenly switches to the most obnoxious form of ads, banner ads that take up about 25 percent of my viewing area, overlay forum text and constantly change the display so as to distract attention to them and away from forum content, and cannot be made to go away. This tells me a lot about AVSIM management and how little it cares about alienating its customers. I was hoping that any AVSIM members who feel upset about this move will make their opinions known to AVSIM management here. I should not need to add an ad blocker that can see my passwords to solve this assault from Avsim. And indeed if this persists I will be making the decision that the content here is not worth the aggravation and switch to other flight sim forums.

As  bob  has  suggested  above  my post  now days  it  cost  more  and  more  to run things  now days,  and  they need  to  find  a way to pay  for  the  services  they  provide  to us

On 10/5/2021 at 4:59 PM, w6kd said:

We in AVSIM management believe there would be nothing quite as "alienating" to our users as someday reaching the point where we would have to close the site down and lose the years of archived knowledge and the downloads that have accumulated in our forums and library. To that end, we are working to stay ahead of the power curve w/r/t revenue vs costs to keep the doors open--not just today, but for the long term.  We are proactively exploring the available means to continue making the forums and our extensive file library available--without cost--to an expanding user base.  Many of the folks who've been around a while will remember another flight sim site that let its user base grow beyond the site's ability to support it, and that resulted in restricting download speeds and limiting the number of connections available to users unwilling/unable to buy a "premium" membership.  We knew the site less-than-affectionately as "all nodes busy" back then, and here at AVSIM we don't intend to go down that path.

Data center site hosting, bandwidth, storage, etc do not come free, especially as we find ourselves using more and more of it.  The costs of providing our free community services are substantial, given our usage now often exceeds 1500 simultaneous forum connections and terabytes of monthly download bandwidth.  We need a revenue source that scales up together with the costs of increasing usage, or we risk seeing demand for our services outstrip our ability to provide them.

We're still actively looking for the right workable balance between our resourcing needs and our user base's preferences.  Both are important.

Thanks for your response Bob. I understand the revenue support issue, and am glad to receive your response.

I despise subscription based anything but you already know that voluntary donations aren't paying your bills. So it seems to me you have no choice but to go in that direction if you wish to continue as a website. Selling T-shirts, hats or Avsim mood rings will hardly be worth the effort involved, and are a different kind of voluntary payment. Since you don't really offer anything different than other flight sim themed websites it's going to be a difficult sell when the time comes to ask for subscribers.

Or you could turn the lights off and close the doors.

Whatever you decide, good luck with it.

@Twenty6

Gee, thanks for your support!

As of today the situation is much worse with ads! Now there is a banner ad at the top of the screen, and two banner ads at the bottom one on each side of the screen,  all three of which are showing constantly changing every second and independent ads! There are also huge ads in the middle while scrolling down posts. This is driving me nuts, and I have now even less space available to see what is going on in the forum. Why did AVSIM triple the number of banner ads? I am about at my limit, sorry AVSIM. Nobody should be subjected to all of this reading a forum.

 

Greg