SFW-ness, the ad server, and Naughty Tentacles

Right, but we need to make sure it's being actually updated. I know there's some distrust over whether or not changes are actually getting announced, so that needs to be addressed at the same time, or else we'll go nowhere.

edited 9th Apr '12 10:58:10 AM by Katrika

According to which nothing important has happened in three months.

edited 9th Apr '12 10:58:32 AM by HersheleOstropoler

What about the Wiki Headlines thing in the sidebar?

A bigger problem is likely noticing such changes. The modhats weren't noticed for some months, the Google wall...how long was that broken?

Goodness, no, it's worse than that. General Announcements hasn't been updated in one year and three months. It's good that the thread is there, but...

edited 9th Apr '12 10:59:52 AM by Katrika

Wiki Headlines is gone. I assumed it was because nothing has met the rather arbitrary and obscure criteria for headlining, but for all I know it's been quietly dropped, or it only works when we have AdSense, or it's simply broken.

Re: Ads

This site has been painfully slow lately. I thought it was my home connection but it shows elsewhere too. Is this a consequence of Ad Sense ordeal?

It's not all that long since last we had headlines. Currently there aren't any, but I could go and make on right now if there was something to headline about.

Of course, there is this Google mess, but as discussed elsewhere, we don't want to headline that because that would invite a flood of people who have nothing but complaints to contribute. The people who do have something interesting to say will have found out on their own.

I wouldn't say so. I think some of the servers get messed up at times. The site is running craptastically fast for me.

The site is running fine for me.

edited 9th Apr '12 11:13:35 AM by TheDarkEricDraven

Hmm. When I open Tropes at home (especially with Firefox), it takes up a lot of memory/CPU, and the refresh button acts erratically.

I don't understand the reasons for not headlining the current unpleasantness, but even if I did, the result is that people will see massive changes for, as far as they can tell, no reason at all other than the admins being arbitrary. And, really, that's what generates complaints, when people feel left out of the process.

People may not like the changes, but telling them "here's why we're going this, we have a reason, we're not just mad with power" will significantly reduce complaints.

edited 9th Apr '12 11:20:17 AM by HersheleOstropoler

I forgot that the General Announcements thread was even there, after we had to mod-lock it to keep it from turning into a "general announcements and discussion" thread. I promise to make more use of it.

And, y'know, confirm when something is by design rather than an accident.

Suggestion: Is it possible for you to make it a Mod-only thread or no? If not, you may try to unlock it, post what you have to say, then lock it again. Though that could lead to Ninjas...

edited 9th Apr '12 11:27:04 AM by Psyga315

That is what the announcements thread is.

edited 9th Apr '12 11:27:40 AM by SeptimusHeap

Should there be announcements even before the decisions are made? Announcements of the type "decision process ongoing, please come to Wiki Talk for feedback"?

That is what the headline is for, or possibly another announcements thread.

Also, what announces things in the mod subforum?

For the record, there was a wider announcement last time this happened, and it resulted some tropers with poor impulse control flaming Google over it, even though the problem was mostly on our end. I haven't seen any of that this time around. The other thing is that the only imminent changes that are actually going to bother people are charging for avatars, and the mass renames. I'm pretty sure the renames were long overdue anyway, and I'm pretty sure that as long as the announcement about the avatars includes the fact that the alternative is cutting parts of the forum altogether, I don't think there will be too many genuine complaints. I'm sure there will be some, but it could be much worse.

We no longer put up content warnings. If a page is marked as not safe for Google, it gets ads from a different provider, one with a more liberal policy. Google has no policy requiring content warnings. They just don't want their ads on explicit pages.

Or anyway, that was the rule. There is some chance now that if a site has any pages that are explicit, the site is blocked. Clarification on that issue awaits the appeal process.

AdSense have not resumed. If you see ads that you thought were from them, they are probably now coming in from a different ad supplier.

edited 9th Apr '12 11:39:48 AM by FastEddie

Will do. Just that before I tended to assume Fast Eddie was behind it (He does have a tendency to not announce things, due to being busy and all) so I never felt the need to ask about the google wall thing when I first saw it wasn't there months ago. I guess I only tend to report things when they are obviously broken (Like custom titles not working and allowing grammatically incorrect titles).

Edit Turns out I guessed right and the lack of wall is by design.

edited 9th Apr '12 11:41:21 AM by Ghilz

We have a different provider? Doesn't that solve the issue?

No coz they pay less. Only Google gives half decent ad money.

edited 9th Apr '12 11:45:36 AM by Ghilz

The provider doesn't pay as well as Google.

33% of our income comes from Google ads. We are running on one provider less now.

edited 9th Apr '12 11:46:38 AM by lu127