The Strange Case of the Missing Ads

It's not that the site is suddenly unacceptable, it's that Google didn't know we were unacceptable before now. Someone reported us.

Anyway, Plan 302 sounds good.

Also, I've been putting out a couple of pleas on other sites for donations, but no results yet.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:00:47 PM by KrisMahai

Deviant Art has that and it's not that much of a bother.

It's not that the site is suddenly unacceptable, it's that Google didn't know we were unacceptable before now. Someone reported us.

Hmm. Someone doesn't seem to like us...

edited 27th Oct '10 9:01:28 PM by Marioguy128

Tuefel: Other Adservers don't pay enough.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:01:34 PM by occono

I don't think that's possible. I would think that ad companies wouldn't like you displaying their ads and those of their competitors. Bad for their business.

"It's not that the site is suddenly unacceptable, it's that Google didn't know we were unacceptable before now. Someone reported us."

If I may, we had a Google representative at my university's career fair, and I caught him name dropping a trope or two. They've long known our content.

-goes back to hide in other forums-

edited 27th Oct '10 9:11:37 PM by Pykrete

^So why the wait? Did they put this site on a "To Do List?"

^^ Individuals who work at Google undoubtedly know about us. The problem is that something or someone called official attention to certain parts of the site.

Well, he doesn't necessarily work in the Google Adsense Publisher Monitoring division, so he might just be a trope fan who has no control over this issue.

I'm okay with a disclaimer page, although it irritates me when I can't figure out where an inbound link comes from.

Include the trope-side page as a URL argument to the click-though, and referrals from TV Tropes can still be tracked with granularity..

Sounds like bullshit job to me. Especially considering the various ads they allowed on the site that violate the policy Eddie listed for us.

So we giving the various tropes and works pages a complete white wash? This will take more time then Eddie probably has money. Other advertisers could be used to support the forum.

Considering how vaguely defined they termed their offensive content without any cited examples, how tightly are going to slap the controls on works and tropes?

We could until we can catch up edits wise use bowlderizer and run it through all the existing works to remove offensive material ie fuck shit damn etc.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:23:48 PM by TuefelHundenIV

The problem I'm seeing is that this would severely limit the site's ability to carry out its purpose. For example, a lot of information on various works will have to go, because any tropes or information that isn't squeaky clean will not be able to exist on the works pages, and creating a 'Mature' version of every works page would bring us back to square one of needing more advertisement dollars.

This is further problematic in that the vast majority of the information we carry on this site doesn't fit the guidelines they set.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:31:26 PM by Miijhal

Will you guys go read Eddie's post #302? Please?

I did. What I'm saying is that even that would severely limit the information we could display.

We did. Remember the point of ads on the fora was to make sure we had money to run everything including the fora.

Anything that is going to stay in spaces with advertisement be they works or tropes are going to have to be changed to fit the "Guide lines" because they are pages that allow commenting.

Therefor the fora and the wiki will be entirely separated via some you are now leaving this site link thing.

Pulled from 302.

Other step to tighten up commenting and other editing would have to be shown, as well.

Meaning going through and doing a crap ton of editing.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:38:39 PM by TuefelHundenIV

We all need to calm down.

For a start, accusing Google of censorship is unnecessarily inflammatory and factually incorrect. Making allegations like that sets a hostile tone that will only make things more difficult.

I am confident that Fast Eddie and the staff will be able to negotiate terms acceptable to both parties. Although poor Eddie will almost certainly gain a few grey hairs in the process.

Google are a bunch of Silicon Valley nerds, they're not the uptight sort. They just need to cover their ass against the Moral Guardians and Culture Police making absurd claims like "Google financially supports known pornographers" and such nonsense.

We all know that sort of mudslinging happens routinely and can be expensive in terms of lost revenue and PR. Google are only acting in their interest and they don't have it in for us. If we can find a way to do our business that doesn't expose them to unnecessary risk, I'm sure we can all get through this with a minimum of disruption.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:42:04 PM by TibetanFox

This is the theory right now. It may change as Fast Eddie gets more information or more ideas:

The forum will not have ads.

The discussion pages will not have ads.

The wiki pages themselves will be divided into two groups: those that meet the criteria for having Google ads and those that don't.

Those that do will be just like they are now.

Those that don't will probably be behind a "Not-family-friendly" barrier of some sort — possibly on one of the mediatropes sites with another adservice, possibly simply behind a warning page like dA or You Tube uses.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:59:37 PM by Madrugada

Would named tropers be able to disable those pages?

I don't know. We haven't gotten that far.

Is that a theory, or a final decision?

Sounds good to me, but is that affordable?

edited 27th Oct '10 9:44:39 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Disabling the "wall" as it were could be made a donator benefit.

A mod for internet browsers like say firefox (like Skip Screen [1]) would probably be the best bet.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:48:03 PM by Raso

Everything's "in theory" at the moment. We need more info and more time to think things over.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:47:24 PM by Ironeye

^^^ Yeah, that would work. You donate enough to cover the missing revenue, you get to remove it. Don't know how much that would be, though...

From Page 4 Source

Their assorted policies are very draconian.

Helpful to read to decide what we may have to clean.

edited 27th Oct '10 9:55:44 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I wonder, if a poll for cutting Troper Tales and Fetish Fuel was done, what the response would be like...