Please do not use adblocker on our site

[Tony-OH]

11 minutes ago, InsideCoroner said:

First off, I love and support the site. But I don't think the sentence above is entirely accurate.  If that were the case, I would get hijacked visiting other sites on my phone.  But it only happens on OH, and only (as I mentioned in the appropriate thread) when I am phsyically in the USA. Maybe it's the Internet provider I use there, but I genuinely don't believe it's malware on my phone when I am on a lot of other sites while visiting the US that have similar network ads without any kind of pop-up or hijacking incidents. 

Well, we were using a network called Critero that most sites probably weren't using so that could be the reason. Also, most of the bigger sites have gone away from Google's adsense because of issues. Either way, there is nothing on our site that could be causing this. All of the research indicates it was the networks and many other sites were experiencing the same issues so it's not just us.

[MurphDogg]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Firsts off, that;s just wrong. You haven't gotten anything from this site. We got rid of the network that was making malware on your phone to pop up an ad or redirect you. I really don't appreciate for one second you insinuated your got anything from this site because its not true. We've done tons of research and looked through our entire server and there is NOTHING coming from us. 

I'm ok with feedback, but when you start telling people you got something from our site that's just libel. Just because you have malware on your phone that is triggered by our network ads is not really our fault. I use this site all the time on my phone and don't get any pop ups, and the redirects are gone since we found out which one of of networks was causing them. That's a ad network problem that they are working hard to defeat, but spammers are the biggest jerks in the world and the make the internet a worse place.

If you are still having issues on your phone, it is your phone, not our site. If our site kicks it off, we're sorry, but clean your phone or stop using to go places that cause malware. As for tapatalk, glad your enjoyed using it, unfortunately they steal the sites money but throwing there own ads and giving us a ridiculous cut. So while we do all the work, they get 95% of the profit. That's not fair.

So maybe you think we don't deserve to make any money. Maybe you think the hours upon hours we take out of lives to bring you this site is not worth being compensated for. I realize there are people out there who just expect everything to be easy and free. 

I ask, I don't demand people support us. People can make any choice they want. They want to use ad blocker and/or not pay for plus membership, that's fine, but unfortunately they are not supporting a small business that tries to bring them something they enjoy.

How can you say that I didn't get anything while also saying you got rid of the thing that gave me what I got? This thread is full of "libelous" people telling you the same thing. We are visiting the site less because we are having negative experience with your ad network. It isn't personal. It may not be "your site" that is giving us trouble but it is the ad network that is tied to your site. I have never had any problems with popups on any other site that I visit on my phone.  

I think you deserve to make money. I made an additional suggestion of a way to support the site (Amazon affiliate program).

 

[Sessh]

2 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

If you don't use ad blocker, then I thank you for your support by coming here and discussing the Orioles.  We don't think about $2 a month is much to ask, but if you don't think it's worth it I'm ok with that. I only have issues with people who don't pay and who use ad blockers. That's basically just telling us they don't care.

We work very hard to make the ads unintrusive and take action the second people have issues. Most of the time it's on the users device but they never want to admit to that. 10000s of people are using the site on mobile devices without issues but a few act like we have somehow put malware on our site when it the ads kicking off the malware on their devices. 

I hear you on the Patreon and we will look into adding that as an option. Maybe we can work something out if we get to a certain level every month we will add in the features, but this model of limiting features after 500 posts unless you become a plus member has worked for 15 years.

I'm sure it has, but it's not 15 years later and a lot of things have changed. If withholding features is not increasing revenue, then it's not an effective strategy anymore. I do hope Patreon, tip jars and another good suggestion of Amazon affiliate programs would be far superior to ad-based revenue generation. It is 15 years later and a lot has changed. People reject advertising not because they hate the site, but because the ads can't be trusted. This is the norm 15 years later and trying to change that is futile. What you can do is adjust how you approach the situation to match the way things currently are.

Last year, I had my adblockers turned off for this site, but ended up putting them back on due to ads stealing my cursor when trying to type, slowing down the site and occasional eyesores. Back on they went. I have gotten burned too many times allowing ads on websites I trusted, but it's not the site that is the problem; it's the ads as others have told you. This is the internet climate 15 years later. I think you should seriously explore options to move away from advertisements. There is so much support here for this site and even people posting saying they want to give you more money that are already giving you the $25 you request.

[Tony-OH]

34 minutes ago, Sessh said:

I'm sure it has, but it's not 15 years later and a lot of things have changed. If withholding features is not increasing revenue, then it's not an effective strategy anymore. I do hope Patreon, tip jars and another good suggestion of Amazon affiliate programs would be far superior to ad-based revenue generation. It is 15 years later and a lot has changed. People reject advertising not because they hate the site, but because the ads can't be trusted. This is the norm 15 years later and trying to change that is futile. What you can do is adjust how you approach the situation to match the way things currently are.

Last year, I had my adblockers turned off for this site, but ended up putting them back on due to ads stealing my cursor when trying to type, slowing down the site and occasional eyesores. Back on they went. I have gotten burned too many times allowing ads on websites I trusted, but it's not the site that is the problem; it's the ads as others have told you. This is the internet climate 15 years later. I think you should seriously explore options to move away from advertisements. There is so much support here for this site and even people posting saying they want to give you more money that are already giving you the $25 you request.

Relying on a community to support the site by "donating" money is no way to run a business. I've been in business longer than any other website covering a major league team. Advertising remains the only way for any website to make consistent money. Now the bigger sites have staffs that sell advertising which means they don't have to deal with the networks, but unfortunately we only have two speaces we sell personally, the rest our networks. 

Now we may very well try so other avenues as you and others have suggested, but until they pay off like the ads, they will have to remain. All I asked in this thread is for people to not use ad blocker. We have removed the offending networks and if there is a problem ongoing we ask people to let us know and we will look into it once again, but I think people are still complaining about something we took care of at a monetary loss.

I appreciate the thoughts on other avenues and will explore those, but we have adjusted over time and the subscription rate is still enjoyed by others.

I may offer an ads network free plus subscription soon though. I just have to work on how to do it technically.

[Roll Tide]

3 hours ago, Stevie Janowski said:

I'm gonna keep using ad blockers out of spite and because of how condescending you have been in this thread, so there's that.

Steve, 

     You don't have to be a jerk to make a point here. 

I'm nothing more than a poster here. If I was I would've immediately banned you for this bush league response! 

I find it interesting that you want to use your pop up blocker and are also too cheap to spend the $25. And you have been posting here for a long time.

 

i don't think the system is perfect. But advertisers such as the Orioles and the Maryland lottery gives it legitimacy in my opinion.

You have a right to your opinion, just have a little class.

John

[byrdz]

Would someone please post the steps used to whitelist this site in AdBlock? So at least the technical aspect to this issue won't be a barrier. I think I've gotten it working but others may be having issues.

[thezeroes]

I have issues with the Internet Provider (Verizon Land Line) that I use.  It is a weak connection but the only one I have.  With this weak connection, it usually does not allow the advertisements to load on the page.  I have disabled Ad-Blocker for OH only and have had no issues as my computer cleans my footsteps upon shutdown.

[Sessh]

6 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

Relying on a community to support the site by "donating" money is no way to run a business. I've been in business longer than any other website covering a major league team. Advertising remains the only way for any website to make consistent money.

This is, again, a dated view on how the net has evolved and how Patreon alone is perfectly capable of generating enough revenue to more than cover anything Adsense gives you by several times over. Millions of people who run entertainment businesses on Youtube require only Patreon. I know a few people who are successful on Youtube and have researched further and revenue from Adsense isn't enough to live on and is equal to pennies. Patreon alone can bring hundreds of dollars a month every month consistently.

Amazon programs will make you more than advertising which I'd use for sure and that is far better than Adsense in almost every way including quick money. Tip jars as well allow people to chip in money with a few clicks. You are still stuck on advertising despite it being the least efficient way to make money fast. It is dated and that's why your profits have fallen and continue to fall. People block ads because they don't trust the ones making the ads and that will not change no matter how many threads you make about it. Your comment about that not being a way to run a business is simply not true since millions of people do just that and make all the money they need. Between Patreon, tip jars and an Amazon affiliate program, no, you would not need ads anymore and you'll find that out if and when you are able to implement those things.

[24fps]

1 hour ago, Roll Tide said:

Steve, 

     You don't have to be a jerk to make a point here. 

I'm nothing more than a poster here. If I was I would've immediately banned you for this bush league response! 

I find it interesting that you want to use your pop up blocker and are also too cheap to spend the $25. And you have been posting here for a long time.

 

i don't think the system is perfect. But advertisers such as the Orioles and the Maryland lottery gives it legitimacy in my opinion.

You have a right to your opinion, just have a little class.

John

I've made a similar point to a couple of freeloading posters over the years and their response has been remarkably consistent: "I'd never pay good money to post in place that has ***holes like you."  Should you ever encounter this, consider it a badge of honor.

[McNulty]

Last time I posted about the hijacking ads (March I think), I had literally pulled my new iphone out of the box and had been using it for about 15 minutes.  I didn't have time to have any malware on it.

I'd also like to echo the sentiments some others have made.  I don't visit this site very often anymore and a big portion of that are from the ads.  I just don't trust it.  

Great idea on the patreon stuff.  

[Tony-OH]

2 hours ago, 24fps said:

I've made a similar point to a couple of freeloading posters over the years and their response has been remarkably consistent: "I'd never pay good money to post in place that has ***holes like you."  Should you ever encounter this, consider it a badge of honor.

Haha. I tried being nice, but it was time to get rid of the jackholes. I've got one other person to ban who was giving rep to the a-holes then I'm done. This is simple, if you don't want to support the site, don't. I asked people to not use adblocker and I get told I'm out of touch yet funny, I've been the one doing this forever while they live in their Mom's basement. 

Hell, I haven'[t banned someone in so long I didn't even know how on our new message board. lol I figured it out.

[Nevermore]

I had an incident that happened recently. I was reading on this site and I  believe that I accidentally tapped on an ad. I ended up being hijacked to a site full of ads.  I  tried backing out of the site but was unsuccessful. As it turned out, my entire Internet tab had been hijacked by the offending site (I have a Samsung phone that uses internet tabs). To make a long story short, I had a friend who is a phone expert look into this. He found that the offending site had taken over the 2nd tab and set "home" there,  making it impossible to ever reach anything on the 1st tab, which includes information from my provider (AT&T). So my friend was able to delete everything on the 2nd tab. Then he was able to return to my 1st tab and set OH as my "home" there. Which is what I  wanted. I haven't seen this site again. Maybe Tony was able to block this site in the mean time. So I am here and VERY careful not to get close to any ads. They simply can't be trusted. I do trust tha Tony is doing his best.

[Tony-OH]

14 minutes ago, Nevermore said:

I had an incident that happened recently. I was reading on this site and I  believe that I accidentally tapped on an ad. I ended up being hijacked to a site full of ads.  I  tried backing out of the site but was unsuccessful. As it turned out, my entire Internet tab had been hijacked by the offending site (I have a Samsung phone that uses internet tabs). To make a long story short, I had a friend who is a phone expert look into this. He found that the offending site had taken over the 2nd tab and set "home" there,  making it impossible to ever reach anything on the 1st tab, which includes information from my provider (AT&T). So my friend was able to delete everything on the 2nd tab. Then he was able to return to my 1st tab and set OH as my "home" there. Which is what I  wanted. I haven't seen this site again. Maybe Tony was able to block this site in the mean time. So I am here and VERY careful not to get close to any ads. They simply can't be trusted. I do trust tha Tony is doing his best.

Thanks, if you ever have something like that happen again please let us know immediately. We got rid of what we think was the offrending network but if there's another we want to get rid of them.

Thanks for your help and sorry for any problems.