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For those of you that have been around on the site for a while, you know that we've been one of the last holdouts with regards to fan sites and advertising. It took us a few years to even break down and ask for donations. For those who don't know how stubborn I've been about it, this will likely seem like much ado about nothing. {grins}
However, times have changed, traffic patterns have seriously changed, and donations are sporadic. Please, don't get me wrong. There are some wonderful folks who've donated to the site (in some cases, I suspect they donated more than they *should* have afforded on fixed incomes and the like). There have been others who simply can't donate, for one reason or another. We cherish you all, and have NO intentions of going to subscriber-restricted content or anything silly like that. We still strongly believe that everyone has the right to the full range of tradeskill information free of charge.
We've carried the site along through times of generosity, and times of several-month dry spells, but it's time to admit we can't do that on donations alone anymore, especially now that we're running the second site for EQ2. So, starting tomorrow (or today, depending on what time it is where you are), we're going to be ... {calls for a small drumroll} ... adding Google banner ads to the site. These will be topic-targeted, so you might get some interesting links now and then, especially now that we've blocked the worst offenders of those selling plat, accounts, etc. (The ads have been running over on EQ2 Traders Corner as a test for a bit now, and we used them to test out the feature, and to catch a lot of the advertisers we wanted to block.) They'll not always have anything to do with EQ, but they'll have some context in relation to the subject involved.
Those who hate them can ignore them. They're just banner ads after all, not popups, and pretty much everywhere you hit these days has ads of one sort or another. Those who tolerate them may find some interesting links to check out, now and again, and in the process contribute a small amount towards the running of EQTC and EQ2TC.
We do NOT want folks to just start a clicking frenzy for the sake of clicking. Among other things, that's a violation of our contract with Google to ask you to do so. Just know that they're there, and that we're not "selling out" by adding them to the sites, but rather trying to prevent the need to sell out due to costs growing faster than income.
Personally, I can't wait to see what sorts of interesting things it comes up with when confronted with some of our forums such as "Spell Research", for example. I suspect it will be everything from spelling aids, to New Age links, to market research.
However, times have changed, traffic patterns have seriously changed, and donations are sporadic. Please, don't get me wrong. There are some wonderful folks who've donated to the site (in some cases, I suspect they donated more than they *should* have afforded on fixed incomes and the like). There have been others who simply can't donate, for one reason or another. We cherish you all, and have NO intentions of going to subscriber-restricted content or anything silly like that. We still strongly believe that everyone has the right to the full range of tradeskill information free of charge.
We've carried the site along through times of generosity, and times of several-month dry spells, but it's time to admit we can't do that on donations alone anymore, especially now that we're running the second site for EQ2. So, starting tomorrow (or today, depending on what time it is where you are), we're going to be ... {calls for a small drumroll} ... adding Google banner ads to the site. These will be topic-targeted, so you might get some interesting links now and then, especially now that we've blocked the worst offenders of those selling plat, accounts, etc. (The ads have been running over on EQ2 Traders Corner as a test for a bit now, and we used them to test out the feature, and to catch a lot of the advertisers we wanted to block.) They'll not always have anything to do with EQ, but they'll have some context in relation to the subject involved.
Those who hate them can ignore them. They're just banner ads after all, not popups, and pretty much everywhere you hit these days has ads of one sort or another. Those who tolerate them may find some interesting links to check out, now and again, and in the process contribute a small amount towards the running of EQTC and EQ2TC.
We do NOT want folks to just start a clicking frenzy for the sake of clicking. Among other things, that's a violation of our contract with Google to ask you to do so. Just know that they're there, and that we're not "selling out" by adding them to the sites, but rather trying to prevent the need to sell out due to costs growing faster than income.
Personally, I can't wait to see what sorts of interesting things it comes up with when confronted with some of our forums such as "Spell Research", for example. I suspect it will be everything from spelling aids, to New Age links, to market research.
Ngreth Thergn
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