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Ads being inserted into messages
12-02-2011, 04:54 PM
Bob, please take a look at http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com/sre ... day-Sales-
I did not put any links in that post.
At least on my computer, a commercial link is showing up in it.
I thought we were paying for an ad-free forum.
I especially dislike having somebody else put links into my posts, thus implying that I support whatever company is linked there when I in fact do not support that company.
Edit: Another one:
http://drunkardswalkforums.yuku.com/sre ... he-Catgirl
--
Rob Kelk
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Could you take a screenshot of one and post it maybe? I'm not seeing them, but I'm also suppressing most scripts. Might make it easier to figure out what's responsible.
-Morgan.
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Can confirm with Google Chrome, and the on the tabket browser. I dont see them in firefox
EDIT: I do on firefox if I disable adblock plus, then enable a few scripts. It appears to be a script from viglink.com that's doing it. And since I was doing it anywayt, Comparison
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And the script stuck a link into Dartz' post immediately above this one...
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them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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It's an affiliate program called http://www.viglink.com]"VigLink" which I've already identified and posted about in the original thread. I was just coming here to start a thread on it.
The new owners of Yuku are clearly trying to eke out a bit more revenue by automatically embedding associate links into forum pages -- without notifying me or telling me how to opt us out.
I will be complaining about this when I get home tonight, trust me.
In the mean time you can http://www.viglink.com/support/optout]opt out here. As I posted in the other thread, I suggest you do so, and complain to Yuku and VigLink both.
-- Bob
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...and my shoes began to squeak.
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Didn't we have this issue a year or so back? Or am I mixing up my forums again?
I don't usually see them, but then, I usually visit here with all sorts of adblocking and scriptblocking active.
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You might be thinking of this?
-Morgan.
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:In the mean time you can http://www.viglink.com/support/optout]opt out here. If they would put a working button on that page that I could click, maybe I could...
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the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
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OK, yeah, definitely what I remember. I believe LiveJournal had a similar issue, that actually broke the method for opening links in new tabs.
Definitely get on the horn with them about it, Bob. The board is paid for, so there should be 0 ads of any form.
On the other hand, if I ever open a board anywhere, it's certainly not going to be via Yuku, given that they're showing a pattern of trying this every year. 
(And I can understand why they do it. The odds of a link getting clicked are likely way higher, and they think it looks like they're being good by providing the links to the readers, and it gets around more than 90% of the adblockers out there. But this also shows, in a site that does free boards, how much we users are just considered product to sell to advertisers anymore.)
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If you're blocking scripts, it looks like you have to allow the viglink domain before the status and button will display.
-Morgan. Of course, if you're blocking scripts, shouldn't it already not work?
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Oh, I have a script blocker running at all times on Firefox, mostly to kill various annoyances that I've run into. I actually become annoyed when I get to a website, and they either completely withhold the page content until I allow their scripts, or worse, spread their scripts across three or more domains, and have them so that the page just doesn't display right until all four are allowed to run scripts. At which point I try to avoid becoming a repeat visitor.
The other annoyance are places like Hulu and CBS/Star Trek.com, which in order to play video demand that you not have an adblocker installed at all. Not whitelisting them. No adblockers at all. Hence, Hulu has told me advertiser dollars are more important to them than any money I might front as a Plus subscriber.
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Morgan is right -- enable scripts on that page and you will see a grey button marked "Disable VigLink".
Also, according to anecdotal comments in the thread in General, the links have now vanished. Can anyone else confirm?
-- Bob
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I'm still seeing Viglink in my NoScript domains list, although I've never enabled it.
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I looked into VL a little bit. Looks like they've been around a while, but only adding affiliate tags to existing links on sites. I gather that this context linking is new to them.
Either one of those, I don't care how loudly they scream otherwise, I consider to be substantial alteration of the user experience. Yes, I know on most sites we're technically the product to be sold to advertisers since that's how they make their money to keep the doors open and the lights on, but on the other hand, I'd at least like them to lay off my actual posts unless they're packed with illegal content.
Sadly, this sort of thing illustrates precisely why I run AdBlock and NoScript on Firefox, and that I do the same in Chrome, and I never ever ever run Explorer if I have a choice. It's also slowly moving me towards the idea that I should probably just buy my own site if I want to have any real online presence.
If you haven't yet, Bob, I'd still register a complaint for the brief period of time that the links were showing up, since they say "ad free for paid", and obviously didn't really mean it.
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I have in fact submitted a complaint through a customer support ticket.
In the process, I noted yet another change apparently as a result of the acquisition -- there used to be a rather lively set of boards for support issues and QnA. No longer, or they've been moved someplace completely inobvious. All I can find now is a read-only announcement board, the latest thread of which is a Thanksgiving greeting.
-- Bob
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JFerio Wrote:On the other hand, if I ever open a board anywhere, it's certainly not going to be via Yuku, given that they're showing a pattern of trying this every year. Are you sure you don't want to migrate to somewhere else, Bob?
JFerio Wrote:(And I can understand why they do it. The odds of a link getting clicked are likely way higher, and they think it looks like they're being good by providing the links to the readers, and it gets around more than 90% of the adblockers out there. But this also shows, in a site that does free boards, how much we users are just considered product to sell to advertisers anymore.) If they want to earn money from my efforts, then they can bloody well pay me for my efforts. I have a short list of who I choose to give volunteer time to, and yuku isn't on that list.
Bob Schroeck Wrote:Morgan is right -- enable scripts on that page and you will see a grey button marked "Disable VigLink". I see a gray box with the words "Disable VigLink", but clicking on it does nothing.
Bob Schroeck Wrote:Also, according to anecdotal comments in the thread in General, the links have now vanished. Can anyone else confirm? I'm not seeing any ads in my or anyone else's posts.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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Quote:Are you sure you don't want to migrate to somewhere else, Bob?
I'd hate to lose ten years of accumulated content. But I am looking into alternatives. Quote:I see a gray box with the words "Disable VigLink", but clicking on it does nothing.
For me it turns into an orange button reading "Enable VigLink".
-- Bob
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Bob Schroeck Wrote:I'd hate to lose ten years of accumulated content. But I am looking into alternatives. This is part of why I didn't outright suggest it myself. Although, yes, if something exists out there that would allow us to port this entire board, posts and all, to another service that's somewhat more... reliable on how it treats the users (I don't mind ads. I do mind service outages, ads showing up when you've paid for them not to), then I'd say jump ship as soon as possible.
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That comment was in response to Rob saying he wasn't seeing a button. For someone running noscript, they won't see a button there if the viglink domain isn't allowed, but they also won't see the ads. I suppose if a blocking program was based on the site displaying a script, rather than the site hosting it, the result would be different.
Oddly, those sites you mention don't seem to mind me running noscript... They don't *work* for me, but it's hardly surprising that flash content won't display when I don't have the flash player installed.
Personally, I don't mind ads in general. But they have to work without javascript or flash, and rewriting content like this kinda bugs me.
Since these ones have disappeared now, could it have been a glitch related to the "suddenly, no pageviews!" incident?
-Morgan. That post went back and forth a bit.
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Quote:Since these ones have disappeared now, could it have been a glitch related to the "suddenly, no pageviews!" incident?
Hard to say, Morgan. I know from simply searching all of Yuku that other boards ran into VigLink. I haven't seen other boards who had the pageview glitch.
-- Bob
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Quote:I'd hate to lose ten years of accumulated content. But I am looking into alternatives.
I can grab all the publicly available pages in html format, if you're worried about losing content. Though with ten years of content, its going to be one hell of a directory. Probably on the order of 10-20GB.
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>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
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I've received the following response to my complaint: Quote:Hi Bob,
First, my apologies for this. Ad-free is ad-free and this was completely unintentional. The issue was corrected within 30 minutes after receiving the first report of this happening.. We don't serve ads on ad-free boards and this includes links,
Again, my apologies for this unfortunate incident. This should not have happened.
So given this, and that the linking did in fact vanish quickly, I'm willing to wait and watch for the moment.
-- Bob
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Morganni Wrote:That comment was in response to Rob saying he wasn't seeing a button. For someone running noscript, they won't see a button there if the viglink domain isn't allowed, but they also won't see the ads. I'm not running NoScript.
Bob Schroeck Wrote:So given this, and that the linking did in fact vanish quickly, I'm willing to wait and watch for the moment. Fair enough.
(If something along these lines happens again in 2012, though...?)
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Rob Kelk
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them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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Depends on whether it goes away quickly again, or sticks around.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
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