Forum Preventing Ad Blocking by making site unviewable

Gileh · Forum Preventing Ad Blocking by making site unviewable

Hello All

I think this is urgent

I have just been receiving an error message and this page when trying to view the website http://forum.chestergames.co.uk/pageerror.html

It reads:

Milly

I've been experiencing the same, and only on one particular advert at present (it's fine usually, and then it'll bring up the error, and then if I refresh the page I wanted to see enough, it stops bringing up the error).

There are several free forum sites that do so without adverts, or at least without adverts that don't like ad blockers, like ucoz.

paz

The club has been considering using a different forum service for several years. The main issue has always been that people want to keep the old messages rather than starting from scratch, and to do that would need us to pay the current forum host £60-70 for a database export.

Gileh

I would suggest that from a number of perspectives, not least of which are speed and security a service that prevents ad blockers is as untenable.

Therefore it might be worthy expense of the clubs resources to move to a more permanent forum solution and to take the archive with us.

When can a discussion be held about this?

paz

Another alternative is to pay ~£35/year to the current host to have ad-free hosting.

Kamikazegerbil

I've been having the same problem. I wouldn't mind starting afresh to be honest. It'd be slightly awkward in the transition but eventually would right itself. In my opinion at least.

I've seen it done before. If any of us had any threads we wanted/needed to keep (stickys, posts about events currently being organized, etc.) we were encouraged to keep a record of text (say in a word document) and restart it as a new thread. You lose replies but you can always make a note of any important points raised in a new post.

So yes the transition is a little awkward but doable and it does clear a lot of clutter in that no longer relevant threads are left out.

That's just my opinion though. Perhaps this should be raised at the AGM.

Tess

Gileh

If someone could raise it at the AGM I think that would be a good idea. I may not be able to attend, due to working hours, but I'd happily submit things in writing.

Teflon Billy

I agree, sounds like one for the AGM.

It looks like Myff have escalated their ad-blocking countermeasures.

Myff admin's opinion on ad blocking software discussed in this thread:

http://forum.myfreeforum.org/sutra142187.php#142187

Relevant Quote:

metagaia

I have added this item to the AGM.

It does occur to me that we can kill two birds with one stone here, by getting rid of excess club funds and also solving the aforementioned problem in the thread, so I am all in favour of this.

Teflon Billy

We just need to be clear when we discuss/vote in the AGM.

The four options seem to be:

Milly

I might not be able to make the AGM (when is it again anyway? Razz

), but I'd go for the 2nd one. Over the space of a year it's not all that much really, and saves moving everything to a new forum or starting from scratch.

Tess

xorsyst

I won't be able to make the AGM, so I'll offer my opinion here.

I think by far the worst option is to pay for a forum dump - it's a lot of money, and I don't think our old posts are worth that much. Even if we make a clean break, people can always look at this forum - it won't go anywhere, will it?

My favourite option would be just to put up with it. Much as it sucks, myff need a revenue stream and it seems a waste of club funds to pay for not having ads when people can just disable their content filtering for this one site. Or, if they are worried about security, just disable javascript completely for this site (which also works and doesn't show the adverts, in my quick trial).

Of course, the real question is why we have a hosted web forum and not just a newsgroup Smile

dedindahed

So some further input for the great forum debate.

I don't really have any strong conviction at the moment, but my thoughts on the options are...

Leave as is.
I personally don't have a problem with this option, I dont find the advertising invasive, or intrusive, I imagine adblockers can be set to not block on certain sites, there is also phil's disable java option.

Pay for ad free.
Not opposed to this, net result would be a few less 50p weeks in a year, though I prefer leave as is, or re-host to this option.

Pay for export.
Seems uneccesary, would be simple to retrieve any worthwhile stuff, or simply leave the old forum up for browsing. Wouldn't be strongly opposed to this if people really wanted to do it though.

New forum.
If something can be found to offer the same or a better service at no cost we could certainly look into it.
I'd be reluctant to move the forum to any domain that was owned personally by a club member to avoid any possibilities of a dispute somewhere down the line.
People mentioned adding better features (calenders etc) as a possibility as part of a move, and I would say if anyone does want to spearhead this they should get a demonstration forum up and running which could be evaluated by us forum users.

Teflon Billy

annoyinglizardvoice

Ad-blockers can be switched off to view the forums, so I don't see any real problem with keeping things as they are.
Personally, I'd rather the group didn't spend any money on changes, regardless of wether we change or not.

Gileh

Just a note on Java Script- I can't disable it on my version of Chrome. and I can't vouch for any other browser, But I still think it's a worthy use of club funds.

No ads is the most secure option, because it doesn't depend on technical competence to ensure it works.

Jimmy

Gileh

v. 8.0.552.224 But the point is why should I be releid upon to have the latest version (if my computer can support it) and teh techinical know how to selectively disable java script? And what if I don't use a browser with that option?

paz

I have set up an ad-free test forum using MyBB on some crummy free hosting that I have; it was very easy. The next step is to set something up on hosting that's a bit more robust.

PM me for the URL if you want to have a play with it.

Shaphron

I put forward the idea of hosting the club's site, including a forum, on my company's hosting. As it's a company, and not mine personally, if I do fall out with the club in the future the worst which would happen is you'd have to start paying for the hosting (currently £37 a year). While I'm in the club I'd give you guys free hosting so long as I get to play about making the forum and maybe designing the site a bit differently, so we could use it in our portfolio.

I've got an unused domain at ukroleplay.co.uk (bought for a project I haven't completed yet) so I'll make up a copy of our current site and install a forum on there, and you can see if you like it. If you do decide it works, I'll need to talk to paz about changing the hosting for chestergames.co.uk, then I'll move stuff over. Personally, I'm for not bothering moving our history, and not paying the £60 odd for it.

I'll let you guys know when I've got up a trial site you can look at!

paz

That sounds good to me. Any chance it could by MyBB, rather than phpBB?

Let me know if you want me to point test.chestergames.co.uk (or similar) somewhere, either as an A record or CNAME.

Given that this forum will stay here for as long as we need it, I don't see the need to bring our old messages across.

Milly

Any further discussions been done on this?

Teflon Billy

Just got a warning about possible Malware (using Chrome):

Chestergames.myfreeforum.org contains content from nalmeron.cz.cc a site known to distribute malware. Your computer might catch a virus if you visit this site

Googling around a bit, the suggestion seems to be that it may be a rogue ad (or Google being over-sensitive).

As it doesn't look like the moving thing is happening, it may be an idea to do the no-ads thing.

xorsyst

I'm still of the opinion that it's a waste of club money - the site works fine if you disable javascript. And frankly, it's not that important a resource, is it? It's used for vague chat, and occasional important messages, the later of which could be handled by the facebook group or email.

paz

Shell's now set up a test forum which I'm going to look at over the next couple of days. Expect a resolution soon.

Teflon Billy

dead

Did you come up with the various options? Will try and speak to you tonight.

Ian

Milly

*poke*

dead

Shaphron

I have got everything ready to do - should take maybe an hour to get new site / forums up and running. But Paz needs to change the IPS tag on the current chestergames.co.uk domain - I can't do anything until he does. I've sent him 2 emails about this - I haven't heard back...

Thought I'd update you all. Is Paz OK?