Advertising on Railroad.net

[charlie6017]

Hey MEC407 and others as well,

These are the add-ons I am running with Firefox:

Ad-block Plus V2.0.3

Ad-block Plus Pop-up Add-on V0.3

The combination of these two works great!

And Jeff, thanks for the work that you do here. I sure know you have been a
sounding board for all of this in addition to all you do on here. I would say that
it must not be an enviable position. Thanks again.

Charlie

[Jeff Smith]

it must not be an enviable position. Thanks again.

Charlie

No Charlie, thanks to you and the 99.99% of the members who make this job a joy most of the time. For the most part, I enjoy it. On the other hand....

Let's just say I know how Otto must have felt after all those years, and how much more he must enjoy it now. Although I can't speak for him.

[ApproachMedium]

My we comes from a few friends locally that I hang out with who are all members of this site. Quite a group of us and we have discussed it. I also get the popup more than once a day. Maybe it happens once a day on IE, but it seems anytime I have a new instance of chrome or opera open after closing one I previously viewed the site in, I will get a new one.

And thanks for the suggestion for browsers but I like what I use for a reason. We all have our reasons/opinions and as a tech guy I deal with enough problems with firefox with two of my clients I dont want to deal with them on my personal time also. Ill deal with the pop unders then as it does not seem like its going to change.

[rslitman]

I think I have figured out the timing of the pop-ups.

It's based on a 24-hour period, per device, not per sign-on. If I get on here at 11:00 p.m. using my "real" computer running Internet Explorer and get a pop-up ad, and then I get on for my daily session the next day at 8:00 p.m., I won't get a pop-up that day. Of course, I'll get one on day 3.

On the other hand, if, on day 2, I also get on using my Android smartphone after not having been on for a couple of days, I will get the pop-up ad.

It is extremely difficult to get the pop-up out of the way when using my Android device, and sometimes I have accidentally clicked on the ad instead of the close box. This means that the owner may get some click-through revenue, and I may be inadvertantly building up his confidence in this as a moneymaker.

[rslitman]

The worse to me were the gum gum picture ads

While I was glad to see them go, I'd welcome them back with open arms if it meant the disappearance of the pop-ups!

[charlie6017]

Then why don't you try Firefox with the add-ons I mentioned previously, at least for your regular computer?

[ApproachMedium]

The worse to me were the gum gum picture ads

While I was glad to see them go, I'd welcome them back with open arms if it meant the disappearance of the pop-ups!

The gum gums would be fine if when you clicked the photo it opened in a new window, and not just made the photo larger with a larger ad, or opening the ad. I recall it doing one of the two which was why they were super annoying.

[Jeff Smith]

Approach, thanks for clarifying. RSLITMAN, like the signature .

I've gotten the pop-ups on my IPhone; I just select the Safari window and close. If Android was like Palm, I would just swipe over (I had a Pre before the IPhone) and x-out of it.

I know it's a hassle, and I know others have their own pet peeves, but to me it's the lesser of two evils. It's not my call, I'm just the intermediary.

[rslitman]

The 30 days are up, and I got a pop-up last night. (Remember, I have determined that they show up if it's been > 24 hours since the last one.) So, I guess they are here to stay.

(I absolutely detest emoticons, but following that last sentence is one of the closest I've ever come to using a "frownie" face.)

[Patrick Boylan]

Rather consistently for a while so far, when I first go to rr.net, default is the forum page, Firefox gives me a message bar that it's blocked a popup. When I click on a forum I then get a popup ad, then no more popups during my visit.

[rslitman]

Rather consistently for a while so far, when I first go to rr.net, default is the forum page, Firefox gives me a message bar that it's blocked a popup. When I click on a forum I then get a popup ad, then no more popups during my visit.

Even one pop-up for me is one pop-up too many.

I had been counting the days until the 30 days were up, but they have come and gone, and the pop-ups are STILL HERE.

Please, when are they going to go away?

[ApproachMedium]

Something I have been meaning to add to the list here. Im pretty sure they sold our emails. Who else seems to get a boatload of spam they never have gotten before, but it only seems to hit the inbox around the same time the railroad.net topic replys come in?

Im still seriously interested in a system like many other sites where you can opt in to pay a yearly donation and have minimal/no ads. My Yahoo mail I pay $20 a year to have zero ads and unlimited access to my email from any pop/imap program.

[Patrick Boylan]

It may be too late for you if rr.net has already gotten your real email address, but I gave them my secondary hotmail account, which I use for every forum, blog, MyFace account, etc..., so I don't care what spam it gets.
I reserve my real email address for those folks whom I'm reasonably sure won't bother spamming me. Nothing's perfect, but my secondary account gets emails from about 20 unrecognized addresses per day, my real address, which I've used for 5 years, gets from maybe 1 unrecognized email address per week.

[MEC407]

Knock on wood, I haven't seen any increase in spam since railroad.net changed hands and started having more ads on the site. I get anywhere from 1 to 5 spam messages a day, which was the same amount I got in the Mike & Otto days.

That said, maybe Jeff can check with the owners and see if they're selling member email addresses. I hope they're not. If they are, they really need to tell us, issue an updated privacy policy, and give members the option to opt out. There are legal ramifications, which I would hope/assume they are already aware of.

[Jeff Smith]

1. Pop-ups are not going away, rslitman. Do you know how many articles I link on here that give me pop-ups when I go to their site? We have one a day. If I got direct to messages or moderator control panel I don't get the pop up at all. I'm sorry you feel personally offended by a single pop-up on a free site.

2. I have not gotten any more spam than I normally get, certainly not railroad-related. I use a Yahoo! address for my registration here. If you're getting spammed, it's likely from something else you signed up for. This reminds me of a time I sent out a blast email, not long after the new owner took over, to our members. I got one back from some Doctor (you would have thought it would be a l (itawyer) telling me how dare I "spam" him. It was a message from the owner; is that spam? Not really. He demanded to know how I got his email address. I looked up his profile; he had posted a query on here. I sent him the link to it. Never heard from him again.

3. That said, it's not my place to recommend how people should register for the site. FWIW I have dedicated emails for several different purposes. Patrick's recommendation is good.

4. Approach, you may have a spambot on your computer. Most AV softwares come with a spambot tool. I suggest if you haven't run it recently you do so. I run mine a few times a week. If you notice the spam comes piggybacked onto a topic notification, it may be looking for that. Or it may be a coincidence; I don't know what type of spam you're getting.

5. I still clean out almost 500 spam registrations a day. It's a huge pain. If you ever get a message from a user you don't recognize, don't open it, don't email, etc. Spammers should not survive past their first post or registration (I prune daily for zero posts).