What’s wrong with this picture?
Maybe this has been discussed before and I missed it - but it seems to me that as an art site we should have the flexibility to post images that take up more than half of a modestly sized screen.
Perhaps the sidebar ad could be eliminated? We’re already getting them in the middle of threads.
I don’t get that. Which version of Firefox are you running?
I get the exact opposite, I can only see part of the ad. FF3
I get that problem in IE.
As far as removing the ads goes, it won’t happen. I’m certain the owners have made a careful study of how much is made from where ads are placed, and have decided that this is the optimal arrangement. I for one don’t mind - it’s a great website, so I do my part and give a few clicks. If the image is covered, you could just link to an external site. This site is dependant on ad revenue, so I’d rather have a small inconvenience sometimes than not have it at all.
freen - 5.0
3dmedieval - Well that strikes me as not a very good way to run a business, if ba.org is a business.
It is a business. Be sure of that. It may not be the primary $ earner for whoever owns it, but it’s a business. There is no other reason to run it…Some people are magnanimous, and offer free content with no ads etc., but this is a big site, with lots of maintenance issues. Blender itself is free, but not really. The liscense was paid for. There are ads on the blender site as well. It’s not that BA is running the business poorly…it’s not really for us to judge. They have to put the $$ first, so that they can keep the site up. At least they don’t have annoying pop-ups etc. It could be a lot worse. I don’t care really. I like the site, and it’s beneficial to me, so I just accept the occasional annoyance. It’s actually on of the most user friendly sites I’ve ever used. What I’m saying is that BA has analyzed the site, traffic and ads, and have determined that this format works best. They make money, and people use and enjoy the site. It just has to be a compromise. And it is, in my opinion, a good compromise. So I don’t mean to lecture or anything, but I see that you’ve posted 698 times, so the site must not annoy you that much. It just is what it is…
that doesn’t happen with Safari
Here’s what I see looking at this very topic:
Yes, the picture of the ad covering the image is itself covering an advert. Strange.
3dmedieval
it’s maybe a good idea to adopt the classic advice, “roll your tong in your mouth, at least three times, before speaking”, maybe?!
At least one sentence is false:
“There are ads on the blender site as well.”
And the others are not far I guess ( not sure, I’m only a basic mod, that, for sure, don’t earn money, from this site!).
Anyway, the overall post have a “slander flavor”, you should be more careful, I think!
M@dcow - That’s not what I was seeing. If it’s a browser specific issue, perhaps it’s one the owners would like to be aware of?
3dmedieval - I’m here because Blender is free software. If I wanted to be all corporate like, I’d go back to Maya. If ba.org is all about the $'s (or euro’s as it may be) and not the community, then yeah that would take a lot of the enjoyment of this place away for me and I probably would stop posting here.
This really isn’t the place to talk about this. There is a support section for such discussions. But since we are here. I do wish they would consider a paid membership plan. That would get rid of advertising for paid members and offer some storage space for things like videos, etc. But I realize that would open up an administration “can of worms”, but it is still something I think many would appreciate.
Why do you think I’m slandering anyone? That makes no sense. I said that I really like the site and that the ads are necessary to earn money to keep the site up and running. I see no slander there…If you’d like everyone to stop clicking the ads, then let us all know. I’m saying they are there for a reason. If anyone here believes that you everything good in the world has to be absolutely free of advertising and $, then I’m afraid you’ve got a skewed view. It all costs money. Advertising is a great way for us to support the site without actually spending money. It’s a win win situation. Slander???And i did not say that BA was all about the money. But it is a business. That’s not a bad thing. It’s not an evil corporation or anything. I just don’t understand why it’s so hard to understand that this site needs money to keep it going…
Ah, that might be the problem, I’m only running version 3.0
Dunno, man. None of this is free. It costs money to host websites. Blender.org doesn’t have ads, but it does have an e-shop.
BA is about the community, but it needs the ad dollars to keep going. Your complaints would maybe carry more weight if you were a “donating member”.
Perhaps the better way to go when you want to post large images is to post them as attachments, so people get a thumbnail which they click to enlarge.
That way people see the image ad free, but BA gets its ad revenue to pay the bills.
Nichod - You’re right, it should be in the “website and forum” section. I hadn’t noticed that section before, but there’s quite a lot of them for it to get lost in. I have no problem with this thread being moved there.
3dmedieval - My impression of your comments is that the ad placement is about maximizing profit not paying the bills.
I think the real problem here is that, like a lot of other sites at the moment, blenderartists.org is simply unaware of the existence of WIDESCREEN monitors. Attention webdesigners: stop designing your page with the assumption that everyone has a monitor aspect ratio of 4:3. More people everyday are buying widescreen LCDs, and alot of those are 16:9 or 16:10. Wasting between a quarter and a third of my screenspace with an empty area is not good webdesign.
And yes, the ads are here to offset the cost of running the site, and if they make a little extra to make up for the time spent administrating and maintaining the site, good on them 
3dmedieval
apparently you don’t care for advices?!
Instead of writing statements that probably you’re not aware off, you can contact directly “goofster”, the site administrator, and ask him how much money he needs to run the site!
Then you make a donation of that amount, and probably adds ( and “business”) will stop!
oto - I don’t care if the ads stop. That’s my point. They don’t bother me. I hope he gets rich from them. It’s a great site.
Now we are at the crux of the matter. You don’t like the word “business”. It’s not a negative thing. I don’t unerstand why you see it that way. Please understand this: Sometimes people do things that they love and make a good living from them. All businesses are not evil. Look man, I use Google ads on my tiny site and make maybe $75/ month. There are thousands of members here, and more join every day. He’s got a good thing going, and I hope he’s able to make a living from it. Why is that a bad thing!!!
Jeremy Ray - why on earth would the owner not want to maximize profits? Why is that bad? Do you not think that this site is really well done? Are the ads that intrusive?
Making money - even a lot of it - and providing a valuable service that you are passionate about can go hand in hand. I own a business, and it’s what I love to do. I’m not an evil corporation, and yet I make money doing it. It is possible…
Well, I’m off to click an ad…is that bad?
It’s true, I have no idea how much this guy makes. It’s none of my business. I just don’t understand why I can compliment the site up and down, tell you that I click on the ads, and hope that the admin makes a great profit, and get worked over for it! Confused…
Let me make this clear, I’m not against having ads to cover operating expenses.
However they are at best a necessary evil and intrusive. Usually they don’t bother me too much, in this case however they were very highly intrusive, and it is as a result, as nuBlend correctly pointed out, of web design that doesn’t take into account the size and format of screens people are using in 2008. BA.org appears to be designed for 1024 x 768-ish on a 17" or 19" CRT. While there may be n00bs running that resolution the serious artists here are probably running widescreens in the 20"+ range. Why design the site so people with good equipment can only use part of their screen? It’s not just having ads on the right side that is wrong, all the sidebar stuff on the right side is wrong.
As far as what constitutes good business practices goes, take a look at Google’s home page versus Yahoo’s. Google’s policy was to not put anything on the search screen that interfered with the user experience - Yahoo became ad city. Google won, Yahoo lost.
If the goal here is for ba.org to be a for-maximum-profit business for one person, then yes, I find that offensive. The forum itself has little value. The value comes from the people using the forum. Who owns the posts made here? Over at Slashdot they correctly decided that the posters own their posts. No doubt the issue has never been raised here, because no one else thought of running ba.org for maximum profit rather than community benefit. Or never noticed, if it’s truly the case that ba.org exists for the maximum profit of a businessman. If that really is the case, then I think the posters deserve a piece of that profit, since they add the most value to the site. And the software exists to do so, it was developed in part for my movie project.
This might actually be a smart way to go since it would reward people like Brecht, PapaSmurf, Kai Kostack etc. and perhaps give them the financial ability to spend more time on Blender development/documentation. If it was done with the community-oriented spirit of the free software movement, then I could get behind the commercialization of ba.org.
hmmm. I think the solution is that your image was too big. Most forums have a dimensions limit. I don’t think BA does. I’d say keep your images reasonable and problem solved. Its also worth noting that at least 50-60% of all users have a screen resolution of 1024x768 or lower. I am one of those. And I am a serious artist. Thank you. The fact of the matter is that BA needs funds to maintain itself. And that it needs to cater to all users (iphone, laptop, widescreen, etc). They chose a design they thought was best. How about we keep this conversation civil and not get all angry about it. And making assumptions is never a good idea. You’ve made a suggestion and I think a fluid design would be a good idea. Until changes do happen just watch you image resolution. Perhaps its time the mods lock this thread. The point has been stated.