I’m having the same issue.
I have to close the bottom ad in order to click the reply button on this post. I can see it, but I can’t click it until I close the ad.
ETA: this is on a laptop using Chrome.
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I’m thinking we need to just kill the ad unit on the bottom, it’s too frustrating.
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On thread pages, you could put an ad below the thread content and reply, etc. buttons just above the “Suggested topics” section. Then it won’t block anything.
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We already killed the in-line ads because them loading was making the content jump around as you scrolled, because essentially javascript is fighting javascript.
Pop-over ads are better earning but about 5x and don’t have the frustrating jumpyness for the page but it’s too annoying and there’s nowhere to put them, esp on mobile, which is how 80% of people view the site.
Honestly, I’m not sure this whole ad thing is worth it. It’s been four days and user experience sucks despite me saying that is all I care about. The demo they put together for me had none of these issues because it wasn’t live.
I have far less control to fix things because an external ad network is in control of the ads, which was originally the goal. I didn’t want to have to sell ads myself because that’s a big undertaking and not worth the legwork myself, but this is very frustrating.
The reason that forums like BB forums can work with programmatic ads a bit better is that they’re static pages loading rather than dynamic (javascript).
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Honestly I’m about this close to just torching this whole experiment. Programmatic ads are not where it’s at. This is not worth the extra $200-$400 a month and not in keeping with the goals I set out with the network.
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They’re probably counting the server-side interactions, not actually what you would see.
I mean, there’s only 2 ad units (one at the top, one at the bottom). But they will change and reload each time you move to a new thread and about every 5 minutes you’re on the page until you dismiss them.
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I’m a shitty friend and don’t support you on patreon (100% because of “figuring out new website” inertia). Anyway, isn’t there a patreon only subsection? Maybe it would be easier just to advertise/incentive that or something? It would pretty quickly offset running costs if people who use alllll the photo storage (aka ME, I am talking about me) were to back you, lol.
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All of our existing ad units currently advertise patreon and have done for ages, that’s been our business model as long as the forums have been around:
Of course the patron ad-blocking bit of the forum seems to not work, even though it’s a standard feature.
This just feels like there’s no ethical or responsible way to do display advertising without literally creating my own ad network from scratch and going into ad sales again. This feels exactly like what I went through with my podcast ad network…
Well, when everyone says “why not just do ads” I will say HAHAHAHAHAH
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I’ll be honest, I disabled my adblocker on the first day (because why not support?) but then reenabled it like a day later because it was too much. If somehow BJ’s suggestion could work (like… show ads based on Patreon status? Or rather, NON Patreon status…) I only send a couple bucks each month via Patreon and I feel like everyone could send 2 or 3 dollars it would make a big difference… (I know, it’s a difficult thing getting people to separate from their money).
ETA: yeah, ad blocking for Patrons seems to not be working, because I’m getting them.
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That’s the thing though, I have 2 ad units. It’s the bare minimum possible. But the usability issues are frustrating.
Yes, this is the fault of the Patron plugin for the ad, and I have opened a support ticket with them. This is a known issue apparently.
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Oh, I don’t mean too many on the page, just too much for my brain jumping around and such.
(Desktop isn’t that bad though, and that’s how I mostly engage. Mobile is terrible. But you already know that.)
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Patrons currently offset running costs (they are about $300 a month between software, hosting, and storage), but the goal was to get more money to pay more contributors and people who work on the site. I mean, I can do a lot with another $2,500-$5,000 a year. The goal essentially was to tackle the low-hanging fruit. But this is not worth it.
There’s another tactic, which means making my own ad units for referral ads (for things like credit card bonuses, etc), and they can be static and I can design them myself.
There’s no way to ethically make money online I feel like 
other than selling physical products. Who would’ve believed widget capitalism is the best way.
Yes, I am aware of the issues. Which were EXACTLY THE ISSUES I WORRIED ABOUT WHEN I FIRST TALKED TO THE NETWORK 5 MONTHS AGO.
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Also y’all from an admin perspective, this is how many errors I’m getting now that the forums have programmatic ads.
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I appreciate you giving this your attention and I fully support trying to figure out a way to have adds without it totally disrupting usability.
Just FYI that the bottom adds are changing every ~30 seconds on my screen, not every 5 minutes like you mentioned upthread. Just in typing this I’ve seen 3 different adds.
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I’m fine with ads on a free forum tho 
it’s not gonna scare me off
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I’m fine with ads. If the ads could be 1) blocked for patrons 2) not drastically reduce usability.
I had an idea to start a privacy-focused ad network for Personal Finance publishers and now I’m like “yes, I’ll do that instead of everything else”
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I get 3 about 25% of the time, or with blank third spot another like 50% of the time. They also reload more like on a 30 second cycle, like mentioned above- and they compress and expand with each reload. It’s basically continuous movement on my screen at all times with the text changing position nearly constantly as I read.
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If you close the X for the blue pop up you will only get 2
Are you on the app or a browser? Which browser? This is good for reporting to them. I am on mobile and am
Not having that behavior so I can report the difference.
Just so people know, I cannot just turn off the ads myself otherwise I would’ve
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