Advertisement is not the same thing.
I consider it as pollution.
I put my tele away because of this,I only buy
newspapers without advertisemenrs(not much choise)

Ask yourself where is that money coming from.
Well, it's mainly coming from poor people
whose mind got manipulated for ripping them
off.

There's no free lunch

But it's your site and it's up to you.

I am not really an advocate of ads but since they are a fact of life in this corporate world I see no real problem

Just avoid the ones that blink and move and I won't complain too much.

Cheers.

TomW

The Truth is the Truth, even if no one believes it; and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it

  As long as it mild and doesn't contain a page full of pop up windows, tracking cookies out the butt and a non reversable back button.   All of the above simply brings me to the brink of total anger.   Once I visit a site like that It simply goes on my black list and I never go back.  Passive advertizing is fine, agressive advertizing on the other hand will never get my attention.

If it gets too bad you can always optout.
Off-Topic, but have you thought of mirror servers not directly located at home base?
I have in the past hosted a mirror for a friend who is a Linux guru and would be more than willing to mirror for the forum.
Let me know and I can give you the specifics of my old HP-netserver system if you like.
I would hate to see such a great resource start having advertisement in the banners. I would go as far as too PAY a annual dues if necessary to keep this site from having those D#^^&m ads off here.

Alternative energy users - including both the actual buyers of the products you sell and the experienced users who provide helpful postings and answers to questions - tend to live in remote locations where only dialup is available.  So adding ads is likely to affect them adversely - just as the large pictures did so recently.

When making a business decision on this you need to weigh the increased revenue from the ads against the potential loss of business from users who never get "hooked" by the BBS - due to their own difficulty in browsing it, or due to the loss of help from experienced RE users who might bail out.  The former is easy to quantify, the latter much more difficult.

I see the ultimate solution as a subscription service for the regular users, which turns off the google ads. Might need another sweetener in the pot, don't know what though.

I presume wondermagnet.com is set up for credit card payments over the net? Just need one more boolean field in the database for the user (subscribed yes/no) and an "if" statement in front of the google-ad code.

If you could keep the ads in a darker color then your sites' font & no strobing dayglo gifs go for it, though the tracking could be embarassing when we show off your website on our home computers and the ads' fuzzy logic have nailed our weaknesses... Viewing another persons photo albums and having 5 ads for septic field rehab and basement water-proofing pop up made me wonder if they (thus their pix audience) had been targeted via their referring website info, etc...

Been printing articles like crazy, for fear of not knowing....

This site is priceless Dan.....the information within should be put in a book...

I would hate for this site to ever go down....

your site, your decision.

only suggest you keep your finger on it so what i call junk (products like the air-x and crappy misleading products) are not advertised here, so people don't get mislead because of the honest nature of this site.

i would prefer not to see any advertising at all.  i would also be very happy to offer a yearly fee to be a member of this site, to help offset the costs here (hope no one shoots me for saying that)

do what you have to, most of us will accept it.

In my opinion, those ads are small, and unobtrusive so I'd let them stay.

I do like that this is a free resource for us RE enthus's out here and if that brings in enough revenue to hel defray the costs to keep it running (and free), let 'er fly!

Doug.

However,

Point 1.
From the perspective of your trial ads as against download time, they are of no significance at all. It takes longer to load the side bars in the left hand side than it did for the ads by google. I suspect that i'm at the slowest  place in the whole world, and i can assure you it is of no consequence.

Point 2.
Anything you do decide will have little consequence to the members if the ads are at the top of the page, as we will never see them coz we are too busy reading the posts..... so no intrusion as far as I can see.

Point 3.
If it helps to keep this resource on the air, then just do it. A tiny inconvenience And a resource, is worlds ahead of no inconvenience and No resource.

Point 4.
It is selfish for any members to expect that you should suffer any hardship to keep this site up, if it can be eased in this.

So thats the view from slow down below

From my personal perspective, this site has been a tremendous resource in my pursuit of RE. The knowledge base that resides here, yourself, Nando, Flux, Windstuff ED, and countless others from all over the world, is a resource and friendship that is unequalled. I can't tell you how many people I have referred to your site when they ask about RE. There is a very loyal following of people that crave new information, and want to hear about other's personal experiences.

The biggest threat to this site is if you can no longer afford the costs and the time to keep it going. That would be a tragedy. If adds can prevent that, so be it. If subscription dues prevent that, so be that too. If this site goes away, the entire RE community will lose a very valuable resource, that speaks the truth and exposes the hype, and gives everyone a chance to speak their mind.

I hope that everyone understands what is at stake here, and support the Dans - no matter what it takes.

For my part if FieldLines were a paid subscription service I would NOT Hesitate to pay upto $25 USD per year to be a member (Even with Ads), simply because of the value of the "Collective Intelligence" of the community...

The trend of GoogleAds has definately changed the landscape of the web, such that I actually notice websites that have no ads... I too thought that I may as well cash-in & even went so far as to register theworkshop.ca for a GoogleAds account... Ultimately I opted Not to implement the ads as it occured to me that my motivation in creating that site was never to generate revenue, and I was concerned that I may be starting down a road that would influence the content and/or style...

The Web itself is a curious phenomenon in that it provides a unique environment for expression to a broad audience offering a diversity of content so wide I can't think of an adequate analogy. With the addition of the advertising market I think that there is a possibility that overtime the potential for such services to implement a "Code of Conduct" or "Guidlines for Content" is such that the earlier spirit of expression that typified the web would be watered down to a bland pap for the masses.

A couple of technical "downside" notes and issues --

I have watched a couple of sites I tend to visit (sftt.org -- military has-been sort of site and whatreallyhappened.com -- yeah, I am a mild conspiracy nut :) ) had some problems when they started google adsense.  The first site would lock on Mozilla/Firefox, and second on windows Internet Exploder.  I think it was a time-out problem when the ad server (the second server where the ads are generated from) -- Anyway, they would tend to lock-up the visitor's machine and cause a total dump from the internet.  Not a way to make your site popular.  I do not know how (if) these were resolved or fixed, but they are both very recent bugs.

While the text feature of the google ads are nice for bandwidth and have no obnoxious flash features, they cannot be "shut-off" through the browser preference option of "do not load images."  So if they are on the site, they get loaded.

I have also noticed that some sites that use them get inadvertent results.  Not that google is trying to use bad content at all -- it all just operates on a mindless machine model. I have observed their bad placement model on a pharmacy drug risk site "advertising" (through google automation) the same drugs the site is stating warnings and cautions against . . .  and another one that was so funny, I sent the screenshot image file to the advertiser.  It was for luxury cruises placed next to a news story of people getting sick and dying on . . . cruises. :) :)  Not where you want to see your ad.

How about adding small icons advertising your products with weekly specials such as on magnets or wire on each page? Just an idea. :)

On the other hand, I'm on a 48K dial-up and would not like to see the ads because of that. I'd rather spend money on a subscription or make donations or spend the money directly on your products to keep the site up.

If you do put ads on your site, it will not keep me from reading the posts or buying supplies from your other site. The info gained here is just too valuable.

Please do whatever you think it takes to keep the site alive and food on the table.

Many thanks to the Dan's for requesting our comments
concerning this issue. I agree fully with both what
Mr Wind Pirate and Mr Zubbly and others have mentioned.

It is your decision - as "site holders and administrators"
- I am sure that all will favourably respond to whatever
final decision you make.

The most important is that this site be maintained as a
vital - free and open site for qualified information,
assistance and exchange of ideas - for the benefit of all
friends and colleagues - in all countries and situations.

Whether this requires a subscription from a nucleus group
of members - or through the proposed cooperation agreement
with "google" or through a combination of both is possibly
a question to be considered

Well, I cannot open that test page from here in FireFox at all. It pops up in internet exploder right now. FF 1.04 on Mac OS X. Pretty tight privacy settings no javascript, etc. Just a heads up that you may cause problems for some users in specific situations.

The text ads looked ok I guess in exploder not obnoxious.

Please forget you saw me admit to ever using M$ I feel so dirty....

Cheers.

TomW

The Truth is the Truth, even if no one believes it; and a lie is a lie even if everyone believes it

As a long time lurker who is just beginning to get to the point where I can start experimenting with RE, you have finally brought up a topic where I can comment with some knowledge.

AdSense really is a Good Thing for small websites. Not knowing the traffic levels here or what ads in the RE field pay out, it is hard to say what you will bring in. Worst case you will almost certainly cover your hosting and a few pizzas. Best case you could greatly increase your R&D budget and come up with some more wonderful ideas to share.

Google takes their AdSense TOS seriously, and you will be responsible for everything that goes on the site. In fact, there might be comments to this story that would violate the TOS and they will need to be deleted before you put ads on this page.

As an example, what I am about to write WILL need to be deleted because of what I am about to explain

You cannot encourage anyone to click on any of the ads. You cannot allow any of the users to discuss clicking on the ads. If someone posts "Just check out the ads that pop up to help you find one" you will need to delete that comment. And since I just said that, you will need to delete this comment.

You cannot allow discussion of helping you out by clicking on ads. That is a bad thing as well. Even if someone mentions that it should not be done, that is against the TOS.

Ad placement is important as well. Being somewhat unobtrusive is fine, but hiding it below the fold doesn't do anyone any good either. If you are serving up relevant ads, then it is in the user's interest to see them.

In general I think that ads by for example 'Google' would make quite complex restrictions on the site as the previous writer told. This site would not be 'free' after those ads, but the people putting there ads would like to have influence on the contents of the discussion. It might also mean that you would loose several of the contributors for this site.

The important issue is that you are now using so much of your time to run this site that probably must get some kind of income for running it. It is maybe worth of trying to find also other solutions how to run this site without money or making money to be able to run it.

---

1)

One possibility is that you could maybe find volunteers to do the administration.

a)
Somebody in a rather similar position as you were with your business some three - four years ago, might be willing to do the administration free for some time, because she/he would get so much benefit by learning from the site that she/he would do the administration to increase her/his business by doing it.

b)
Somebody studying the renewable energy field at an educational institute might be willing to do the administration for the reason to learn this stuff.

c)
Somebody, a retired person maybe, might be willing to do the administration free, because of not in the need of more money and thinking that it is the best way to utilize her/his time.

d)
There could be a network of people, who would do the administration free together so that nobody would need to invest too much time in it.

e)
??? There are certainly more ideas within the people.

2)

There might be other ideas how to make money by running the site.

a)
If 'Classifieds' would be utilized effective ways that might create money. There are certainly quite many people reading this site and for that reason 'Classifieds' is a good place sell the stuff, many people would see the ad. You might put a fee for putting an ad on 'Classifieds'. 8% - 10% of the price of the goods would go to the site? 'Classifieds' could be changed into a commercial part of the site. People, who don't like business wouldn't need to read it.

b)
There are certainly other businesses besides Yours, which have learned a lot by this discussion.

Maybe some other people doing small business on the renewable energy field would come to help You with administration/money. Maybe people like 'WindstuffEd', 'Jerry', 'windcruiser'...

c)
Maybe You/we could work out cdroms using the information available here to be sold to make money to run the site. For many people it is worth of paying 20$ - 50$ to get the information home on a cd rather than paying for the bandwidth to search and download the information.

d)
??? other ideas?

 I'd rather send you $20 to just support the forum a bit and you place ads for stuff you sell, instead of random junk from elsewhere.
 Ads can be a good thing, that's how I found out about DVD-R printable disks and $1,000 disk printers years ago, then built my own disk printer for less than $50. That was before Epson had the $200 disk printers.
 Most of the time ads are not that good though for anything. How many clicks or whatever do you need to get that $20 I'd happily donate? Can you control the ads we see or are they just random whatevers from anywhere?

Personnally I think a far better idea would be to make a rough DVD to sell. Basically just video the building of the gennies with a DV camcorder, explain what parts are and how they are built. What this part is, where it goes, what it does type stuff. Nothing super fancy, just build the gennie as normall and record it, 1 piece at a time.
 Holywood quality is not needed, this is homebrew work so why not a homebrew DVD :)
 If quality turns out perfect fine, but rough edges permitted!

I would pay $20 for it myself! If there is enough traffic here on this site to make any decent money with ads then I am sure a $10-$20 DVD would make far MORE money!! Ads cannot be sold on E-bay either, DVD's can :)

Add a banner or link here for the DVD, add it to products at Wondermagnet, add it to Otherpower, sell on ebay, etc...
I am 98% sure it would bring in far more money! Heck sell it on TV if it turns out good enough! You already build the gennies, you don't need to dig the gold mine, your sitting on the nugets! Just pick them up and cash them in!

Any interest about this and want info, e-mail me!
I could probably do everything but the video taping, even get commercail disks pressed.
  I used to do such things but it's been awhile.
.
nothing to lose

I'm in the business, so I might be able to find you some cheaper tier-1 hosting...
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