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Advertising Rules: A rant


Rune
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The feeling behind this rant speaks to my soul.

 

And this is also part of the reason why I've completely given up on posting ads in advertising boards on sites. 

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I have absolutely never understood why people would expect people to use forms to advertise. 

 

A listing? Maybe. But an ad?  Should be nice and simple. 

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I feel like I should be trolling you now @Rune I don't know why but obscure cBox trolling as an innocuous guest named "MorrGuest" just so you don't know it's me.

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I remember when I was advertising my site when it was in its proboards incarnation coming across a similar issue with a certain jcink resource site. They complained in my c-box because the code was broken. (The code was fine - if jcink used bbcode like all the other forum software instead of dohtml there would have been no problem with the code.) But it is silly and I no longer bother with the site at all. If staff on a site are so up tight about ad rules then there is no reason why you should be there and there is a reason why I prefer the Initiative over others. You guys aren't up tight about things and you don't require info that's irrelevant. Initially, I had a mandatory form for ads, but then I noticed that people weren't using it and just made it optional - it's not worth the aggro to go around alienating yourself to other members of the community by being up tight about this sort of thing (and making rules as simple as possible cuts down on conflicts.)

 

I did know which resource forum it was which had the 'issue' and they used the Guest rather than giving a name so I had no idea who I was talking to, which I thought was a bit cowardly. (And it's a silly way of doing it anyway because if they had been upfront about the member of staff who posted it, I would have known it wasn't a troll trying to cause problems - trying to be anon may have just turned out to be a troll attempting to cause trouble for their own amusement between my site and theirs.) But in the end, it doesn't matter because they ended up losing a potential member and someone who would have been happy to have their button on their site.

 

(If it is the same site that I had a problem with, they probably realized that their c-box posting without revealing who the staff was who was posting it was causing them to lose potential members, which might have been why they didn't say which site they were from. They also didn't bother posting a link to their site so when they demanded that I 'fix it' it caused another layer of messing around trying to find them as I'd been doing quite a bit of advertising that day. It wasn't worth bothering with.)

Edited by Icewolf
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I'm a stickler for rules. Also, I only have 1 rule: if you're linking back, mark the damned thread so that you don't get a second ad from us by accident. (I figure "don't be obscene" isn't needed to be spelled out). 

 

I delete anything that is either broken or against this rule, and usually wait until the third time an advertiser misses the big red lettering in their face as they click into the ad board before going to their site and saying, "hey dudes, the reason our site keeps deleting you is because you didn't follow the giant size text at the top of the page. This is a requirement, not a suggestion". 

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Advertising is my personal nightmare. I write horrible ads. I either put too much information or too little information in them. Bleh!

 

I do love how RPG-Initiative does it and we have advertised the western RPG on a few resource sites. However, once we can attract a couple more people, I will definitely only maintain my ad status here. My sites will happily host someone's button as long as their roleplay isn't pure porn. Beyond that, we will never offer advertising on our site because I don't want to deal with it. Periodically, we'll click on our buttons to make sure the code isn't broken and that the site isn't offline or dead.

 

Beyond that, we're an RPG site and that's what I want us to focus on being. This isn't a dig at RPG sites that offer advertising. We're just too small and it would take up more time than I want to spend is all.

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Someone somewhere went to sleep and dreamed us all alive.
Dreams get pushed around a lot, and I doubt if we'll survive.
We won't get to wake up, dreams were born to disappear.
And I'm pretty sure that none of us are here.
~ None of Us Here by Jim Stafford ~

 

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RPG-Initiative

*your one-stop RPG resource site!

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1 hour ago, Stormwolfe said:

Advertising is my personal nightmare. I write horrible ads. I either put too much information or too little information in them. Bleh!

 

 

I've got a pretty simple guide to advertising in my blogs somewhere. Included is what you need in an ad. I intend to do another on what to include/what not to include as well.

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In the grand scheme of life, advertising rules fit somewhere between the 7th century Asian history and the force of gravity on Saturn in terms of things for me to fret over. Important in their own right but not something that should induce aneurisms in people. I used to get frustrated when people broke my advertising rules, but I've come to accept that all of us more or less are in a huge hurry to post as many ads as we can in our limited amount of time, and reading a unique set of rules for each forum of copying/pasting a unique template for each site is something that can and will be overlooked on a frequent occasion. So I pretty much weigh the pros and cons. Is it worth reading the rules and using the template on any given site? If yes, then I do it. If no, I figure that there is nothing lost on my part and I move to the next site. When it comes to places like resource sites, I have a master list of links to each of my ads on the sites; this helps me avoid the situation you're talking about because I go back and check on the ad until it's accepted. Obviously this takes time between using their templates, reading their rules, and making my list, so I don't bother to advertise on every single resource site. Their loss.

 

As an admin, I try to make my ad section as stupid-friendly as possible. No templates, no need to alter the ad in any way or write "lb" or the forum host in the title. If someone posts in the wrong spot, I either move it or delete it depending upon my mood.

 

You are right that they don't want the problem solved, but not just because they are leaving no connecting information in the cbox. They are not doing anything on their part to make things easier. Yes, we should read their rules if we are posting on their sites (and follow them, of course), but they either need to change the process to make it more guest- or drive-by friendly, or they need to change their attitude on how they view advertisements. There are so many important things in life to worry about, and double posted ads is very far down on that list.

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3 hours ago, Rune said:

But, yes, The Initiative is my favorite because there aren't 52 forms to fill out to post a wanted ad or discussion.

 

This is because this site is made for RPers, by RPers and we hate that shit as much as you do.

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When advertising on my forum, I only ask really that it be tasteful. That's about it. I'll link back when I have the chance, but mostly just keep it to resources and directories. I'm honestly not very good with advertising but I do give it heck. Though cbox guesting to complain is just plain douchery. 

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This is why I have the philosophy "If I have to jump through hoops to advertise on your site, sorry but nah." I wish I had figured that out forever ago because I currently have 85 million accounts on all the useless resource sites I never actually participate in, I just registered to fill out a stupid form and post a goddamn ad. I don't even see the point of those forms!! Like why do they ask for like "subgenre" when they're just gonna slap it into some larger genre subforum anyway?! Thankfully, at this point I've learned not to give a shit anymore and skip those bullshit resource sites when I can. Why can't all sites be like The Initiative?

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