Would you donate to support the site & remove the popup ads at the same time?

[zagnut]

I think it is imperative that the site stay free. One of the things that makes this site so engrossing is the wide participation from around the world. Thunderfall says earlier in the thread that it gets about 10,000 unique visitors a day. But how many of those people would come back if it was a pay only site? I realize that the original proposal was to have a small portion of the membership fund the replacement of the ad income. I might go along with that. However, it is just a small step from there to a pay only site. That I would not support because I don’t think it would have the participation necessary to survive. How many of you would return again and again if you had to pay even a small amount to join?

I am not sure how the ads and popups work, but it is certainly easy to bypass them. I use a popup blocker that I got free from PC Magazine called CookieCop. Once you install it you don’t have to worry about popups again. Maybe one in a hundred will get through.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I have a popup blocker, so I don't see the ads, but I'd still be happy to donate to the site. Actually, I wonder if we should have donations and ads. Is the ad revenue really enough to pay for the site?

 

[Ace]

Originally posted by tao
Popups are suppressed by my browser configuration and I don't mind the ads. Thus: no.

My sentiments exactly. maintain the current status. The ads are not that bad. A little annoyance to maintain a "free" site is acceptable.

 

[Hagbart]

I sure hate popup ads...

 

[Bootstoots]

I won't be donating, not that I don't like the site, but I simply wouldn't be able to.

What if you had donations help pay for a new CFC-only server, rather than ad blocking? I don't mind the ads, but the server being down can be really annoying?

 

[Thunderfall]

Thanks for all your feedbacks.

It looks like voluntary donations would not work well over the long run. Let's forget about it for now.

To all the members who voted "Yes", you have my gratitude.

The poll will now be closed.

 

[EdwardTking]

Many people seem to take the view that they don't mind the pop-ups, because their browser configuration or extra software blocks them. But if nearly everybody does that, then the pop-ups are seen by very few people so the advertiser won't keep paying.

There therefore seems a choice between:

(a) the site being rewritten with advertisement images between screens e.g. images hosted on same server so that the only way to view the webpages is to view the banner ads for which the last icon displayed, perhaps only after a count down delay, will be the dynamic address of the civfanatics page

(b) donations

(c) subscriptions

(d) TF winning the lottery

(e) sponsorship from Atari etc

My preferences are in decreasing order

d (best) > c > b > e > a (worst)


In my opinion suscriptions should be about 1 to 3
dollars a month and payable yearly at a reduced rate.