Political ads (1 Viewer)

[Charles_Y]

The frequent ads displaying from the Trump campaign on your site are particularly offensive to me as a supporter of his opponent. How about some equal time people!!!

 

[Jake Lipson]

I reported that Trump ad to the moderators before I paid for Premium membership. I don't think equal time is the issue. Because HTF is a politics-free zone, political ads for either party should be a problem here. Ideally, the political-free atmosphere of the message board should be reflected in the ads that are shown, as well.

That being said, I'm pretty sure that it is Google (or whatever advertising service the owners have contracted with) that choose the ads. Therefore, I'm not sure this is the fault of those in charge here.

If you want to get rid of ads, I would suggest Premium membership, which has been a wonderful value add for me ever since I signed up for it. The whole experience around the forum is much smoother, cleaner and more enjoyable. Of course, that won't erase the problem you are talking about for other users, but it would take care of it for you.

 

[cinemiracle]

I never read ads or even watch them on tv. None of my friends do either.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

@Jake Lipson thanks for your endorsement of our Premium Membership. I was going to suggest the same. It's a nominal price to pay for an ad free experience. Please note that with the exception of forum sponsors (like SVS and Bluejeans Cable), we don't endorse of pick any of the ads shown on the site. While ideally there would be no political ones, unfortunately for now through November, they will be a decent percentage of the inventory ad networks have available, so odds are we will see them from all parties/candidates at all levels (local/state/federal).

 

[Angelo Colombus]

I see them on other sites too and ignore them unless it's from Rufus T Firefly.

 

[Jake Lipson]

If we could go back about 35 years and HTF still existed back then, I wouldn't mind seeing a political ad for Mayor Goldie Wilson's reelection campaign here.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

If we could go back about 35 years and HTF still existed back then, I wouldn't mind seeing a political ad for Mayor Goldie Wilson's reelection campaign here.

Sorry, Jake! I'm still voting for Rufus

 

[Kevin Collins]

The frequent ads displaying from the Trump campaign on your site are particularly offensive to me as a supporter of his opponent. How about some equal time people!!!

Hi Charles,
Thanks for bringing this up as many of us were not aware that these types of ads were showing up on the site. I haven't personally seen them myself yet.
We can't control what ads show up on the site. About six months ago we did an overhaul on our AdNetwork provider. Our previous AdNetwork providers we were able to opt out of certain categories of ads. Political ads was one of them. We are going to revisit what is available on our new AdNetwork for restricting ad categories. We want to honor what we have stated on the forum as rule #4. While we provide a premium membership to provide members with a faster load experience that also include no ads, we never want to have members choose a premium membership to avoid ads that go against our policies. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I am going to reply to you privately on this matter as we want to keep you as a frequent member on this site. Please bear with us as the ownership figures out how to deal with this specific issue. I'm sorry that you are coming to our site and finding offensive content, even if it is from ads. It is not the intension of the owners to have any member find anything offensive on our site. We have always valued our site as the neutral, facts only, calm and cool discussion site.

4. No politics or religion. We do not permit the discussion of politics or religion at HTF. However, there is a narrow exception to this rule. If the subject matter of a movie or television show includes politics and/or religion, then they may be discussed insofar as they pertain to that specific movie or television show. We stress, however, that such discussions are carefully monitored and will be moderated if it appears that any participant is using this narrow exception to introduce a broader political or religious discussion than is warranted by the movie or television show under discussion. Also, anyone who has not seen a particular movie or television show is disqualified from discussing its political and/or religious content under this rule. Note: Posts by HTF staff including reviewers may on occasion be given wider discretion by site management.

 

[Charles_Y]

Thanks for the detailed reply. The ads (there were more than one in different places) were not in themselves offensive to me at all. Post Edited by Moderator due to political commentary.

I don't know what "AdNetwork Providers" are. I would think you would have control of what ads show on your website. This seems ridiculous to me but then I guess I don't know how on-line adverts work, the websites that show them and the companies that own them.

Take care.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I don't know what "AdNetwork Providers" are. I would think you would have control of what ads show on your website. This seems ridiculous to me but then I guess I don't know how on-line adverts work, the websites that show them and the companies that own them.

A moderator can correct me if I'm wrong. But my understanding is that HTF ads are provided by a third party which sells ad space to companies, or in this case campaigns. The owners would be able to choose which company to contract with, but not what advertisers that company decides to take money from. Political ads are likely to pop up more frequently until November, unless there is a way for the owners to opt out of political ads. Regardless of political party affiliation or beliefs, this is just another reason to look forward to the election being completed.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

A moderator can correct me if I'm wrong. But my understanding is that HTF ads are provided by a third party which sells ad space to companies, or in this case campaigns. The owners would be able to choose which company to contract with, but not what advertisers that company decides to take money from. Political ads are likely to pop up more frequently until November, unless there is a way for the owners to opt out of political ads. Regardless of political party affiliation or beliefs, this is just another reason to look forward to the election being completed.

Correct to a point. Other than occasional direct campaigns that are always HT related, that is essentially correct. We just switched providers recently, so we are currently investigating if we can limit/remove categories like politics.