LyricWiki talk:Ads
From LyricWiki
[edit] The ads are coming
As per our lengthy previous discussion, we're going to be making some changes to the site to attempt to beat our rising server costs (which is still a good thing since that means ppl are using the site :).
It's been almost two weeks since the discussion, so I just wanted to call out the warning that they're coming now because we got approved with a major ad network and we're all ready to set up the ads. This is great for us since the ad network (24/7 Real Media) is one of the big top-10 advertisers and we technically don't have the traffic numbers they would normally need. Luckily, with the consistent growth we've shown, and the traffic from Pedlr plopped on top, they let us in anyway.
When I created the account, I chose the only the lowest-media-level for the ads, so no pop-ups, no interstitials, no audio-banners.
I'm going to start rolling in the other recommendations from the discussion as well to give users a clearer view of what's going on at LyricWiki and to make the experience on the site the best it can be.
Once I get these ads up, I'll create some sandboxes with different layouts of ads and then I'll be looking for feedback as to which arrangements seem ideal for the site.
Thanks for your patience... if you have any feedback, as always, let us know!
-Sean Colombo 14:11, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
- I did say if were going to do it, to do it properly. Can't ask for better than that. Good work Sean. I can see them appearing now, I'm seeing CityKids ads, in a strange way it actually looks good.
- -TrevorP 22:03, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
- Wow, yeah, I'm getting nice "Live Strong" ads... not bad at all. :)
- -Sean Colombo 23:01, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
- Same here, "Live Strong" ads. I have to admit that the advertisers did a good job making that (those?) ads. Far from what some other sites have.
- - teknomunk (talk,E) 23:03, 3 April 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Ad layout
As I mentioned above that I'd get to... I've started messing around with ad layouts. The current placement is technically against our TOS w/the advertisers since it is only 'below-the-fold'. We kinda have to move it. I haven't figured out where exactly a banner could go on the top of the page (any suggestions?), but I crammed one in on the bottom and also a version with an ad on the right (the same way as wikia... in fact, some of their code directly).
Oh, a random thought: since the side-bar is so tall on the left, if we had one on the right bar and one on the left bar then they would never both be visible at the same time (unless someone had a really tall monitor or something), so that might be a low-impact way to make sure ppl see (and therefore occasionally click) the ads... on the other hand, it might still be visually-stressing to have two on the same page even if not visible at the same time??
Anywho... to mess around with the different layouts here are some debug-links:
- right-side
- bottom (still technically below-the-fold on most pages)
- right-left-combo (when you scroll, the idea is that you'd only see one at a time)
- ALL THREE! :-O (just for comparing them I guess... I don't see us going with this, lol)
Please leave feedback about these layouts (these aren't the only options too... feel free to be creative)
Thanks for your input!
-Sean Colombo 03:39, 11 April 2007 (EDT)
- I personally don't like the right-side in its current form, it takes away too much screen real-estate all the way down the right side of the article (maybe I've just been using MediaWiki for so long i don't like to change). If it could be brought inside the article frame, so that the article could wrap around the ad I think it'd be great. Might just have to experiment and make sure that articles that use "float:right;" still wrap around it, and don't appear underneath:
+--+ +---------------+ | | | Article ##| | | |~~ ~~~ ~~|FL|##| | | |~~~ ##| | | |~~~~ ~~~~|FL|##| | | |~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~ | | | |~~~~ | +--+ +---------------+
- not
+--+ +---------------+ | | | Article ##| | | |~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~##| | | |~~~~ ~~~~ ##| | | |~~~ ~~~ ~~ ##| | | |~~ ~~~~ |FL|| | | | |FL|| +--+ +---------------+
## ad ~~ text |FL| floating box
- If we don't do this properly, the site could fold, the site needs money to sustain itself, we want to maximize our possible income from ads. I see no problem with horizontal ads at the top of the page (Wikia used to do this), or at the top of an article (under the title maybe).
- I don't think ads at the bottom would help, I rarely consciously see the footer, I'd probably never see an ad down their either. Its after the end of the article, after the amazon links, you know its the end of the article, and never scroll any further.
- On a related note, I don't link the sponsors box where it is, it hides the search and toolbox which i use often. I'm not sure what to do, perhaps we could use both top and right spots, to still accommodate it.
- It might be worth, at least initially after making the ads prominent, add a link under to the effect "whats with the ads?" (if the advertisers don't object). I have read many enthusiastic comments from people who like the fact we are a lyric site without ads, it could upset some people. We need to let them know our reasons, and ask for their support, in keeping with us, and possibly donating. Ultimately if we can make enough from donations alone, we can scrap the ads.
- A further alternative (slightly annoying, but perhaps very effective) is to distribute horizontal ads throughout an article (in the same many news sites do [1]). Its entirely possible to have an ad or two inserted on a blank line in lyrics, or between two paragraphs of text. It should possibly not be used on talk pages etc., defaulting to the top or side, I don't know. Just a thought.
- -TrevorP 09:33, 11 April 2007 (EDT)
- If you want to keep the site as visually pure as is possible under the circumstances, I think following the lead of the majority of other sites (and this is by personal experience, I haven't done a survey or anything :-]) and have it either at the top or on the left side. Personally, I've become fairly numb to sites with ads in these locations. I notice them, but they don't hinder me from enjoying whatever the site has to offer. Having ads on the right side takes page space away from the main thing that the site is about, the lyrics. Also, it will lessen the amount of blank space that the site has, diminishing the usability and readability of the site and increasing the visual clutter. Besides, if the number of clicks help bring in money, then having them near where people would click and accidentally add to the count is a good thing for bringing in money. (Yes, I hate it when I accidentally do that myself, but....) That means near the links at the top or the left of the page.
- My preference is to have the ads on the left side, with a new organization of that side. From top to bottom: Navigation, Lunch Money ads, Search, Sponsors, Toolbox, and finally Plug-ins. I still think that a Donations box next to the "Send to a friend" box would be a very good idea, by the way. Having the ads between the Navigation section and the search would increase the likelihood that the ads would be noticed and clicked, I think. The size of the ad will possibly drop the search box below the fold, however.
- Another option is to have the ad at the very top, above everything else that currently resides there. (Except, perhaps for the LyricWiki logo which could be moved.) This would leave added space at the top, however. But perhaps this could be used for linking to Pedlr, or creating a new Navigation menu or some such. This would drop the articles about 100 pixels or so, but that's not too bad.
- A third option is to change nothing and leave it as it is. I have to admit that I saw the notice that the ads were coming and I was wondering how long that was going to be until it happened, without realizing that the ads were already in place! (I told you I kind of blur out ads on the left side!)
- --Kiefer 13:30, 11 April 2007 (EDT)
- I think it should be a combination of the right side ad, following TrevorP's comments. Also integrate an add at the top of the page, either the very top, after the page title, or SONG tag.
- YukataNinja 17:09, 11 April 2007 (EDT)
- I would stay away from putting ads into the text of article; I think it would be intrusive. Intrusive banners either flash, shake, take up a large amount of screen space, or are inside the content. Apart from that, I would prefer a slim horizontal banner on top to a banner on the right; I have my task bar at the right side of the screen.
- If we end up using a banner at the right side of the window, I think that TrevorP's suggestion of having the article text wrap around the ad should be done. I usually only have problems with the width of the screen with the side-by-side translations of Japanese to English on some of the pages (messes with how the lyrics line up).
- - teknomunk (talk,E) 18:33, 11 April 2007 (EDT)
- Awesome guys... thanks for the input. I'm working on creating three new ad layouts now: top-above-everything, top-below-title, and right-with-wrapping. It appeared (unless I missed something) that everyone seemed to think these were fairly livable. I'm not sure how they compare in actual revenue... so now, the best move may be to put each layout up for a couple of days, get some numbers and then figure out how we want to continue from there. We've got to find which of the "okay" ads can give the highest CPM.
- I'll keep you guys updated, and when I have links to the three new ad-positions, I'll post them here.
- Thanks for all the input guys!
- -Sean Colombo 01:30, 12 April 2007 (EDT)
- I got the top-below-title banner in there, but can't seem to get a banner to behave how TrevorP was describing above.
- Anyone with CSS skillz able to haxxify it to behave?
- top-below-title
- right-with-attempted-wrap (need help here)
- right-side
- right-left-combo
- Hrm... sometimes nothing is showing up and they're serving a blank ad. If there's nothing there, then that's the problem I think (I'll have to figure out why that's happening... it's supposed to default to AdSense if they don't have an ad for us).
- If anyone can get the right-side banner to behave, please let me know how.
- Thanks!
- -Sean Colombo 14:56, 12 April 2007 (EDT)
- I messed with the wrapping some more and couldn't get it to listen to me. It's been a week since I changed the layout to the top so I figured we needed another swap... the top worked fairly well, so we'll try the right-side for a little bit I guess. When everything's solid I'll put some stats up here if I can.
- One of the major problems with the bar being on the right was that the main page doesn't have room for it. I hacked the skin so that the ad is on the right everywhere except for the main page.
- -Sean Colombo 23:23, 23 April 2007 (EDT)
- Hey, been a bit slow, sorry. I did spend some time trying to figure out how to get the adds on the right hand side of the page as suggested, and although I don't like to give up, it think that it is (unless there is some cryptic css workaround) impossible. The problem is with the clear tag, there is no way to use it (it is needed to stop floating items from sitting left-right of each other), while telling it to ignore the existence of the add (and not clear its left-right sides). I thought you may be able to separate them into different divs, thus getting the two to ignore each other, but my experimenting and reading has failed to find a solution.
- I don't know if the add position has been finalised, but my preference (failing solving the above problem) is a horizontal add, at the top of page or under the title. I have noticed the add on the right will hide things such as wide diff dumps, and other that runs off the right of the screen.
- Just my opinion - TrevorP 06:57, 29 April 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Support bar
Ever think about putting a donations bar? Make an estimation of a Year costs and put the bar telling thats the money you need and how much have you received. Right now the Donations link it's almost invisible to most of the people... Progress bars are cool and fancy and you can see them grow and encourages a lot! :p Not sure, just a idea, maybe now that we have ads in the top of the page a progress bar it's a little too much... --Unaiaia (please, reply here) 12:21, 19 April 2007 (EDT)
- Actually, TrevorP has written an extension to do just this. I'm still working on installing it... I think I got it in there, it just doesn't show up. There is a way to view the progress w/the install: refer to this post
- -Sean Colombo 23:19, 23 April 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Ad messing up site
I've noticed over the past month that there is one horizontal ad that will prevent the side bar and top header from loading. It looks like a default XP window and has the title "Important Free Information!" This is the only ad I've had that issue with, anyone else ever have this problem?
-YukataNinja 14:53, 1 June 2007 (EDT)
- I've now started to notice this, too. When an ad with the title "Important Free Information!" is loaded on the Main Page, the sidebar and the links at the top of the page do not load. Can anyone fix this? --WillMak050389 14:28, 11 June 2007 (EDT)
- I have noticed the left side bar and the top not loading sometimes, usually when I'm just visiting for the first time in a day (like when it has to log me on). I just hit refresh and they load, so no biggie. --Notmyhandle (talk • contribs) 20:01, 11 June 2007 (EDT)
- I've noticed I can fix it with a refresh too... but that is kinda annoying to users. It seems like some sort of bug in the JavaScript that loads the ad could be causing the page to crash before it finishes loading. Has anyone heard of this sort of thing before or possibly of any fixes we could do to prevent it? (if we could figure out a way to force that ad to appear, it would be easier to test it).
- -208.40.186.103 06:47, 14 June 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Where I put my ads.
I saw that you're trying to integrate ads, and I thought you'd like to see how I did it: VortexWiki. I hope this helps. 74.114.200.49 20:12, 2 June 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Maybe a footer ad?
Hey all,
If you haven't noticed... the site is running a bit slowly. The front-end and backend servers are running above 30% all the time. Memcached is the only reason we can do ANYTHING with the traffic we're now getting (the API has gone up a ton, and so has the Facebook app). Memcached is our friend :) I'm going to see if I can slap some Amazon/iTunes links into the facebook app w/o disrupting gameplay so that it can support itself.
Our webhost works with us pretty well, so we're now only paying $400/mo (since we dropped back from the loadbalanced solution to just a front-end box that was twice as fast), but we're hitting a wall on that solution. Now with the CantoPod plugin, we're going to be getting thousands more requests per day from the API... so I'm going to see how much we can upgrade and how soon. To support this, we need more blingola.
In the past, I've switched through about half-a-dozen ad networks (you probably noticed) to try to increase revenue w/o increasing ad space. AdSense is winning again though (they all do really well for like 2 days, then drop off).
Anywho, I was thinking a pretty non-invasive solution might be to do an AdSense text banner across the bottom of the page. Illegedly adding another ad doubles revenue... I doubt this, especially since the new ad will be in a lamer location, but hopefully it'll get us enough to get us at least one more server.
Feedback and other ideas are welcome.
-Sean Colombo 17:24, 6 October 2007 (EDT)
- I popped it up there :-/
- Let me know any thoughts,
- -Sean Colombo 14:25, 7 October 2007 (EDT)
- Hrmm... every now and then (primarily for short pages) I get a bit sick of the double-ad-maneuver. Maybe if there was a way to guarantee that at least one of them was text-only? :-/ I dunno... if they were more relevant that would make me dislike them less. More music, less dating.
- -Sean Colombo 14:27, 19 October 2007 (EDT)
[edit] No popups plz...
I don't mind Ads, but Popup Ads will kill the entire idea of LyricWiki faster than a cake made with bleach instead of batter. Aside from the fact that Firefox blocks half of the popup ads already (and IE blocks the other half), popup ads will only prove to send people fleeing from the site (and in the future, pre-emptively not-clicking on any lyrics that google tells them are hosted here).
Embedded ads are fine. I just hope they give you guys good revenue. I tell you, if I ever need... um... Lets see... "Freelance Writers"... or... "Personal Ads Dating"... You know, I'd click the ads here instead of the ones that MSN probably has... ;P
- Thanks for the feedback. I completely agree about popups (and popunders). You can quote me on this: as long as I own LyricWiki, it will not have popup or popunder ads.
- Thanks,
- -Sean Colombo 11:54, 14 October 2007 (EDT)
...Personally I find nothing more annoying than Flash Ads. This is due to the large number of them which make annoying noises...(I'm thinking of the "swat the insect" ads).
I haven't seen any similar ones on Lyric Wiki yet but as soon as I do, I will not visit the site any more. I won't be the only one either, so be careful who you accept ads from...212.137.27.116 04:45, 10 June 2008 (EDT)
- Our settings on all of our networks (when available) specify that auto-playing audio ads are strictly forbidden. Since we can't possibly pre-approve every ad manually (thousands of different ads run every day). If you ever run into one with audio, then something is wrong... please contact me as quickly as you can and try to describe the ad (the shape, what it was an ad for, where the link takes you) so I can track it down and ban it (fortunately, this hasn't happened yet, so I assume the automated settings work pretty well).
- Thanks,
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 00:21, 29 June 2008 (EDT)
[edit] Printable version
Please take the ads off the printable version... or at least have google text ads only there. Printing out colour pics with the lyrics is bloody irritating and results in copy/pasting to a text editor instead.
[edit] Top vs. side && new ad network.
[edit] New Network
First off, we got into a new ad network. It's the network run by Break.com. This is a good thing, because they will sell our ads directly, so we'll be getting more ads for movies, Mt. Dew, that kind of thing, and less horoscopes & dating sites. Also, they let us approve/deny ads before they get run. This has one restriction though: only the ads directly sold to advertisers get this privilege. So after the whatever-percent of ads actually get sold, the rest of the ads will still default to our old network, so those are at risk. Over time, as the site becomes more popular, the ads should get less and less annoying (please!).
[edit] Layout changes
Also, I've been messing with the layout. You'll notice that they ads are on top now, not the right. For some reason, this seems to be making the page load slowly. That may just be because I changed the skin-file so no pages are in the cache anymore. If the problem remains, then it may have to do with the new network.
If the ad is on top, it wastes less screen real-estate, but flashing ads seem to annoy me more on top than on the side. Does anyone else have opinions on the locations?
This might just be personal preference, so I'm considering letting logged-in users chose where to put the ads. It would take a little time to code that up, but it might be worth it.
As always, my talk page is a great place to give me feedback of any kind.
Later,
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 11:20, 24 April 2008 (EDT)
[edit] Suggestion: Amazon EC2
Another option is to use the amazon COMPUTING CLOUD
Amazon EC2 passes on to you the financial benefits of Amazon's scale. You pay a very low rate for the compute capacity you actually consume. Compare this with the significant up-front expenditures traditionally required to purchase and maintain hardware, either in-house or hosted. This frees you from many of the complexities of capacity planning, transforms what are commonly large fixed costs into much smaller variable costs, and removes the need to over-buy "safety net" capacity to handle periodic traffic spikes.
For more information on Amazon EC2 please visit: Amazon EC2 — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Leowiki (talk • contribs).
[edit] Square vs. tall ads
On 6/29/08, we started trying out square ads on the right hand side of the page instead of the tall ads. The potential benefit is that since they can be embedded right into the content (and still have the "badges" such as Song Of The Day, Wikipedia, etc. still be visible), they don't have to waste screen-space the whole way down. Not sure which is better (or maybe there should be an option). After using the site for a very short time it became clear that the squares get in the way of edit pages and diff pages, so only tall ads will be used there - other than that it's 50/50 chance of getting either ad right now.
If you have any opinion on which is better (or if you'd like the option to chose), please leave comments here.
Thanks,
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 00:29, 29 June 2008 (EDT)
[edit] Comments
In short, I dislike the current squire. I don't know if it's on purpose or a CSS problem or because of my low screen resolution. However, my Firefox3 and IE7 with 1024*768 resolution look like this. The ad takes too much attention and leaves much white blank in the top center, where Main_Page's description should be.
Do you agree with this phrase: "Less is more"? About artist and album pages, filling pages with much stuff is not a good idea. Leaving blank is important; it will make us feel comfortable.
I understand the necessary of ads. But it needs well design, so that users would be interested to click it. If and only if the hypothesis is true, the profit could be made.
My suggestion is making ads rectangular like the bottom. Either tall or wide is OK. --Tomin 06:12, 29 June 2008 (EDT)
- Wow, yeah that was just a bug that it showed up where it did on the main page (the square wasn't supposed to be on the main page at all). I've fixed that now (oops!). If the square ever goes on the main-page we'll find somewhere to do it that makes more sense... but for now I'm just trying to see if it works on other pages.
- When you were talking about "less is more", were you referring to the automatic page-templates?
- Do you have an opinion on the squares on normal pages (ie: not the main page)?
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 08:52, 1 July 2008 (EDT)
- The current one is not that bad. The problem is the ad looks like the content. I'll be confused. I'll wonder if it is an album or something related to the artist/topic?
- What I mean is the ad needs to be like the ad, not content. The simplest resolution is putting a small word "ad" to indicate it's an ad. The second one I think of is CSS code I've used. Default is a little dark; onMouseOver is bright; onMouseOut is dark again. CSS code:
.adImage{
-moz-opacity:0.5;
filter:alpha(opacity=50);
}
- I don't quite understand page-templates. Maybe it's a little bit complex than before. But it's OK, not so difficult to learn. Since not everybody is smart to think, willing to learn, and passionate to work, I think simplification is important. Give me points, not garbage. This is my wishes and philosophy.--Tomin 11:15, 2 July 2008 (EDT)
- This layout is absolute and *pure* annoying. I like your older layout. Sean gorter talk ESPERANZA!!! 08:12, 3 July 2008 (EDT)
- I don't quite understand page-templates. Maybe it's a little bit complex than before. But it's OK, not so difficult to learn. Since not everybody is smart to think, willing to learn, and passionate to work, I think simplification is important. Give me points, not garbage. This is my wishes and philosophy.--Tomin 11:15, 2 July 2008 (EDT)
- Since there weren't many opinions, but there were about 1.5 that didn't like the square ads, I've gone back to the rectangles for now. We'll see if we like that I guess.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 10:22, 9 July 2008 (EDT)
[edit] Ringtones trial
[edit] Sean 1
We're starting a week-long trial of those text-link ringtone ads above and below the lyrics of each page. You'll probably recognize the format because they seem to be on every lyrics site. Let me know if you find these useful (ie: if you like being able to get to the ringtones easily), or if they're kind of annoying (and how annoying they are - more or less - compared to other types of ads). Thanks for the input.
If they work out, they'll probably stick around because I've heard from other music sites that direct-link ringtones (ie: ringtones specific to the page you're on) tend to work out pretty well & people actually use them. We'll have more data on that in a week.
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 12:09, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- I'd give it a 5 on the 1 to 10 scale of annoying, but only because it appears in the body of a page (e.g. Vince Gill:My Kind of Woman/My Kind Of Man). Could it be any color other than red? --Aquatiki - T - E 12:26, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- GAH!! Inside the lyrics box??? I'm with the ringtones links, but a link after the lyrics box would be better. (I'm so obsessive/compulsive about only lyrics being between the tags.) Plus, because it's included in the formatting, it's also on Help:Contents/Editing/Formatting/Songs#Lyrics in the example. If the revenue is good (gotta pay for those new & future servers!), then how about an icon next to the page ranking star and a full link after the lyric box? A work-around for examples such as on the Help page linked to above would be nice, if the ringtones bit was to become a permanent addition to the lyrics box, also. Kiefer talk contribs admin 14:32, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- Ghastly!! Hasn't anyone got a rich Uncle? ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 15:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- Even pages with bogus lyrics get links. (ie: ringtones specific to the page you're on), The text is red and LARGE like my rich uncle's nose! ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 16:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- I understand that ads are necessary, but this one is useless to me, annoying, overly intrusive and wrongly placed. It can stay though, if we can set "d isplay: none;" in the CSS --Mischko <img src="/images/3/31/Talkicon.png" alt="Talk to me" /> <img src="/images/1/1e/EsperanzaIcon.png" alt="Esperanza Member" /> 20:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- Update: it appears that my bogus lyric page no longer has an active ringtone link :) , now if this could be further extended so that pages without available ringtone would simply not show the ad at all, that would be splendid. I really wonder.. do ppl come to a lyric site to buy ringtones?? ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 01:39, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
- I understand that ads are necessary, but this one is useless to me, annoying, overly intrusive and wrongly placed. It can stay though, if we can set "d isplay: none;" in the CSS --Mischko <img src="/images/3/31/Talkicon.png" alt="Talk to me" /> <img src="/images/1/1e/EsperanzaIcon.png" alt="Esperanza Member" /> 20:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- Even pages with bogus lyrics get links. (ie: ringtones specific to the page you're on), The text is red and LARGE like my rich uncle's nose! ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 16:13, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- Ghastly!! Hasn't anyone got a rich Uncle? ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 15:56, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
- Okay, consensus seems to be that currently the links are UGGGG-LEE. Hopefully, this can be changed. Hopefully the ad agreement doesn't require these links to look like that. I don't know whether people come to a lyric site to get ringtones, but you never know. A method to keep the site up and running is certainly needed. It's the problem with becoming better known and having a database that is used more, we need more computing power and expenses go up. To keep up, the site needs more funds. I think that presenting the ringtones more as an added site service, rather than a blatant (and glaringly conspicuous) ad will be better for all in the long run. Any thoughts on possible improvements? I gave my suggestions above. Kiefer talk contribs admin 02:15, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
- Please no!! I agree with Kiefer that the link can't be in the lyric box. If these links are useful to people then they don't need to be so intrusive. I wouldn't mind them being below the lyric box and larger then the others because they're paying and the others aren't but as it is I don't see why this site would be any better then a google search (click on the top link and you've probably got your song, along with these ads). This site is a Wiki, built for the people, by the people (and i know the people aren't paying for the hosting) but it defeats the purpose. I have come to help contribute to this site believing that Google go about it the right way, they give you context specific ads and privilege them but don't ram them down your throat. A few cents here and and a few cents there and they're rich. (Sorry for all the hate... I still you LW) --Humbug 08:53, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
- Kiefer summed it up nicely with "GAH!!" – on an annoyingness scale, these go to eleven. This is pretty much the definition of an "invasive ad". Until now, LW had two major advantages (for the user) over other lyric sites; with these ads inside the lyric box, only one (being a wiki) would remain.
What about putting it in the same line as the ranking star? Right now, the star resides in its own line, with nothing else there, which is a bit of a waste of space, anyway. (Of course, a slightly less vivid shade of red would be appreciated, too.) -- 6 times 9 15:55, 23 October 2008 (UTC) - PS. Oh, and do they really have to appear on the edit pages as well?
- OK, I first thought lyricwiki would've been hacked by bots which inserted these ads. I was stunned when I saw these big, fat red letters on every page, inside lyric-box. Really annoying. That's what I postet at Kiefer's talk-page (sorry for that, I just was shocked):
- >>> "Send "..." Ringtone to your Cell Phone"
- Is this really wanted? This really is the MOST annoying ad I've EVER seen =O
- It's really poor to claim to be "a free site which is a source where anyone can go to get reliable lyrics for any song from any artist without being hammered by invasive ads" and then insert THAT advertisement on every page.
- I can't believe it..! <<<
- Well you really should think about it again... Especially as this service doesn't appear to be too trustworthy to me and offers the ringtone although it hasn't got it. So you have ads for service that doesn't do what it claims... Chris 12:20, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
- Kiefer summed it up nicely with "GAH!!" – on an annoyingness scale, these go to eleven. This is pretty much the definition of an "invasive ad". Until now, LW had two major advantages (for the user) over other lyric sites; with these ads inside the lyric box, only one (being a wiki) would remain.
- Please no!! I agree with Kiefer that the link can't be in the lyric box. If these links are useful to people then they don't need to be so intrusive. I wouldn't mind them being below the lyric box and larger then the others because they're paying and the others aren't but as it is I don't see why this site would be any better then a google search (click on the top link and you've probably got your song, along with these ads). This site is a Wiki, built for the people, by the people (and i know the people aren't paying for the hosting) but it defeats the purpose. I have come to help contribute to this site believing that Google go about it the right way, they give you context specific ads and privilege them but don't ram them down your throat. A few cents here and and a few cents there and they're rich. (Sorry for all the hate... I still you LW) --Humbug 08:53, 23 October 2008 (UTC)
- GAH!! Inside the lyrics box??? I'm with the ringtones links, but a link after the lyrics box would be better. (I'm so obsessive/compulsive about only lyrics being between the tags.) Plus, because it's included in the formatting, it's also on Help:Contents/Editing/Formatting/Songs#Lyrics in the example. If the revenue is good (gotta pay for those new & future servers!), then how about an icon next to the page ranking star and a full link after the lyric box? A work-around for examples such as on the Help page linked to above would be nice, if the ringtones bit was to become a permanent addition to the lyrics box, also. Kiefer talk contribs admin 14:32, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Sean 2
Wowza! Guess these aren't going over very well so far. At the end of the one-week trial, they'll send us some info about how well the ads have been doing revenue-wise so we'll be able to do comparisons like "if they earn enough to remove the banner from the bottom of the page, is it worth it? what about if they could replace the banner on the side of the page? etc.". For now, from the feedback above there are a few changes I can make right away that still keep with the deal (unfortunately the annoying red has to stay for now):
- Move the links outside of the lyrics box
- Remove links from the "edit" page
- Make them less ridiculous on instrumental pages (one link is probably plenty there).
I'll make those changes soon, and I'll let you guys know when we get the results.
Thanks for all of the feedback, it's really helpful!
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 18:48, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
- Alright, that list of changes appears to be done. The links already don't show up on the edit page (since they're generated by the <lyrics> tag.
- 6 times 9: were you referring to them showing up when you do "Show preview"? I think I'd rather leave the preview looking as much like the real page as possible so that you can see what it'll really look like. I could be convinced otherwise though (because nobody is going to click on the ad there... the only purpose it serves on that page is just to show you an accurate preview).
- Since our Squid server caches things, you'll see some pages with the old formatting for a while. The best way to check out a page with the links outside of the <lyrics> tag or an instrumental page w/only one link is to go to a random page or to change the url to the form: /index.php?title=THE_PAGE_TITLE_HERE&action=purge.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 22:34, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
- It's OK for them to show up on previews; I agree about looking as much like the real page as possible. At least on artist pages, though, they appear as soon as you hit "edit" – see here for an example. (Hmmm... if they're generated by the <lyrics> tag, why do they turn up on artist pages at all? Album pages are "clean" though.) -- 6 times 9 23:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
- What about songs with translations? SEE Édith Piaf:Non Je Ne Regrette Rien ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 09:56, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
- I thought about pages w/multiple lyrics-boxes early on (just about the only thing I actually did right w/these ;)), so it's coded to just show a link on the first lyrics box per page. Do you think it looks decent the way it is? There might be a decent way to make it spread across the width of the page more easily... not sure yet.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 19:15, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
- What about songs with translations? SEE Édith Piaf:Non Je Ne Regrette Rien ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 09:56, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
- It's OK for them to show up on previews; I agree about looking as much like the real page as possible. At least on artist pages, though, they appear as soon as you hit "edit" – see here for an example. (Hmmm... if they're generated by the <lyrics> tag, why do they turn up on artist pages at all? Album pages are "clean" though.) -- 6 times 9 23:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
Frankly, I find these the most ugly and invasive ads you could possibly add to a site like this. It makes it feel just like all the other cheap-ass lyric / tablature sites out there, and definitely does not instill a sense of confidence. "These lyrics paid for by {blah-blah-blah}"... This direction is 180 degrees from where I want to see LW go.Aikon- 02:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
- Do you have a suggestion for another source of income to keep the site up and running? Any suggestions on another source that Sean could use instead of these ads will, I'm sure, be appreciated. But something has to be done, as contributions to the site from what I understand are essentially zero. Kiefer talk contribs admin 02:43, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- Would it be better, Aikon, if the ads were displayed differently, or do you object to their bare existence? --Aquatiki - T - E 04:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- I understand Aikon's objections. First of all, as already remarked, the ads are overly intrusive. The jump you right in the face when opening a page, and -- contrary to, for example, the ads in the side bar --- makes the site look like any other lyrics site (frankly, is there any lyrics site WITHOUT the ringtone ad?). Also, I clicked on one of the links: there is no indication anywhere that I am actually getting the ringtone I selected and on the Dutch localised site there is in small print at the bottom that you will get 4 messages @ EUR 1.50 per week with some contact address in Hong Kong. As I said before and will keep stressing, I do understand that it is necessary to have some advertisement on the site to generate the revenue needed to keep it running, but IMHO this simply damages our image by making the pages look ugly and linking to very untrustworthy sites, and makes us look like any other. With so many active people, I'm sure that with some searching around, we will be able to come up with some good alternatives. --Mischko <img src="/images/3/31/Talkicon.png" alt="Talk to me" /> <img src="/images/1/1e/EsperanzaIcon.png" alt="Esperanza Member" /> 10:35, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- Mischko hit the nail on the head; I have absolutely no objection to there being advertising, I recognize that it is a near requirement to running an interactive website these days. Having said that, the ringtone ads 1) add little to no value for the user, 2) are over-bearing (in fact, I will go so far as to say that they actually hurt my eyes when I'm trying to view lyrics), and 3) are demeaning to the user in the sense that they are trying to trick users into clicking on bright, shiny links. A simple, clean text ad, out of the way of the main content but related to it clearly, that actually provides useful resources would be far more effective. Not only would it be less annoying for users of the site, but I can't imagine any LW users clicking on those stupid ringtone links. If I wanted to see that kind of crap, there are a million crappy lyrics websites out there I could go to instead.Aikon- 12:24, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
- Would it be better, Aikon, if the ads were displayed differently, or do you object to their bare existence? --Aquatiki - T - E 04:20, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Sean 3
I'm pretty sure the week ends today. I'll pressure them to get us the results of the trial as fast as possible so we can know what we're dealing with.
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 13:26, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- With this sort of ad, from this RT establishment (trying to sell you what they don't have), in one step we just lowered ourselves to the level of every other lyric site on the net. The page side ads are fine, but intertwining site code with this cheap and cheesy establishment ain't worth the cash, imho. This ad campaign is more to the advantage of the RT establishment for bagging the best lyric site on the net, than it is to the advantage of LW. Ads are ok, but this or anything similar to this must stay out, we'll lose more active users from misclicking the ads than we attract new users because of it. If users are allowed to bypass the display of ads on an individual basis, we will discover that hardly any user would choose to see them. I can't stress this enough, They stick their ad in our face when they can't deliver the goods, just like all those lyric sites that give you an empty page instead of staying off radar since they don't have the lyrics. Two ugly red lies on every page, one on instrumentals. cost of progress? ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 16:25, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
- Go EchoSierra! I was thinking, would it be possible to charge a small commission for all the direct linking to the various sites that make money off the songs that people are viewing? If this site becomes A staple site for many people it would be worth iTunes and/or Amazon to be supporting it. I think it would be interesting trying to convince them that their support is needed. How likely is it that LyricWiki becomes a partner of Wikipedia and THE lyric site if it can remain relatively ad-free (more partner orientated) in the next couple of years? --Humbug 12:30, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
- I'm glad this conversation is going strong :) I love getting feedback even if it's rough. So anyway, here's the skinny:
- please note that all numbers here are estimates since they tend to fluctuate significantly each month
- The RT place doesn't actually do the ringtones, they match you to someone who does. So if any of the ringtones places have an RT then the user should be able to get it. So I don't think that the links are misleading but I would love to hear from anyone who has used RT Matcher... how was it?. Unfortunately, I don't think there is much overlap between ppl reading this page and ppl buying ringtones :( Here's hoping though.
- To address what Humbug's idea about Amazon and iTunes: originally, when I created the site it seemed to me that it wouldn't be that hard to support a lyrics site from an Amazon affiliate program. I had run a college book site and with fairly low usage, and had managed to get a moderate amount of revenue from amazon. I figured that millions of hits would equal thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars in Amazon revenue. Instant sustainability! :D ... but alas, it doesn't work like that. We _do_ get revenue from the Amazon and iTunes links, and on some pages (only pages for which the Akuma has the songs) you will see links to Akuma.de which paid an annual price to link on a subset of our pages (they have good coverage of German songs). Anywho, this revenue doesn't quite pan out. Turns out the number of people who look for a song and are then willing to click a slow iTunes Music Store link (they really ought to work on making that link faster :/) or buy a physical CD (and now mp3s also) from Amazon is relatively low. To give you a concept of what we're working with here: we tend to get around $75 to $100 per month from Amazon (this month is $79 apparently) and maybe $9 average? from iTunes. It's been as low as a $1.17 and there was one month it was $30.
- The current state of our income is this: after messing around with different ad networks for MONTHS, the banners now produce most of our revenue (we use 3 different networks at once right now). By themselves the banners are just a couple of hundred under the minimum-sustainable amount. The text-links on the left are awesome because there are limited slots and we sell most of those slots ourselves & there is decent competition. They also take up very few pixels per dollar and are very unobtrusive so I totally dig those (the only drawback being that there is some legwork involved in negotiating and closing all of the deals for each link & it's not automatic).
- Right now, we can survive fiscally as-is but can't really grow. I'm a firm believer that we have to get the licensing squared away before we can make a massive jump in popularity... unfortunately that will cut our revenue in half (and take a ton of time to implement the code for it... turns out multiple publishers own percentages of a single song quite regularly). So while we're alright for now, there will be a window where we're going to have to double our revenue before our reserves run out. A fun challenge, but the aftermath (having no legal worries & being able to grow without fear) will be great and glorious and totally worth it.
- Those crazy teens love their ringtones apparently. After getting the results from the trial back, it appears we'd be making about 4x to 5x as much from the ringtones that we make from banner ads.
- Humbug also mentioned that allowing ppl to disable the ringtones would result in almost everyone disabling them. I'm fine with that. As a percentage of traffic, most views still come from search engines. If they want to sign up for accounts (which is good for the community in general because they might be tempted to come back and contribute) to take off the ad, I think that's still a win for us. Also, I'd like to be able to be less annoying to ppl who use the site.
- Obviously, there are always "infinite" choice, but I see a couple of choices that look quite good (in order of my personal preference):
- Take off the all the banners (side and bottom) from lyrics (maybe leave that one on the bottom of the homepage?), leave the ringtone links (do the one-per-page fix for instrumentals and see if we can squelch to one-per-page for short pages so you don't have to see two in your face at a time). When you visited the site that would mean we'd be operating at like 1% of pixels as ads and the rest as nice juicy content. Even though I don't buy ringtones myself, it's closer to being relevant than, say, 3D chat avatars. On top of that we could add a user-preference to go back to banners and remove the ringtone ads (hey, if we're ever profitable enough I could run the numbers and maybe logged-in-users wouldn't need either. that'd be hot)
- Take the ringtone links completely off for now. When licensing deals can be finalized, they'll probably be coming back in a hurry.
- Hmm, I thought there were more choices, but the others don't seem very good (ringtone links + banners; no ads & just die, lol). Regardless, there is a bug on one of the servers and I should get back to it. Please let me know what you think about those two numbered options or if you have other ideas, please describe those as well.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 17:23, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for that Sean. I'm sure I speak on behalf of all of us when I say we appreciate the feedback. So far as I am personally concerned, if the ringtones are going to have to stay, I would definitely like to have the option, as I believe we all would, of being able to turn them off. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 21:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
- I don't have the time to read through everything, but may I suggest that we can have the option of turning them off if you are a LW user. Besides, the people who are actually interested in getting them (and therefore gaining us the revenue) won't want them turned off, whereas the people who ignore them (or try to...) and don't click on the links will turn them off. So, the number of people who click on the ads will not decrease because only the people who already don't click on them will be the only ones who block the ads. Does that make sense? (I'm making the assumption that the revenue gained is based on the number of clicks to these sites). --WillMak050389 23:56, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
- I would also caution you that it is entirely possible that the advertiser is artificially inflating the revenue from these ads during the trial period, like a pusher dishing out the "good stuff" to get a customer hooked. Aikon- 12:25, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for that Sean. I'm sure I speak on behalf of all of us when I say we appreciate the feedback. So far as I am personally concerned, if the ringtones are going to have to stay, I would definitely like to have the option, as I believe we all would, of being able to turn them off. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 21:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for putting in the effort to explain all that Sean. Did I really suggest being able to disable ads? I don't remember that. Anyways, I think the first option is a good one when whoever's responsible gets around to coding it (seems like a bit of a mission). I was under the impression that they wouldn't like it if you had an option to disable their ads but I think you've come up with a good compromise being able to choose RT or banner ads if your signed up. I'm guessing that the site won't have any trouble growing even with those ads in place (especially if there's plenty of money coming in). So all in all, I'm in support of the first option. --Humbug 06:56, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
- Sean, Now that I feel much better after all my rants above and having read your comments, It would be great to be able to turn all the ads off; I want all my screen space for editing! LW's clean interface is what distinguishes it from any other site t first glance, and the neat little icons (Amazon, iTunes)... can't the RT ad be just like them down there? Thanks for all your efforts to keep LW up & running, and hope LW keeps it front page mission statement intact. cheers ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) EchoSierra 08:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
- Alrighty, for now the plan is going to be to go with the first one. It seems like that's the most agreeable for everyone. It will probably take a little bit of time to code it but I'll start right now.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 17:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Ad-blockers
Another cosmetic thing: what about Very Long Song Titles? Can the ad thingie somehow automatically truncate those to avoid line breaks? (If that's even possible, what with different font sizes and screen resolutions...) -- 6 times 9 21:58, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
- Pssst...word on the street is that for us regulars who use Firefox, this is the SOLUTION And yes it does work splendidly [with this - Humbug], doesn't it guys?? http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msn60/smile009.gif ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 18:28, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
- I haven't commented on this yet (didn't realize this page existed until just now), so I wanted to take this opportunity to do so. I was shocked by the ringtones ads as well, but my #1 problem is the formatting and color, not their existence. It's the fact that they are just about the only thing exactly the same on every other site. That is, in my mind, they are the only thing that could explicitly contradict LW's "mission statement." However, I instantly realized why they needed to be here (after checking for spyware, that is...). I'm probably more surprised by the revenue generated than by the ads themselves, and if they weren't generating revenue by clicks rather than views (this has been confirmed, right?), I wouldn't turn mine off even if I could.
I would like to see them reformatted, as many other people have mentioned. A letterbox in the upper right of a lyrics tag would be best, but building it into the actual tag might screw up the formatting of other letterboxes above the first tag (such as {{B-Hits}} and {{Wikipedia}}). Perhaps they could be enclosed in a frame of a different color, which might attract the eye as much as the ridiculous font (but please not red!). We might even put in our own image of a cell phone, just to emphasize how our ringtone ads are not the same as those of other places - even if 90% as annoying, I'd like to see them 90% different in format. This might say "advertisement" in very small letters at the bottom, just to address the issue of having ads inside our actual content. With this, I have in mind our assertion that we are a wiki, want to be able to eventually partner closely with wikipedia, but that advertisements are an absolute necessity for us, and everyone already knows that they are, in fact, advertisements. Then again, quite a lot of people apparently clicked on them, so maybe I shouldn't make generalizations about who these people actually are.
I would prefer to have them moved away from the "content" of the page, because it's the content itself that needs to be the most free, but I know that they might need to have a central place on the page. What if they appeared at the very top, so they wouldn't be between two bits of legitimate content ({{Song}} and the lyrics, or the lyrics and {{SongFooter}}. Could they be put in the external links section as well, which includes a few links that also generate revenue? Then again, I might be proposing changes that could cut the revenue. Making a few changes in between payment periods, so the effect on revenue can be measured, might be the best solution. For now, I'm off to get some white-out for my computer screen... ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 05:12, 3 November 2008 (UTC)- Some great ideas as usual from team a...which made me want to clarify something. Is the revenue being paid as a result of us viewing the ads on our pages, or by following the link and viewing the site? I had always assumed it meant the latter. And please excuse my ignorance but if the revenue comes from us viewing the ads on our pages, how is anyone to know how many people are using third party scripts such as AdBlock, NoScript, etc. to hide ads when they visit this site? They are certainly not uncommon after all. I'm asking all this because I understand the need for revenue, but I choose not to view ads when I'm surfing the web. In fact not being bombarded with ads and a comment about this that I found on Sean's User page (which sadly now needs to be updated) was what actually encouraged me to return here in the first place. (That, and some admin with a wicked sense of humour..you know who you are http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msn60/smile009.gif). ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 13:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
- Being the one that brought up the adblock script I might be the only one that's going to answer this in this way. By examination of the source code that is sent to my browser it looks like clicks are what brings in the revenue (there's a LW reference in the link) which is a good thing sort of because adblocking scripts will stop your browser from actually calling for and downloading pictures/flash objects/scripts which are flagged as ads. If hits were to be recorded a script would be needed and adblocking add-ons would stop this thus lowering this revenue. So for us who never click ads in the first place, adblocking isn't hurting the sites we visit if clicks are recorded. I'm assuming that the ad vendor wont budge on the formatting. It'd be nice if they did though. Sorry if I'm flooding you guys with **** loads of text -- Humbug 12:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
- To clear things up: the banners tend to be almost exclusively pay-per-click (a small percentage are per-page-view). The text-links on the left pay per month. The ringtone ads actually work like Amazon and iTunes and only pay when they sell something.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 15:21, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you for explaining that. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 01:56, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Being the one that brought up the adblock script I might be the only one that's going to answer this in this way. By examination of the source code that is sent to my browser it looks like clicks are what brings in the revenue (there's a LW reference in the link) which is a good thing sort of because adblocking scripts will stop your browser from actually calling for and downloading pictures/flash objects/scripts which are flagged as ads. If hits were to be recorded a script would be needed and adblocking add-ons would stop this thus lowering this revenue. So for us who never click ads in the first place, adblocking isn't hurting the sites we visit if clicks are recorded. I'm assuming that the ad vendor wont budge on the formatting. It'd be nice if they did though. Sorry if I'm flooding you guys with **** loads of text -- Humbug 12:14, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
- Some great ideas as usual from team a...which made me want to clarify something. Is the revenue being paid as a result of us viewing the ads on our pages, or by following the link and viewing the site? I had always assumed it meant the latter. And please excuse my ignorance but if the revenue comes from us viewing the ads on our pages, how is anyone to know how many people are using third party scripts such as AdBlock, NoScript, etc. to hide ads when they visit this site? They are certainly not uncommon after all. I'm asking all this because I understand the need for revenue, but I choose not to view ads when I'm surfing the web. In fact not being bombarded with ads and a comment about this that I found on Sean's User page (which sadly now needs to be updated) was what actually encouraged me to return here in the first place. (That, and some admin with a wicked sense of humour..you know who you are http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msn60/smile009.gif). ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 13:50, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
- I haven't commented on this yet (didn't realize this page existed until just now), so I wanted to take this opportunity to do so. I was shocked by the ringtones ads as well, but my #1 problem is the formatting and color, not their existence. It's the fact that they are just about the only thing exactly the same on every other site. That is, in my mind, they are the only thing that could explicitly contradict LW's "mission statement." However, I instantly realized why they needed to be here (after checking for spyware, that is...). I'm probably more surprised by the revenue generated than by the ads themselves, and if they weren't generating revenue by clicks rather than views (this has been confirmed, right?), I wouldn't turn mine off even if I could.
[edit] Configurable ads
As mentioned above, we're going to allow users the option to chose between ringtone-links and no banners or banners and no ringtone-links. I got this coded and tested on the test-server. It has the potential to take the site down when I upload a bunch of files though (and I'm going to have to switch everyone from Monobook to LyricWiki skin to have the effects applied). We're about to start an all-day meeting at work, so I'll wait until after work to upload all of these changes so that I have time to fix things if problems arise. This will be a fun feature to have!
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 15:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
- We should probably re-mention this on Bot Portal, because pywikipedia breaks apart from Monobook skin...--Åqüã†ìкí ƒΔΣ ¶ 17:12, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
- The bot needs the monobook skin, or the main user does? As far as I'm concerned, I don't need to log in to the site with my bot, and I usually don't use pywikipedia with my main account, although I can see why others might. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 21:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
- Well I promptly broke my bot by switching over to the new skin, What can I change in pywikipedia to make the bot work with the new skin? tia cheers ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 00:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Mainly my note was for Sean, so that he will leave the Monobook skin as a choice: people have to make accounts to pick their skin. Pywikipedia screen-scrapes essential parts of off Monobook, but as so as though parts don't change, the bots won't break. If the LW skin is very different, then bot owners will need to login as their bot once and select a skin Preference of Monobook. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒΔΣ ¶ 01:55, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- I put a note on the bot-portal. Basically bots that already use monobook will be fine, but if ppl make other bots, they should write them for the LyricWiki skin since that is the one we'll be maintaining. It just occurred to me that certain libraries might need it to be monobook if the bot-writer didn't write the library themself. Hmm. Right now Monobook and LyricWiki are that you can now configure your ads (see below). Let me know if there end up being problems with that & we'll tackle them then.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 03:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Mainly my note was for Sean, so that he will leave the Monobook skin as a choice: people have to make accounts to pick their skin. Pywikipedia screen-scrapes essential parts of off Monobook, but as so as though parts don't change, the bots won't break. If the LW skin is very different, then bot owners will need to login as their bot once and select a skin Preference of Monobook. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒΔΣ ¶ 01:55, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Well I promptly broke my bot by switching over to the new skin, What can I change in pywikipedia to make the bot work with the new skin? tia cheers ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 00:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- The bot needs the monobook skin, or the main user does? As far as I'm concerned, I don't need to log in to the site with my bot, and I usually don't use pywikipedia with my main account, although I can see why others might. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 21:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)
Alrighty, ads are now configurable! To choose your ad settings, go to your Special:Preferences and click on the "Ads" tab. If it doesn't work right away, that probably means you're still using the old Monobook skin and need to switch to the LyricWiki skin. That can be done in the "Skin" tab of the same preferences page, but is being automatically done right now for all users (that script should be done within an hour or so of this posting). So now you can get rid of those ringtone links! :D
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 03:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Is this for all users, or just those logged in? <edit> Nevermind. Duh. Non-logged in users don't get a preferences tab.<edit> Kiefer talk contribs admin 03:51, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you!! The content looks much better now :D --Aikon- 04:49, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Great job, Now everybody can get what they want. ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 05:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, Sean. BTW, I don't know if this has been here all along and I didnt notice, but are there supposed to be ringtone ads on artist pages? A ringtone ad on a lyrics page might seem more reasonable to users, but on an artist page seems a bit sketchy. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 19:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, that's currently intentional. I find it kind of annoying on the shorter artist pages (one of those links seems normal to me, but if I see two on my screen at once it just feels like "get out of my face!", lol). If it continues to annoy me, I'll probably eventually figure out a way to remove one of them when more than one is on the screen at once.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 20:22, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- It just seems really out of place on artist pages. They're maybe the closest things we have to articles like on wikipedia, as they can provide additional information and links. The ringtone add ends up going at the very top, which bumps down the star, wikipedia infobox, and TOC. At the bottom, the ringtone add goes underneath the external links section made by {{Artist}}, but doesn't match the format of the rest of the links. It just seems a bit tacked on in these situations, much more so than on song pages. This is in addition to the formatting of the ad itself. Does the ad company allow us to reformat the actual ringtone box? They're just paying us for clicks, right, no matter how they come? Of course, I'd be happy to help out with this in any way, I don't want to give the impression that I'm asking for a lot of things without being willing to put in the time. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 20:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, Sean. BTW, I don't know if this has been here all along and I didnt notice, but are there supposed to be ringtone ads on artist pages? A ringtone ad on a lyrics page might seem more reasonable to users, but on an artist page seems a bit sketchy. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 19:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Great job, Now everybody can get what they want. ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 05:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Default Layout
Now you can control the layout, but I'm still working on what the default will be. Not sure what makes the most sense. I'm leaning towards having just the ringtone links on song/artist pages and having just the banners on the other pages. Might be tricky to code. We'll see. I'll have some coding time sometime after tomorrow night to figure it out.
-Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 21:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks for your efforts with all this Sean. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 22:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
- As an update, I'm still working on this. I've been sick for most of the past week but will be working on LyricWiki tomorrow.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 01:08, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Ringtone Ads - Odd bug
I have ringtone ads turned off in Preferences, but I still very occasionally see them on song pages... Just now, I opened Louis Armstrong:Blueberry Hill and they were there – after I hit "edit" and "save" without actually changing anything, they were gone. They're also on Louis Armstrong:Mack The Knife. It can't be a buffer thing either, because Senvaikis edited them just a few minutes ago. It's too rare to be annoying; just thought you might like to know. -- 6x9 (Talk) 22:39, 16 November 2008 (UTC) PS. I checked a few more pages that Senvaikis recently edited with his tool, and the ads appear on all of them.
- Yep, it's kind of odd. Apparently some old copy of the page is hanging around somewhere in the server. If you load the page with "?action=purge" appended to the URL once (for example: http://lyricwiki.org/Louis_Armstrong:Mack_The_Knife?action=purge), it will stay away. --Mischko
(wishing happiness, health and heaps-of-fun for 2009 to all my friends here at LyricWiki!) 09:22, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, but... those pages I linked above have very recently been changed by Senvaikis, who added LrcDB links, and since I see the links at the bottom, it can't be an old version of the page, can it? (Thanks for that purge tip – should be quicker than edit/save.) -- 6x9 (Talk) 16:59, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Follow-up: Odd ringtone-related bug
(moved from Senv's talk page by Red's request)
Hi,
if you could have a quick look at this... I haven't the faintest idea what could be causing this, but thought you might find it interesting. -- 6x9 (Talk) 23:03, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
- Just can't say nothing about this phenomenon - haven't experienced that yet (using Adblock Plus).--Senvaikis (talk) 08:51, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yep... After reading further your discussion now I understand better your polite question :) Strange feeling to suddenly discover myself being a terrorist :) But the most interesting thing is that I still have absolutelly no idea how it happens and can't reproduce effect mentioned in discussion neither on FF 3.0.4 nor on IE7.
- I'd like to make some investigation myself - to look when this mess was started and what type of pages it appears on. But, as I've said, I just can't research something invisible for me. I believe some experiment's should be done to find the reason. I'm ready to take part in that, if you consider it appropriate.--Senvaikis (talk) 20:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- methiks this is some windowz related oddity, none of the Mac users have reported this, so it may be nobody's fault but M$ ;) ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 21:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- But somehow it's associated with LwTools, if I've got right? Have one idea to be checked: as i've mentioned, I'm using Adblock Plus. Naturally I haven't any need for any changes in my preferences (leaving 'default' in Ads). But internal IE controll I'm using in my LwTools doesn't have this add-on. So maybe exists some mystic possibility of saving banners this controll loads while I'm editing pages with LwTools? Truth to tell, I can't imagine such process, but we can check that, just making a couple of edits - with blocking enabled or disabled in my preferences.--Senvaikis (talk) 21:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- Maybe we should wait for a comment from Sean (or someone who knows how that ringtone thing works). If a page being edited by a registered* user with ads enabled causes them to appear, while something as simple as suffixing "?action=purge" makes them disappear again, it's a bug that needs to be addressed.
- @ EchoSierra: Do all those Mac users have similar ad blockers? If yes, does disabling them make the ads appear? -- 6x9 (Talk) 22:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- (*) I never saw these ads on pages created or edited by unregistered users.
- Can I help? Test things? I haven't got IE7 but I've got 6. I also use Windows (XP). I can change my preferences. I can then edit a page?? ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 22:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- But somehow it's associated with LwTools, if I've got right? Have one idea to be checked: as i've mentioned, I'm using Adblock Plus. Naturally I haven't any need for any changes in my preferences (leaving 'default' in Ads). But internal IE controll I'm using in my LwTools doesn't have this add-on. So maybe exists some mystic possibility of saving banners this controll loads while I'm editing pages with LwTools? Truth to tell, I can't imagine such process, but we can check that, just making a couple of edits - with blocking enabled or disabled in my preferences.--Senvaikis (talk) 21:36, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- methiks this is some windowz related oddity, none of the Mac users have reported this, so it may be nobody's fault but M$ ;) ∃cho⚡ierr∀ (☏) 21:00, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Red's test
Nope, all I see is the word "test" in ugly all-caps :-) No ringtone ads. Must be something else then. (Sean, are you reading this?) -- 6x9 (Talk) 00:12, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] TOOLS
Internet Explorer 6 Windows XP
[edit] STEPS TAKEN - Part 1
K Back. Well that was interesting.
- Egg:Boilk - First I edited this with banners and no ringtones.
- Egg:While Growing My Hair - Then I edited this with default setting which seems to be both banners and ringtones.
- Egg:Bulb - Then I edited this page with ringtones no banners. Whilst there was no ringtone on the page when I arrived on it (which I can’t explain unless I didn’t clear my cache – which is why I repeated experiment below), upon saving ringtone ad appeared.
[edit] RESULTS - Part 2
I changed preferences to banners- no ringtones. I signed out. I emptied cache. I signed in. Banners apparent. I went to Egg page. No ringtone ads on artist page but they were still on every song page!! The only pages that didn’t have the ringtone ad were instrumentals without lyrics tags and Egg:Boilk that I had edited and saved with ringtones turned off in my preferences.
I changed preferences to ringtones-no banners. I signed out. I emptied cache. I signed in. No banners. I went to Egg page. Ringtone ad on artist page and on every song page. The only pages that didn’t have the ringtone ad were instrumentals without lyrics tags and yes, you guessed it, Egg:Boilk that I had edited and saved with ringtones turned off in my preferences.
I changed preferences to default. I signed out. I emptied cache. I signed in. Banners apparent. I went to Egg page. Ringtone ad on artist page. Banners were on every page and the ringtones were also on all pages BUT not on the instrumentals without lyrics tags and yes, you guessed it, Egg:Boilk!!
I changed preferences back to banners- no ringtones. I signed out. I emptied cache. I signed in. Banners apparent. I went to Egg page. No ringtone ads on artist page but they were still on every song page!! The only pages that didn’t have the ringtone ad were instrumentals without lyrics tags and Egg:Boilk.
So…..I re-edited Egg:Bulb and upon saving the ringtone ad disappeared.
I signed out. I emptied cache. I signed in. Banners apparent. I went to Egg page. No ringtone ads on artist page but they were still on every song page!! The only pages that didn’t have the ringtone ad were instrumentals without lyrics tags, Egg:Boilk and [Egg:Bulb]].
[edit] CONCLUSION
So yes I would say that it does seem to make a difference what the editor has set their preferences to when they edit/save a page. Also, instrumental pages without lyrics tags don't get the ringtone ad. I would also like to know why I can still see ringtone ads on every Egg song page (asides from the instrumentals and the two I edited/saved with ringtones off) when ringtones are turned off in my preferences!! ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 01:30, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] UPDATE
Ok just signed in Firefox. My preferences were set as they always are now to banners no ringtones. I went to Egg page. Ringtones are still showing on all the Egg song pages apart from the instrumentals without lyrics tags and Egg:Boilk and Egg:Bulb, the two I edited and saved last night while my preferences were set to no ringtones. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 10:19, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- That looks like a rather exhaustive (and exhausting) test! Sean mentioned somewhere that the ads on song pages where triggered by the lyric tags, so that's why they don't appear on instrumentals without those.
- Like I wrote above, I never saw an ad on any of the three pages you edited. As to why you still saw them even after disabling them... maybe your ISP maintains its own cache? It's never happened to me – as soon as I changed preferences, they were gone. (Well, except on those pages changed by Senvaikis' tool, of course.) -- 6x9 (Talk) 01:58, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I'll check the ISP caching thing out tomorrow, both in IE and in Firefox, so could you leave those pages I edited til then? Thanks. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 02:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I just did my own quick test: changed settings to show ads, checked random page (ads showed), edited a page, changed settings back (no ads on random page), edited page still shows ad, even after clearing IE's cache; loading same page with "?action=purge", ad gone. Now the puzzling thing is: why do I see the ad on a page changed by myself AND on a page changed by someone else (or his tool), but NOT on a page changed by Red??? It's like this bug tries systematically to be unsystematic... -- 6x9 (Talk) 05:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Strange that even after all your tests you still can't stop incriminating Senv's tool :). It has nothing to do with all this mess. Just look here to ensure that manualy created (in IE with 'default' settings) page also may have all these 'residual beauties'. --Senvaikis (talk) 10:29, 18 November 2008 (UTC) (Edit:RRRRR... Now they dissapeared... Ok, taking a break ;))
- Lol no ringtone didn't appear for me either. Senv can you edit a different song page in a minute with your tool and I'll see exactly what I get? And as another user has now reported experiencing this same problem (see this post), can I suggest you move/copy this discussion to: LyricWiki_talk:Ads#Ringtone_Ads_-_Odd_bug. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 13:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Strange that even after all your tests you still can't stop incriminating Senv's tool :). It has nothing to do with all this mess. Just look here to ensure that manualy created (in IE with 'default' settings) page also may have all these 'residual beauties'. --Senvaikis (talk) 10:29, 18 November 2008 (UTC) (Edit:RRRRR... Now they dissapeared... Ok, taking a break ;))
- I just did my own quick test: changed settings to show ads, checked random page (ads showed), edited a page, changed settings back (no ads on random page), edited page still shows ad, even after clearing IE's cache; loading same page with "?action=purge", ad gone. Now the puzzling thing is: why do I see the ad on a page changed by myself AND on a page changed by someone else (or his tool), but NOT on a page changed by Red??? It's like this bug tries systematically to be unsystematic... -- 6x9 (Talk) 05:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I'll check the ISP caching thing out tomorrow, both in IE and in Firefox, so could you leave those pages I edited til then? Thanks. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 02:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks Senv. I don't know if you edited those two Elvis song pages Elvis Presley:Smokey Mountain Boy and Elvis Presley:Kissin' Cousins with your tool, but if you did it didn't affect the pages for me personally. However the ringtones are still appearing both in Internet Explorer and in Firefox on the Egg pages (EX: Egg:While Growing My Hair), these being pages that you haven't edited. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 13:36, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Just added now due to edit conflict: I knew Red as exclusively talented listener... Not this time :) Once more: there's no need to make any experiments with my guiltless LwTools. I made more pure experiment - took 2 pages previously edited with LwTools and having these 'residual RT' (visible regardless of prferences). Then I made two manual edits on them in IE7, one with 'default' Ads, and second with 'Banners/no RT', everytime clearing IE cache. Then cleared cache again, even restarted IE and loaded the same pages. They looked different, according to IE settings while editing (check page with RT and page without RT). Now I hope you understand why experimenting with LwTools might lead us to wrong conclusions :) I don't know how else can I prove you that LwTools has nothing to do with this mess :)--Senvaikis (talk) 13:53, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Red, forgive me, an oaf - I haven't made cache clearing the last time, before reloading those test pages.
Yep, they both still have those damned RTs... Sorry for desinformation. I'll return here after ~20 min. to make experiment with LwT.Damn Rt...--Senvaikis (talk) 14:10, 18 November 2008 (UTC)- Lol, I'm real scaterbrain (usual genius feature ;)) Yes, I forgot to clear cache and pages looked different. Then I cleared cache, and both pages became RT'ed. But I forgot to make one more step - return to preferences and set 'no RT'. And after I've made that, pages became different again! So, now I'm sure that this residual RT effect has nothing in common with Lwt. No additional tests needed (for me; but if you still think that such experiment may be useful - I'll be ready after next ~15 min). cheers, --Senvaikis (talk) 14:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Although I can't explain why 6x9 can see them on pages you edited with your tool, so far as I can see it's got nothing to do with your tool. I have even checked pages you've used it with recently and I don't see any ringtones on those pages. Maybe 6x9 should look at pages in your recent contributions on which you've used your tool but which he hasn't edited, such as Elvis Presley:Echoes Of Love. Because if the problem he is experiencing is your tool, then he should see them on every page you've used it on. Also, I bet you can't see them on this Egg page, but I can. Whereas you have got them on Elvis' pages: Smokey Mountain Boy and Kissin' Cousins and I haven't. It is all very weird. I have asked another user who is experiencing this problem for some information. Maybe that will throw some more light on this. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 15:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I know you are genius too, so I don't afraid that you may take it ill if I ask you - are you clearing your IE cache each time when you want to check what changes were made on the page? For me EP pages I used in test still are different in IE with disabled RT in prefs: Smokey is RT'ed, Cousins - not. (My OS is Win XP Professional, SP3). And once more: the fact that some effect is visible on pages edited with LwT doesn't mean that the reason is LwT. The reason is IE, used in LwT. I had a hope that my test on EP have prove that... --Senvaikis (talk) 15:46, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I'm really not trying to put the blame on LwT! It's just that I see the ads on pages changed by it, but not on the ones changed by Red in her test (and using IE!), which you'll have to admit is somewhat odd. On the two recent Presley pages, I see the expected result: ads on "Smokey" (which you edited with ads enabled), none on "Cousins" (which you edited with ads disabled). Before take this discussion any further, might I suggest we wait until Sean has looked into it? As far as I can see he's the only one in a position to shed some light on this. -- 6x9 (Talk) 18:11, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- I know you are genius too, so I don't afraid that you may take it ill if I ask you - are you clearing your IE cache each time when you want to check what changes were made on the page? For me EP pages I used in test still are different in IE with disabled RT in prefs: Smokey is RT'ed, Cousins - not. (My OS is Win XP Professional, SP3). And once more: the fact that some effect is visible on pages edited with LwT doesn't mean that the reason is LwT. The reason is IE, used in LwT. I had a hope that my test on EP have prove that... --Senvaikis (talk) 15:46, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Although I can't explain why 6x9 can see them on pages you edited with your tool, so far as I can see it's got nothing to do with your tool. I have even checked pages you've used it with recently and I don't see any ringtones on those pages. Maybe 6x9 should look at pages in your recent contributions on which you've used your tool but which he hasn't edited, such as Elvis Presley:Echoes Of Love. Because if the problem he is experiencing is your tool, then he should see them on every page you've used it on. Also, I bet you can't see them on this Egg page, but I can. Whereas you have got them on Elvis' pages: Smokey Mountain Boy and Kissin' Cousins and I haven't. It is all very weird. I have asked another user who is experiencing this problem for some information. Maybe that will throw some more light on this. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 15:08, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- Lol, I'm real scaterbrain (usual genius feature ;)) Yes, I forgot to clear cache and pages looked different. Then I cleared cache, and both pages became RT'ed. But I forgot to make one more step - return to preferences and set 'no RT'. And after I've made that, pages became different again! So, now I'm sure that this residual RT effect has nothing in common with Lwt. No additional tests needed (for me; but if you still think that such experiment may be useful - I'll be ready after next ~15 min). cheers, --Senvaikis (talk) 14:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Another bug...well kinda...
Internet Explorer browser. Anyone else get this? 
♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 13:15, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- I don't... then again, I don't use M$IE :P --Mischko (wishing happiness, health and heaps-of-fun for 2009 to all my friends here at LyricWiki!) 16:57, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- (Sorry, that was not a helpful response... but I couldn't let the chance go by ;))
- I never saw anything like that, but I use IE6 through Maxthon, which has ad blocking. (Yes, not very helpful either, sorry.) -- 6x9 (Talk) 16:59, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- @Mischko - neither do I http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msn60/smile007.gif I was just trying to help 6x9 out with the ringtone problem so I opened up in IE to see for myself. I have however chosen banner ads in my preferences (but nevertheless I did see what you meant 6x9). I'll see if I KingNee can assist, as I know he is using Senv's script. "KingNee..." ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 17:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- <guru voice>I have been summoned? What is it that you need, child?</guru voice> Yes, I have noticed that IE6 does that for me at work. However, I wouldn't be able to do anything about the banner being in the wrong place. That would be something that Sean would have to code directly into the page skin. Alternatively, Red, I don't have a screenshot but your user page is none too pretty in IE6. Silly IE6 not having any of the modern coding libraries!
- King_Nee1114 (talk page • contributions • deletions) 06:32, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- OK, after reading Senvaikis' page, I now understand the relevance of pulling me in on this one. I would like to point out that the only place I have IE6 is at work, on a completely separate computer (which is repulsively without modification), and I have that banner placement issue each time that I load a page. My response was to switch to the ringtone ads while at work.
- King_Nee1114 (talk page • contributions • deletions) 06:43, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
- @Mischko - neither do I http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msn60/smile007.gif I was just trying to help 6x9 out with the ringtone problem so I opened up in IE to see for myself. I have however chosen banner ads in my preferences (but nevertheless I did see what you meant 6x9). I'll see if I KingNee can assist, as I know he is using Senv's script. "KingNee..." ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 17:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
- I never saw anything like that, but I use IE6 through Maxthon, which has ad blocking. (Yes, not very helpful either, sorry.) -- 6x9 (Talk) 16:59, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Formatting
Are there going to be formatting changes for the actual ringtone ad? I'm certain (as I'm sure many other users are) that we're turning away people because of these ads, especially what it's like to go to a wiki and think you're getting a wiki, then see formatting a child could make, like on other lyrics sites. What newcomers to the site think about them is more important than experienced users being able to turn them off. We're not creating a lyrics database just so we can look at the lyrics that we ourselves edited. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 03:47, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
- I totally agree. I'm quite sure that newcomers don't want to see these ads anymore than we do, but it looks like these ads are here to stay. However, it would be nice, and I think I'd stand a much better chance of persuading newcomers to stay, if the next time I tell a newcomer who has complained about the ringtones that they can turn them off in their preferences, the setting actually worked! http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msn60/smile001.gif ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 16:00, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, that's a good point. It does require newcomers to find someone to ask about it, though, and I probably wouldn't. Anyway, even if my reaction wasn't to leave, I rarely sign up on sites and start complaining about things. ...that comes later. Do we know for certain that the formatting's mandated by the ad company? ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 07:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- (Newcomer's post about ringtones and then... his next day's post). But in answer to your question, I don't know if the formatting is mandated by the ringtone company, but it does seem to be displayed the same on all the other lyric sites... ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 16:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- Right. We can still technically fulfill our motto about annoying ads... Also, if there could be some way to check for the "ringtone ads - on" status in the acutal wikitext, our wikipedia and billboard templates could match up with the lyric tags with and without the ads. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 17:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- I think the only person who can answer any questions about ringtones team a is Sean. I have already left a message on his talk page inviting him over here. If you see him you'll have to grab him quick! http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msn60/smile009.gif ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 02:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
- I'm here (just saw Redxx's edit in my Special:WatchlistFeed actually. I've added this to the Upgrade todolist (even though it's not technically part of the upgrade, I figure it's pretty urgent also. My fear is that this has something to do with the article-caching being different than the page-caching. I'll bet it'll take a JavaScript hack to hide it in all cases when you have it turned off, but we'll see.
- -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 04:57, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, Sean! How about the format of the ad, is that non-negotiable? ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 06:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- You mean the ugliness? -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 06:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- Lol@ugliness. Ok update. My test pages = Egg. I think you are right Sean caching issue. I just checked them. No new edits and all the ringtone ads have now disappeared from pages. ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 23:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- You mean the ugliness? -Sean Colombo (talk|contribs) 06:26, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks, Sean! How about the format of the ad, is that non-negotiable? ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 06:08, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
- I think the only person who can answer any questions about ringtones team a is Sean. I have already left a message on his talk page inviting him over here. If you see him you'll have to grab him quick! http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msn60/smile009.gif ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 02:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
- Right. We can still technically fulfill our motto about annoying ads... Also, if there could be some way to check for the "ringtone ads - on" status in the acutal wikitext, our wikipedia and billboard templates could match up with the lyric tags with and without the ads. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 17:04, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- (Newcomer's post about ringtones and then... his next day's post). But in answer to your question, I don't know if the formatting is mandated by the ringtone company, but it does seem to be displayed the same on all the other lyric sites... ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 16:59, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, that's a good point. It does require newcomers to find someone to ask about it, though, and I probably wouldn't. Anyway, even if my reaction wasn't to leave, I rarely sign up on sites and start complaining about things. ...that comes later. Do we know for certain that the formatting's mandated by the ad company? ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 07:10, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, I was thinking about the ugliness, and similarity to all the other sites out there. I know there are problems with the placement right now and maybe caching issues, but I'd like to know if that is going to be updated once the major stuff has been dealt with. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 06:48, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Artist ringtone ads on album pages
I don't think this has been brought up yet, but forgive me if it has. Compilations (albums with no artist) with no colon in the page title are considered to be artist pages, and thus have ringtone ads where they shouldn't. Examples: [2] [3] [4]. Traditional LW variables such as {{PAGETYPE}}, {{ARTIST}}, {{ALBUM}}, and {{ALBUMYEAR}} are incapable of telling the difference between artists and these types of compilations (roughly 95%). Note that this problem can easily be dissolved with Sematic, where the page type will be set in the wikitext of every page. ♠team a ‹talk•ctrb› 09:14, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Cancel or Delete Ads
I think you should delete the advertisings completely from this site.. I thinks it's very obnoxious with aLyricll these ads all over the site. If they should be on LyricWiki, then why not on WikiPedia??? Don9C 20:20, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- umm, hello? Do you see the fundraising banner on Wikipedia right now? I don't see you on LyricWiki:Past Donations... maybe you're waiting til the time is right to drop your 100,000 on us. --Åqüã†ìкí ƒΔΣ ¶ 21:11, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- What Aquatiki was trying to say was that Wikipedia is kept ad-free by the amount of money donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. Unfortunately, LyricWiki does not receive enough donations to keep it alive solely on donations, so we must turn to advertisements for cash. The only way to get rid of them is to donate more. --WillMak050389 21:12, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
- You can also choose which ads to turn off in your preferences...under "Ads". ♫♫Яєdxx ♪♫♪♫♪ Actions Words 03:39, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
