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I just thought I'd clear up a couple of common misconceptions regarding how the advertisements on Bulbapedia work, so that when bad ads turn up there, we can hopefully deal with them a lot quicker.
1. Bulbapedia's ads are geographically distributed
In short, this means that the ads seen by people in the US are different to what's seen in Canada, different to what's seen in Australia, different to what's seen in the UK, and so on and so forth.
Remember that I live outside of the US myself. In most cases, I don't see the same ads you do. Many staff members won't either.
2. Bulbapedia has no direct control over the advertisements
Our ads are provided by an outside ad company, who are the ones who sell the ads. This is standard practice amongst many large websites where there is not one single large sponsor. The system is large and complex, and we have little direct control over it. Ads are automatically added to the rotation by their system, and while all ads are automatically checked, there will always be some evil bastards who've found ways to get past those, leading us needing to remove ads from time to time.
To get an ad removed from the rotation, we need to go through them, and that requires us to be able to give them a lot more information than just the vague comment that one ad (which we don't know the identity of) is causing problems.
How to report a bad add
This is a simple process that so many people aren't following. PLEASE help us to help you by following this.
The Bad Ad thread can be found in the Garden Grotto here. Please post in this thread only, and do not start other threads to report ads. If you post in another thread, we may not notice it for a while, especially during busy periods like Christmas.
You MUST post a screenshot of the Bulbapedia page showing the bad advertisment when reporting a bad ad.
If you don't know how to take a screenshot, here's a quick guide.
While still looking at the page, hit the print screen (PrtSc) button on your keyboard, which will put a screenshot into your clipboard. Then, without copying any other text or graphics (which would replace the screenshot in the clipboard), open up any image editing software (even something as basic as Microsoft Paint, included in every copy of Windows by default). Paste (Ctrl+V or select paste from the edit menu) the screenshot into that program, then save the file and attach it to your post.
It would also help if you could give us the URL that the ad in question led to, as on several occasions we've had a bad ad displaying the same image as one of our good ads in an attempt to spoof it, while linking to something totally different.
f you don't give us a screenshot, it makes it VERY difficult to track down which ads may be problematic. Giving us a URL helps narrow it down further with a screenshot, but with only a URL, it becomes a very difficult process to try and track down the troublesome ads.
If you have any further questions regarding these advertisements, please ask them here.
1. Bulbapedia's ads are geographically distributed
In short, this means that the ads seen by people in the US are different to what's seen in Canada, different to what's seen in Australia, different to what's seen in the UK, and so on and so forth.
Remember that I live outside of the US myself. In most cases, I don't see the same ads you do. Many staff members won't either.
2. Bulbapedia has no direct control over the advertisements
Our ads are provided by an outside ad company, who are the ones who sell the ads. This is standard practice amongst many large websites where there is not one single large sponsor. The system is large and complex, and we have little direct control over it. Ads are automatically added to the rotation by their system, and while all ads are automatically checked, there will always be some evil bastards who've found ways to get past those, leading us needing to remove ads from time to time.
To get an ad removed from the rotation, we need to go through them, and that requires us to be able to give them a lot more information than just the vague comment that one ad (which we don't know the identity of) is causing problems.
How to report a bad add
This is a simple process that so many people aren't following. PLEASE help us to help you by following this.
The Bad Ad thread can be found in the Garden Grotto here. Please post in this thread only, and do not start other threads to report ads. If you post in another thread, we may not notice it for a while, especially during busy periods like Christmas.
You MUST post a screenshot of the Bulbapedia page showing the bad advertisment when reporting a bad ad.
If you don't know how to take a screenshot, here's a quick guide.
While still looking at the page, hit the print screen (PrtSc) button on your keyboard, which will put a screenshot into your clipboard. Then, without copying any other text or graphics (which would replace the screenshot in the clipboard), open up any image editing software (even something as basic as Microsoft Paint, included in every copy of Windows by default). Paste (Ctrl+V or select paste from the edit menu) the screenshot into that program, then save the file and attach it to your post.
It would also help if you could give us the URL that the ad in question led to, as on several occasions we've had a bad ad displaying the same image as one of our good ads in an attempt to spoof it, while linking to something totally different.
f you don't give us a screenshot, it makes it VERY difficult to track down which ads may be problematic. Giving us a URL helps narrow it down further with a screenshot, but with only a URL, it becomes a very difficult process to try and track down the troublesome ads.
If you have any further questions regarding these advertisements, please ask them here.
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