
Testing advertisements across the network - Dansdela
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/329763/were-testing-advertisements-across-the-network
======
notinversed
I love how the responsibility is always on the end user to watch out for and
report malicious ads, and in postings like this they always talk about how
good they are at removing the "bad ads".

If we're going to be test subjects for new malware delivery vectors that the
owner of the site has no control over then I think we should at least get
numbers for revenue and profitability for these ad programs.

I guess this post isn't really about StackExchange, I'm just tired of being
the product and the test subject of these monstrous ad networks.

~~~
MrMember
That's been the case for ages, I've seen it across many sites. When it's
discovered a site is distributing malware through ads they'll wring their
hands and say they aren't responsible for the content their site distributes,
and then the next day they're complaining about people using adblockers. It's
so transparent and pathetic.

------
dangThatSucks
Related:

Ads on SE sites are excessively animated, irrelevant, dubious and resource-
intensive [https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/329547/ads-on-se-
si...](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/329547/ads-on-se-sites-are-
excessively-animated-irrelevant-dubious-and-resource-inten)

The Stack Overflow I wish to build and participate in is no longer supported
[https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/386324/the-stack-
ov...](https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/386324/the-stack-overflow-i-
wish-to-build-and-participate-in-is-no-longer-supported)

------
echelon
Aren't Stack Overflow questions and answers licensed under Creative Commons?
It seems like an enterprising group of people could stand up a new website
with all of the content and go Wikipedia's funding model with no ads or
tracking.

This is exactly what I did with StrategyWiki when Wikibooks deleted their
video game guides. I already had a GFDL licensed wiki with topical content, so
I copied down everything that was about to get expunged and merged it with our
existing guides. (Unfortunately a collaborator of mine stole the site by
breaking into my domain name account, transferred the domain, and moved
servers while I was overseas. But that's another story...)

~~~
dageshi
You could, but google would see it all as duplicate content and you'd get no
traffic from them.

~~~
afpx
I’d bet a disproportional number of readers of such a site would use
duckduckgo.

------
Theodores
Stack Overflow was the greatest thing ever when it was new. It was brilliant.

But all ideas have a lifecycle. I am wondering if some aspects of Stack
Exchange are getting a bit ossified.

The answers themselves are a case in point. How to centre content in HTML
being a classic example. Years ago you needed to do negative margin hacks, a
few years later you could do transforms. Now you can just use the layout
engine that now comes with CSS - CSS Grid - and just do align/justify
items/self to center and that is it, no hacks needed.

But if you go on to SO to look up an answer you will see the answer from a
decade ago with a thousand upvotes, seventy hacky answers and no mention
whatsoever of the 2017+ CSS Grid method. The moderators would have locked down
the answers a few years ago. So, in suspended animation, is an incorrect
answer that has thousands of upvotes.

If you know nothing of HTML you could just copy/paste the answer and be happy
with it, even give it an upvote. But then to unlearn the hack method for the
new CSS Grid method would be not what you would want to do.

The more you know about an area of knowledge the more you realise that SO
answers could make you get it badly wrong.

This is purely due to the age of the site. Plus the people who were writing
answers originally no longer do so. They have oved on professionally and just
don't need the mod points any more than they need gold stars from a school
teacher.

Another aspect of the ossification is when you have too many admin people
accrue in an organisation. The merch for the giveaways costs too, things that
were once nice to have to get things started become expected. The money that
was once found for promoting new topic websites now becomes table stakes.

I think they need to focus more on the core product - SO - and not the other
sites. If questions had an 'is this answer set outmoded?' checkbox that people
who know the subject could flag then they might be able to get some detritus
removed from the content.

If they are thus able to keep SO relevant then all should be good for revenue.

As for on the other sites, can we expect this to make it more like Quora or am
I being pessimistic?

~~~
sefrost
My experience is that many answers have been updated by other users with up to
date information.

It says "edited" under the answer with the date, and you can see every version
of the text.

It's great that people take the time to do this!

~~~
Theodores
There is some feedback and the dashboards are great so you can do this.

But I haven't any interest in those answers I wrote up a decade ago (or
whenever it was) and the domain expertise is no longer in my working
knowledge. I don't believe I am alone in moving on that way.

Also some people learn one way of doing things and then stick to it, even if a
better way comes along.

Apart from pride there is no motivation to update your decade old answers.
Potential employers look for online stuff in repositories rather than SO
answers.

------
Nextgrid
Yet another company consumed by the cancer that is advertising.

The first stage was when they just introduced ads. This is the second stage.
The third and potentially terminal stage will be when they will require login
to read answers and have stupid pop ups like Medium does.

The worst thing is that they have the resources & influence to run their own
“premium” ad network and vet their ads, but don’t appear to do so (otherwise
there wouldn’t need to ask to report malicious/inappropriate ads).

~~~
buboard
> will require login to read answers and have stupid pop ups like Medium does.

And yet medium does not have ads , and neither does ~~nytimes~~, or bloomberg
which are frequently posted here. Are login/paywalls not a cancer of the web
though? It sure seems to be spreading fast.

The thing is, there is a 1%-1.5% percent of GDP that businesses have been
spending on advertising since forever. There is nothing wrong with using that
to have a free (as in free beer) internet, and as a bonus we have one that is
more pluralist too. The anti-ad hysteria will pass, but the ad spending will
stay.

~~~
Nextgrid
I don’t see paywalls as bad as ads. I hate them, but I understand the
publisher is simply trying to sell me access to their content in a honest way,
similarly to a shopkeeper asking me to pay for groceries. I hate them not
because they’re paywalls per-se, but because they are asking for too much
money (I don’t read any of these paywalled publications often enough to
warrant a subscription, and they don’t allow me to pay per-article). Also, a
lot of paywalled websites still have tons of tracking attached to them (in
addition to already having your details for billing purposes) which means
despite paying you still have the privacy liabilities that ads have.

Also remember that NYTimes & Bloomberg produce & own the content they publish.
Stack Exchange do not. Even setting aside opinions about the paywalls, I think
it would be very unethical to put the content users have contributed for free
behind a paywall.

What I hate even more is “login walls” that aren’t even paywalls, which means
they don’t make you login to make you pay, they instead want even more of your
personal data (to use later for ads, or resell to someone who’ll inevitably
use it for ads).

~~~
johannes1234321
The issue with paywalls is that we got use to the "free" access and paywalls
limit linkability/shareability: A typical newspaper article I can pass on to
my family/friends. With a paywall I can't easily pass it on. Also we still
have no good micropayment option. For reading a single article I don't want to
have a long subscription and don't want to register with yet another payment
service.

~~~
Nextgrid
Paywalled articles can embed a token allowing a certain amount of free views,
so links can still be shared.

