legacycentral bbs

I would like nothing more than to see this board exist for a long time, but i'd also like it to be able to pay for itself. Google's AdSense is one of the best ad delivery systems available. It's text, can be customized to match the page colors and gives ads tailored to the pages.

I know there will be some objections, but very few people have purchased items from the CafePress store, so that's not paid a single cent towards the site. I will not take donations and i will not move the site.

What do you think?

If that's what it takes. There's no reason you should be taking the burden of holding the site up by yourself.

Steve

DO they pop up or what? I'd hate to have pop ups but if they're something that has to be clicked on to access then that'd be ok.

How I look at it is this, it's your site and whatever you have to do to keep it going is all good in my book. I'd much rather deal with ads then get stuck hangin' at NABISCO because there's no more BBS.

i dont really care as long as there is not a lot of pop-ups. do what you need to do.

We all always would like the ideal ... but ideal's only exist in theory so do what you have to keep the BBS alive. We'll survive much better with ads and the BBS than with no BBS.

AdSense ads are the most unobtrusive ones possible. No pop ups, no flash, no images, just simple text. The ads would probably be placed above or below the Quick Reply box and on a few other pages.

What does it cost ya to keep it goin? I don't really care for ads, but AdSense would be one of the better choices definately.

I think AdSense is a pretty good way to go. They're the ads you see sometimes on web sites where it says "Ads by Google" and then there are some simple text-based ads (no pop-ups, no banners, no images of any kind). A lot of the time I actually find the links in the ads helpful since they use that Google magic voodoo.

All of us could make a point to click on ads as often as Google will pay money for. So in a sense, we would all be using our mice and eyeballs to help pay for the BBS.

Sounds better than legacycentral dying.

Yeah, if it means clicking here and there to generate a nickel or two, I'll take my time and do it.. it might suck a bit more for the still-on-dialup folks, but a click here or there can't hurt...

Why no donations?

If stingy ole' Vikash is cool with this then how bad can it be . But seriously, Vikash probably has one of the slower internet connects out of all of us so if he's happy then I'm happy because I want him to keep posting his knowledge.

Hehehe... Well, sometimes I'm on slow connections, yes, as are many of us I think. Like I said, AdSense ads are very simple so they're efficient to download and render. I think you can only get credit for something like three clicks per IP address per day, so we'd just click on the ads when we had a minute or two to spare.

Brat4by4's question is a good one, though -- have you considered soliciting donations from board members, Dave? Or are you concerned it'll stratify the membership?

My problem with donations is that most people don't think anything of giving a few bucks for a cause, but others believe there's some entitlement because they helped to support the site.

AdSense makes sense, and if it can help fund the site while staying with the whole ethos we have cultivated, we'll stick with it.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Money complicates relationships.

Well, don't solicit. If there were a paypal e-mail address in theory that could be used for the BBS, what would it be?

I think we can handle clicking on a link when we have a few extra minutes easy enough as I do agree that money does complicate relationships.

Ok, they're active in the smartDark template, which almost all BBS members are using. I know i'll probably end up tweaking a few things, so i'll hold off on adding the changes to the other styles till then.

So, what do you guys think?

Seems pretty good.

Is it possible to put the ad below the quick reply box, or does Google not permit it being so close to the end? The reason I ask is that it's harder to scroll back and forth between the recent post and the quick reply box while composing a reply.

Yeah, i'm gonna tweak with that a bit more. I'd like to be able to have them side by side, if possible, but i don't know if it's going to let me do that.

How's that?

Ooh, I like it this way. It's basically occupying what used to be wasted space.

Personlly, I'd like the ads at the homepage on the bottom, but it's whatever you guys decide.

So, Dave, what are the rules about how many clicks you can get revenue for?

I have tried to keep the ads in places that were empty before. The main forum page is so large that the only good place to put it was the top. The topic and forum pages worked out very nice.

I'm not exactly sure how the clickthroughs work. There's more info at https://google.com/adsense/

They seem rather large in certain areas. not sure if it's just my screen or what.