Ads on the wiki

Due to a recent change in circumstances, we are considering advertising on the wiki to help pay for new hosting costs. We realize that ads are annoying to many, so we'd like to take input on the subject. Here are some starter questions:

• What are some ways we can make ads less painful (ad placement, ad network choice, etc)?
• If you use an ad blocker, how can we get you to whitelist our site for ads?
• Would you consider donating money to save everyone the trouble of ads? This option is only acceptable if we can get a constant flow of donations.
• Would you pay a sum of money to disable ads for yourself for some length of time?

Feel free to give input not related to the questions as well.

1. What are some ways we can make ads less painful (ad placement, ad network choice, etc)?
   • don't have any pop-up ones and no flashing ones
   • no videos or ads with sound
2. If you use an ad blocker, how can we get you to whitelist our site for ads?
   • only if there's no pop up ones or flashing ones
   • if it doesn't use videos or ads with sound
3. Would you consider donating money to save everyone the trouble of ads? This option is only acceptable if we can get a constant flow of donations.
   • i would if i had money but im jobless
   • poor college student, can't.
4. Would you pay a sum of money to disable ads for yourself for some length of time?
   • no i would stop using the site
   • no

1. small adds, non 'flash' based adds, non animated adds. add's from choice's that revolve around Mabinogi and Nexon

2. unsure, maybe 1. can answer that lol, also like Eldiablox444 said NO POP UPS!!!! or pop unders, click jacking, etc. only from LEGIT sites.

3. yes, very much so would consider donating money to help keep wiki alive.

4. NO. bc this is a way for the site itself to become a some what business type, making money after limit is reached.

-Side Note-

Ok in further explanation. I'm sure just about everyone else will not want Ad's on wiki site. Ad's would make this place look cheap and cheesy. Yes I understand this is a free wiki site of course. So donations would be the best way to go. If Ad's are placed on the site, please make it something heavily related to Mabinogi/and or Nexon. RPG games in general.

My personal opinion is Nexon major fail when they started to allow Ad's on their own site. Which have that of no relation to Mabinogi or other Nexon game's or game's in general.

Tho I must heavily stress, because I and others have no choice. Please do not allow 'FLASHY'/Flash/Gif/Ad's with sound/ and please no LARGE ad's.

Thankyou for reading all of this.

You are right that having a per-user ad toggle would make the wiki very business-like, but that is certainly not our intention. I hadn't thought about it before. I don't think we would be aiming to make a profit as much as having a rainy day fund, but the more I think about it, even that would get messy. I'm sure if we went this route then we would reimburse extra money should the wiki shutdown, but this is one of the most complicated options because we would definitely need to write our own code for it. Handling stuff like wiki down times, etc, could just get annoying.

I would have no problems with adds on the wiki servers for mabi to keep the servers funded. the only request I make as a player of Mabinogi, is that the adds are fixed adds when you or anyone else loads the page. Those actively changing adds that youtube and face book have been using create a immense amount of lag to players because it forces the page to reload itself every 30 seconds or how ever often it's set to change adds. if you can avoid adds like those i'd have zero problems using mabi wiki. if you do use them i might avoid using it to save lag :x

Just adding some adds on the left side toolbar would be fine. It wouldn't be intrusive and to be honest, if there was maybe a little message up top asking people to click on the add I'd do it. All those people saying they'd leave they probably wouldn't. It's mabiwiki for crying out loud! Just try it out, I don't think anyone would really complain. All those complicated ideas about guild adds and what not are just a little far out there. I think adding a small add or two would be fine.

Unfortunately, asking people to click your ads will get you banned from ad networks pretty quickly! The sidebar might be a good location too though, we had only considered top and bottom so far. Thanks!

Probably the least painful way to put in ads is to have them on the BOTTOM of the page, not the side or the top. Also ones that dont take alot of resources, like flash.

I dont use an adblocker myself unless Im watching stuff on video streaming sites, so I wouldnt need to whitelist the wiki ads.

I would donate if I could, but like many here, Im a poor student who can barely afford her ramen, let alone pay for the wiki. I think ads are a wonderful idea, honestly, because every month I see the little donation box, and every month it says 0 dollars donated. Makes a sad Yuuka.

No, I wouldnt pay money just to get rid of ads. I dont pay them much mind, and I actually found Mabi through an ad. =p

I agree also with what some others have said. Maybe instead of getting an ad service, rent the space out to guilds or players, to advertise guilds, sales, events, etc. Im sure some merchants wouldnt mind shelling out a few bucks to get a space on the wiki to advertise their shop and wares....

So long as they do not pop up, make sounds, use a large amount of flash, and in overall are a minor part of the site, I could easily deal with it. They only become annoying when they go out of their way to catch your attention.

I wouldn't mind animated as long as it isn't too long an ad.

Trust me, I hate pop-up, pop-under and flash ads with a burning passion. Those things are blasted annoying and take extra time to spawn (in the case of pop-up/-under ads and Flash ads) or run (Flash ads). The idea here is we want to be as unobtrusive as possible so we can still make a few bucks to defray the costs of hosting and maintaining the server and sites she hosts.

At least with animated GIFs and PNGs (MNGs), you can hit the escape key to halt the animations.

I'm not one for ads but if the wiki is going to end up with ads I'd have to agree with the other two, in saying no flashy, flash, gif, ads with sound, large ads, pop ups, click jacking, or porn (child friendly only pls).

Maybe offer a Mabi guild advertising service for $5 or $10 a month with small 500x100ish size ads.

I actually like this idea. Rent space to guilds either as guild pages and/or ads?

I'm fine with ads on the site and I would gladly whitelist the wiki for the sake of continuing to run the servers. People who treat ads like pure liquid evil but don't donate are just being heartless.

Although I'm 100% guild-less i like this idea. Tho the ads on the site has to be as said before: non flashy/no sound/video (hate those ads. >w<)

Oo I LIKE YukiTsuki's suggestion on guild service thing

To be honest, I agree with all the proposition below. No flashy, pop-up, etc...

Someone already said my suggestion of no flash/flashy/animated flash ads. Animated gifs would work fine but people seem to have a problem with it. so I guess as long as the ads are still ads and they pertain to the content of the wiki, or something, it's good.

Acceptable ads for me would be small ads placed to the side or the bottom of the page. Ads with animation and sound that aren't mutable and constant are irritating. I don't believe ads would be so annoying as to resort to donations.

Any non-laggy ads are fine. Have to stay funded somehow. I think everyone here is saying the same thing pretty much, no sound/animated/annoying ones. Don't put them in deceiving places where people can accidentally click them. Things like that

There should be nexon adds telling us if theres a patch or update coming. Or like not big adds maybe player adds that want to buy things lol

Thanks for the feedback so far! I like YukiTsuki's idea a lot. Unfortunately, one problem we have with user-driven solutions (donations, guild ads) is that we're completely unsure of how many people would consume such a thing. One idea would be to do ads until the donation box filled up each month and then turn them off. I don't think that idea meshes very well with the concept of guild ads.

1. How many of you are in guilds? How many of you think that your guild would put an ad up?
2. How many of you ever buy Japanese merchandise? Would ads from J-List be appropriate? They have age-appropriate ads and we get full control over what they display. Unfortunately, they are commission-based, so we only get money if people buy things.

Well I'm in a dead guild...so I guess that's out of the question. However I have a ton of Japanese merchandise as well as other Asian things roflmao...but yeah J-list would be appropriate so long people don't accidently enter the adult area of the site @@...

J-List has a separate site that is age appropriate called JBOX. I don't think it would be an issue.

1. Like others have said, I'm fine with anything that isn't flash based or intrusive.

2. I don't use an ad blocker.

3. I'm unemployed but it might be a good idea to have donations open for people who want to help.

4. No.

Also, I personally recommend Project Wonderful [1] I've seen it used on a lot of independent sites and it seems like you get a lot of power in terms of what types of ads you get displayed.

I personally don't mind ads that don't directly relate to the site so long as they're still something a visitor might be interested in (ads for other games, web comics, tv shows, animu etc). I think Project Wonderful is good at avoiding the "OMG U R TEH 1000th VISITUR" and "OHNOES U HAS TEH VIRUS" ads (By that I mean I've never seen ads like that on project wonderful at all, ever).

Thanks for the network suggestion! Do the sites you visit that use Project Wonderful display relevant ads? I'm not familiar with them at all. The interesting part to me is that this would also incorporate the previous idea of guild ads, because anyone can bid on the space.

Most of the sites I see have ads for other independent projects. Some of the more popular sites have more mainstream ads but they're still usually relevant in one way or another, like the examples I listed before. It seems like you can manually decline certain ads if you don't want them there. It's not automated though so it might take a while for people to start placing bids depending on how many people know of the site.

It might work for the guild ads and it might not. I'm not sure how many clicks the wiki gets but if it's popular enough bigger companies might want ad space and they might outbid player ads by a lot. Maybe if you have separate ad spaces for guild ads and such.

EDIT: The people saying google ads might be more convenient have a point. The wiki is pretty niche. Though Project Wonderful would probably still work for the guild ads.

The big downside to us is that Project Wonderful doesn't do ad rotations by definition. We aren't fans of that, but we do like the flexibility they offer and will keep looking for something that might offer similar features.

What are some ways we can make ads less painful (ad placement, ad network choice, etc)? Just keep them along the sides and unobtrusive. Also, getting ads for stuff we might actually be interested in is always a plus.

If you use an ad blocker, how can we get you to whitelist our site for ads? I pretty much keep my adblock+ on at all times, but if whitelisting Mabiworld would help support the site I would do so.

Would you consider donating money to save everyone the trouble of ads? This option is only acceptable if we can get a constant flow of donations. I have donated in the past but I really can't afford to stedily supply you guys with cash. I haven't bought NX in a very long time either.

Would you pay a sum of money to disable ads for yourself for some length of time?

Nah, I'd live with 'em

What are some ways we can make ads less painful (ad placement, ad network choice, etc)?

Just keep a long strip on the top of the page, or a strip on the right hand side like most sites will suffice.

If you use an ad blocker, how can we get you to whitelist our site for ads?

I don't use an ad blocker.

Would you consider donating money to save everyone the trouble of ads? This option is only acceptable if we can get a constant flow of donations.

I would donate $5-10 if it's the last few moments of the site not meeting it's threshold, if I have the spare money (which I most likely will).

Would you pay a sum of money to disable ads for yourself for some length of time?

Only if other perks come with it.

And I just wanted to throw this in. If it comes between adding ads or the site goes down, by all means add them. This site's too good of a resource to close down because some are nitpicking about ads.

1. What are some ways we can make ads less painful (ad placement, ad network choice, etc)?

Wouldn't the same area where you place wiki notices be an okay location? Mind, you'd have to leave a space or two between notices and ads so you wouldn't get misclicks. About networks, I've used ABP for quite some time so I wouldn't have any real idea, but I've heard Project Wonderful is pretty alright. Also, please, non-laggy image based ads. I use this wiki a lot while running Mabinogi, and there are probably a many others. Flash might not slow things down as much as I suspect, but it still might get pretty bad for those of us with lower spec computers.

2. If you use an ad blocker, how can we get you to whitelist our site for ads?

Nothing you could do about that, I'm afraid. Although having a page describing how to whitelist the wiki (for a few popular ad blockers) would be helpful for others.

3. Would you consider donating money to save everyone the trouble of ads? This option is only acceptable if we can get a constant flow of donations.

Perhaps someday. I like the idea of giving a bit to sites I like now and then.

4. Would you pay a sum of money to disable ads for yourself for some length of time?

Technically wouldn't an ad blocker accomplish the same thing? Probably not, though.

In response to 4: yes, it would, except you would be supporting us. It is unfortunate that you wouldn't whitelist us for ads!

Well... I came off as a bit of a jerk here, for which I apologize. Kudos for handling it politely; I'll see about whitelisting the wiki in ABP, but I might have to do some trickery with my HOSTS file too. Goddess knows I use this site a lot, and your implementation will probably be much cleaner than, say, Wikia's. I admit that this was slightly in part due to my "HULK SMASH ADVERTISING" attitude from a while back; but since this site seems to be run by intelligent human beings, why not repay the favor a bit? Mostly it depends on which ad company is being used. Cheers.

Hopefully whatever we do would work ok for you. Sorry for not responding in IRC, I was driving home from work!

as long as there arent any pop up, disturbing ad, scary ad, sound, etc.

im perfectly fine with advertisement.

1. What are some ways we can make ads less painful (ad placement, ad network choice, etc)?

One in the leftnav and one at the top of a page would be fine. I think you may do better with Google AdSense than Project Wonderful because you're more niche specific and google gives a pretty good control over what sort of ads get shown and has decent contextual relevance. As everyone else has said, avoiding flash and the perverse should be enough to make it semi-tasteful.

2. If you use an ad blocker, how can we get you to whitelist our site for ads?

The only ad blockers I use are at the firewall level of the router, so no exceptions. I'd hope you wouldn't have any of those networks anyway, they're nasty.

3. Would you consider donating money to save everyone the trouble of ads? This option is only acceptable if we can get a constant flow of donations.

No, and I don't encourage this route, donations are too sporadic and inconsistent to support you.

4. Would you pay a sum of money to disable ads for yourself for some length of time?

Possibly. I definitely recommend giving this option if you can make it work via user level and create a user that's exempt.

There's always shopping around for someone else to buy & run the site too if keeping it running is more important than who is running it. That's how I ended up with most the sites I own actually.

We will do our best not to pick a terribly shady ad network. Regarding 3, the reason I asked is to gauge how many people would be willing to donate. It sounds like you're not far off the mark, though. We are shying away from 4 now due to an earlier reply that you can see. We aren't quite in the situation where we would need to consider selling the site, either, but thanks for the suggestion!

I just hope that the level of control over Google AdSense lets you prune out the MMO gold seller agencies; I've seen it crop up before on other sites I've browsed in IE Mode. Goodness knows we have enough gold seller bots in the game itself. Which sort of brings up an interesting question - what kind of stuff would be advertised? Other MMOs? Console and PC gamess? J-List/J-Box was covered earlier, perhaps other "geek culture" type companies could be used?

A quick Google shows that we may not be able to handle the gold selling 100%, but we will make sure to look into it more. I think the things you mentioned sound about right. As for other niche networks that do this kind of stuff, I'm not familiar with these things. We'll have to look into that more as well.

As a user of them, I can attest to it being pretty thorough. You can block ads by URL, network or category and if you're really and truly concerned you can actually force all ads to go through a queue to be individually approved before you let them come through on your site. Until you approve new/pending ads only ads you've previously allowed to come through will and you set up fail-over ads for periods where you have nothing appropriate to show, for example your own internal advertisements or partners you want to include in the rotation.

That sounds plenty flexible for what we need. I was unaware AdSense let you work by whitelist. The thing I read was that the blacklist of ads could only be so long and that people were actually hitting it.

I've never hit that problem, with my own configuration I've blocked most of what I don't want showing up just by categorically denying those content categories/sub categories and only had to resort to three explicit URL blocks because those three sites technically count as allowed categories but are for competing sites that have policies restricting mention of mine so don't deserve non-reciprocal advertising.

Feel free to message me any questions you may think of or be curious about, I'm quite an advocate of them compared to other things I've tried in the past.

I am fine with advertisements, however, I would be inclined to donate if the need was expressed before we got to the "needing ad revenue" level. "New Hosting Costs" are mentioned... I hate that anyone should have to foot the bill for the wiki. What, roughly, are we talking about for expenses? Could this be discussed a little more prior to introducing ads on the site?

Unfortunately, I don't have exact numbers for you right now. Communication is a bit sparse with our server admin at the moment. It may actually be the case that we don't have new costs after all, but I wouldn't count on it. I will post numbers as soon as I get them!

1. Left side works, and if you lined up the top of the main pane with the bottom of the logo there'd be room for a banner at the top, too.

2. I wouldn't mind telling NoScript to display ads on this site provided I knew they wouldn't obstruct content or autoplay audio. With my diminutive quantity of bandwidth though I sometimes disable images completely, so I dunno.

3/4. Can't afford to donate, but I would pitch in something if I had something to pitch in.

I've been using MabinogiWorld for quite a while now, if ads help keep the wiki up and they aren't intrusive or laggy (flash, animated, sound ect) I'll whitelist it on the spot. As others have said, with the current layout the best places would be on the left underneath the links and/or at the bottom of the pages. A lot of people I know steer away from things involving money (donations inparticular) out of habit alone so anything without a benefit for said people likely won't be very reliable.

as far as numbers go, maybe there could be a way to setup a pay pal account, and have us users donate. everyone would have access to see how much is getting put into the account, and where it is going. Ive seen sites with donation 'Gauges' saying this is our goal.

secondly, since know you don't have numbers as of yet. these are the numbers i would be mostly concerned with.

1. How much per month (if it apply s)

2. How much per year (if it apply s)

3. Who is HOST?

4. How long is "wiki.mabinogiworld.com" owned for?

5. What exactly would we be donating to/for?

i only bring these questions up as for what nexon does not do. and tell its players exactly what they are working on and why? lol I'm sure everyone hates that part. for now we all know that wiki may need funds. but isn't this part of 'mabinogiworld' which has its own hosting and already has a donation center[1]?

again if there is confusion. wiki is just a "SUB" domain of mabinogi world as it implies in the title bar. so I'm just asking the questions of who/what/when/where/why/how? not necessarily all of them but some of the more important ones?

We actually do have a PayPal account! There's a green-background link on the wiki navigation. There's a gauge on the link, but it's kind of ugly (and out of date, since we don't know the real numbers). The wiki and mabinogiworld forums are hosted on the same server, so there will always only be one donation box. Hopefully we can be transparent about cash flow if that's the way we go!

I love the idea of a gauge stating your goal for the month. I'm willing to pay $5/month for this wiki service, as I can't imagine playing the game without wiki. Not much more, though, since I am trying to keep my mabinogi game expenses to under $50/month. Premium service, nao soul stones, dyes, the odd pet or character card: it all adds up.

If this isn't enough, then advertisements will be necessary. These ads must be family friendly, as the only reason I play this game so much is because I don't have to worry about the content disturbing my kids. Yes, my kids are that sensitive. As it is, I get weekly questions about whether zombies are real and can they sleep with me tonight because they are scared. *pulls hair out*

I'd rather personally donate 45-75 dollars a month to the Wiki than have it polluted with ads. If it came to that, then so be it... I understand. But if I, personally, could affect this, then I would. Gladly. Please collect some numbers from IJ, Sayir. Thanks :)

Wow, that would be a big commitment! Hopefully you wouldn't need to donate that much monthly...

From analyzing the responses to this thread, the driving force behind this campaign is becoming fuzzy to me. Donating or living through ads for the revenue to support the server, server upgrades, and server owner's time and/or incidental expenses are the only things I'm interested in. Revenue gained to support anyone other than IJ is nothing I'd consider. This is why I've asked what is necessary in terms of dollar signs- and here's why. I've put considerable time and effort into this site, as most of us have. We volunteer to support this place, clean it up, make it better for all of us... and that's the return, it's not monetary. Admins have specific duties and many contribute, but the same could be said of many users. I am not too sure that I'd be motivated to improve and drive more revenue to a site that turns a profit for anyone else... and that would be an unfair expectation of any contributor IMHO. This is my point, and clarification of what I've addressed would be appreciated. Many thanks.

This would be to compensate IJ for hosting costs and that alone. The reason why no quantities have been specified is that he hasn't given any. I don't see how you became under that impression!

Ads would be fine considering it takes a lot of money to host this site. Please no pop ups, video/sound, or complicated flashy ads. My main concern would be being able to still access the Wiki site while playing Mabi. My computer's not very good so a ton of flash or java ads would probably not work. Ads that are relevant to us as players would be better, like no annoying teeth whitening or tummy flab ads. I personally wouldn't use the ads mostly because I don't trust them. I love wiki but I don't have the money to donate to it and buy Nx.

it seems many of us who actually look at the top part of wiki, are willing to donate. as im sure many who use it without paying much attention to the notice's. would as well. i spoke to several guild members and mentioned this,and they were shocked to hear about it. wondering how they hadn't heard b4. bc several of my members, ALWAYS have wiki open in the background while playing mabi. lol.

just a convo based input.

real business

maybe should just spruce up the gauge bar. have it added to the side bar of wiki as well as on mabinogi forums. because im sure there is far much more traffic in wiki than there is in the forums. those on the forums are usually the same community who post there. where as wiki, id probably say most of mabi visit's wiki a bit more than the forums lol

As long as the add isn't forcing me to stare at it, and isn't interfering with my ability to read and use the wiki it is fine. I lead a guild called the Ancients on Rauiri and I might consider using that kind of ad space, depending on costs and how long we would get that kind of thing.

Knowing what kind of price per unit of time you would expect for such an ad would be very helpful!

1. Not having sound in ads is always great as well as placing them at the bottom of the page.
2. No pop ups, nothing too distracting from the actual content.
3. Probably not as I am in college, but when I finish and have a full time job, if the cost isn't too high I would be definitely okay with supporting this wiki.
4. No, I am not extraordinarily bothered with ads as long as what I mentioned above holds true. :3

1. Bottom of the page (helpful but not necessary), static, or at least noiseless and not flashing.
2. Original ads are more fun, I'd probably click a few of them. But just helping the wiki, I might whitelist this site to show ads anyway.
3. If I had money to donate, but I really don't.
4. That sounds like a good idea! But again, I'm broke.

No thank you. Maybe I'll donate. Just don't force annoying ads >.>

Enh, personally I just disregard ads. Sometimes I feel bad because I ignore them, makes me think the advertisers are just wasting money.

As for donations, I'll try to pitch in if I can, but it's not going to amount to much.

The guild-ads are a pretty good idea. Although, I'd think ads from companies would bring in more funding.

The one other idea I could think of (to get money) is to host some kind of contest with an entry fee. It could be something in-game, like something similar to Dan tests, your own PvP tournaments, or scavenger hunts. Or it could be something wiki-related, like a pop quiz with questions about wiki articles, possibly even something about other users. The thing I'm lost on, though, is the rewards for a contest. I'd suggest a coveted item in-game, but anyone who could win any of these contests would likely already be an accomplished player. Well, that and how an entry would be organized.

Interesting idea! I don't think it would pan out though, because it's akin to buying/gambling for items but not from Nexon.

Google AdSense[1] could work, no? Text based ads that people barely even notice. If it's just a rainy day fund this would probably work :)

What are some ways we can make ads less painful (ad placement, ad network choice, etc)? Put them at the top or bottom of the pages. It's kind of annoying to have the information interrupted by ads.

If you use an ad blocker, how can we get you to whitelist our site for ads? Text only ads but not like these. I find that type of advertising extremely annoying.

Would you consider donating money to save everyone the trouble of ads? This option is only acceptable if we can get a constant flow of donations. I don't think I could do that.

Would you pay a sum of money to disable ads for yourself for some length of time? I don't think I could do that either. --Therapy 16:29, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Maybe change the annoucement to We are running out of funds for the server and are considering advertsing on the server. Please keep the wiki ad-free by donating now! (Discuss) to get some temporary funding...

Is the ad placement going to be permanent?

I don't really know the situation in full yet. I think I will just remove the announcement altogether, as we've gotten good feedback already.