Alcohol advertising

Boston

Conor wrote: »

I suspect the answers will be:

A) Not without us implementing stuff on our side.
No.

As for splitting this thread, I don't see much point in that. Whatever about Helix's axe-grinding the issue at hand is primarily sociological, not technical, i.e. not can it be done but should it be done. If 99% of people on the site want this issue dealt with, some solution will be implemented. If only 1% of people on the site care about it then it'll go onto the pile of "nice to have" features that may or may not ever get done.

It affects very few people (1% is generous) however, those people are affected greatly. Put another way, a lot of people would probably want a nicer nav bar, but i doubt any would be put out hugely by not having one. You have to compare like with like.

1) Should moderators be able have a mechanism for removing inappropriate adds?

I think everyone is in agreement now that they should.

2) How important is it?

I haven't a clue, I'm not in a position to know. In order to make that determination someone would need a full understanding of all the issues boards-LTD face, and the available resources. I think that's probably Dav's call.

DublinWriter

Boston wrote: »

Thats pretty much what I had in mind. Anyway, it looks like the adsesne will soon allow filtering by category.

Even so, you'd still have to alter the vb templates if you didn't want all categories appearing by default in certain forums.

Boston

One time straight forward fix.

Conor

Boston wrote: »

It affects very few people (1% is generous) however, those people are affected greatly. Put another way, a lot of people would probably want a nicer nav bar, but i doubt any would be put out hugely by not having one. You have to compare like with like.

True, but even if the affected people are affected greatly, you also have to think about how reasonable it is to have us remove the ads. Society does hide tobacco advertising and sales from children but doesn't hide off-licenses from alcoholics. Trade-offs and compromises are made in real life as they will be made here.

Boston wrote: »

1) Should moderators be able have a mechanism for removing inappropriate adds?

I think everyone is in agreement now that they should.

If it were a zero-cost operation, yes, everyone would be in agreement. Given real-world constraints, I don't think everyone is in agreement that moderators should have a mechanism for removing inappropriate ads. I certainly am not sold yet.

Remember, any single ad can be filtered site-wide if it's brought to our attention and a reasonable case is made for its removal. It's not like we're going to ignore the concerns of the affected people.

Boston wrote: »

2) How important is it?

I haven't a clue, I'm not in a position to know. In order to make that determination someone would need a full understanding of all the issues boards-LTD face, and the available resources. I think that's probably Dav's call.

You should be careful with the terminology you're using. Boards Ltd and boards.ie are different entities. Some decisions are made solely by Boards Ltd (e.g. how much to pay me) and some decisions are made solely by boards.ie (e.g. whether or not to ban a given user from a given forum) and some are made cooperatively.

A decision on this issue will, by necessity, be a cooperative thing between both entities. The users have expressed a wish for this so for it to happen the moderators will need to agree to do their side of the work and Boards Ltd will need to agree to spend the developer time on it (only that bit is DeV's call).

Conor

Boston wrote: »

One time straight forward fix.

No, if you were to do it solely from the template system you'd need have to have a separate template for every forum. Not really an option.

Boston

Conor wrote: »

True, but even if the affected people are affected greatly, you also have to think about how reasonable it is to have us remove the ads. Society does hide tobacco advertising and sales from children but doesn't hide off-licenses from alcoholics. Trade-offs and compromises are made in real life as they will be made here.

Practical steps are taken though.

If it were a zero-cost operation, yes, everyone would be in agreement. Given real-world constraints, I don't think everyone is in agreement that moderators should have a mechanism for removing inappropriate ads. I certainly am not sold yet.

Remember, any single ad can be filtered site-wide if it's brought to our attention and a reasonable case is made for its removal. It's not like we're going to ignore the concerns of the affected people.

Ok, agreement in principle then. I accept that it may not happen due to the cost involved. I see these two things as separate.

You should be careful with the terminology you're using. Boards Ltd and boards.ie are different entities. Some decisions are made solely by Boards Ltd (e.g. how much to pay me) and some decisions are made solely by boards.ie (e.g. whether or not to ban a given user from a given forum) and some are made cooperatively.

The distinction is more relevant to you then to me. From my prospective they are the same. From your one is you employer, the other the product you support.

A decision on this issue will, by necessity, be a cooperative thing between both entities. The users have expressed a wish for this so for it to happen the moderators will need to agree to do their side of the work and Boards Ltd will need to agree to spend the developer time on it (only that bit is DeV's call).

Is DeVore not the CEO? I would have thought the decision with regards to cost Vs benefit to the community rested with Dav (Dav not Dev) and the issue of funding rested with DeVore. Whomever it rest with, it isn't me, I can merely lobby (I believe successfully) for a consensus. The decision to act is not mine.

Conor

Boston wrote:

Conor wrote: »

True, but even if the affected people are affected greatly, you also have to think about how reasonable it is to have us remove the ads. Society does hide tobacco advertising and sales from children but doesn't hide off-licenses from alcoholics. Trade-offs and compromises are made in real life as they will be made here.

Practical steps are taken though.

Not for alcoholics. All alcohol ad restrictions are aimed at reducing gross, antisocial or youth alcohol consumption.

Boston wrote:

You should be careful with the terminology you're using. Boards Ltd and boards.ie are different entities. Some decisions are made solely by Boards Ltd (e.g. how much to pay me) and some decisions are made solely by boards.ie (e.g. whether or not to ban a given user from a given forum) and some are made cooperatively.

The distinction is more relevant to you then to me. From my prospective they are the same. From your one is you employer, the other the product you support.

OK, fair enough. You should probably refer to it as boards.ie then, since that's the entity involved/dominant in 99% of the stuff you see around here.

Boston wrote:

A decision on this issue will, by necessity, be a cooperative thing between both entities. The users have expressed a wish for this so for it to happen the moderators will need to agree to do their side of the work and Boards Ltd will need to agree to spend the developer time on it (only that bit is DeV's call).

Is DeVore not the CEO? I would have thought the decision with regards to cost Vs benefit to the community rested with Dav (Dav not Dev) and the issue of funding rested with DeVore. Whomever it rest with, it isn't me, I can merely lobby (I believe successfully) for a consensus. The decision to act is not mine.

It would be Darragh and/or Dav producing the case for and/or against implementing it from a community point of view. Ross and/or I will estimate the cost of implementing it. If the cost is really low and it's something we could just knock out during lunch time we'd go ahead and do it. If it's something that would interfere with the other stuff we're doing then we'd go to DeV for a decision.

Boston

Conor wrote: »

Not for alcoholics. All alcohol ad restrictions are aimed at reducing gross, antisocial or youth alcohol consumption.

You still wont see adds for alcohol in a councilors office. Which is essentially what PI and the like are trying to be.

OK, fair enough. You should probably refer to it as boards.ie then, since that's the entity involved/dominant in 99% of the stuff you see around here.

How management sees things isn't essentially how the end users / I see things. I refer to it as boards-LTD for a reason.

It would be Darragh and/or Dav producing the case for and/or against implementing it from a community point of view. Ross and/or I will estimate the cost of implementing it. If the cost is really low and it's something we could just knock out during lunch time we'd go ahead and do it. If it's something that would interfere with the other stuff we're doing then we'd go to DeV for a decision.

Grand.

Conor

Boston wrote: »

You still wont see adds for alcohol in a councilors office. Which is essentially what PI and the like are trying to be.

Not really. In a counsellor's office you're pretty much guaranteed to be talking to someone whose job it is to help you with your problem. PI is like standing on O'Connell St and saying "I'm having trouble with..." and hoping someone will help you and no-one will recognise you. They're two very different scenarios and expectations which are reasonable in one may not apply in another.

That's not to say that PI is useless but I think it would be a grave mistake for anyone to mistake it for a "professional" counselling service. I don't think PI is trying to do that either (inasmuch as you can anthropomorphize PI).

Boston wrote: »

How management sees things isn't essentially how the end users / I see things. I refer to it as boards-LTD for a reason.

Fair enough if you have a reason. I was just trying to make sure your reason was not misinformed. Plenty of people misunderstand the role of Boards Ltd in this site.

Boston

Conor wrote: »

Not really. In a counsellor's office you're pretty much guaranteed to be talking to someone whose job it is to help you with your problem. PI is like standing on O'Connell St and saying "I'm having trouble with..." and hoping someone will help you and no-one will recognise you. They're two very different scenarios and expectations which are reasonable in one may not apply in another.

That's not to say that PI is useless but I think it would be a grave mistake for anyone to mistake it for a "professional" counselling service. I don't think PI is trying to do that either (inasmuch as you can anthropomorphize PI).

Nevertheless, advice is given, and it should be done in as supportive a way as possible. If it wasn't an automated system, but rather a PR agent targeting these threads, we would not stand for it. So why make an exception just because there's no human hand behind it? There is no justification for it. It doesn't even make boards-LTD much money.

Fair enough if you have a reason. I was just trying to make sure your reason was not misinformed. Plenty of people misunderstand the role of Boards Ltd in this site.

In fairness, very little of how boards-LTD operates and why things are the way they are is communicated to the end user.

Conor

Boston wrote: »

So why make an exception just because there's no human hand behind it?

Because it's trivially easy to ban a user and non-trivial to create infrastructure for cherry-picking ads from a system that's not designed to operate that way.

Besides, it hasn't been decided whether or not an exception will be made.

Boston wrote: »

It doesn't even make boards-LTD much money.

TBH, I have no idea how much money Google Ads makes for us so I can't really comment on that.

Boston wrote: »

In fairness, very little of how boards-LTD operates and why things are the way they are is communicated to the end user.

Plenty of things that Boards Ltd does have no bearing on the users of boards.ie*. Some of them do and they are announced (e.g. the recent change regarding discussion of MCD events). Some of them do and they're announced to only the Moderators/Admins (e.g. changes in functionality for moderator utilities). Some of them do and they're not announced at all (e.g. the "related threads" section at the bottom of the page was turned off this week).

More importantly, how Boards Ltd interacts with boards.ie and how boards.ie is run is of no interest to the vast majority of users and has little or no impact on them.

* Trust me, the distinction between the two really matters in that sentence.

Victor

Stop hogging the thread. :pac:

Boston

Conor wrote: »

Because it's trivially easy to ban a user and non-trivial to create infrastructure for cherry-picking ads from a system that's not designed to operate that way.

Besides, it hasn't been decided whether or not an exception will be made.

Again that's an issue of implementation. First you decide if a thing should be done, then you decide if its can be done effectively. You're mixing the two things together. yes its easy to ban a user, but someone has to decide "should it be done". We're going around in circles here and you're muddying the issues.

Again the question are
1) Should a moderator be able to remove inappropriate adds.

You yourself have agreed with this in principle.

2) Is it cost effective to do so.

Thats the open question. There's been a dozen arguments as to why mods should, in principle, have this ability and neither you, nor any one else has effectively argued against it. Instead you go back to the potential technical difficulties. It's perfectly valid to say "Too hard to implement", but don't use that as an argument when talking about the principle behind providing support for end users.

TBH, I have no idea how much money Google Ads makes for us so I can't really comment on that.

DeVore has stated in this thread that the adds in question make a tiny amount of money for boards-LTD.

Plenty of things that Boards Ltd does have no bearing on the users of boards.ie*. Some of them do and they are announced (e.g. the recent change regarding discussion of MCD events). Some of them do and they're announced to only the Moderators/Admins (e.g. changes in functionality for moderator utilities). Some of them do and they're not announced at all (e.g. the "related threads" section at the bottom of the page was turned off this week).

More importantly, how Boards Ltd interacts with boards.ie and how boards.ie is run is of no interest to the vast majority of users and has little or no impact on them.

* Trust me, the distinction between the two really matters in that sentence.

Ah yes, the big invisible hand. In general yes. I turn on my tap in the morning, once the water flows, I don't care how it got there. That said, when it stops I care, I care a lot. Maybe the management have made 99.999% of the disclosure decisions correctly, but when they haven't, they really haven't. Why not leave aside the issue of who wants to know and who doesn't and just make the information available if you can? I'm an educated man, I'm not going to crumble if someone shows me how the matrix works. At the very lease it would foster a sense of community. There's nothing worse then some visible hand changing that which you've cared about, and never once deeming it important to tell you, let alone give you a say. Hubris and the blind belligerence indifference of management to the end user is the main threat to the community here. Without a community, boards.ie is simply a product, another facebook, another Adverts.ie.

I'm just tired, tired of the way things have changed. I shouldn't have to argue this hard for something which would benifit the community.

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs of the boards-LTD disclosure policy, you can't keep a user in the dark and then blame them when they haven't a clue how things work.

hmm that turned into a bit of a rant.

Conor

Boston wrote: »

We're going around in circles here and you're muddying the issues.

I'm sorry you've found my posts confusing. I'll try and summarise for you here:

• Just because it looks like it's easy to do doesn't mean it is easy to do.
• There'll be some cost/benefit analysis done and this task will be looked at in accordance with its priority relative to other tasks.
• There's already a mechanism for getting rid of an offensive ad. PM an Admin and it will get seen to.

To avoid derailing this thread I haven't responded to the rest of your points but feel free to open another thread or PM me if you want to discuss them further.

Orion

Boston wrote: »

1) Should moderators be able have a mechanism for removing inappropriate adds?

I think everyone is in agreement now that they should.

I haven't got that at all from anything in this thread. I'm certainly not in agreement. Who decides what's inappropriate? Can you even define inappropriate? The only thing that was said even remotely resembling that was DeV saying that he's have a look at any communication from a mod about a specific ad - and even then he said he'd only expect 1 or 2 a year.

Boston

Macros42 wrote: »

I haven't got that at all from anything in this thread. I'm certainly not in agreement. Who decides what's inappropriate? Can you even define inappropriate?

Boston wrote: »

Again the question are
1) Should a moderator be able to remove inappropriate adds.

Are you actually trying to be obtuse? Define an inappropriate post? We entrust the moderators to use their judgment.

Macros42 wrote: »

I
The only thing that was said even remotely resembling that was DeV saying that he's have a look at any communication from a mod about a specific ad - and even then he said he'd only expect 1 or 2 a year.

Go back and read the thread.

tbh

Conor wrote: »

I'm sorry you've found my posts confusing. I'll try and summarise for you here:

• Just because it looks like it's easy to do doesn't mean it is easy to do.

yeah but just because it's not easy, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done

What it really boils down to is how important the decision makers feel this issue is. I don't envy them the task - but I would urge them, in making their decision, to consider the potential impact of the ads, rather than just the numbers it affects.

Look, obviously I care about the LTI stuff, I suggested the forum and I've been modding there for since it started. It's my job to agitate to a certain extent to have this kind of thing looked at, but I appreciate it there's also a balance that needs to be made between saying "we need to protect the users of LTI to a certain extent" and "we need to make sure the site is available so that internet users can find LTI in the first place". I'm happy to trust that the admins will make a decision that strikes the balance in the best possible way.

That said tho, maybe this isn't something that boards itself should be trying to fix, maybe it'd be easier to try and lobby google to implement the feature themselves, I'm sure this is a common issue.

Boston

tbh wrote: »

yeah but just because it's not easy, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done

What it really boils down to is how important the decision makers feel this issue is. I don't envy them the task - but I would urge them, in making their decision, to consider the potential impact of the ads, rather than just the numbers it affects.

Look, obviously I care about the LTI stuff, I suggested the forum and I've been modding there for since it started. It's my job to agitate to a certain extent to have this kind of thing looked at, but I appreciate it there's also a balance that needs to be made between saying "we need to protect the users of LTI to a certain extent" and "we need to make sure the site is available so that internet users can find LTI in the first place". I'm happy to trust that the admins will make a decision that strikes the balance in the best possible way.

That said tho, maybe this isn't something that boards itself should be trying to fix, maybe it'd be easier to try and lobby google to implement the feature themselves, I'm sure this is a common issue.

Well said that man. I feel whatever Google comes up with, it will have to be a suitably generic solution, and as such some tailoring will be needed.

Maybe I should try being nicer to the management...

Orion

Boston wrote: »

Are you actually trying to be obtuse? Define an inappropriate post? We entrust the moderators to use their judgment.
Go back and read the thread.

I give up. You can't seem to make your own mind up and you accuse me of being disingenuous. I'll reserve any further replies I have to this thread to people who aren't trolls.

Boston

Macros42 wrote: »

I give up. You can't seem to make your own mind up and you accuse me of being disingenuous. I'll reserve any further replies I have to this thread to people who aren't trolls.

I've been perfectly consistent throughout the thread with regards to who should make the decision on what is appropriate and what criteria is to be used. "Tbh" put forward that moderators should make the decision, I agreed. I put forwards the "no thread no add" criteria, Dav agreed it had merit and DeVore refused to make a comment. I am not trolling, the accusation of such is the last vestige of an argument which no longer hold, it if ever did to begin with. I'm glad you will no longer address your inane post towards me as debating with people of your creed simply hurts my brain.

chrisde

I suppose i have seen some pubs that have internet stations in them maybe thats why.If they should put a few Smoking ads in there too it would cause a very big problem.

Don't Drink or Smoke,just Work Pay Taxes and Get noting for it!

Boston

Any updates on this.

DeVore

Spoke with the ad campaign manager on friday and told him we would be exluding some ads from some forums on a per case basis. If there are concerns about a campaign, please PM me and bring it to my attention.

DeV.