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Original poster

Top bar advertising

488 replies

TalkinBoutWhat · 23/10/2017 13:17

MN, PLEASE fix this advertising bar at the top of the computer screen.

It is so large, that I can't actually click on any of the MN links that are at the top of the page. (eg, active, I'm on, etc).

Right now, on Site Stuff, I can't even click 'Site Stuff' to get other threads in this section. It's hidden by the ad, which is NOT scrolling up and away the way I've seen others do. It's just sitting there. The ONLY threads I can get onto are the active ones on the right hand side of the screen, and only the ones lower down the list as the top ones are hidden by the Ad. (Experian and Marks and Spencers, are the two so far....)

You did this before, we all complained, you apologised and said it shouldn't have been loaded on as you were testing something new. I really hope this was a mistake, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to navigate the site.

OP posts:
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21
hiddley · 25/10/2017 19:30

I wonder what this premium membership will look like?

Notanumberuser · 25/10/2017 18:11

What about my point re hacking and the points made that if you start to charge you’ll really need staff on duty 24/7?

ssd · 25/10/2017 18:03

oh for christ's sake, this is a free site and millions of us use and and have gained loads from it, so there's a few advertising problems, so bloody what? give them a chance to fix it and stop being so bloody pompous, comparing Justone to the Ryanair boss...do you know what, if its that bad here bugger off and get your kicks elsewhere.

reflexfaith · 25/10/2017 17:57

I dunno about O'leary, I think Justine is channeling Gerald Ratner

brasty · 25/10/2017 17:48

And the site is loading much faster now

brasty · 25/10/2017 17:46

I haven't had an ad blocker for about 2 years. Kept checking on MN site over the last few days, and the continuing problems with the banner advert had not been fixed and have been annoying me more and more. Just installed an ad blocker, and it has made MN usable again.
And I never cared about the adverts on the right hand side, but the banner one was just awful.
If it gets fixed, I will remove my adblocker, but before installing it I was very close to deregistering

Banjax · 25/10/2017 17:44

Ceto, I am hardly bigging myself up as the chief of some breakaway faction! Grin But its not like my mates moved en masse, they just all drifted off to similar places, mainly random subfora on reddit.

MNs offering isnt new or particularly original anymore and the humour and irreverent side of it has been swallowed of by hordes of glittery huns trolls and all the rest. It's really lost its way. People ARE leaving and you bet Justine know it.

I just think its a pity, really. i used to love this site so much. The attitude over the advertising has REALLY summed it up for me. Justine is no bettter than that RyanAir clown O'Leary....You can't treat people with contempt forever.

C8H10N4O2 · 25/10/2017 17:35

nor does Reddit realistically offer a decent alternative because it's a user-unfriendly platform

userfriendly is partly in the eye of the beholder. I now find this site unusable without an ad blocker having previously whitelisted. The accessibility issue is worsened by the ad implementation.

Reddit has had different incarnations over years some better than others but is (currently) much better on both ad management and access.

That said, technically Reddit is not really a fair comparison. Its much bigger and has been through many scaling up pains. Its a platform for a gazillion different use cases rather than focused around one theme.

There is a point in the growth of every community/cottage industry when processes and technology (and sometimes people) don’t scale and need radical change.

My guess is that is part of the current problems but you need to take your user base with you and avoid alienating it.

People will come and go over time - that is normal. This is my third incarnation here with biggish gaps. However if you lose the USP built in the original idea you risk losing the whole value case.

reflexfaith · 25/10/2017 17:09

mumsnet has made a nice fat profit by extracting value from the interactions of those attracted to the site because it was busy and popular
but things change, the money spinning business model doesn't last for ever
vast swathes of the internet using public use adblockers because people hate adverts and now there's a way to block them
even if I had half a mind to whitelist this site I wouldnt because I cant be arsed, and after being accused of free riding and seeing the stupid keep the lights on pleading poverty message there's no way I'd ever whitelist mn
I'd black list them if I could because I'd like to punish them for taking the fucking piss

EllaHen · 25/10/2017 16:40

I have been directed here from another thread. This is what I wrote there:

It's driving me crazy. Time for an ad blocker.

Thing is - I did occasionally click on an advert before, You know, before they annoyed the absolute fuck out of me by coming halfway down the page.

Fuck the fuck off. Mumsnet - seriously! This is counter productive. I am way less likely to be swayed by these adverts.

MNHQ
SandyMumsnet · 25/10/2017 16:32

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your feedback on this, we've passed all your concerns onto our tech team and they are doing all they can to help the situation. We totally get that you are horribly frustrated and it's really not what we like to hear.

We have an ongoing program looking at our accessibility which reviews and highlights where we can improve. We do hope you will bear with us. Flowers

spidey66 · 25/10/2017 16:20

Still happening. Getting annoyed now.

Ceto · 25/10/2017 15:43

if my friendship group is anything to go by, MN do actually need to take note. I am the only one left on MN of about 30.

Members of friendship group mutually agree to move to different site: hardly a novelty, and hardly an indicator that the rest of MN's users are planning to follow suit. It's pretty clear that MN is not going to collapse for the loss of 29 users, nor does Reddit realistically offer a decent alternative because it's a user-unfriendly platform.

FaFoutis · 25/10/2017 14:48

Yes, still awful. I'll come back later.

Laiste · 25/10/2017 14:36

still the 16 second drop down thing on mine at the mo.

specialsubject · 25/10/2017 14:03

..although MN aren't alone in not being able to detect adblockers. I've had several whitelisted sites bring up a 'turn off adblocker' popup. Naturally they don't get any more visits.

specialsubject · 25/10/2017 14:02

any chance of getting Will the coding intern back to finish the job? On both laptop (with ad blocker) and tablet (without) I get your message with the endless circle of doom. That's the annoying bit.

ShoesHaveSouls · 25/10/2017 13:34

Justine -

I do not have an adblocker on my laptop - can you tell me why I have get the white "keeping the lights on" message?

Other sites (eg Channel 4) only put up a message to those actually using an adblocker. If they can differentiate, surely you can?

Bucketsandspoons · 25/10/2017 13:25

Is making the whitelist message once a day also going to mean we get the drop down ad that covers the entire fecking screen once a day too?

C8H10N4O2 · 25/10/2017 13:17

No comment on the suitability for those with disabilities?

On the basis that most pages kick out a lot of errors (rather than just warnings) on the w3 validators I wouldn't be optimistic. Most accessibility software relies on valid tagging to work. I've just tried some accessibility software I have and it struggled to navigate the page making it difficult to follow.

This isn't unique to mumsnet of course but I was surprised at the number of errors and ironically, how many of them mapped to advertising elements. Most commercial sites do handle this better these days after years of being rubbish.

General design quality for accessibility obviously isn't validated via w3.

I'm slightly confused by the statement from the accessibility policy (which I had to Google for):
The techs are going to strive to help us meet our responsibilities under the Disabilities Discrimination Act

Its future tense but no date on it. Is this a mistake?

user1495832265 · 25/10/2017 13:13

95% of my Mumsnet browsing is done on a laptop and I installed an adblocker some time ago because the ads were slowing it down so much. I posted so many times on Site Stuff about it under my old account. It was so bad that even if I had only had an MN thread open in one tab that wasn't active it would still slow everything down.

I don't think I'd pay to have a subscription. 5 years ago I would undoubtedly have done so, but the site has changed a lot in the recent past and I don't use it as often as I did. Some sections are still great and I would miss them.

BlackeyedSusan · 25/10/2017 12:53

No comment on the suitability for those with disabilities?

MNHQ
JustineMumsnet · 25/10/2017 12:23

We're working on both being able to hide the logo and message about white list only appearing once a day. Hopefully those changes will both be today or tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 25/10/2017 12:07

It's interesting to see suggestions about a paid for / premium membership ... interesting, too, that this has been mentioned when so many are saying the site's becoming unusable as it is

Anyone else wondering about the nature of that link?

Nobrain · 25/10/2017 11:35

Any update on hiding the Mumsnet banner when scrolling?

I don't want people seeing what site I'm on.