Hi again @PettsWoodParadise and others,
I've had a long chat with our ads team and have got a few answers and suggestions that might help a bit.
We do know that some of the ads on the site are quite large but those large ones that fill all the space around the thread are capped in terms of how often you see them (usually three times a day) and as we say, they're also time limited so each particular ad won't be around forever. The one we think you're talking about is set to cover all the blank space around the threads, so if you're having trouble seeing the list of threads, you can 'zoom in' on the threads and that should help. We do see the difficulty with that though and will take that feedback on board for the next campaign like this.
Generally speaking, while we totally understand why users might not always like large ads, they are fairly standard on mobile websites these days and we need to be able to take them in order to generate income and keep the site free to use. Having said that, there is always the option to sign up to our Premium membership, which is largely ad-free (no display ads like videos, banners or pop ups), if you wanted to.
In practical terms, to help you use the site more easily for now, on those big ads, like the Sky one, you've sent us a screengrab of, we leave a 'padding area' down each side, so you should be able to scroll past fairly easily on the left or right rail. With ads like the pink GiffGaff one, again, you should just be able to click above or below and scroll past it.
All our ads are in fixed positions and should not shift or change the way content is viewed, so if you ever see content being covered/shifting then absolutely that is something we will look at and please send us a screengrab and a url.
With regards to the blank ads you've been seeing, this should be quite rare, but if you have a slow internet coverage, this could be the reason. We don't use "Lazy load" on our website so ads loading should not prevent you from scrolling or viewing content. It might be slow to load due to the sheer volume of posts sometimes. For longer threads, limiting the amount of posts viewable by page might well help, too.
We hope some of that is of some use anyway. 