On a milder note, come on folks, get your Halloween avatar going!

I, um...I have no idea what you're talking about...ha ha.

Annnnd....I don't have a halloween picture to post...wish I did, but I don't. Maybe I'll use the leaf picture; it's a fall kind of picture, at least.

OK...back to my homework. I probably won't be on the blogs today because I've been up all night screwing around on the computer, and I have tons of geography homework due today, so now I need to go do it all. Not sure if I'll even be able to finish it all....ahhh.

Dang. I was going to e-mail you about something, but I don't have time. I'm going to try to e-mail you today.

You mean the one that pops up now, all of a sudden, between pages.....yes that does suck....but they have to pay for the free online paper somehow......thank goodness for the "skip this ad" button.  Still, it's annoying. 

I got my Halloween costume on.

Yes, It's absolutely maddening!  It wouldn't be so bad if you could hit the "Skip Ad" button when it first pops up.  But NO!  You don't even have that option for almost 10 seconds.  So, you're stuck with it!  BOOOOOOO for Bakersfield Californian!!

I understand the need for advertising, but it could be designed better.... the way it is done now looks amatuerish and is highly, HIGHLY annoying.

That ad is so annoying that it'll make me NOT do business with NETFLIX...

Exactly my sentiments Horatio.

To be fair to Netflix, I do not know if they have chosen to have their ads interfere with the users of this site, or if this is just the "slot" that Netflix was given.  I know little about internet advertising conventions, however.

About the ad itself, I agree that it is annoying and it crosses a line of rudeness and intrusiveness.  I understand the need to help pay for the site and the electronic paper, but ads that physically interfere with users cross a line.

Halloween avatars:

I really like the one I normally use, but I will wear this one on and off.  :)

I've heard you guys mention the ads before and wondered what you were talking about.  For some reason, I'm not getting them.  We have a pop-up blocker--I wonder if that's why. 

The ad is clunky and amateurish. If it was slicker, that would be acceptable.

Count me in on the protest about netflix ads.  I have a pop up blocker too and it gets around it.  TBC has been having loading problems the last few days anyway and that ad makes it worse.  Clicking on the skip ad does absolutely nothing.  Not only do I have to wait for the pages to load, now I have to wait for the ad to run.  

Heads up TBC.

I've advised the Interactive Media department of your concerns, both about the ad in question and the general issue of load loag.  Thanks for bearing with us.

Thanks to all for the feedback. Jason pointed it out to me, and I'm glad to dive in and try to explain both the ad question and the load issue. 

First, we're aware of the load issue, but are a bit puzzled as to the causes. We're having a conference call with our local and Colorado-based developers this afternoon to sort through long-term cures. We appreciate your patience. 

Regarding the Netflix ad, as woofwoof noted, it takes advertising to keep the site free. Last I checked, we were running a business here, and serving 4 million page views a month isn't cheap. And more and more, we -- and every other site offering free access --- have to be more creative in delivering that advertising.

Some of these ad formats work well, others not so much. As for this ad in question (which is served selectively), I don't have a problem with it, and we have no plans to stop delivering it. The click-through rates are proof that there are readers who appreciate the format and the message. 

Bottom line is you can expect to see more advertising formats in the future as we try to better serve our customers. There are some ad formats that I don't like and have said "no" to, such as "pop unders" (those that are delivered underneath your browser). But there are others, such as Post-It note, "peelback" style ads and animated ads (such as the Bakersfield Jam ad that featured a basketball flying across the screen) that I have approved and which you will see in the coming months. 

I know and expect that you'll share your feedback on those and any other ads that you find intrusive, offensive, poorly designed or executed, etc. I look forward to that feedback. As I mentioned earlier, we'll try some new formats that work, some that don't. But we'll never get beyond the stone age if we don't try new things every day.

Thanks,

Logan Molen

Vice President / Interactive Media 

I have never seen the Netflix ads~ but you will miss out on a great service if you do not use Netflix! End of free advertisement for Netflix.

They have to make money somehow off these free pages.Because I value this space~ bring on the ads.Thanks for no pop unders though.

Those animated ads that send stuff flying across the screen or bring up a Flash screen overlayed over the page are EXACTLY why I have the ABP and FlashBlock plugins for Firefox. It annoys me to no end that if I accidently mouse over an ad, it suddenly explodes across the screen with an annoying Flash animation, obscuring what I am trying to read. I know you marketing folks hate that these plugins are around, but perhaps you should consider the psychological acceptability of ads a bit more, because users only install such plugins when ads get too annoying (or start serving up malware as a few ads have done in the recent past and Flash ads in particular are perfect for such purposes). Also consider how many of those click-throughs are actually interested people and how many are just people trying to get the annoying thing off their screen but they didn't notice the little x in the corner or the like.

Oh, and I have the page load lag even with the plugins blocking the Netflix ad, so it's not the ad causing the issue. It seems to be the worst on the Recent Comments page, so if I were to hazard a blind guess, I would say there's some response time issue with the database(s) that store the comments.

I think the respose issue is that the comments database is storing over 100,000 comments going back to who knows when.  It's time to take out the trash.

The Inbox feature might be bogging down, too.  I may be wrong, but I would guess that very few people bother to empty theirs out.

I've got 596 messages or whatever in my inbox and am trying not to click any.  I tried keeping it emptied at first, but it was a pain and took so long I just gave up.  I want to see how loaded it will get now.

I understand the need for ads to pay the bills.  The trouble with netflix is that it just sits there doing nothing while you just stare at it.  It really delivers no message other than the name.  It also has a click to go away option that doesn't work.  I have no problem with banner ads or ads on the side of the page but th enetflix is intrusive and annoying.  Not a best foot forward for them.

30 seconds minimum. up to 2 minutes of staring at a netflix ad - that's what I hate. The day I posted the blog the pages were already loading so slow, so that may have been a bad day at TBC. The skip ad always takes about 10 - 15 seconds to load. Well, heck. I guess when we are talking about seconds it sounds ridiculous to complain about, but for us who just pop in quickly, well, it seems like FOREVER.

Thanks Jason and Logan for your responses. I can only hope speed increases!

yeah i cancelled my netflix account because of a popup. put it in the reasons why box too.

That Netflix thing is maddening! And I have the same question regarding the Inbox feature; there should be some way of easily emptying 500 to 600 items.

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback and ideas.

I hear you on some animated ads being over the top. Maybe it’s because of my job, but I find most of them refreshing, a fresh vision of creativity and an opportunity for exposure to new things. I will note that we killed one ad last week that was so poorly designed that your cursor didn't have to actually be touching it to trigger the "dropdown" effect. So we do have some standards. ;)

Shwaine, regarding your decision to use ad-blocking tools, I certainly respect your choice. Thankfully the large majority of web users don’t use those tools (particularly the ones integrated in browers), presumably because they want the advertising. But you’re right in that those tools were created because people were getting fed up with intrusive ads. In most, if not all, cases, we’re limiting delivery of those kinds of animated ads to one per day per person to ensure an out-of-the-ordinary experience is positive, not overkill. So if you're seeing it multiple times per day, let us know so we can adjust the settings.

We are trying to ensure our advertising is as relevant, trusted and dynamic as the traditional content that is a core draw for readers. Many people, including old-school readers, don’t think advertising is “content,” but it is. If delivered properly, it should not be considered an intrusion but a benefit, in fact a core attraction, whether one is reading news stories, blogging, reviewing restaurants or placing classified advertisements. If we can deliver relevant, effective advertising when and where are readers most appreciate it, then they’re more likely to welcome advertising and consider it a benefit. I know we have a ways to go (and this thread shows we're going to disagree at times, which is cool), but I think we're getting better, and it's a priority for us in the coming months and year as we continue to add new local advertisers.

And thanks for all the ideas regarding the page-load issue. We think there are a variety of factors contributing to the issue, and will be tackling each one by one to get answers. But by all means continue to scout for us.

I don't even look at the inbox since mine is set up to notify me by email if someone sends a message.  I think I saw 1800 messages in there telling me someone had posted to my blog as well as a few actual messages.  There's no way I'm going to sit and empty that box.

Logan, there may be a bottleneck in user authentication too, because I notice that the page load delays are worse when I am signed in than when signed out.  It's slow enough when signed out, but being signed in seems to make it worse.  Being signed in, I would expect, triggers extra reads of the database to display the inbox and other personalized information.

Signing in itself is often subject to extra delay, and when signing in by way of posting a comment that triggers the login screen, it often introduces a massive delay.

I don't know much about Web site design, but I notice patterns between circumstances and effects pretty fast.  :)

You know much better than I do, but it sounds to me like it's time for some server cleaning and tuning.

Logan....This morning I was standing in my bedroom and started hearing a chirp as if my smoke detector battery was low.  I walked where it was..nope, not that.  Came back in the bedroom and heard it by the open window.  Went outside to the back of the house.  Nope, not coming from there.  Went BACK to my bedroom and walked closer to the computer.  Stuck my head down near the keyboard.  Voila !  The sound was coming from my computer speakers!   On the screen was a vibrating, dancing popup telling me to "click here."   Long narrow band that would NOT go away and had no "close" button on it.  I had to close TBC to get it to go away.  A little while ago I changed pages and it did it AGAIN ! 

This one is new to me and is NOT the way to endear people to TBC !  

As we speak, on THIS page an ad, flashing, congratulating me for something, telling me I'm the 999,999 customer and that my participation is required.  Thank goodness it isn't dancing and jiggling all over the place.

 Ok folks, I'm done here for a while.  It took 4 minutes from starting to load the first page here and then waiting for the second page to load PLUS having to hit reload when it wouldn't move at all.  That's insane.  All the slow loading seems to have started when the popups got obnoxious no matter the denial.  They won't get much bang for their buck if people won't visit this site bcause of the slow loading.

FOUR minutes to get to this page?  HA..it was a timed experiement and one I don't need to repeat. 

(this is a copy of a post I made on another thread where it took way too long to even be able to comment on it.)

No kidding Nancy.  I used to be able to get a little housework done, and then pop in for a comment, and then get some more stuff done, and then pop in for a comment.  Now I'm sitting at the computer with my fingers crossed for minutes at a time just hoping my posts go through.  I have too much to do today anyway.

The best answer to all these problems: code.google.com/p/adsubtract/

Logan,

Why is your head crooked? It makes my neck hurt.  ;-)

I regularly clean up my comments and messages boxes...and Shwaine ,I forgot about all those ad blocking tools. Probably why I am not bothered by the ads... duh!

The biggest load lag seems to come for me when I use the recent comments page to move around the blog.

Laurah,

My head isn't crooked, just too big to fit the frame. Actually, the photo shows me ducking out of the way of all the arrows being tossed my way on this blog! ;)