another apology
Email response from Matt to my expression of extreme dissatisfaction with the sploggy look:
I agree that screenshot is fugly. We’re on an alternative ad serving system from Google and there were some bugs in the code when certain number of ads were returned. Since we don’t see the ads ourselves it went undetected. Our goal is obviously a tasteful display of ads when we show them, and I’m sorry for the mistake.
- Point about getting special treatment from Google clearly valid, sorry Shoemoney
- You don’t monitor the ads yourselves? Sorry, but what? I realise I don’t apply Hanlon’s razor anything like enough, since evil is so much more interesting than incompetence, but the possibility of it being a bug honestly never occurred to me because I assumed that everyone involved knew that advertising was a sensitive area that needs to be implemented and watched carefully.
And in response to my request for clarification on whether using custom CSS to hide ads makes your blog vulnerable to deletion:
The official way to turn off or otherwise control ads will be with the forthcoming Adsense upgrade.
I am reading this as ‘actually, we don’t have a policy on the unofficial way of turning off ads and it’s unlikely we would ever find out you were doing it, seeing as how we don’t monitor ad display. But I’m not going to admit this because then the ‘no ads’ people might buy custom CSS instead of the Adsense upgrade, getting more features for the same price and screwing up our stats.’
Obviously if it were against the ToS he’d have said so; but we all know they can change the rules on a whim, so use with caution.
Also, options points out that a paragraph on advertising has just been quietly added to the features page. Result!
hanlon’s razor only applies to people who don’t know better. i see The Napoleon/Clarke Law (referred to as grey’s law on your wiki link) as being more relavent.
Oh, nice how he sends you an email explaining things but he can’t take the time to do so with a volunteer who’s spent hundreds of hours covering his ass.
@drmike: I was surprised to hear direct from Matt too, but then I did email through the ‘contact support’ page (on account of feedback was broken, again). I don’t know whether they go directly to Matt or whether it was passed on to him by someone else.
@adam: he should know better, but does he?
Sure Custom CSS should explicitly allow us to hide de ads, but as they and us can’t see those the ads (at least me, haven’t see one) it’s hard to write a css selector
If they can’t see the ads they won’t notice they are missing:)
The CSS selector is div.postcontent table
I find all those Epistles too non trivial for exegesis, though funny (till get TOSed) undoubtedly.
my guess poetry ain’t a subject of any law.
I asked to Staff about hiding ads with CSS:
seems we have to paid a little more for an add free blog.
Malice or stupidity, you are so compassionate in your complaints.
Whether you believe it’s malice or stupidity, Lloyd, doesn’t make those complaints any less valid.
I just found an interesting quote in Weblog Tools Collection, completely matching the topic:
Every time when comparing this sentence with what’s done now, an evil grin shows up on my face. I don’t belong to the campaign of ad nay-sayer, some people really want to make some bucks and they have perfectly valid reason to do so. We have the choice of using those themes or not. I just found the hypocrisy and the lightning speed of attitude U-turn interesting. Probably they banish ad so feverishly in the old days because it’s not them who earns the money. Who knows?
If you have an *extraordinary number of high quality blogs* the obvious thing to do is give the Tee Shirt contract to a company with a Flash Intro on their site that is just short of porn. It will obviously make women, folk of differing religions, and youngsters feel right at home.
What, you didn’t know that everyone in the world is a white middle-class American male?
I’m on 2mb broadband here and the Flash intro is still loading. I thought WP were committed to… let me check the wording… ‘aesthetics, web standards, and usability’?
yeah, american apparel is a pain in the ass. the quality of their clothing is top notch, and their american made, no-sweatshop-here ethos gives people nice warm fuzzies. but their advertising is terrible, and every few months there’s another “dov charney is a fucking pig” scandal.
sbk for the benefit of us *foreigners* could you translate the *dov charney is a fucking pig scandal* please?
whenever i post links, i’m usually marked as spam. i figured google or wikipedia would suffice for most people.
many of the “models” in the aforementioned ads are also employees, as well, which wikipedia doesn’t mention.
LOL. Absolutely a model citizen without a doubt. Thanks.
@sbk
*rotflomao*