How do you get rid of the adverts that cover the posts?

[Lazygit]

Is there a way of getting rid of the column of adverts on the RHS of the screen? They irritatingly cover the posts. I can see adverts everywhere, I can't read posts on models everywhere.

[flytilbroke]

Been mentioned before, the problem that is.  Hopefully it will get attended to.

[Tim Mackey]

They only get covered when someone doesnt follow the correct procedures for copy and  paste, or inserting links etc. The ads are a necessary part of the forum.

Edited By Timbo - Administrator on 18/03/2010 22:13:40

[Lazygit]

It happens on

 

http://www.modelflying.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=14104&p=2

 

when using Safari v4.0.3., though not on the previous page or any of the subsequent pages as far as I can see. Is the cause the copy/paste/links problem?

 

Thanks 

 

 

Edited By Lazygit on 19/03/2010 07:24:34

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Tim Mackey]

Posted by Lazygit on 19/03/2010 07:21:45:

It happens on

 

http://www.modelflying.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=14104&p=2

 

when using Safari v4.0.3., though not on the previous page or any of the subsequent pages as far as I can see. Is the cause the copy/paste/links problem?

 

Thanks 

 

 

Edited By Lazygit on 19/03/2010 07:24:34

 

 

Did you not see my post immediately following yours then lazygit

[James40]

To quote Timbo "the ads are a necessary part of the forum" I'm sorry but I strongly disagree, the ads are necessary to fund the forum but the format and over use of the ads has unfortunately stopped me from using the forum as much as I'd like to, purely because they slow the site down, are very distracting/ugly and with my main access being an iPhone it's all to easy to to select an advert instead of a link. It's a real shame as I find the site an invaluable source of information but at the same time incredibly frustrating.

[Pete B]

Only 2/3 of the page width is currently used, with a large grey expanse on each side. Is there any reason why the ads cannot be moved to the outer edges and the text area widened to fill the bit in the middle?

You wouldn't have to scroll down the page so far to get to the latest post then andyou may get more posts per page.

 

Pete

[Tim Mackey]

Posted by James40 on 20/03/2010 09:51:41:
To quote Timbo "the ads are a necessary part of the forum" I'm sorry but I strongly disagree, the ads are necessary to fund the forum but the format and over use of the ads has unfortunately stopped me from using the forum as much as I'd like to, purely because they slow the site down, are very distracting/ugly and with my main access being an iPhone it's all to easy to to select an advert instead of a link. It's a real shame as I find the site an invaluable source of information but at the same time incredibly frustrating.

 

Well lets not be too pedantic here James40, but whether it s amatter of funding or purely operational, that still results in the same thing - they are a necessary part of the forum.

I agree that they can be a bit distracting, and perhaps the tech guys can do something along the lines suggested by PeteB ?

I have been able to stop them flashing permanently, which helps a bit.

[Ultymate]

There's another thread on this forum that poses the question "how crazy can you get" and I would suggest that expecting a commercial website not to include adverts to be pretty well up there in the rankings

[Peter Beeney]

 

    I managed to trash a page in a thread a long time ago. This was simply because my post had too many characters. (There is supposed to be an upper limit.) As usual, the text disappeared under the ads on the right hand side. David A did mention it at the time, saying that I should not copy from a word processor. Which I had done, of course, not being totally aware of that fact. I use a MacBook, with Pages app, that’s the equivalent of Microsoft Word.

    I felt that I was at fault here, so I spoke to the Main Mac trouble shooter about it. He suggested that the word processor was not too sophisticated, more rather that the web site was probably unable to cope with anything other than very simple text wrapping and formatting etc. He thought that using Text Edit to type in, that’s Mac’s version of Notepad and Wordpad, might be a good idea. So now I use Pages, cut and paste into Text Edit, thus converting it to Plain Text and then c and p from there into the thread. This roughly takes all of about 12.764 seconds. I don’t think I’ve had any problems since.
   
    I have never posted any links, so it’s not always these that cause the problem.  
   
    Using Notepad to type a post has also been advocated before, in other threads I believe, so it maybe other forumites have come to the same conclusion.

    To read the rest of the thread from under the ads in that particular case, I just copied the thread page and pasted into a document. You can then read all the text ok. I frequently do that anyway, it avoids any going to and fro. And you can delete all the bits you don’t want. It’s perhaps not quite so pleasant as reading in the thread, but at least you don’t have any distractions!

    Pete B….   I don’t think I’m seeing what you describe. Using Firefox, Safari or Opera as browsers, the ads appear to be right on the outer edges. It is full page width, with no grey areas. The text area is in the middle, on a scale of about 2/3rds to 1/6th either side of ads.
    Or am I seriously missing something here?     Don’t answer that!

    Hope this translates successfully.          PB

[Pete B]

That's interesting, Peter. I'm using Firefox. By way of example, the first line of your post above reads:

 

'I managed to trash a page in a thread a long time ago. This was simply '

 

Does that tie up with what your page displays?

 

I've had a look at Views, Tools and Options but the best I could do was zoom the page a few percent.

 

Pete

[Peter Beeney]

 

    Pete,   That is certainly my top line. So I would think that we both see the same block of text. In fact, I think we both probably see exactly the same page, but in different relative sizes!!  I’ve never really needed to play with Views, Tools and Options, so I’m afraid I’m rather lacking in that area, too.

    Looking again at this, there is a strip of grey on the left hand side, adjoining the text, which contains your name and avatar etc. This is largely wasted unless the post is very short. So as a percentage, the actual text block is about half the screen width in total. I think I might have told a bit of a small porkie there, when I said I said it was 2/3rds wide. If I pull the page out as far as I can, I get 2 grey strips exposed, equally either side, between the ads and the edge of the screen, but only physically about 3 mm wide. I think this is what you must be seeing, only much wider!

    Is this problem on a desk top or a mobile phone? On this Mac there is something called System Preferences, used for setting the parameters for everything. I’ve just been fiddling about with it, I’ve selected Displays and I’ve found that by varying the resolutions I can easily make a screen that resembles yours. I think, but I’m not at all sure here, that the resolution is the number of pixels per inch. The higher the number, the smaller the page, relative to the screen. I suspect there might be something similar in Windows, but I can’t remember what it is. The snag with this is, if you change it for one screen, it might be the same for all! So that’s yet another bit of useless information I’ve found!

    Hope you can fix it, I’m sure someone, somewhere, will have an answer to it.  PB
                                                                                                                 

[Tony Smith 7]

I can't see any long links in this thread .... Here

[Bruce Richards]

The thread displays perfectly for me.

[Peter Beeney]

   Bruce, We are looking at the thread, 2.4Mhz module for 35Mhz Cockpit sx, advice? By John Sheehy. If you are looking at this same thread, can you explain, please, why I have the text under the ads and you don’t? And others have this problem, too. It does seem this little niggle does crop up with very persistant regularity!

 

   Many thanks in anticipation if you can get any info. on this.  PB                                         

                                                                                                                                                   

Edited By Peter Beeney on 09/05/2010 17:56:27

[Bruce Richards]

Sorry Peter I am not a web site expert and I can't explain the problem especially as I can't see it.

 

I think one of the technical guys will be looking at it so hopefully it will get sorted soon.

Edited By Bruce Richards - Moderator on 09/05/2010 18:44:53

[James40]

Are the forum tech guys any nearer to solving this problem, it's been over a month of looking into it ? Of the 5 threads I've read this morning, 3 of them were ruined by adverts covering the text.... Including this thread on the problem. I know we've had this before and the answer that came back was "the site isn't designed for PDA or iPhone" but come on guys, welcome to the future, this is where Internet surfing devices are going and where this site is sadly lacking. I'm sorry this will appear as one large block of text, I've typed it as sentences but again, this site changes it to a single block of text because it's living in the dark ages. Come on guys, sort it out !

[David Ashby - Moderator]

Sorry James but you're going to have to be disappointed for the time being. Developer time/resource is allocated to other projects at the moment. I'll make sure this stays on their horizon so to speak.  

[James40]

That's a shame David.  I often read in the forum about the average age of the R/C enthusiast and how do we make it more appealing to the younger user.

 

I don't know of many younger generation that aren't equiped with an iPhone and lets face it, an internet seach will be the first thing they do if they are interested in starting a hobby. So they find the site and instantly become frustrated in the lack of functionality with their chosen web browsing device.

 

I'm sure it can't just be me that finds it very frustrating but there again at 40 years old maybe I am in the R/C younger age bracket

[Myron Beaumont]

James 40

In my experience ,life begins at 50 & starts going downhill at 65 ,if it's any consolation

[James40]

Well thats a 15 year window of fun then, I look forward to it