A frustrated message to IPC

Rivers & creeks

Rivers & creeks

Well-Known Member
Joined
23 Nov 2004
Messages
10,924
Location
Norfolk
Visit site
I value these forums very highly, the atmosphere of mutual assistance and encouragement is the best on the web. I know I pay for the forums by my clicks on your adverts but the way you format the adverts makes the site almost un-useable. Pages take forever to load, and I get frequent timeout errors. Very reluctantly I have installed Google Chrome ad blocker and now it's a different experience, pages load almost instantly and there are no irritating ads swamping the page if I accidently scroll over them.

Please fix the ad issue and put a message up when you have and I am sure that I and many others, who have reluctantly blocked the ads, will quickly enable them and thereby fund the costs of this excellent site :)
 
strakeryrius said:
Your internet connection speed must be very poor.

I use plain old IE with no ad blockers or anything and pages load almost instantly. I have a 10 Mbit connection through Virgin.

Perhaps you should look at your own setup instead of blaming IPC?
Click to expand...

But the OP has already said that a change of browser worked? Also, not everyone has access to Virgin or similar whizzy connections. Mine has 2 pass through 2 fields of carrots to get here, and a field of retired donkeys to get back out to the world.
 
FullCircle said:
But the OP has already said that a change of browser worked? Also, not everyone has access to Virgin or similar whizzy connections. Mine has 2 pass through 2 fields of carrots to get here, and a field of retired donkeys to get back out to the world.
Click to expand...

But that just proves my point - the OP has "tuned up" his system to make up a little for his poor internet connection speed. That is not IPC's fault, or the fault of the web site design, which was what the OP's original moan was about. He was ascribing the blame for his poor experience to the wrong quarter. With a bit more tweaking he might be able to turn the ads back on and still get an acceptable browsing experience.
 
strakeryrius said:
Your internet connection speed must be very poor.

I use plain old IE with no ad blockers or anything and pages load almost instantly. I have a 10 Mbit connection through Virgin.

Perhaps you should look at your own setup instead of blaming IPC?
Click to expand...

Perhaps you didn't get a chance to read my full post before replying. YBW is the only site I had problems with, I blocked the ads and now it works just as well as all other sites do. Given those circumstances I feel a tiny bit of blame is due IPC. I'm also guessing that IPC would rather have my feedback than just another ad blocker who doesn't say why.
 
Last edited:
strakeryrius said:
But that just proves my point - the OP has "tuned up" his system to make up a little for his poor internet connection speed. That is not IPC's fault, or the fault of the web site design, which was what the OP's original moan was about. He was ascribing the blame for his poor experience to the wrong quarter. With a bit more tweaking he might be able to turn the ads back on and still get an acceptable browsing experience.
Click to expand...

Yep, sort of.
The whole point about the advertising is that it should not be the whole thing, and if it is sucking off the performance to the point of the OP not bothering to use the site, then its a complete fail, no?

Everyone seems to assume everybody has full speed access, which ain't the case, especially with this lot sharing marina WIFI etc.
 
Hmmm.

Hi Sky TV. I'm a very busy person and I can't be bothered to watch all the blasted adverts you put on and I don't have access to a PVR to filter them out. Please remove advertising from your TV programs.

Pretty much the same thing!

;)

We live in an 80:20 world. If a product or service satisfies 80% of the users then you simply ignore the bleating of the 20%. ( So that means Mac users, linux users, those with slow 'net connections or those who tick the wrong box when applying for life/car/health/travel insurance or anything else )
 
Last edited:
nimbusgb said:
We live in an 20:80 world. If a product or service satisfies 20% of the users then you simply ignore the bleating of the 80%. ( So that means PC users and those with slow 'net connections or those who tick the wrong box when applying for life/car/health/travel insurance or anything else )
Click to expand...

I'm HAPPY with the service but then i'm a MAC .. No Ads .. No Nothing :eek:
 
strakeryrius said:
But that just proves my point - the OP has "tuned up" his system to make up a little for his poor internet connection speed. That is not IPC's fault, or the fault of the web site design, which was what the OP's original moan was about. He was ascribing the blame for his poor experience to the wrong quarter. With a bit more tweaking he might be able to turn the ads back on and still get an acceptable browsing experience.
Click to expand...

When IPC's forum applications enables the sort of unrequested intrusion in the picture below then there is good reason to complain, There is also good reason to complain when IPC permits OEM software to run in the background that severely slows forum site performance - to the point of total unusability for some.
ClipboardCC-091214214130.jpg
 
IAN13 said:
I'm HAPPY with the service but then i'm a MAC .. No Ads .. No Nothing :eek:
Click to expand...

I have a good line (8 meg) and I use a Mac.

Despite this, I have installed a web browser with ad blocking abilities. The interesting thing is that I have done this just to look at YBW forums. For everything else I am happy with vanilla Safari, Firefox or even IE on my Windows partition.

The reason is simple. I look at hundreds of websites and YBW forums are the slowest thing I ever come across.

I think it is good feedback to IPC. This is not an 80:20 thing. This is one of the slowest sites known to man, and they should know.

The Sky thing is not a good comparison. If Sky TV was this slow I would ditch it.

The sad thing is that this is a simple technical problem. There are lots of websites with animated ads. I don't mind them at all. They load quickly and I often click through. IPC should give their techies the remit to fix this. Someone who knows what the are doing could do this in a day.
 
steve_clayton said:
When IPC's forum applications enables the sort of unrequested intrusion in the picture below then there is good reason to complain, There is also good reason to complain when IPC permits OEM software to run in the background that severely slows forum site performance - to the point of total unusability for some.
ClipboardCC-091214214130.jpg
Click to expand...

I've often wondered about the ad complaints here, but your screenshot now illustrates the problem well. I use a script blocker rather than an ad blocker and it was installed long before I discovered these forums. I get text adverts all down the right hand side and YBW ads at the top, but none are graphical or intrusive. Adverts should be just that and not overlay content, flash, mimick system messages or anything else of that nature. Blocking all scripts by default and manually enabling just the minimum seems to be the best means of safe and unobtrusive browsing IMHO. I have to either temporarily or permanently enable scripts for each site I visit and apart from ecommerce, I only ever enable scripts from that site, not any of the 3rd party hosted code/scripts.

Regarding the TV adverts, they are surely essential for those who watch TV - to make tea, go to bathroom, check email etc without missing programs! Does anyone actually watch them or ever buy anything as a result??? :D (I don't watch much TV so they don't actually bother me either!)
 
I installed adblocker and it has improved dramatically. Reading the numerous various threads about this problem if I were IPC I would start treating this as a serious problem that is p*****g of forumites to the point of leaving.

Forumites make this site successful, start listening to them.
 
I concur with the view that this site is badly set up - too slow and adverts encroaching over the text.
As with the OP, this is the slowest site I use, and hence use much less than previously. Have tried Google reader but more of a phaff - why should I have to do this.

Yes it performs OK-ish when using the fast desktop with loads of internet bandwidth, on board memory and large screen size.
BUT it is very poor on the netbook with smaller screen, only 1Gb and variable bandwidth depending upon location. Other sites work fine on the netbook - eg YachtsandYachting as one topical example.

Please fix it or more and more people will go away - or simply block the adverts. Either way it loses the purpose of the ads in the first place unless these are efficient
 
The forum runs this (marketing speak) in the background. Might have a significant load impact or not - I don't know

This platform integrates data from multiple sources including web, mobile and social media interactions as well as CRM, call center and point-of-sale systems. As a result, marketers are empowered to automate highly personalized and relevant customer interactions across multiple touch points, increase the efficiency of marketing processes and spend marketing dollars more efficiency for maximum ROI.
 
Ahhh

But if it were not for the Ads we would not be having this discussion. IPC Towers have decided that no ads will be shown to registered members which means that they are going to have to prove how many un-registered members use the site. This will then enable them to charge the appropriate fee for the ads that are shown.

The ads are a pain in the neck but thats what you get for a free site.

So why complain. Find a decent AD Blocker or find a different browser / PC operating system and lets get on with SAILING .. Hmmm whats that :rolleyes:

Just had a look 916 would get the Ads .. Not many compared with the 356 logged on :eek: .. Hardly Earth shattering ..

And how long will it take for the marketing men to realise that people don't read them.

I have seen the Land Rover Ad time and time again and what do I do buy a Toyota .. Brilliant
 
Last edited:
I have a Mac and what I suspect is a bog standard home broadband, it's a problem unique to this site and as most of us have said, this should be seen by IPC as useful feedback. Installing adblocker took about 10 seconds, I can't believe it's now a minority of us who use it. Out of fairness to IPC I will remove it when they fix the site. Meanwhile the forum is now useable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top