I realise that SPCR has to make money to be a viable entity, and I have no problem with the GoogleAds that appear at the top of every page, but these new ads that appears as a kind of second "post" in every thread are much more distracting and pretty darn annoying frankly. would users be willing to pay a small amount (say $5 a month) not to have these ads? I would, maybe others wouldn't, maybe $5/month is not enough but I would be interested to hear back from the PTB on this new ad regime.

I have a simple solution to ads: If the ad annoys me in any manner, I simply will not purchase the product - end of story. This is more than fair. If a well designed, well place ad is supposed to affect my perception, then the opposite should also hold true.
For me, the new message ads are advertising dollars misspent. I ain't clickin them, and whatever product they're hucking goes on the do not buy list. I understand the revenue angle, but enough is enough. If the Mona Lisa was painted today, there would be a Motel 6 in the background. It would not be the same Mona Lisa. It would be an ad. Feh.

Pro tip: http://ads.peer39.com/*

i don't mind ads... i understand that bills have to be paid, and mouths need to be fed... but the ads are just a TAD big for my liking... they're pretty intrusive...

maybe SPCR can do a little bit of a PBS style membership drive... get some more "friends" and "patrons" on board...

otherwise it's something we'll just have to live with... i doubt people are going to leave over something like this... it's still a quality forum... at least the ads aren't for sleazy internet dating services...

[seizure-inducing blinking text] FIND YOUR MATE IN toronto63.dsl.bell.ca NOW!!!! [/seizure-inducing blinking text]

I also found the ads quite disconcerting. The main thing that bothers me about them is the way they look like a posting in the forum thread.
It would not be so bad if they were clearly differentiated from the forum content (as on the main page, where ads are occasionally inserted, but since they are graphic rectangles they can fairly easily be distinguished from the news items, which are text.)

But these adds appear very similar to forum postings (it would be easy for users to start posting advertisements in the fora, and it would be hard for readers to tell which were "official" ads and which were not.) Nice way to cover a phishing scam, or just promote ones own site/products.
(I wonder if the user name "Related Products" is still available

Also, for the ads to say "Related Products" is quite strange. How is a Zalman CPU cooler related to the Eee PC? (must be more room than I thought in those ultra-portables A reasonable start would be to change "Related Products" to "Advertisement" (like they do in magazines that run ads that look like articles). Not ideal, but it would be a start.

Instead of trying to disguise ads as content, it would be nicer if the ads were clearly differentiated, but made more interesting by giving useful information about actually relevant items. I used to read the ads in Byte magazine because many of them gave useful information about interesting products. Now sites like PC Magazines web site waste most of each page with ads, which I have learned to ignore because there is just so much chaff there.

At least some tweaking of the ad code to downplay them, and more clearly differentiate them from the forum content would be helpful.

Was there any announcement regarding these ads or did they just suddenly appear today? This doesn't seem in character with SPCR. I've experienced it on other sites and have to admit, it is only a minor annoyance for me. But it smacks of a commercialism that seems out of place here. However I'm sure the financial pressures that lead to this are real.

And by the way I HAVE A REALLY NICE MATX MOTHERBOARD FOR SALE IN THE CLASSIFIEDS http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=44723

I have to say, I'm in agreement that these adds step over the line of what I feel is appropriate. I'll take adds on the side, top or bottom of whatever I'm looking at, but for them to be in the middle really puts me off for some reason. These adds will be one reason for me to reduce the amount of time spent on SPCR forums, and I really want to hear about why these adds have been put in place, in a place that truely values things that are unobtrusive.

Someone twisted my arm -- it's a trial run, and it'll get tweaked over time. We'll see. They're easy enough to skip over if you don't like em...

how bout having a 'related product' thats actually related to the thread?

my brain has pretty much learned to filter out ads i see on the internet these days... once i add these to the filter list, they don't stand a chance... i don't really notice banners anymore, unless they're the 1990s-esque blinking text and background THIS IS NOT A JOKE! YOU'VE WON A MILLION DOLLARS!... kind of hard to ignore when the seizure starts setting in...

and to say that commercialism is setting in sounds pretty far out there... i think SPCR has built a solid reputation for honesty. i don't see how a few ads correlates with a total loss of credibility...

i wouldn't worry yet... until SPCR starts publishing glowing reviews of "OMFG! 3000W ThermalTake PSU is teh r0x0rZ! 19dBA!!!11"

if you're that concerned, pony up a few bucks... bills to pay, mouths (and habits?) to feed....

Could someone post a link where I could see these ads? Maybe it's adblock or purely luck, but I haven't bumbed into any yet...

Its not ADblock because I haven't seen them either and im in school at the moment using IE.

I didn't even know they were there until I disabled AdBlock (Plus).

I often feel guilty for blanket blocking ads when sites such as this obviously need the revenue, but it's exactly this kind of in-your-face advertising which drives me to use AdBlock in the first place...

What ads is everyone talking about? I see nothing this morning, and saw nothing yesterday. Using FF 1.5x.

Ahh, nevermind. Fired up good 'ol Internet Exploder and got the full treatment. Yeccchhh!

For some reason I couldn't see any even when I tested with IE7. Could those ads be so smart they know which country you are browsing from?

You can disable AdBlock Plus for specific websites such as spcr (just right click on ABP icon in FF). However, with this new ad in the middle of the thread I don't see myself doing so.

I don't know if this is typical, but I have found when loading a thread, I will be able to read the first post but everything else stalls until the ad loads.

I don't mind the ad so much (well, I do think they detract a bit from the style of the site) but it is a little frustrating when they hold up the rest of the page.

This could also be an issue in the future should the ad provider's service go down/slow down such that I have to wait for the ad to time out before I can read the rest of the thread.

Heh - didn't even notice them (adblock plus and Firefox)

hmmm yeah I don't have any either.... bog standard firefox 2.

I'm using Firefox 2 with no kind of adblocker and have not noticed any ads in the threads (except those in the top). However, I have noticed the "lag" that pipperoni mentioned....very irritating.

I think Erssa is right. They are geografical. He can't see them in Finland with IE7, neither can I in Sweden.

And I cannot see them here in Estonia.

Well, using non-adblocked browser (Firefox in my case), I can notice nasty lag while processing ad script - maybe ad providers should optimize and redesign their scripts to include/fill ad content after page is loaded.

My main browser (Opera) just ignores most ad sites and scripts (sorry, MikeC) and is not affected at all (except little additional bar between first and second message in thread, what I usually don't even notice).

Anyone want to donate to get Mike a chiropractor?

Nah, lets just twist the other arm to undo the damage to the first one