Slashdot Mirror
On-line Communities - Ads or no Ads?
numacra asks: "There comes a time in the life of every growing on-line community where ads start looking like a good way to support it. What does the Slashdot community think about ads on open source and security community websites? Does it bring down the quality of the website/community? Should we start putting ads up on our wargame pages? We receive around 10,000 unique hits a month and are debating whether or not ads will improve our community or ruin it." Ads and donations seem to be the easiest way to drum up money for grassroots websites, however are there other alternatives which could cover the costs?
After you've set up ads and paid subscriptions (for extra features!) its all about keeping them coming back;
1. Slashvertisments. Hidden ads disgused as original content! Two birds, one stone!
2. Obvious trolls posing as "news that you want to know." Flamewars never hurt anyone that really matters but it does drive up website hits!
3. Dupes. Make it look like you have more content each and every day!
4. User editable "tags" to postings. Make it look like you care about the public's opinion but, really, its your website. Trust me, no one is going to notice when you "edit" them.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
With an attitude like that, you will never win a free iPod by clicking on the monkey.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.