I never said it was, nor was I referring to any one posting in particular. I was referring to the general attitude as perceived by a brand new user. I just don't understand why anyone contributing to this forum (and this topic in particular) would bother arguing about the whys and where-fores of these adverts. Surely we are all here because we think these numbers are economically unfair and ethically wrong. The very presence of an advert selling non-geographics on a site dedicated to the abolition of them makes my head spin. It would be funny if it wasn't so wrong.

scatman wrote on Feb 27^th, 2007 at 5:48pm:


Some people on this web forum only have a very narrow and blinkered self interest sadly scatman and they then seem surprised when the purveyors of 084/7 numbers also exploit them with a similar ethically lacking and selfish form of narrow self interest.

Quite a few posters on this website only seem to care about avoiding 084/7 numbers, because they call a lot of them, and seem to be utterly mystified by the suggestion that it is wholly inappropriate for this website to also be involved in deriving income from other equally  dubious forms of commercial practice.

The site admin has explained banner ads in this thread.

Basically, this site does cost money to run and costs more money to run now than it did when first set up due to increase in visitors.

Yes - in a perfect world there would be no adverts but we don't all live in a perfect world.  The technology is called "google adsense" or something and works by taking a look at what we discuss on the website and displaying adverts related to what we're discussing.

This is where the problem begins because we discuss 084/087 so therefore we get adverts about 084/087.  The site admin has managed to filter some things out but even if it was possible to filter all adverts concerning 084/087, then the running costs of this site would increase simply because no adverts (or very few) would likely be displayed because we mostly discuss is 084/087.  The site admin has already stated he already has to pay towards the costs of running the site but without adverts then there would be the full running costs of the site to pay.

Now personally speaking, if I was the admin and everyone wanted an ad-free site then I would introduce some other way of funding the running costs of the site.  I like to think I'm a generous person but it comes a point when I would like some way of recovering at least some of the costs of running the site - not to make a profit - just try to recover some of the costs of running the site.

If you don't like the adverts, etc then why take any notice or why even visit the site?  The problem is because everyone wants the site to remain (for obvious reasons) and ad-free, then someone please explain to me how it could be funded and would anyone else go for it?

How about the Site admin introduces sign-up fees and/or restricts the database/forum to only those members that have paid a sign-up fee or something?

Other non 084/0870 adverts have been on this forum but there is nearly always someone complaining of them as well.  Regardless of what the site admin does to try to recover some of the costs of the site, no one will ever be happy!

I use this site to save me money and it has/does save me a fortune.  If it didn't exist then I would be paying more so as a result I voluntarily contribute to this site.

scatman wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 7:34am:


Scatman,

It is good to hear from someone who feels exactly as I do on these issues and feels that the site management badly lets itself down by being prepared to show adverts from anywhere, including 084/7 number vending merchants, and also the equally suspect GrabAGrand strange elottery promoting ad banners.  Both the subject matter of GrabAGrand and the marketing approach used would be bound to look like an unethical scam to many people who consider 084/7 numbers to be a scam.  I have no problem with the prominent top of the page web link to www.energlinx.com as they offer a useful and accurate gas and electricty switching site likely to appeal to and be ethically in tune with most visitors to this site.

I believe Google AdSense can be far more finely tuned to cut out certain types of advertisement but the site owner seems to have neither the inclination or the ethical sensitivity to realise that this is necessary.  This is why we end up with prominent ads for people like 0870Advice, a firm actually dedicated to selling yet more of these numbers to the world at large.

Scatman all I can say is that some of the regular users and moderators of this site do not unfortunately seem to share our ethical sensibilties and have the very narrow blinkers on that say that as long as the site turns out 084/7 number alternatives it doesn't matter what other conflicts of interest take place.  But rest assured there are several other vigorous anti 084/7 campaigners who feel just as we do about these inappropriate advertisement links on this website and who in a number of cases have largely or wholly terminated their participation in the site as a result of their concerns.

bill wrote on Feb 28^th, 2007 at 1:09pm:
Unfortunately it's true.

It's only 'flawed' in this case because of what this site is about.  However, all (must be nearly all now) other websites funded this way then it isn't a problem.

Would everyone like the site admin to start charging by other means instead?  Maybe a sign-up fee as mentioned earlier and to block non fee members access to the forum/database?  If he was that way inclined then he would definitely make an actual profit from it because although many people post on this forum - many, many more just search for alternatives from the database.