Advertising on the Forum

[David Bailey]

Moved to a separate thread - DavidJames

Originally Posted by graham fox

However as soon as someone mentions where they can learn west coast swing it is taken of the forum. Then we are told it is advertising.

OK, firstly, any advertising is banned - WCS, AT, Latin, and MJ - you name it, advertising is not allowed. Those are the forum rules, and I think they're fairly clear. Feel free to suggest changes to Franck, but it's his gaff, and he's entitled to define what rules he thinks are appropriate. And "advertising" means just that - promoting an event to which you have some commercial link. That's all. You're at perfect liberty to discuss or promote any event to which you have no commercial connection. For example, I created a thread about "Tango Al Fresco".

Secondly, moderators don't swoop down on any mention of any non-Ceroc event made by any person, and immediately remove it and infract the person involved. Look at the 2,455 threads about Southport weekenders, for example.

The majority of dance discussion on this forum is about MJ, yes - but, well, it is a Ceroc(Scotland) forum, it's gotta have some vague connection to MJ as a raison d'etre...

[Franck]

Originally Posted by graham fox

Lets not make this a personal issue. Lets keep it professional.

It is not personal, but you mentioned that adverts were deleted from the Forum and as DavidJames pointed out, advertising is not permitted on the Forum. You may disagree with my decision, and many independent organisers probably will too, but I have seen many forums where advertising took over and it would completely stifle discussion.
Most forums that allow advertising typically have very few posts and members, so advertising is hardly worthwhile and therefore, not an issue. When a forum becomes busier, some rules need to apply.

[Gav]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

OK, firstly, any advertising is banned - WCS, AT, Latin, and MJ - you name it, advertising is not allowed. Those are the forum rules, and I think they're fairly clear.

Hmmm, does that include a certain forum owner blatantly advertising events in his signature?

[Franck]

Originally Posted by Gav

Hmmm, does that include a certain forum owner blatantly advertising events in his signature?

No, it doesn't, and you're right, I use the forum to advertise Ceroc in Scotland, but then I built the forum, pay for it and spend a considerable amount of time maintaining and managing it (with the help of the moderating team), so overall, it might have been cheaper to pay for advertising on tv or local radio...

[Dreadful Scathe]

Much as I respect everyone who has posted on this thread, I do often wonder why there is this expectation that Franck "should" allow advertising on this forum. Simply put, it is a dance forum where we discuss ALL forms of dance (and other er..more trivial stuff ) with very little restriction. To automatically expect advertising here is akin to going into your local Starbucks with your "Smurf Coffee House" poster and demanding they put it up. And when they don't, complaining about the fact they have their OWN posters up. How dare they?

If I recall correctly, Franck did briefly go down the road of paid for advertising a long while ago, but decided it wasn't worth it. So its not as if it hasn't been carefully considered. If theres a huge demand for event advertising I'm sure someone will start a website - but I'm sure there are a few already.

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

Much as I respect everyone who has posted on this thread, I do often wonder why there is this expectation that Franck "should" allow advertising on this forum.

Franck pays for it, he maintains it, he puts a heck of a lot of work into it, and it sometimes seems that he gets nothing but grief for doing so.

He lets competitors post on it, as long as they don't advertise, and he's mostly remarkably open about discussions of non-Ceroc events and non-MJ stuff in general.

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

If I recall correctly, Franck did briefly go down the road of paid for advertising a long while ago, but decided it wasn't worth it. So its not as if it hasn't been carefully considered.

It's very tricky - in fact, so far it's impossible - to come up with a forum structure that allows advertising - I suspect if we tried, it would either turn into a spam-fest, or there'd be even more attempts to sneak past the rules than there are now.

[robd]

Personally I would welcome more advertising on the forum in place of the non-advertising posts of some contributors. I suspect it would be significantly more worthwhile content to a greater number of people. Maybe a separate sub-thread could be set up purely for advertising of future events? Anything not quarantined there could be deleted as per the current policy. However, I guess an obvious response to that is that UK-Jive or Minnie's list already provides this kind of function if people want to seek it out.

[Lory]

Originally Posted by robd

Personally I would welcome more advertising on the forum in place of the non-advertising posts of some contributors.

I wouldn't.. it would change the whole feel of the forum.

You'd get people (as we've had in the past) who only ever come on here to post an advert.. as you say, there's other websites that do this job perfectly adequately

[Gus]

I have to agree with Franks/Ceroc's policy (as much as that pains me). If you have a website set-up by Tesco's, don't expect to see Sainsbury's latest offers advertised. However, you can go to a price comparison site to see all offers. For Ceroc or Leroc you could go to their respective site ... OR just go to UK-Jive or Lynda's list ot ModernJive.Com. Is that so hard????

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Lory

I wouldn't.. it would change the whole feel of the forum.

I'm sitting on the fence with this one - I can see good and bad points.

Good points - revenue for forum maintenance, more information about events, a more clear process, possibly less work for underappreciated moderators.

Bad points - spam, separation of operators and punters, implementation.

As an advertising system has already been tried, and wasn't successful, I think it's right to leave as is, until someone can come up with a convincing proposal for a workable system that would address all the potential problems, and would enhance the forum.

Fundamentally, this isn't lyndalist, or any of the other "what's on" sites - this is a discussion forum. It's not a directory service - and there are several good sites out there that already do that work.

EDIT: I've moved this discussion to a separate thread.

[Dreadful Scathe]

it could work - the For Sale section is effectively advertising and doesn't disrupt the forum - perhaps an "whats on elsewhere" or something similar could work to.....

BUT Franck needs to pay for the extra upkeep and extra bandwidth that that would cost - so he either charges for it or merely provides links to the content elsewhere so its not his problem. BUT again, whats the incentive for Franck ?

And its not as if Franck has ever stopped anyone posting links to Modern Jive dance classes and events in the UK and the like

[philsmove]

Originally Posted by Franck

, but I have seen many forums where advertising took over and it would completely stifle discussion.

Since The Bristol Leroc Forum allowed, indeed seems to encourage, advertising
The chat has become virtually non existent
In fact no one has posted since midday yesterday
Most of the advertising has no connection with Bristol or Leroc

[John Gimber]

A few pointers to add to this discussion!

Re: the addition of ads to my forum.

OK, yes, I'd rather be without them, and when I was single and had some money to spare, I paid for everything myself. Now I have a house, kids, wife etc. I find that such luxuries need a little help. So... I put the ads on. It makes enough to pay for the site, which is great. If I start making more than I need, I'll start taking the ads off.

Re: ads not being relevant.

Some of the ads (the google ones) aren't relevant, true, but some are too, depending on what the topic is about. These'll be the first to go, and any ads remaining will be the sponsored ones.

Also, there are two boards for advertising stuff - one for the Bristol LeRoc area, and one for "anything else" - so people who aren't interested in goings on outside of the area don't have to filter through to find relevant stuff.

Re: messages on the site.

The forum's always been a bit on-off posting-wise, but with a vastly smaller audience than a forum such as this, I never would expect high volumes of traffic or high numbers of users. Some days I have no posts, some days over 20... people have fun and chat when they want to. But then... I always limited my site and its content to Bristol and the surrounding area, and didn't aim for something larger like "leroc in england".

Overall, it's a bit of an experiment, and things change from time to time on my forum depending on what's going on and how much time I have.

I'm always open to feedback though, and will look at ways of minimising the impact of the ads on the readers.

John.

[dave the scaffolder]

Personally i think Franck has the right balance on advertising.

I mean how would it look if i posted that i own and run a small scaffolding company covering Beds, Cambs, Herts and nearly all other regions.

Supplying dance stages and all types of access scaffolding erected by gorgeous scantily clad Adonis type scaffolders.

XXX XXX DTS Dave

Lets see how long this one lasts?

[stairman]

Originally Posted by dave the scaffolder

Personally i think Franck has the right balance on advertising.

I mean how would it look if i posted that i own and run a small scaffolding company covering Beds, Cambs, Herts and nearly all other regions.

Supplying dance stages and all types of access scaffolding erected by gorgeous scantily clad Adonis type scaffolders.

XXX XXX DTS Dave

Lets see how long this one lasts?

You forgot your contact number

[Martin]

Originally Posted by dave the scaffolder

Personally i think Franck has the right balance on advertising.

I mean how would it look if i posted that i own and run a small scaffolding company covering Beds, Cambs, Herts and nearly all other regions.

Supplying dance stages and all types of access scaffolding erected by gorgeous scantily clad Adonis type scaffolders.

XXX XXX DTS Dave

Lets see how long this one lasts?

To mention what you do, if you are a regular contributor, is not so bad, what is bad, is when people only use the forum when an event is coming up , and do not otherwise contribute.

This happened on a local forum to me, where someone only contributed once a year, and only to promote "his stuff".

This was seen as "taking advantage without asking first".


[Beds, cambs and herts, not got any houses there myself, but if I hear of anyone needing a dodgy scaffolder....]