I'll never use a zetaboard

Demon_Skeith

Demon_Skeith

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I joined a zeta board tonight and for their security answer you had to watch a video till they finally gave you the answer you had to type in. But the video was an ad!

I really don't like being forced to watch ads and give people money. Nor force people to watch ads to join my forum.
 
hissae2 said:
I don't see a problem with it. Having a video show up first would probably make it less likely for bots to get in.
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It is a false sense of security because many 'bots' are actually humans whose only purpose is to bypass the anti-spam feature in place and then set the bot up to post their crap on the forum as if there were no anti-spam in place. It just slows them down, the only thing that lessens the likelihood of a bot, is if you make your forum invite only.
 
Black Angel said:
It is a false sense of security because many 'bots' are actually humans whose only purpose is to bypass the anti-spam feature in place and then set the bot up to post their crap on the forum as if there were no anti-spam in place. It just slows them down, the only thing that lessens the likelihood of a bot, is if you make your forum invite only.
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Yeah, but if you make it invite-only then you filter out any actual people who come across your forum who just want to join and post. Losing potential members is a far worse scenario than gaining a couple of spammers.
 
I don't really have a problem with the video ads as long as their not super long like a few minutes. Ads help pay for the domain name, and web hosting cost of Zetaboard which is a free site.

But, I think a picture ad, or an animated gif ad would be a better choice since video ads can be kind of annoying since the audio is so loud sometimes.

Maybe it is a free captcha plug-in which makes money from Ads to help raise money to provide the captcha for forums to use for free.

Videos and moving captchas are also harder for spambots, and computers to guest right, but I think a lot of spammers are humans who register a bunch of accounts to sell to spammers who spam once, and never return.
 
fantanoice said:
Yeah, but if you make it invite-only then you filter out any actual people who come across your forum who just want to join and post. Losing potential members is a far worse scenario than gaining a couple of spammers.
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I agree, but as an admin, my top priority has always been the members that I have, and not the ones I could have.

Sent from my SGH-T869 using Tapatalk 2
 
Demon_Skeith said:
I'm just more concerned about the fact that I would be working for ZB making them money with each member that signs up.
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What's wrong with that? The admins are using their servers, their software, their database, their bandwidth, etc to host the forum for free. They have to get their profit from somewhere and if a video click provides it, then why the hell not? Chances are the ad was only for a couple of seconds anyway so what is the problem? They still provide exceptional service for a free forum host.

As for the video having ads, did you forget that Youtube does it, Penny Arcade does it, The Escapist does it and practically every-video-site-ever does it. Hosting websites isn't cheap and they need to make money somehow. Getting a cent from every sign up is just a simple way to do it. You're not even the one giving them the money, it is the advertiser that is.

Black Angel said:
I agree, but as an admin, my top priority has always been the members that I have, and not the ones I could have.

Sent from my SGH-T869 using Tapatalk 2
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I find it unlikely that your members have not come across a spambot before and even so, if you promptly remove the spam and explain the situation then I doubt they're going to care very much. That way you still care for your members while not ostracising potential ones.
 
You're right, my members encountered a spam bot before and they have reported them. My staff and I do stay on top of things where that is concerned, however, that is neither here nor there.. I am not saying that I would make my forum invite-only to thwart spam bots, but, I know those who have and it is a more effective way of dealing with them, especially since, it seemed as though their host was under constant attack for whatever reason.

As I said, it's not something that I'd do myself, but at the same time, I'm not going to knock those who would, and have, and not saying that I would, but if, in the future, I were to make registrations on my forum invite-only, then spam bot management would be the farthest reason from my mind for having done so and would more or less be an additional benefit or something like that.
 
fantanoice said:
What's wrong with that? The admins are using their servers, their software, their database, their bandwidth, etc to host the forum for free. They have to get their profit from somewhere and if a video click provides it, then why the hell not? Chances are the ad was only for a couple of seconds anyway so what is the problem? They still provide exceptional service for a free forum host.

As for the video having ads, did you forget that Youtube does it, Penny Arcade does it, The Escapist does it and practically every-video-site-ever does it. Hosting websites isn't cheap and they need to make money somehow. Getting a cent from every sign up is just a simple way to do it. You're not even the one giving them the money, it is the advertiser that is.


I find it unlikely that your members have not come across a spambot before and even so, if you promptly remove the spam and explain the situation then I doubt they're going to care very much. That way you still care for your members while not ostracising potential ones.
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I'd accept or even command it; well-spoken, Miss!
 
Videos like that might drive many users away. A simple but effective security plugin can make the job easier.
 
I think videos in a way are better then captchas since they are easy to read/understand than a captcha which uses weird looking font and patterns. An animated gif, or video with no sound is better since some of those video commercials are loud.
 
fantanoice said:
What's wrong with that? The admins are using their servers, their software, their database, their bandwidth, etc to host the forum for free. They have to get their profit from somewhere and if a video click provides it, then why the hell not? Chances are the ad was only for a couple of seconds anyway so what is the problem? They still provide exceptional service for a free forum host.

As for the video having ads, did you forget that Youtube does it, Penny Arcade does it, The Escapist does it and practically every-video-site-ever does it. Hosting websites isn't cheap and they need to make money somehow. Getting a cent from every sign up is just a simple way to do it. You're not even the one giving them the money, it is the advertiser that is.
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They make plenty of money to cover the costs, why else offer free services with the use of their money?

Yes, but that's a bit different what I'm trying to say. I am doing my best to get people to join which in turn makes it so that I am working to get them money while I see none of it.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
They make plenty of money to cover the costs, why else offer free services with the use of their money?
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What makes you so sure that they make a lot of money? They have to support servers and datacentres for hundreds, maybe thousands of forums (including Invisionfree because they're the same company). The only money they get is from advertisers and people who pay for ad-removal. Sure they may be getting frequent cents from new members, but I doubt that makes a fair contribution to the costs of maintaining the data used to store that new member.

Demon_Skeith said:
Yes, but that's a bit different what I'm trying to say. I am doing my best to get people to join which in turn makes it so that I am working to get them money while I see none of it.
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I'm not sure what you mean. Why would you be entitled to any of that money? You may run the forum but they still technically own it because they provide the service for it. You are their client so any profits the service receives goes to the ones who run the service, which is Zetaboards.

At the moment you seem to claim that you can leech off their services and they get nothing in return. Pretty sure the world doesn't work like that.
 
they wouldn't be offering free forums if they weren't making a good profit from it. I have talked to a host provider and he does say google adsense does roll in a nice check every month.

What I am saying is, they do get their money from me as I and many others have set up communities which brings them in the money. To put up the extra ads is just milking the community more and more in a way that makes it seem I'm working for them but not getting the extra benefits.
 
Demon_Skeith said:
they wouldn't be offering free forums if they weren't making a good profit from it. I have talked to a host provider and he does say google adsense does roll in a nice check every month.

What I am saying is, they do get their money from me as I and many others have set up communities which brings them in the money. To put up the extra ads is just milking the community more and more in a way that makes it seem I'm working for them but not getting the extra benefits.
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To be fair; is it a "Good Omen's!" or not?
 
Memento Mori said:
I get that they want to make some money from it, but forcing new users to watch an ad is kinda stupid.
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It is; but does that justify being outraged over it? Especially when most of the Internet uses adblock these days, which does actually endanger the livelihoods of most online businesses (Google etc. are exempt because of their massive size.) and stuff.

Anyway, DS, I'm pretty sure you block their ads, so why not put up with one when you join?
 
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