[OSM-talk] advertising

[Andrew]

I think we should all calm down and give the ads a chance.  Firstly, its 
only a trial.  Secondly, you only get one ad at a time, so they will 
never 'proliferate' all over Europe.  Thirdly, few people make the kind 
of effort that Etienne and a few others do researching fund raising 
options, so lets have the trial, and see what information comes back 
from the treasurer about the financial value.  Fourthly, the ads appear 
to go away if you log in, so if they bother you that much, log in and 
ignore them. 

Its easy to forget how much OSM depends on the drive and passion of a 
few key people.  If the project is to survive it needs financial 
stability, so those people can do the work that makes them happy, 
instead of scrounging for server parts and money.  Unthinking negativity 
from OSM contributors is exactly what will sap drive and passion, so I 
appeal to all of you to please consider your words carefully before 
dashing off strongly put assumption based missives and accusations, and 
"+1"s. 

Andrew.


David Earl wrote:
> My first reaction on seeing the home page today was 'what's that strange 
> blue blob in the middle'? Hovering over it on IE7 I see it says 'homes 
> for sale in Banstead' and my first reaction was 'someone's hacked the 
> home page'. It doesn't even give the hover-prompt in Firefox, just a 
> blob, until you click on it. But then it dawned on me that this is the 
> advertising Steve mailed about last week.
>   
The need for a click and no hover-prompt would make it less annoying, 
not more, surely?
> I think it is awful defacing the europe-wide map with this. At a high 
> level of zoom, I grudgingly suppose it might be OK, but as it stands it 
> looks like a fly on the map!
>
> At the moment it looks like a fault. But if these things proliferate all 
> over the Europe home page, then what a first time viewer will see is a 
> map full of adverts, not a map of collaborative effort. I think this is 
> a shame and devalues the project.
>   
> I understand the need for income, but I'd much rather see words down the 
> side than see the map altered because it looks like that's the map's 
> purpose if we do that. It gives a fundamentally different message to the 
> viewer about what the map is for. London is less prominent,indeed 
> obscured, by 'Homes for sale in Banstead'.
>   
Surely that is only true if you hover the mouse on the ad? 
> David
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> talk mailing list
> talk at openstreetmap.org
> http://lists.openstreetmap.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>
>