"Hover to Experience" ads

Emily

Disclaimer - I am hesitant to complain because this is an amazing site with fabulous content and a charming community that I love. You guys deserve to be compensated for your labour of love and I will modify my behaviour if I must!

Perhaps I am the only person who does this, but - I often accidentally leave my mouse cursor directly overtop of the "hover to experience" ads while I am writing a post or reading a thread. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, there's a giant video overtop of whatever I was reading or writing. It is jarring and not a great experience from a user's perspective.

12 years ago

Technical Support

2 replies

Latest reply was from Emily

Greg

Administrator

Hi Emily, that's a completely reasonable complaint. I don't like it either, and in the past many other people have mentioned the same thing. In the May redesign and some changes since then we have tried to address the problem in several different ways. For example, by cutting the number of ads site-wide in half, removing ad units from positions in the mouse path where possible and excluding certain ad categories and ad networks.

But that hasn't completely eliminated the problem, and advertisers seem hell bent on doing more of this. So we're working on plans to make YLF less dependent on ad revenue over time, and by finding advertisers or ad formats that are more user-friendly.

Although the situation in the short term seems to be getting worse, I do see signs that some parts of the industry are starting to realize that it isn't smart to spend money on ad formats that alienate potential customers.

In the meantime, if you find a particular example that bugs you often then please just send me PM about it and I'll take a look.

12 years ago

Emily

Veteran

Hi Greg, thanks for the thoughtful response. In general YLF ads are very unobtrusive and I have noticed the low volume. I'll let you know if there are any more "surprise! full window toilet paper ad" incidents.

12 years ago

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