Just made a donation.
Jim Rowson said:
my $.02 though I’ll admit I’m not sure if this works with the current ad networks.
For hobbies (and trains in particular) ads are actually useful content. It is good to know what’s available to buy and where to buy it. It seems to me that advertisers would like to leverage the eyeballs where they are (LSC in this case) and present their ads in a place where the user is actively interested and ready to purchase.
So what makes sense to me is not to have random ads, or even personalized ads based on what I’ve seen elsewhere on the web, but instead to have very focused train ads in a spot where the user knows to find them when interested.
Maybe an ad page associated with each forum where ads associated with that topic are shown (scratchbuilding supplies in the model part of the forum, locomotives in the motive power part, etc.). Advertisers would be able to bid on ads that would show up on an ad-only page and/or on an ad shown on every page within that forum based on keywords, etc. and the revenue would be shared between the ad network and LSC.
This would mean that there would be ads that are actually meaningful to me, based on what part of LSC I’m looking at with an option to go to a page that is all ads of a known type where I can browse suppliers to see what’s new, who’s got promotions going, etc.
Not sure if anybody else agrees but this way it seems to me that the ads would actually be welcome and useful and all 3 participants (users, LSC, and advertisers) would get something out of it.
In answer to text in Bold, an example I frequent a HO scale site that has sponsors for competitions they run, links to the sponsors sites are on the home page.
A list of advertisers in a similar vane might be beneficial if possible and not a burden on the administrator.