Are ads blocking content and ruining your DDOwiki experience, please tell me about it.

[Tiff]

Looks there was an experimental feature for Google ads that was turned on for "vignette" ads that may have been causing the full page blocking ads when navigating from one page to another. Those have been turned off. I've also added some sitewide CSS that should make the ads "close" button a little easier to see by moving it off the edge behind the scrollbar and setting the background color to a light red. Please let me know if these changes help or if your experiencing any other issues and I will work on resolving them. Thanks!

I was the one that mentioned it in the other thread, and yes it is on mobile iphone, which is the only place i do any sort of browsing never on my pc.

I hope you are able to fix the screen blocking ads, i will check it out at some point today and let you know how your change has improved my experience.

Thanks for looking into this.

Edit: checked it out the wiki is now fixed and is usable on a mobile phone again, pure awesomeness!!

 

[Acdc]

What specifically about mobile is annoying? Keep in mind that except for the skin Timeless, none of the skins bundled with MediaWiki, including the latest default skin, Vector, are optimized for use with mobiles. If you mostly use DDOwiki on mobile, you can create an account giving you access to personalized setting for your DDOwiki experience. You can then go to the preferences page, select the Timeless skin, and hit the [Save] button. According to Manual:Mobiles, tablets and responsive design on the MediaWiki website, that's the best option without installing more extensions; which we've tried to do in the past and they didn't work very well with the way DDOwiki is configured.

It pops up while you’re reading and scrolling down hard to find minamize button so you’re left with half a page covered by a ad. I usually just exit out and go back in.

 

[ShoeMaker]

It pops up while you’re reading and scrolling down hard to find minamize button so you’re left with half a page covered by a ad. I usually just exit out and go back in.

When was the last time you experienced this behavior? What browser do you use on your phone?

 

[Reifee - Orien]

I had issues today using an Iphone 16ProMax with seeing things

 

[ShoeMaker]

I had issues today using an Iphone 16ProMax with seeing things

What things did you see? There's still going to be ads, it's how the host pays to keep the wiki up; however, there shouldn't be any content blocking ads. That's specifically what I need to know about.

 

[DYWYPI]

I've mentioned it before to PurpleSerpent, perhaps a month or two ago. Some of those shady adverts served by the likes of unethical companies such as [Temu] will sometimes present overlays that fill the majority of the DDO Wiki page; they designed that way, i.e. to be obtrusive.

On a clean OS install on a Desktop PC (without Advert blocking enabled) when I've seen the DDO Wiki, it looks more like a throwback to the '90s and early 2000s. It was plastered with [Temu] adverts that too took half the page trying to sell me "[thigh-high boots]", and women's lingerie from that China marketplace. Then to make matters worse one of the overlays grew to cover nearly a whole page after several seconds of inactivity.

The self replicating "p——n-storm" pop-up and pop-unders of the 90s were less obtrusive... Of course for security reasons uBlock Origin is obviously activated.

 

[Resist]

Sounds like someone's been naughty. I don't get those kinds of ads from Temu.

 

[DYWYPI]

Even though I know you are being tongue-in-cheek. It was a clean OS install on a new machine. There was no targeted advert – I might have wanted a to by a new brassière. The adverts were invasive the modelled picture content wasn't the main issue; it was the obtrusive behaviour of the advert overlays regardless.

 

[ShoeMaker]

I've mentioned it before to PurpleSerpent, perhaps a month or two ago. Some of those shady adverts served by the likes of unethical companies such as [Temu] will sometimes present overlays that fill the majority of the DDO Wiki page; they designed that way, i.e. to be obtrusive.

On a clean OS install on a Desktop PC (without Advert blocking enabled) when I've seen the DDO Wiki, it looks more like a throwback to the '90s and early 2000s. It was plastered with [Temu] adverts that too took half the page trying to sell me "hooker boots", and women's lingerie from that China marketplace. Then to make matters worse one of the overlays grew to cover nearly a whole page after several seconds of inactivity.

The self replicating "p——n-storm" pop-up and pop-unders of the 90s were less obtrusive... Of course for security reasons uBlock Origin is obviously activated.

Is it better now though, without uBlock? Trying to make it reasonable for people. None of the ads should be blocking/covering content at all.

 

[Spook]

For me the ads that pop up from the bottom that can be minimised are expanded when opening the page on safari. This takes up over half the screen.

There also the full page ones that have a tiny x to click on that are annoying.

 

[RayRay Ramone]

I'm happy to hear that their not blocking content for you. Can you share your browser and resolution. It'll be helpful to know which browsers and resolution combinations don't have an issue as much as which ones do. Thanks.

Its not about browsers or resolution. Just download an ad blocker and be done with it.

 

[Tiff]

Its not about browsers or resolution. Just download an ad blocker and be done with it.

There are two problems with that suggestion;

Firstly ad blockers are just the next fancy word for antivirus and the thing you download literally starts data collection on you, and of course they slowly cull the ad blocking ability until they can sell you a subscription to the premium version of the adblocker that works, sounds like Norton doesnt it.

Secondly, companies like youtube are now at war with adblockers and are using programs to detect adblocking and will then demand if you continue to use asblockers you will have to subscribe to premium or be permanently be banned.

I had recently posted here about the wiki having ads that blocked the page which has been corrected by those that work the ddowiki. So i can say honestly once the ads were completely intrusive to my use of wiki I simply stopped using it unless it was absolutely necessary. That is exactly how everyone should handle youtubes antics to force intrusive advertising onto you, just stop using it.

 

[ShoeMaker]

For me the ads that pop up from the bottom that can be minimised are expanded when opening the page on safari. This takes up over half the screen.

There also the full page ones that have a tiny x to click on that are annoying.

Full page ones should now be gone. The ones from the bottom are still there, but don't take half the screen on PC on Chrome or FireFox, I'll download and test Safari, as I don't currently have that browser. If it's only on mobile, I'll see what I can do about that too.

 

[ShoeMaker]

I had recently posted here about the wiki having ads that blocked the page which has been corrected by those that work the ddowiki. So i can say honestly once the ads were completely intrusive to my use of wiki I simply stopped using it unless it was absolutely necessary. That is exactly how everyone should handle youtubes antics to force intrusive advertising onto you, just stop using it.

Come over to the DDOwiki Discord and let us know next time if it's blocking your view or tag me in a post here (I honestly haven't been on the forums as much as I have the last week or two in the 15 years before that) and I'll always look into it. While I might have full access to everything on wiki itself as a Steward, only the host can change a lot of the things in the background. He is in our Discord, but doesn't always respond (I have to poke him via email sometimes to get him to check out an issue). Let me or another active admin on the wiki know there's an issue, especially with ads because we don't see them as we're always logged in, and we'll push to fix it.

 

[DYWYPI]

Shoe, my own PC never gets adverts (and never has) from DOO Wiki regardless of whether I have an Advert blocker enabled or not – it is fully immune.

NB: I don't "stay logged in" to DDO Wiki, and regularly clear browser; history, cookies, cache, etc. So I will usually get a generic visitor experience.

To answer your question in (Post #22). That fresh OS install on that new machine I was setting up for someone else did get adverts. The ones I saw on DDO Wiki via that machine were all Temu. During that time I purposely disabled any Ad blocking. They were some aggressive overlays via Temu.

During 2023 several of Temu's adverts were banned in the UK due to the dubious modelling of clothing on minors. Temu has a long track record of doing such shady things and have hardly improved their behaviour.

If I sent that browser into a 'Private mode' the adverts reduced (even with no third-party Advert blocking enabled). Clearly with uBlock Origin activated they all get removed because it's a wide-spectrum content blocker.

 

[saekee]

Just posting to thank you Shoe and all the others for the wiki work.

I click sometimes on the lingerie ads by accident.

 

[Jummby]

I do not like using the wiki on my phone (necessary evil sometimes). Pop-ups consume whole screen and are difficult to close/disable. I use a pop up blocker on my main system so they are a non issue there, but they are overly invasive if I didn't have a blocker enabled.

I deal with the same issue, but I guess if it helps keep it going, I can get around it. It's more annoying but I live with it.