Advertisements on SAKWiki

[ICanFixThat]

I noticed adverts showed up on SAKwiki.  I'm not really liking the pollution on my favorite hangout and maybe last clean resource place on the net. I'm biased; so I thought I would see what a poll would say.

          

[ColoSwiss]

I don't like ads, but tend to tune them out. Victorinox probably doesn't see the need to advertise there (it's one big ad for Victorinox). Knife shops and outdoor sports stores would be a natural. Others are probably wasting their ad dollars.

[GigaHz]

Chrome and adblock works for me. I don't get ads anywhere.

[enki_ck]

Honestly they don't bother me at all. They are very unobtrusive and only under the SAK layers and sizes. No flashy thingies. And if they did bother me, I'd just use something like Adblock to hide them. You wouldn't even know they are there.

While the Wiki is maintained by volunteers it's not payed by them. Keeping the wiki in place costs money, servers aren't free and bandwidth isn't either. Keeping the forum and the wikis up costs us $275.00 a month. We try alternative methods of funding like the fundraiser draw, but that doesn't always reach it's goal, and if it does, the prizes aren't free either (well sometimes they are donated by kind members), the prizes need to be shipped and shipping costs money too.

Just something to consider. Nobody is getting rich of the ads, they are here just to keep us online. I'd rather see a few ads than to not have the wikis and forum at all.

[jeroen.thys.37]

Honestly they don't bother me at all. They are very unobtrusive and only under the SAK layers and sizes. No flashy thingies. And if they did bother me, I'd just use something like Adblock to hide them. You wouldn't even know they are there.

While the Wiki is maintained by volunteers it's not payed by them. Keeping the wiki in place costs money, servers aren't free and bandwidth isn't either. Keeping the forum and the wikis up costs us $275.00 a month. We try alternative methods of funding like the fundraiser draw, but that doesn't always reach it's goal, and if it does, the prizes aren't free either (well sometimes they are donated by kind members), the prizes need to be shipped and shipping costs money too.

Just something to consider. Nobody is getting rich of the ads, they are here just to keep us online. I'd rather see a few ads than to not have the wikis and forum at all.

Well said! 

[Grant Lamontagne]

I'm open to suggestions on how else we could fund it.  If anyone has any ideas, my inbox is always open.

Def

[Syph007]

Ads dont bother me.  I think as you get used to them, the eye just gets used to avoiding them.  When I think about it I can 100% say that I have never clicked on an ad to buy something on any site ever.  Some people must though or it wouldn't be much of an effective tool. 

[bmot]

I actually didn't even notice, yet 

[ICanFixThat]

To tell you the truth I'm not sure how long they have been there because they are blocked by my main browser, but now I use several so I happened to see them.

I'm interested in what people think about this issue, it's not like we don't have fund raising here on this parent site.

Personally if other sources were needed I'd vote to try the "Donate" button, we have a lot of users/viewers on the wiki I would hope some would donate to that, or we could just redirect them to donate here.  I can't hook it up, but if some one can, I'd prefer that over ads... ads are just ugly to me and I like beautiful things.

[Cupboard]

Reasonable, unobtrusive ads don't bother me and in some cases can be a good thing. I rather like the Skinth ad for instance.

I do feel quite strongly that people shouldn't block adverts routinely on sites they frequent. Often adverts are the only way sites cover their costs and blocking them is, in my opinion, ripping the site owners off. There are some exceptions to that for particularly irritating ones or slow computers - I block Flash on my laptop - but as a general rule I think we should put up with having "free" access.

[condcup]

I noticed adverts showed up on SAKwiki.  I'm not really liking the pollution on my favorite hangout and maybe last clean resource place on the net. I'm biased; so I thought I would see what a poll would say.

          

ICFT, have you tried the Charter Membership of the forum? It's $30.00 for annual membership to help, support Multitool, "SAKWiki" to keep the site from being overrun by ads as well as helping to fund additional projects.

http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,6289.0.html

http://www.edcsource.com/Multitoolorg-Charter-Membership,name,115294,auction_id,auction_details

[Wootz]

I'm open to suggestions on how else we could fund it.  If anyone has any ideas, my inbox is always open.

Def

Bring back something like the SOSAK knife of the year, perhaps an alox MTO minichamp, or other collectable items like a coin, dogtag, pocket dangler or whatever to raise funds.

[jeroen.thys.37]

I'm open to suggestions on how else we could fund it.  If anyone has any ideas, my inbox is always open.

Def

Bring back something like the SOSAK knife of the year, perhaps an alox MTO minichamp, or other collectable items like a coin, dogtag, pocket dangler or whatever to raise funds.

+1 

[ICanFixThat]

I noticed adverts showed up on SAKwiki.  I'm not really liking the pollution on my favorite hangout and maybe last clean resource place on the net. I'm biased; so I thought I would see what a poll would say.

          

ICFT, have you tried the Charter Membership of the forum? It's $30.00 for annual membership to help, support Multitool, "SAKWiki" to keep the site from being overrun by ads as well as helping to fund additional projects.

http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,6289.0.html

http://www.edcsource.com/Multitoolorg-Charter-Membership,name,115294,auction_id,auction_details

[Grant Lamontagne]

I'm open to suggestions on how else we could fund it.  If anyone has any ideas, my inbox is always open.

Def

Bring back something like the SOSAK knife of the year, perhaps an alox MTO minichamp, or other collectable items like a coin, dogtag, pocket dangler or whatever to raise funds.

Actually to keep these things affordable for members we really don't make much if anything off the promo stuff we do.  If I recall, once the setup fees, taxes, packaging and so on, I think we clear $1-2 per piece.  Not a great return on Travis's time, but he does it because he loves this place too.

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[CYYL]

Here is a Chinese SAKwiki fans, I got much knowledge from this, that's really a Great website for all of SAKers.

[nuphoria]

Here is a Chinese SAKwiki fans, I got much knowledge from this, that's really a Great website for all of SAKers.

OK, so back to the original original point.

It's just simple economics.
The server isn't free - money pays for it.
Any member here can also help with that if they choose.
Not much in life is actually free, but having to look at a couple of ads while you surf is pretty close to being free.
So no, I don't mind ads

[McChouffe]

+1

[Gareth]

Sadly, unless someone wants to finance the Wiki, ads help pay for the costs.  If you really cannot stand seeing them; run an ad blocker (though that kinda defeats the point in having them as we don't raise any revenue on ads you cannot see).

[stealth007s]

Not to mention that we are only at 57% of funds raised peeps. Last month the bar was raised for the goal and we were on a short month. I do believe we exceeded that goal Ads are not the only thing that makes this site happen. Our donations and charter memberships have to be a great contributor

*edit- DONATE!¡!

The button is on the right side of the screen toward the top of the page

[tosh]

I'm somewhat surprised that the BIG four don't give MT'o freebies to auction off, especially when one considers the pressure around this forum to get their latest and greatest.

Maybe MT'o ought to be a little more pushy with the manufacturers, if they want us to rush out and buy their new releases, then surely "speculate to accumulate" applies....even to them.

I'm sure it wouldn't hurt them to each give MT'o a little "unique" something each month with which could then be raffled off - maybe even set it up as a standing order with X amount coming out each month. I'd be up for that (within reason I hasten to add )

When all is said and done - this forums existence does indeed "lie in their best interests" unless you happen to be called SOG - 

[Sparky415]

Would you trust a site to stay objective if it was paid for by ‘the big four’ ?

[tosh]

Would you trust a site to stay objective if it was paid for by ‘the big four’ ?

You are quite correct sparky!! 
I've come to trust MT'o obviously far more than I had realised and as you quite rightly say once the big four were effectively subsidising it - it would as you say lose alot of it's integrity.

Sorry, my fault for typing whilst thinking.....obviously not thinking hard enough   

 

[CYYL]

Here is a Chinese SAKwiki fans, I got much knowledge from this, that's really a Great website for all of SAKers.

OK, so back to the original original point.

It's just simple economics.
The server isn't free - money pays for it.
Any member here can also help with that if they choose.
Not much in life is actually free, but having to look at a couple of ads while you surf is pretty close to being free.
So no, I don't mind ads

Sure, agree with you, I think ads is necessary if there are no way to maintain Wiki.

[Grant Lamontagne]

We certainly can't take any shots at the Big Four or even the companies that aren't the Big Four.  They are all reasonably good to us- some are better than others, but they are all free to support us or not as they see fit.  They usually all help us out when we contact them for something (like our anniversary parties for example) and they treat our members very well.

That having been said, we are our own entity, and unless one (or more) of them ponies up a lot of money to change the name on the door, we are going to stay that way.

Even so, when it comes to SAKWiki, I doubt very much that SOG, Kershaw, Leatherman, MultiTasker, Bear, Schrade and CRKT would even be interested in supporting it, you know, since they don't produce Swiss Army Knives...

Def

[firiki]

To me advertisements are a necessary evil.

[AHB]

Ads doesn't bother me one bit..