Warning – unsolicited video download from STW ads can cost you money!

I think you need to wind your neck in.

Now then, now then. We’ve all had a drink. The older lady that hunts out younger men, is possibly the most diplomatic member on here.

Let’s just see what Mark comes back with; think the cases have been made!

Cougar – Moderator

I think you need to wind your neck in.

Coincidentally, that was the exact phrase that went through my mind when someone called me patronising earlier.

Here’s the deal. I understand the need for advertising (and specifically, the EpicTV feed) from a commercial perspective. I also understand and empathise with people’s frustrations when there are teething issues with changes to the site.

As a moderator, I’m trying to do what I can to help communication between the people who run the business (and let’s not forget, it is a business) and the people who consume its products. I’m trying to provide as much transparency as I’m at liberty to give so that the forum users are kept in the loop rather than sitting there going “well this is all shit”. I’m also trying to be objective; as however much revenue advertising does or does not generate, I see a small percentage of sod all. So I have no vested interest other than as a user of the forum who would quite like it to continue to exist.

So, I’m trying to provide explanations, manage expectations, and offer suggestions where I can (as I do elsewhere on the forum). If my efforts aren’t good enough, I can always stop if you’d prefer?

If you don’t like the tone of my responses so far, I’d wager you’re really not going to like the tone of the one I’d like to give you right now, because frankly I’m spitting feathers.

Fire away.

Your tone is patronising. andytherocketeer is spot on with his post above. Instead of lecturing everyone on their use of the internet why not wait until you have a proper answer, I know this might upset you even more.. but some people here might be more knowledgeable about these things than you. Your tone is off.

It seems that events like this are only going encourage users to employ other methods of preventing this happening in the future – in which case it it might be short term gain, but long term pain for the site hosts.

Exactly this.

If you don’t like the tone of my responses so far, I’d wager you’re really not going to like the tone of the one I’d like to give you right now, because frankly I’m spitting feathers.

That’s it, carry on antagonising the customers…

I looked to see what the fuss is about. Ads that flash and flicker, reverse polarity or jump around really annoy me. Think looking down a London Underground escalator only far worse. That Epic video jumps about and is of no interest, and I hear my PC’s fan go up a gear or three. I’ll stop there pre-ban.

But if I were a reasonable advertiser I’d be really miffed at all this and the likely outcome. I feel sorry for them.

Oh, and I’m on limited cheap broadband.

I suspect that getting £15/head off 10 people will make up for the ad revenue from a 1000+ casual visitors not coming back over the course of a year.

Could be, but after those 10 people get bored with talking to each other, then what?

Looks to me like the cap is working, as it’s not showing for me at the moment – no Premier membership and no software that must not be mentioned…

Thanks Mark!

Give Cougar a break. I’m not sure he’s particularly helping (despite his best efforts) but he’s not being out of order in any way either. 🙂

Secondly, we need to be aware that we are not the customers, we are the product, served up to be sold to advertisers. That’s not intended as a criticism of Mark et al, just a statement of a cynical truth. As such, maybe there are some consequences of selling us off to Epic ? If people pay for Premium ad-blocking, then we stop being salable to the other less intrusive ads.

Insightful, and to add we are also in the main the content providers that bring people to the site in the first place, so STW have a difficult act to balance. Most of the lessons of the web show that not pissing off people with intrusive ads. and gaining further traction increases business long term.

That’s it, carry on antagonising the customers…

Making friends and influencing people is your strong point Zokes well done.

surfing on a laptop when tethered is not a fringe case.

This is a forum for a UK-based magazine. Tethering aside, “being in Australia” is a fringe case.

How many people do you reckon surf the web using a full-blown PC browser tethered to some form of 3G modem? I can’t readily find stats on it, but I’d be surprised if it’s more than a fraction of a percent. I’ve done webdev in a past life, and trying to cater for every eclectic configuration out there is a bloody nightmare. You sweat blood trying to make sure that your pages render gracefully on everything from IE11 to Netscape 3, and then some heed still comes along and complains that it looks wrong on the hand-rolled TCP/IP stack on their Commodore 64.

Not that I’m saying the site shouldn’t be accessible / usable in those cases; of course it should be. But if you’re using a connection intended for comparatively low volume traffic and running an application on it (ie, a desktop browser) which is inherently designed to provide a fully-featured Web 2.0 experience, you’re eventually going to hit this sort of problem. If it wasn’t STW today, it’d have been somewhere else tomorrow. If it were me in that situation, the first thing I’d be doing is uninstalling Flash (which I have anyway in my primary browser cos it’s hateful bloody software) and Java, and then probably disabling images as well.

As I said, the initial data usage of the plug-in was unintentional, and as per Mark’s post they’ve now made preliminary changes to mitigate this. But I (personally) reject the implication that STW – or indeed any website – should be held accountable for your data usage. I for one don’t want pop-ups on every other site going “warning, this site uses data”, the stupid bloody pointless cookie acceptance dialogues that still persist all over the place like a bad smell are bad enough. We’ll be having warnings on coffee cups that the contents might be hot next.

I don’t feel sorry for EpicTv, it’s quite frankly disturbing in it’s output and I’d wager of no interest to 90% of folk on here. Revenue stream or not it should be a “click to download” option or click diversion to another brouser at the very least. To think STW went into the deal with EpicTv with blinkered eyes on it’s output and demograph and probably didn’t do any research into whether is was a “click & play” Ad or not..
I’ve subscribed to PremLight because I support the Mag and efforts here, however if I didn’t I’d be off.
It is disturbing that site(s) like “ours” are just turning into Ad Boards, CN/BR and to some extent Road.cc is stearing down that path and it’s annoying to say the least.
Ferkin Ad’s following up and down the screen all the ferkin time…

It’s like having your Mum shout at you 11 times “suppers ready” in a high pitch scream whilst you are playing with yer mates..

+1

Too much finger pointing going on when folk should be taking responsibility for their own actions and decisions.

FFS, it’s 4p per day for a Premier Light subscription. If you’re that worried about the consequences of using the forum, pay up and stop the whinging.

That’s it, carry on antagonising the customers…

Oh you know what? I give up. Bollocks to you if that’s how you feel, you can work it out for yourself. I’ve better things to be doing than trying to help people who just want to kick it straight back.

I’m bowing out of this thread before I get properly cross, and going to find a puppy to kick or something.

I’ll sign up for Prem Lite when we get PM functions, avatars….and possibly sigs.

*unsure if serious*

I am deadly serious.

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Reach for the uni-stars!

lol @ all the flouncing, this thread wins this week, espcially since the Epic (fail) TV ads have disappeared….. permanently ???

I wasn’t trying to do a wind up but part of the thing that I have seen over the last few years is a big change in the way people are connected. The Mobile or Home distinction is gone, people have different ways of connecting, people are picking the best options for them which isn’t traditionally what people expect. As more are moving into the cloud etc. with huge data up/downloads there are an equal number using less. When the difference is of orders or magnitude then it is a problem, if your best mate switched his number to premium rate without telling you when the bill came in you would be pissed off. Considering I pay to have no ads, receive a magazine etc. I was a little pissed off to see random loud videos in my browser, and yes it’s not just here it’s everywhere. In this case for those who have missed it before it goes back live properly would someone mind putting a sticky up top explaining that as a P Member you can turn them off and if the data is excessive advising what the consumption would be for those non P members.

Jamie – god knows how much bandwidth I’ve just had to consume to watch all those glittering stars – it’s still running too! Arghhh!

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I think your flouncette is showing cougar 🙂

I browse over a limited contract mobile tether once every week. At home I also live down the end of tiny little tin pipe of a broadband connection. BT may be screwing me by making me pay the same for unlimited broadband at <2Mbps as some bastard sucking in 50Mbps, but it would seriously annoy me if STW were the cause of most of my 2Mbps bandwidth puckering up to a drizzle as well.

Unsolicited video download is wrong no matter how vital advertising revenue might be to the site. The number of people not sitting at the end of a high speed unlimited grot fountain is not insignificant and it’s insulting to be treated as such.

Don’t take it to heart – you can’t always be right. 😉

I’m bowing out of this thread before I get properly cross, and going to find a puppy to kick or something.

was it you in the nursery with aa’s kid!!

Making friends and influencing people is your strong point Zokes well done.

Indeed it is. I just choose who I wish to make friends with. I guess you missed out. Sorry.

This is a forum for a UK-based magazine.

Just in case you hadn’t noticed, its a forum on the World Wide Web. I would have thought you of all people would know what that acronym stood for 😉

I don’t want 2 GB+ used per day by an idle STW tab and I’m on a normal ‘unlimited’ (i.e. not unlimited) broadband connection (and certainly not browsing on a C64 with handrolled TCP/IP stack either 😆 )

Onion (and cougar), I agree that in normal circumstances a website ought not be held accountable for the volume of data it serves but in this instance STW is an order of magnitude away from what might be expected of a mag forum. Not even heavy data sites like iplayer force unsolicited volume on punters. I can’t think of any other site that presumes to do that.

Are you allowed to write that sort of thing on here? Or does it not count if the filter doesn’t change it to “freeloading”?

(I have to admit I do similar, though without actually uninstalling as sometimes it’s useful 😉 )

Various news sites pop up “unsolicited” videos – The Scotsman for one.

That Mondraker ad has really screwed up the page format.

Not even heavy data sites like iplayer force unsolicited volume on punters.

Indeed quite the opposite, I’m pretty sure at one point it used to advise you as to its usage (and may still do if you’ve wiped your cookies). Certainly ABC’s iView here in Oz makes it easy to find out how much it uses. That, and you’d be going to iPlayer / iView to stream a video. Here, you’re coming to browse a forum which occasionally has stuff about bikes in it.

So – it’s a surprise every time you open the forum?

So – it’s a surprise every time you open the forum?

That depends on which add-ins you may have enabled, or as Cougar handily identifies: disabled.

I guess you missed out. Sorry.

Its like a knife in my heart twisting and turning x x

and going to find a puppy to kick or something.

650b, 27.5″
make it a kitten instead 😉

This is a forum for a UK-based magazine.

with quite a significant foreign based content, selling subs overseas. I’m one of them, and just renewed.

French ski resort websites are just as bad. Auto play background music. Really bad music. I always keep speakers turned off at work “just in case”.

Maybe we could just ban australian based posters?

Maybe we could just ban australian based posters?

Enjoy the rugby at the weekend?

If it were me in that situation, the first thing I’d be doing is uninstalling […] Java

So I can’t use my netbank, because of Epic TV ? Strange priorities!!

Enjoy the rugby at the weekend?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha that is simply brilliant chapeau 😆

*mwah*

We have a solution. I am about to start work on it and it will solve a great many problems. EpicTV have got back to me and there will be a much neater solution coming inabout 2 weeks time that won’t drain data and will introduce user instigated plays.

The player IS popular. I know it isn’t for all of you or indeed many of you on this thread but we see the interactions with the player and they are positive in the main. It is not an ad that is selling anything – it delivers MTB related videos that are actually quite popular. This is a MTB website and so the demographic targeting is very accurate. This is born out by the interactions.

However, it is a problem. It should not be draining anyone’s data in the way that it has done and for that I apologise. There is a temporary cap on how many times you see it, which I put on yesterday and later this afternoon I’ll be making a more fundamental change to the way it works. I need to wait for some info from EpicTV before I do that. And then, as I said, in 2 weeks or so there will be a much better player that essentially lays all the controls in your hands.

Why don’t we turn it off?

1) It’s actually quite popular
2) It’s an important revenue stream for us.

But… we are fixing it!

I’m just going get my lunch and then I’ll start work on the interim modifications.

Thanks to OP (perthmtb) for the alert.

I keep losing my login on my phone and ipad so until such times as this is sorted I won’t be using my phone to view stw and I use firefox (with an unmentionable running) on my laptop. I clear cookies after every session anyways and at work run ‘inprivate’ so need to remember to login.

Found that the epic disable was dodgy for a start seems to be working now.

All in all it will mean I personally will visit less… which will probably ultimately lead to unsubscribing if it continues.

Just my 2p.

Thanks Mark. A reply people were waiting for.