I, for one, don’t appreciate the intrusive advertisement. What’s the group consensus? I’d never buy one of these odd keyboards, if that helps start the discussion.
6 Likes
Hi Bill, 
glad you brought it up.
I was stunned to see this ad, often occurring in the middle of discussions.
Once I thought I reached the end of the topic, only to be surprised to see that it went on after the ad. 
Besides: I have dark theme running on my Linux Lite and the “Dark Reader” extension for firefox is active as well. I need these settings for accomodating my poor eyes.
Whenever this “blaring” white keyboard ad pops up my eyes suddenly get strained. 
So, yes, it can be (a bit) annoying. Seems we have to get used to it?
Has anything changed in Discord´s policy? Or is it something else? I don´t know.
They are a curious sight indeed.
I wouldn´t buy one of these either. I´m so accustomed to using the good old normal variant. 
Many greetings from Rosika 
6 Likes
I am really sad … I dont get the adverts on my screen on this site …. But I do get them on others perhaps its selective
3 Likes
My PC is completely ad-free. I never saw any ad here.
6 Likes
This is (these are?) actually 2 keyboards,
For me a good keyboard is
-silent
-has numpad
-easy to operate
-has backlight
-localised
-afforfable priced
This fail all of my criteria, so it is deifnitely not form me either.
5 Likes
They are so annoying. Guess It‘s Foss Forum turned into another ad machine 
1 Like
I think to keep the servers up, paying the bills they need some money. Probably that keyboard manufacturer paid well to show that image twice on every page.
I’m thinking of blacklistin kickstarter.com, as that image is hosted there.
6 Likes
For the ones who can‘t see it.
3 Likes
Wow, this is really annoying!
2 Likes
Abishek, you need to tell us what’s going on. And why don’t some folks see the ad??
3 Likes
I guess my uBlockOrigin blocked the add!!!
6 Likes
I removed and reinstalled Ublock Origin and poof! the irritating ad is gone! Rosika, this might work for you, too.
2 Likes
I use a wrist rest with my keyboard. I has a flat metal plate that the keyboard sits on plus a wooden bar. Had it since the 1980’s
Also, I have big clumsy hands, so I like a large flat keyboard. Those curvy so called ergonomic designs do not appeal to me.
5 Likes
I personally haven’t seen any ads - but - I’m using Brave - and I’m not about to switch browsers… Sorry to the admins here - as I’m sure advert views helps generate revenue to keep this site running…
Been using Lenovo ThinkPad keyboards for some 10 years now… (as USB devices)
Love having the trackpoint and middle mouse button on my keyboard - just under the spacebar…
And I don’t need a numpad - I’m left handed and never got my head around where the numbers are placed…
I also agree on silent keyboard - don’t need to hear the click click click…
5 Likes
I think pro members do not see the ads.
6 Likes
I am not a problem member and i dont see the adds
Looks to me like a browser extension problem. Would be interesting to know which browser and if you swap to firefox from chrome etc if it goes away. Or what extensions you have installed.
2 Likes
Thanks folks…
Yes, these are ‘ads’ but not your typical Google adsense ads. These are custom ads, without any tracking scripts. So you are not tracked for your activities when you are in the forum or you are not shown ads based on your interest or browsing activities.
I have used these banner images in the past too. When I think there is a product that members might find useful, like those Humble Bundle deals on Linux eBooks or Linux Foundation offer on courses, I share them in this manner.
Right now, there are two ads: Crossover … a premium WINE-kind of product that also supports WINE development. This is commission-based. If any of you decide to click and make a purchase, I think we get around 10% of the amount.
The Ergonomic Keyboard is a paid offering. The forum gets $49 a month for those ads and you can see it’s not a lot.
I have to do this because I have to keep the cost in check. Earlier, I had plenty of referral credits from Linode and DigitalOcean so I was not bothered about the server costs. But those credits have been exhausted and now I have to pay for the servers from my pockets.
Hence, I would like the forum to cover its running cost (and if possible, have some reserves for rainy days).
Please note that these banners are NOT shown to Plus members and moderators. If you are a Plus members and see these ads or don’t see your Plus badge in the forum, please let me know.
“Whenever this “blaring” white keyboard ad pops up my eyes suddenly get strained.”
I’ll take care of it with smarter CSS use. I have to see how it is done.
I will probably reduce the frequency or its placements or even smaller banners. I wish there was a way to keep them in the sidebar, less intrusive that way, but Discourse offers no native way of doing it.
11 Likes
Hi again,
Thanks for providing your list of must-haves.
Backlight seems nice. I´ve never had any of those keyboards.
Thanks for letting me know about it, Bill.
On my firefox browser I have only very few add-ons installed. One of them is uMatrix. It always did what I wanted it to do. But there seems to be no way of getting rid of the ad.
The only way to do it is to block “images”. But in this case all image would be gone.
I might try Ublock Origin.
Thanks again. 
Thanks, Abhishek, for your explanation of it all.
That´s totally understandable.
Thank you very much. It´s highly appreciated.
Many greetings to all from Rosika
4 Likes
I think that is the bottom line.
We all want this forum to survive, so we need to get behind Abhishek here… tolerate the ads and find a way to make it less obtrusive.
6 Likes
I will second that.
I used to work as a unpaid technician on a similar site a few years back (protonic.com) and year by year the income dropped until the owner could no longer afford to keep the site running due to the high costs of hosting. The idea was if user posted a question, they were picked up by a technician who worked with them to resolve the issue, overseen by a lead technician. At the end of the quest we asked for a small donation from them for the help, we never specified a sum and it was totally open to contribute or not. Started a great idea in the 1990s with windows issues mainly, I took mainly apple and linux stuff to start with but numbers dropped, technicians also, in the end there were around 5 of us doing everything, it folded about 8 years back, hence I joined its foss, as prefer linux stuff anyway.
Perhaps if we rub our head together, we could start a fire, or better still come up with some ideas to help.
7 Likes