Rules for acceptable ads
Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2009 6:48 pm
I'm just brainstorming here, all ideas and comments (even if it's just a "that's just bs, don't do it") are welcome.
I already posted something like that here: https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic ... 200#p26200
I don't how long it will take until we have the "general solution" of completely categorized filters Wladimir mentions there (and I also don't really know how to start working for it), BUT I think it's time to start thinking about and discussing a way to handle this for EasyList, and I'm sure many things will also be usable for the general solution.
First of all I want to clarify that this not going to be the end of EasyList blocking ideally 99% of all ads, out of personal interest there will definitely be an easy way to block as much ads as EasyList blocks now (and most likely even more), probably with a supplemental list.
The goal I want to reach is to give a webmaster that is interested a chance to have his ads not blocked by EasyList (atm, EasyList tries to block all ads). I thought about putting together some very strict rules how REALLY acceptable ads should look like/be served etc. Those shouldn't even be designed to be easy to comply, there should just be the possibility to have one's ads not blocked by the "default" list in an objective way. I think this is important because otherwise we decide based on our preferences:
Example: http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?t=4498 : Although those banners are obviously more intrusive (many animated gifs etc) than lots of other things I blocked with site specific filters, I felt the same like fanboy when I tried to decide if I should block them.
So all I want to say is that even if those rules are changed over the time based on new situations/sites, they will still apply to all sites in the same way. I also think this is a first step in the direction of a community based list, instead of letting 4million+ users being the dependent of the subjective decisions of a single person.
Finally, here are my first ideas for the strict rules:
* Ads have to be hosted on the same domain (maybe also important for the complete categorization to use $third-party for general ad blocking rules)
* Only text ads and static images with reasonable coloring are acceptable
* Ads have to be visibly tagged as such
* Ads may not interfere with the site content (article inline ads, intellitxt, etc)
* Ads may not take up too much additional space (728x90 leaderboards are too much if the whole thing can be collapsed imo)
* Ads vs content has to be 25% vs 75% at max
Alrhight, that should be enough thinking for today.
I already posted something like that here: https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic ... 200#p26200
I don't how long it will take until we have the "general solution" of completely categorized filters Wladimir mentions there (and I also don't really know how to start working for it), BUT I think it's time to start thinking about and discussing a way to handle this for EasyList, and I'm sure many things will also be usable for the general solution.
First of all I want to clarify that this not going to be the end of EasyList blocking ideally 99% of all ads, out of personal interest there will definitely be an easy way to block as much ads as EasyList blocks now (and most likely even more), probably with a supplemental list.
The goal I want to reach is to give a webmaster that is interested a chance to have his ads not blocked by EasyList (atm, EasyList tries to block all ads). I thought about putting together some very strict rules how REALLY acceptable ads should look like/be served etc. Those shouldn't even be designed to be easy to comply, there should just be the possibility to have one's ads not blocked by the "default" list in an objective way. I think this is important because otherwise we decide based on our preferences:
Example: http://forums.lanik.us/viewtopic.php?t=4498 : Although those banners are obviously more intrusive (many animated gifs etc) than lots of other things I blocked with site specific filters, I felt the same like fanboy when I tried to decide if I should block them.
So all I want to say is that even if those rules are changed over the time based on new situations/sites, they will still apply to all sites in the same way. I also think this is a first step in the direction of a community based list, instead of letting 4million+ users being the dependent of the subjective decisions of a single person.
Finally, here are my first ideas for the strict rules:
* Ads have to be hosted on the same domain (maybe also important for the complete categorization to use $third-party for general ad blocking rules)
* Only text ads and static images with reasonable coloring are acceptable
* Ads have to be visibly tagged as such
* Ads may not interfere with the site content (article inline ads, intellitxt, etc)
* Ads may not take up too much additional space (728x90 leaderboards are too much if the whole thing can be collapsed imo)
* Ads vs content has to be 25% vs 75% at max
Alrhight, that should be enough thinking for today.