Quote from: theymos on Today at 02:29:50 AM

Quote from: Vod on Today at 01:04:40 AM

You've been very generous handing out coin before - why not hire a professional to evaluate the ads?

Phore only paid about $500 for this ad. It wouldn't make economic sense, especially since many advertisers would have to be checked for every one ad that is accepted, wins slots in the auction, and ends up paying. By memory, I'd guess that in the last 3 years there's been only 2 or 3 ads pulled after acceptance due to something I missed. Bitcointalk.org ads are far more high-quality than eg. AdSense ads are. If even this low level of risk became unacceptable, then it'd make more sense to just not sell ads. (Not selling ads is something that I've considered, since it's a lot of trouble for not really that much return, but without ads the forum's cashflow would currently be way too far in the negative. I'd have to come up with an additional source of revenue first.)

I'm sure you can find someone on staff who would be willing to verify adverts. As I've said before, I don't think we should get rid of as slots completely. At the worst measure you could just refuse bids from any companies that you're possibly unsure of or are even remotely questionable, but this would still seem extreme to me. I still think you should consider putting a more prominent banner advert at the top of a couple of the more popular sub boards, especially the Gambling Section. It's seemingly mostly gambling sites that bid on the auctions anyway and it's usually from reputable casinos so there's not much issue with them. I'm sure that banner would attract a premium price as many casinos seem to quite obviously want to target their audience there. You could even maybe sell it for a fixed price or issue them for longer periods of time like monthly, quarterly or bi-annually or something.

Quote from: suchmoon on Today at 03:53:58 AM

Quote from: theymos on Today at 02:29:50 AM

Phore only paid about $500 for this ad.

Come to think of it - that's probably cheaper than those useless press releases you'll find on PR Newswire and whatnot.

A lot of the time the ad slots do go for quite cheap, but the slot isn't very prominent in my opinion, hence why most probably prefer signature campaigns. I've actually even had numerous people over the years enquire why we don't have ads. They probably just blend in as another signature to most.