Quote from: pawel7777 on March 30, 2023, 06:24:38 PM

Has the forum officially ceased selling ads? Can anyone explain what was the logic behind that decision (or just link me to relevant post)?
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People shared the announcement from theymos to stop forum advertisement banners but they forgot or did not know when it likely initially considered by theymos.
Forum advertising DeFi totally-not-scams. Read a reply from theymos.

Quote from: theymos on December 02, 2020, 09:52:08 PM

Quote from: suchmoon on December 02, 2020, 08:52:25 PM

Advertising Phore itself definitely wouldn't be allowed. That's why I initially rejected their bids in the auction. Phore is definitely an "ICO-type-thing", which is explicitly banned from advertising: buying these sorts of tokens is something like buying shares in penny stocks, but even far more risky. However, I interpret this ad as advertising a product of Phore, namely the Graphene ecosystem and apps built on top of it such as their Marketplace. By analogy, I see this like Nikola advertising their fuel cell technology and their maybe-soon-to-be-available vehicles, not Nikola advertising NKLA shares.

Quote from: theymos on December 03, 2020, 02:29:50 AM

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.)

This case seems to be a difference of opinion on policy rather than an issue of something I missed, though. I just see very little potential for harm from this ad, even if Phore's tokens are risky. It seems very unlikely to me that even a single person is going to view this ad and/or read the linked article, develop a desire to invest in Graphene despite the lack of any real suggestion from the ad/article to do so, do the research to figure out that they need to buy Phore tokens to get Graphene tokens, and go do that. Rather, the purpose of the ad seems to be to improve Graphene's reputation as a platform for dApps, not to attract investment. The state of the ad auction was such that rejecting Phore's ad would've resulted in no loss in revenue whatsoever; I allowed it as a matter of fairness/consistency.

It takes theymos about 2 years to decide suspending ad sales.

Quote

Is the forum only generating revenue from donations now? Doesn't seem like a viable business model.

Forum is not a business, it is an organization (.org).

Theymos stated that forum does not need new donation when forum members asked for reduction in 50 BTC donation in order to have VIP badge. I can not find that post of theymos at the moment so I quoted the below one instead.

Quote from: The Sceptical Chymist on May 10, 2020, 04:40:30 PM

In any case, I thought I recalled Theymos saying the forum's finances were such that no more donations were needed