I recently noticed that the ad area was completely removed for the following reasons
Also, while I was messing around with the topic HTML anyway, I decided to just completely remove the ad area. I don't foresee selling ads again anytime soon, and while maybe the factoids were providing some value, many of them were outdated.
I think it should have been repurposed to create more awareness to non-profit Bitcoin related projects and also announcements about any updates or upcoming events.
For example:
- Latest Bitcoin Core release update instead of that small space at the top left.
- Bitcoin pizza contest updates
- The Bitcointalk show
- Bitcoin resource websites etc
Anything on the forum's ad space can be considered paid ads; visitors and those who do not know that Theymos disabled ads will think the forum is back accepting ads.
If there is big news in the Crypto community or something that members or visitors should be aware of, the newsletter is a good place to post it.
Disabling ads allows members to focus on discussions. Ads on the SMF theme are made to look like the discussion's title.