When I roll the mouse over any ad, the rest of the screen goes black. That is extremely annoying. It also makes it hard to navigate. Ads should not control the site.

I keep a list of the ads that cause probolems on websites, and make sure to NOT do businesss with the perpetrators of the annoying ads.

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The hover effect for the ads is a DaniWeb feature, and is unrelated to the advertisers themselves. We've had this feature for about six months, and have landed many ad campaigns due to its uniqueness.

if you find it extremely annoying, then why don't you just disable them ?
that's what i did, especially when i often visit daniweb

You can disable them if not don't rollover them.

Search for this line when you edit your profile:
Disable Ads? (Please consider a small donation if you disable ads). If you do check that box, make sure you check that donation link too.

In other words, it's extortion.

I think all mouseover changes should be illegal, because they confuse the visually challenged.

You have a couple of options at your disposal.

  1. If you are visually challenged, there are a variety of browser accessibility plug-ins on the market today to help with all sorts of different things. I'm sure you could find something that would help in your case. However, we cannot design a site specifically around fully accomidating out of the box the minority who require special accessibility considerations.
  2. You are welcome to disable ads. It's a free option to do so for the regular members. Newbie members don't have the option at all. We politely request that you consider a small donation for doing so, but it is not required. I don't see how that's extortion.

Think of it this way: Most of our advertising revenue comes from the fact that we have a hover effect when you mouseover ads. Banner advertising is a dime a dozen, and there is more inventory available on the web than there are advertising dollars to fill it. Our hover effect offers something unique and different (what advertisers call a "beyond-the-banner" experience) without any additional creative costs or agency red tape (advertisers can still use their existing standard banner ads). If we didn't have the hover effect, we wouldn't land any ad campaigns.

I think all mouseover changes should be illegal, because they confuse the visually challenged.

But where does that end? Maybe all column layouts should be illegal because they can trip up screen readers and confuse the blind? I have yet to actually find a large website that doesn't have a multiple-column layout.

I have worked with people with dyslexia in the past. They have a big problem with mouseovers that do things to the display, because they think they somehow made a mistake and lost what they were working on. They panic. I would love a total ban on the mouse doing ANYTHING without the user actually clicking.

"But where does that end? Maybe all column layouts should be illegal because they can trip up screen readers and confuse the blind? I have yet to actually find a large website that doesn't have a multiple-column layout."

The XHTML etiquette manual I have says for this very reason to not use tables for layout, unless there is actually a table in the document. Whenever I can get DIV tags to do the job, I use them. They don't cause many errors in screen readers. The trick is to place the material in the order it is intended to be read in the actual XHTML file itself.

Sometimes the DIV refuses to work correctlty with more than one screen resolution. This usually happens if I want a column of text and a column of photos. In this case, table format still works properly with the screen reader, because the material is still presented in the correct order.

The XHTML etiquette manual I have says for this very reason to not use tables for layout, unless there is actually a table in the document. Whenever I can get DIV tags to do the job, I use them. They don't cause many errors in screen readers. The trick is to place the material in the order it is intended to be read in the actual XHTML file itself.

Well, of course. I didn't say anything about tables. Tables should only be used for tabular data. I use floating div tags for columns, and keep all style information in an external stylesheet.

MidiMagic, I guess my frustration comes in that I'm not sure exactly what you want me to do about the situation?? You, as well as every other community member, already have the option to disable all advertising, including all forms of animated and hover advertising, but you still aren't satisfied.

He probably assumes he has disabled the ads... I find it amazing how this is the only forum that allows users to disable ads... Point for Daniweb, 0 for others.

I find it amazing how this is the only forum that allows users to disable ads.

Dani had explained the reason why on another thread.. I cant seem to find it at the moment but it had to do with increasing the percentage of views vs clicks. For example, if you dont show the ads to visitors that will never click the ad, you wont bring down the percentage when looking at the stats.

Dani had explained the reason why on another thread.. I cant seem to find it at the moment but it had to do with increasing the percentage of views vs clicks. For example, if you dont show the ads to visitors that will never click the ad, you wont bring down the percentage when looking at the stats.

That is why i give Dani a point and the others 0

Interesting to see the difference between American and British attitudes towards disabled people. British: 'We'll do what we can to accommodate people, particularly by ensuring our websites are accessible to visually IMPAIRED people, because we care about others and about our reputation.' American: 'We're not going to make things easier for a minority. We don't care that it's not their fault if they're visually CHALLENGED - they can just deal with it or go and buy some product just to be able to visit our website. Screw them.' Nice.

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