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Last night I posted on here using a word which is offensive. I got a warning for it and the post was deleted which is fair enough and I would like to apologise for using it.
The context was that yesterday at work I was trying to sell a bike. I work for a charity which reconditions bikes which are recovered from household waste sites and we work with prisoners and other socially challenged groups to give them skills and something useful to do.
The bike I was trying to sell is for us a big ticket bike. The customer was a young lad - maybe 16, and his mum. The sale was going well, then I remembered STW had reviewed it in one of their mags and given it a glowing report. I go to the shop computer, log in to STW and find the back issue. Only it's not been uploaded to the new site yet. Great. So I start describing the review. Then the screen changed. STW had logged me out and redirected me to a porn site. Female flesh every where. The lad looked mortified, the mother furious. They left. Now the winter has been hard for us, it's been very snowy and cold so bike sales have been poor. We haven't been paid for March yet. I'm OK but some of our staff are struggling to pay the rent, long term we are fine, but at the moment it's hard. The sale on this bike would have represented 3 good days of sales to us. We lost the sale because STW can't control what appears on the screen when paid up users go to their site.
Last night I was angry and used a word I shouldn't and I remain apologetic and embarrassed for using it but God I was provoked.
Apparently porn redirects are ok though, Was the swear word worse than the porn?
So very sorry to hear that such an extreme redirect happened borielbus, I will raise this issue again with the Tech guys.
It's also ok to swear in the magazine articles linked to from the forum.
how can something that appears to be happening all the time be classed as "extreme"
wouldnt "common place" be a better descriptor?
can we get a pop-up top trumps going? most i've had is a big 18 block, anymore advances on this?
im seeing 25 on previous posts. maybe a prize if you get 50, new samsung maybe.
25 is my record.
I'm not sure if this is relevant, but I rooted my Android phone (S4 mini) and flashed it with a custom ROM (CM11 in this case) a few years ago. I'm happy with things that just 'work' so phone and ROM have not been updated for maybe 3 years. I don't get any popups or redirects at all when browsing STW on my phone (Lightning browser). I've tried to recreate the issues that people have reported but I can't get any crap to appear.
Anyway, I guess this points to stock Android software allowing the ad problems to happen rather than actual devices...
That is truly horrible @boriselbrus and as far as we can see you are doing exactly what is needed 🙁 . I think if that ever happened to me I would stay well away from that site forever more. Then getting a warning isn't exactly sympathetic either
Looking at the Alexa ratings doesn't make it look as though things are going well either - pageviews down 15% since 3 months ago. Admittedly that is only for people with the Alexa toolbar installed but it isn't happening on other bike sites so it is difficult to believe it is not related
https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/singletrackworld.com
I've never seen dodgy ads when logged out but when logged out I see very few ads anyway (not in UK).
In your case it is even more confusing as we've been led to believe that the dodgy ads are the bottom of the barrel once you've been served all the high paying ads. You had only just been logged out so you shouldn't have been served any ads before then and hence should start with the higher paying ones. Something isn't quite right but I imagine STW towers are very aware of that if unable to fix it
At least the popup blocker is catching some of it now... Plenty of it still gets through 🙁
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
Then getting a warning isn’t exactly sympathetic either
We had no idea what happened when he was given the warning other than he was unhappy with the pop ups. He himself has acknowledged the language he used was unjust and has kindly explained why he used it.
Fair enough - I thought he had written a post similar to the one above
No despite what Captain claims we were not aware at all.
I was referring to an earlier porn redirect.
Presume this issue is related to this well known issue with wordpress site vulnerability
https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-detect-and-clean-WordPress-Malware-Redirect
I was referring to an earlier porn redirect.
Ah! Pure coincidence then that you happened to mention porn being exposed in public then.
Ah! Pure coincidence then that you happened to mention porn being exposed in public then.
If the porn redirects only happen when browsing STW, then the word you're looking for is correlation, rather than coincidence. 😉
Yes to clarify, my original deleted post didn't explain at all what had happened, the warning was entirely fair and I remain very apologetic for the language I used.
If the porn redirects only happen when browsing STW, then the word you’re looking for is correlation, rather than coincidence.
Quite. Also, when I posted I was unaware of the situation Boris experienced
Still, probably just a coincidence. I'm sure no one else can replicate it. Must be happening on loads of other sites.
Who was the other member Captain that had it exposed publicly as I can’t recall that at all, I know there has been a few say they have had this happen but not anyone else claiming it was exposed to a member of the public. When I seen your post last night absolutely no idea what you were on about.
Can you provide a link to the post please?
The person was in a crowded place - airport lounge I think - browsing STW and a redirect to a port site with sound activated...so people around him heard some noises.
Pretty sure it was posted on this thread several pages back...
The person was in a crowded place – airport lounge I think – browsing STW and a redirect to a port site with sound activated…so people around him heard some noises.
Pretty sure it was posted on this thread several pages back…
No help, but thats my memory too..
Try using the search function..
Try using the search function.
😁
Nope, not this pop-up issue thread...
I tried browsing the site on my mobile yesterday, I gave up, without ABP it was completely unusable. Ads drive revenue only if they don't drive users away.
Drac,
Try using the search function..
😀
Don't want to jinx anything, but last and today have been pop up and redirect free on Android for me. Thanks.
Another pop up yesterday - on Android.
All this “we’re doing our best” bullshit is just pathetic. I challenge anyone to name any site anywhere else on the internet that is half as bad as this one in this respect.
(Except perhaps for porn sites, but even then the ads are probably relevant to the users)
This is getting a tad frustrating.
You've got some malicious code running in one of your adverts that seems to target android users with Chrome.
I've checked my device health, it's specific to this site.
All getting a bit sad now, I like coming here but am avoiding it more and more...
FFS - nobody cares. They've been happening for years.
Random annoying pop-ups are an accepted side-effect of the funding model for Singletrack Magazine. They've been happening for years
Hasnt been happening to me for years just the last month or so.
If they have been happening for years I've never noticed them. The site is now unusable for me on my Android phone, that isn't an exaggeration to get the point across, I literally can't access any topic without almost immediately getting re-directed.
Doesn't happen with any other site I visit, and no problems accessing this one via a PC.
The mods may not care, but this is completely counter-productive. Fair enough you need the ad revenue, you also need a site that isn't completely inaccessible.
The mods may not care
Whether we care or not is an irrelevance, there's nothing we can do about it. We don't run the site or have access to anything to do with advertising.
Would this have anything to do with Firefox using 117% of the memory to load the page here?
Then causing the system to run at 80-90% causing the fan to run constantly at full chat.
This is on a Macbook Pro with 8gb ram, 256gb SSD and over 80% of that free that NEVER runs the fan using Chrome.
Stopping the page sees it dropping right back down to next to nothing.
As does removing the duplicated support us/follow us banners at the bottom of the page.
Redirects for me too, this time it even says "Congratulations" whilst trying to convince me I've won something
I wouldn't suggest the Mods don't care. I think they care very much. I'm sure they're completely pissed off about the situation too. However the funding model for the magazine is not something they have the ability to influence.
However the funding model for the magazine is not something they have the ability to influence.
That's not strictly true - you would have thought that as trusted associates of the business that they can get a point across to the owners more effectively than we appear to.
I don't suffer from pop-ups by the way, but it seems to be extraordinarily rife recently judging by this thread and its many closed duplicates. Mark et al. can stick their fingers in their ears and should "la la la" all they like re: numbers of visitors, but the fact remains that the forum does not appear to be remotely as dynamic as it once was. From the position of someone who is in a different time zone to most of you, it's quite stark that whilst I used to have to hunt on at least the second page to resume a conversation the morning after I'd gone to bed, I can now quite frequently find it halfway down the first page, not having been posted on for 8-9 hours. That never used to happen.
As someone who works night I can tell you that during the night into the early hours it has always been the case that threads would come to a halt and the would be several hours old on the frontpage.
Three redirects in a couple of minutes for me this morning, I'm not a big poster more of a lurker but that's it for me so bye chaps may pop back at some point
As someone who works night I can tell you that during the night into the early hours it has always been the case that threads would come to a halt and the would be several hours old on the frontpage.
Yes, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that when I go to bed (UK morning), I used to expect to find threads I had been engaged in on page 2 by the time I woke up if there hadn't been (m)any replies since my last post. Now they're frequently only 2/3rds of the way down the first page, but still not having been engaged with for several hours.
I know what you mean Zokes, I don't think he gets it....
Tractor production statistics are at an all time high, comrades!
It's happening more & more for me too..on android.
Thought the last system update on my phone had cured it ..but no they are back .
If the work from the new company I'm signed up with ever kicks in then I won't be on here anywhere near as frequently ..so will just stick with it for now.
**** ing annoying though !!
I don’t think he gets it….
Oh I'm pretty sure he does
After a weekend pop up free, I gave up viewing last night after 8/9 wins from Amazon and one from Walmart for a change. Clicked on to this thread, and again immediately another £500 voucher, and the same when I clicked on a classified's link.
Whatever we are being told about traffic, this place feels quieter, it used to be you would put an ad up on the Fri afternoon and it was page 2 by the end of the day. It feels like groundhog day on there at the moment. I noted in a previous post, that I had never subscribed as I'm not really interested in all the content etc, just the forum. As it stands I'm a bit half and half, I would subscribe if it made for a better forum for all, including non-subscriber's. <span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">But it's going to stay this way I can just see in getting quieter.</span>
24 trackers ??
Lovely, thanks for letting me know 🤠💋
I'm still trying to find who at STW towers is the person I need to contact to collect all my winnings...does explain why they need so much revenue to support it all if they are giving it all away like that...
Only place i cat see to post about this but that popup from the bottom advertising STW
WTF
Come on guys. take it off please. How long before we get flashing gifs and a yellow background ....
It appears once for fifteen seconds and if you close it it goes away for a minimum of 24 hours. Is it really such a big deal?
It appears once for fifteen seconds
Not really a big deal. Part of the problem is that is only appears for 15 seconds but doesn't always appear properly so we can't always tell if it is genuine or another hijack of some sort. But click it and it goes away
popped up several times and gone away (without clicking) this morning
and again!
it doesnt stop things on a desktop but does on a phone. Its also disconcerting as it fades away jerkily sometimes.
the final thing is ive paid for no adverts. why am i getting ads?
It appears once for fifteen seconds and if you close it it goes away
Not consistently, the speed varies by device as posted in the other thread, it's not obvious where the close button is either.
You are right though it on it's own isn't a big deal, it's just another bit of advertising in place of functionality being pushed onto people who are fully bought in. If it's pissing off the people who pay STW money then it's probably not a good thing as clicking or following it will deliver zero extra value to STW.
On Android Ive been able to stop these pop ups by selecting the 'request desktop site' opition . . Before i tried that i was getting the pop ups so frequently the site was practically unusable.
How long before we get flashing gifs and a yellow background ….
I feel the hand of Ling is soon upon us
It appears once for fifteen seconds and if you close it it goes away for a minimum of 24 hours. Is it really such a big deal?
If that was in reference to the slide-in ad telling me that I can buy the mag in the shops as well as it arriving in my letterbox, then it doesn't go away for 24 hours. Just by scrolling to the bottom of the page I could make it reactivate on-demand. That's how I debugged the filter I added to firefox plugin that I mentioned on the other thread.
Not had any pop-ups or hijack/redirects for ages, even on Android where I have no such browser add-ons, and use the totally stock Chrome that comes on a One+ 3t.
I feel the hand of Ling is soon upon us
Even she commented on the amount of ad spam on here...
Redirect are back
Pleased I found this thread, thought it was just me! Only getnit on the telephone, computer is fine. Had one just as I was reading some earlier posts...
Another one here getting hijacks / redirects and popups on my android phone. Its unusable on the phone. Jumps all over the place, sometimes fits the screen sometimes doesn't, clicking on threads take you do random places.
Constant redirects and pop ups for me. I think they must be making money from it
Does anyone else find that if you start a new thread with pop up or redirect in the title it just disappears?
The one you started is still there.
popups and floating text still going mad on the phone today. No redirects tho but I wasn't on the phone for long
Whether we care or not is an irrelevance, there’s nothing we can do about it. We don’t run the site or have access to anything to do with advertising.
But, there is something you can do about it - you can escalate the issue to those people who do have access.
As I said in a previous post, I fully accept that not being a Premium member means that I have to put up with adverts. I should not, however, have to be subjected to being redirected (with no way back) to sites of questionable ethical/legal status.
You're supposed to treat Premium members better, not treat standard users worse.
Aye, total bag of poo here on Android, seem to be constantly running 25 blocked pop ups, and this morning's redirect loud 'congratulation's' woke the other half who had come to bed following a night shift. She seemed to miss the ironic humour I saw. But of an embarrassment of a site at the moment.
But, there is something you can do about it – you can escalate the issue to those people who do have access.
Which is exactly what we do.
Well someone reported my porn redirect to the tech guys last week as I got an email asking for more info.
I replied with all the information I have. And never heard a word back.
No sign of an apology either.
I’ve just scrolled all down this page and seen three ads, an equity release one in a_a’s post, a subscription ad for the mag in scotroutes post, and one for cycle workshops below the comments box. I never see a row of ads down the edge of the page anymore, at least when I’m looking at a thread, the text goes full-width on my pad’s screen, and I honestly haven’t seen a pop-up or had a re-direct in maybe eighteen months, to two years, if not longer, back when those bloody Tudor Watch and Maserati ads used to cover the whole sodding screen. I’m at a loss to explain why so many are having these problems, when I never do, and perhaps those working behind the scenes are having similar issues trying to sort out why some are affected, and others aren’t. It does seem to be predominantly an Android/Chrome issue, but I could be wrong there.
[edit] Just had a go at opening STW in the DuckDuckGo app, and now, looking at this page I only see one ad, which is the one below the comments box, I don’t even see the ones that appear in people’s posts. I use DuckDuckGo as my default search engine within Safari, in iOS, but I never use my Mac for looking at this site, so maybe those having issues could try DuckDuckGo as an experiment to see what happens, certainly all my forme issues stopped after I changed my default search engine from Google to DuckDuckGo.
No sign of an apology either.
Are you new here? Mark's usual method of communication with his customers is to shout at them in capitals on a public forum.
What’s the black thing that flutters down the page every time I go to a new page? I get it on my phone and laptop - it’s surely pointless if I can’t even read it!? Gives me the heebeejeebies though.
Argh woke the wife up this morning with a ''win"
I've got a P but the perennial inability to keep me logged in...
Only this place. Only<span style="font-size: 0.8rem;"> </span><span style="font-size: 0.8rem;">when not logged in.</span>
Patience only goes so far.
I assume most people don't complain - they just don't come back.
Seriously, enough with the pop ups now. It's been months.
If I wasn't a subscriber I'd have jacked this in long ago.
Continuous 'pop ups blocked' and 4 redirects within a few minutes that keep setting my phone off, I'm off somewhere else after posting this it's rubbish. Used to enjoy browsing around this forum when I wake up early but it's like an alarm going off every few minutes waking the other half up and generally it's just not great being here anymore!
It appears once for fifteen seconds and if you close it it goes away for a minimum of 24 hours. Is it really such a big deal?
Clicking on mystery windows - what could possibly go wrong?
Pops up back with a vengeance for me too. Had a period when they seemed to be sorted then yesterday every 5 mins or so I was like Charlie Sheen #winning. This morning chrome has blocked 25 pop ups as I searched out this thread. Android Chrome like most others suffering.
Doesn't happen on any other website.
Also went on the desktop site through IE (I know) yesterday. What's with that horrible drop down menu box that covers half the screen when you scroll back up through a thread? Another clunky mess that makes this forum such a pain to use now.
Another 20 pop ups blocked just making that post