[Closed] Would STW bear any responsibility for promoting ad scams *Kate Winslet

Bring back the days of unaffordable Maserati giblets.

Actually, the Ghibli is in the same price range as a mid-range Audi, about £45-50k, and a damn nice drive.
Dunno about the ads, not seen them, but I do now get loads of ads no matter what site I go to, whereas I never used to, that’s using Firefox and DuckDuckGo as search, so I don’t know what’s changed

"anything to stop adverts of this nature"

If you raise your Ad prices then most of the malware gets priced out. What would enable STW to raise prices would be more information on the users (if you really are all Audi driving middle aged IT managers).

Actually, the Ghibli is in the same price range as a mid-range Audi, about £45-50k, and a damn nice drive.

So unaffordable for the majority of the UK population.

So unaffordable for the majority of the UK population.

Depends how much it is PCM. RRP is largely irrelevant at those prices.

So unaffordable for the majority of the UK population.

Depends how much it is PCM. RRP is largely irrelevant at those prices.

TBH you won't get great data talking about "UK Population" as 25% or so of them are too young to drive.

Anyway, lets assume average Man or Woman on the street who works full-time.

First google, £650 - £950 a month.

Average UK full-time salary outside London is £26k (which rules out anyone retired or under 18 - so £1715 take home if they haven't opted out of WPP.

Average rent in the UK (excluding London) is £800
Average mortgage payment is £700

Assuming no kids most underwriters will want £600 a month set-aside for living expenses so:

£1715 - £750 - £600 = £365

So average, non-Londoner with a full-time job, no kids, living alone couldn't buy one. Someone cohabiting would have enough disposable income to get into a low-end to mid-range one, but they'd be very stretched and any other borrowing would probably rule them out.

They seem nice, but I can't ever see me paying double, to three times what I pay for my Superb for one.

I just wondered if STW had any say or could do anything to stop adverts of this nature.

Ads are served by a third party provider, usually Google but it varies from time to time. I believe you can report rogue adverts to ads(at)singletrackworld.com and they'll investigate, a screen shot would probably be helpful.

By virtue of them being displayed on here, could they be interpreted as being endorsed or legitimate and anyone who lost money have any recourse to stw?

It's a good question and I have absolutely no idea what the answer is.

Daniel Craig is now promoting this on “This Morning” with Philip Schofield. Seemingly, the boss of Barclays called in to get the interview pulled....

He’s now disappeared, I was going to screen grab it.

Daniel Craig The actor or the finance/tech journo?

The James Bond one.

Ads are served by a third party provider, usually Google

Working in cyber security, this attitude really grates.

Some of the most famous hacks/breaches have been performed by third party code running on sites - e.g. BA

ST run the site, ST need to take responsibility for the ads the site is displaying.

When I used to run a kiting based site (ok, back in the early 2000s) I ran ads, but I went direct to the industry and sold subscriptions that way, avoiding having to use Google etc. This meant I had full control of the ads and where the links pointed, but also the adverts were relevant to the site!

my current faves are the ones that dodge when you go to close them

So average, non-Londoner with a full-time job, no kids, living alone couldn’t buy one.

The average salary is not the average salary for full time workers. No kids would increase the likelihood of full time working, and thus higher salary.

I'm not saying a Maserati is "affordable", but I reckon a good number of people could afford it.

Also, when we say average, I'd suggest median is more appropriate here, rather than mean. though this might well put the numbers down.

Working in cyber security, this attitude really grates.

Also working in cyber security, it wasn't an attitude, it was a statement of fact.

STW's choice of ad delivery methods is a business decision and I know that it's something Mark spends a lot of time analysing and reviewing. I can tell you with a cast iron certainty that if there were a better way of doing it then they'd be doing it, and I rather suspect that if they changed to the model you describe then they'd go bust by the end of the month. Was your kiting site the primary source of income for over a dozen people? It's not really a comparable scenario otherwise.

And yes, you're absolutely right of course that poorly maintained third-party code is a major security risk. But it ain't 2000 any more, the IDE of choice isn't Notepad, and I reckon you'd be hard-pressed to find many major websites which are 100% in-house code. And even it were, are your programmers producing code that's more secure than mature open-source plug-ins?

You're right, it wasn't a primary source of income, and it was just a suggestion of a potential different way of doing things.

I'm not suggesting that all code should be developed in-house, but when there are regular threads about dodgy ads which all seem to come with the reply of "blame the ad provider" it doesn't stack up - someone needs to take responsibility for it, and that responsibility only lies in-house at STW.

someone needs to take responsibility for it, and that responsibility only lies in-house at STW.

Does it though - I don’t get any of those dodgy ads, at least, not on STW. I use Flipboard a lot, and pop-up ads and ads that wander all over the page are almost a feature.
Bloody irritating too.

If you work in cyber security and think wordpress plugins are mature and secure ... I hope it’s not for my bank

As is so often the case, it's a little more complicated than that.

 that responsibility only lies in-house at STW

Does it though

Yes

I only have a contract with STW and Gofar. I don't have a contract with Quantcast, Google Ads, or any of the (presumably several) other ad agencies or any other sub-contractor that ST/Gofar may wish to use. Unless of course someone is able to prove that I do, and remind me of each sub-contractor that I do have a direct contract with (and an obligation to execute their software on my hardware) but just plain forgot about.

It's the 3rd party cross site tracking that I intentionally block.

And yet for a teeny subscription you can make all this shit literally go away.

Your choice

I only have a contract with STW and Gofar.

Is this a contractual issue?

Do I , as a non-P, non paying,   forum member have a contract with STW and Gofar?

What version of the law applies given that I am in Scotland and they are in England?

If it's English law, then where is the element of consideration in the contract given that I don't pay them anything?

Should I be  presenting STW towers with an annual peppercorn?

I await the wisdom of the assembled legal minds of STW.

someone needs to take responsibility for it, and that responsibility only lies in-house at STW

Site users can take responsibility for it if they choose. I think the ad-funded model of web use is unsustainable so if sites offer no ads in return for a small sub that's compatible with the value they offer, I'll choose to pay it. If more sites were paid, advertising was a tenth of what it is and product prices reduced (ultimately the purchaser pays for the ads) I doubt the users would be out of pocket.

It's a long time since I signed up and I can't find the T&Cs on the site now (should I be able to?) but I'd be surprised if there isn't something that says STW are not liable for the content of ads.

If it’s English law, then where is the element of consideration in the contract given that I don’t pay them anything?

Maybe, you agreed to be served with ads in return for a licence to post on the forum? I don't know, can anyone find the T&Cs?

If it’s English law, then where is the element of consideration in the contract given that I don’t pay them anything?

*reads forum rules*

https://www.singletrackworld.com/terms-and-conditions/

Oh , there it is.....

However, by posting on our forum you agree to allow us to reproduce your comments in any form at any time. After all you may write some words of genius that we want to share with all our readers.

I'm paying with my genius

You can read the Privacy conditions here which give more information.

https://singletrackmag.com/privacy-policy/

if sites offer no ads in return for a small sub that’s compatible with the value they offer, I’ll choose to pay it. If more sites were paid, advertising was a tenth of what it is and product prices reduced (ultimately the purchaser pays for the ads) I doubt the users would be out of pocket.

Mark told me a fair while back how many extra subscribers it'd take for STW to be able to afford to do away with third party advertising networks completely. I can't remember the exact figure now, but I thought at the time that it was an astonishingly small number. And nothing would give him greater pleasure to do so, because as various threads over the years ably demonstrate they're a pain in the arse.

It ultimately boils down to the whole 'internet is free' attitude that seems to prevail across so much of society. In my mind, if someone isn't prepared to pay the relative pittance that annual subscription is for this site - approx 75p per week, or 11p per day - then they 'probably' deserve to get scammed by Daniel Craig, Gordon Ramsay or Philip Schofield (disclaimer - I work in publishing) or whosoever is the latest sleb to magically discover the secret to eternal wealth, health and happiness, in which we too can join once we've handed over our bank details, passwords and Mother's maiden name.

And before anyone uses the 'I contribute to the forum, therefore I add value' argument, in August last year the site had 1.6 million unique visitors, of whom a tiny percentage use or contribute to the forum. That traffic is what advertisers on the programmatic ad exchanges buy into.

So to repeat again, if you don't want crappy ads, and want to feel good about yourself too, cough up for membership. Simples innit

And yet for a teeny subscription you can make all this shit literally go away.

Your choice

No you can't, it still logs you out (although it's not valued my privacy for a while?).

in August last year the site had 1.6 million unique visitors, of whom a tiny percentage use or contribute to the forum.

That's not unique to STW either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule_(Internet_culture)

And out of that lot, the people who contribute regularly, the ones most likely to scream "you should be paying me!", the 'big hitters' if you will, you could probably count on the fingers of both hands. (Slight exaggeration perhaps, but it'll be a small percentage of a small percentage.)

This is so very much the case that if an unfamiliar username pops up in the middle of a conversation we'll go and check to see if it looks like a returning banned.

the ones most likely to scream “you should be paying me!”,

Not me. I give my genius away for free.

I'm nice like that

you could probably count on the fingers of both hands

That's what STW stands for innit.

Same Ten W****rs

The ads at the bottom of the page, are now offering a plug in, mains powered virus killer. If it only it was that easy to remove them, that “x” is very hard to press without opening the ad.

funkrodent ^^^ how right you are.
I have taken every possible opportunity to bang the drum about forum users converting from member to subscriber.
Spurious arguments and verbiage don't change the fact that long-standing 'members' have used the forum free of charge but given nothing - other than their *wit and wisdom*, which has no value.
Many of the most frequent posters have been 'members' for many years but have, in real terms, done nothing to support.
If the mag and forums closed, where would they take their *wit and wisdom*? Mumsnet or pistonheads are the likely homes.
Thanks to them for their 'support'.
Anyone in favour of turning the forum into subscription only?

Scam me like one of your French girls.....

STW’s choice of ad delivery methods is a business decision and I know that it’s something Mark spends a lot of time analysing and reviewing. I can tell you with a cast iron certainty that if there were a better way of doing it then they’d be doing it, and I rather suspect that if they changed to the model you describe then they’d go bust by the end of the month. Was your kiting site the primary source of income for over a dozen people? It’s not really a comparable scenario otherwise.

And people think "there's a magazine?" Is a joke

Spurious arguments and verbiage don’t change the fact that long-standing ‘members’ have used the forum free of charge but given nothing – other than their *wit and wisdom*, which has no value.

If people don't post then there is no reason to click to the site, you become bikemagic and fizzle and die.

The loss of the old classified format must have cost lots in clicks the main forums are slower. It must be the advertorials driving the income.....

And the crypto mining..... 😉

Anyone in favour of turning the forum into subscription only?

There were always the rumours of a "special" forum for the in crowd.....

long-standing ‘members’ have used the forum free of charge but given nothing – other than their *wit and wisdom*, which has no value.

I'm only subscribed in the hope that Jamie will return. Perchypanther is OK too I suppose.

big - why don't you subscribe?

The loss of the old classified format must have cost lots in clicks the main forums are slower. It must be the advertorials driving the income…..

Come on, time to move on. On my device the classifieds works well for me and the site is stable and fast. (perhaps I'm just lucky?)

I completely understand that folk don't want to pay in order to subsidise a loss-making magazine. I would rather my subscription went towards relieving the pressure on the website development team in order to remove all the bugs.

So average, non-Londoner with a full-time job, no kids, living alone couldn’t buy one.

Made me laugh...by your logic if you were to estimate our household income based purely on the cars on our drive then you'd grossly over estimate our household income - like by 3 or 4 times probably. Judging by the number of 50 - 60k cars on the road (and even more so the 30 - 50k cars of which there are many many more) then clearly there is no correlation between income and the car you drive. People don't actually buy cars anymore...especially cars over £30k or so and certainly not cars from about 45k and above. You'd be a fool to do so. There are so many ways people can drive around in cars that are way more expensive than 'what they can afford'. No matter how 'poor' you are you'd be surprised at the number of ways you could probably get yourself into a nice car.

long-standing ‘members’ have used the forum free of charge but given nothing – other than their *wit and wisdom*, which has no value.

Well that is of value to a forum. A forum with restricted membership is useless...you want many responses to a question you put on there. I often use this forum as a source of information and peoples experience and I try to put up useful stuff for others who ask questions of it - so peoples 'wisdom' is a valuable asset...their wit is just an added bonus. It is this that makes the forum a useful resource. A 'special' forum with a significantly reduced population would lose most of its actual usefulness.

I'm a recent 'free member' turned 'subscriber' and I decided to subscribe following Singletracks appeal to help out Singletrack. I buy the magazine occasionally as I'm not a big magazine buyer and only buy them every now and again and enjoy them when I do, but decided to subscribe to do what I can to help the magazine as it's a good read when I do buy it. I'll no doubt maintain the subscription when all this is over too.

big – why don’t you subscribe?

The real question is why don't I subscribe anymore?????

As with anything it's a complex issue, short version is that "don't be a dick" applies as much to the readers and contributor's to the forum as is does to the staff and directors of Gofar Enterprises Ltd.

The good and bad ebb and flow on here, still a useful if shrinking community of contributors to the forum. I suspect that the long-term trend doesn't look good which would be sad

Website traffic up 25% YOY

The problem is the crash in advertising rates and the halt on marketing budgets, which has made the whole ongoing saga of how media companies sustain themselves much much worse.

1.7 million people to the site right now (Last 30 days) and climbing. It's not translated into the amount of revenue it did just a few months ago though - ergo the subs appeal. In terms of traffic (not revenue) we are so very close to Pinkbike as the world's largest online mtb community - last August and September we passed them. so this..

The good and bad ebb and flow on here, still a useful if shrinking community of contributors to the forum. I suspect that the long-term trend doesn’t look good which would be sad

...is far from a reflection of reality. If there is a trend it is currently showing that we will pass 1.8 million visitors/month by June.

We currently have around 6k paying members. As Cougar said earlier, there's a number that if we reached it with current costs we would be able to replace the programmatic (automatic) ads. I reckon 10k subscribers would do it.

Yep. Digital subscription. Cheaper than chips.

…is far from a reflection of reality. If there is a trend it is currently showing that we will pass 1.8 million visitors/month by June.

Not what I pointed out

The good and bad ebb and flow on here, still a useful if shrinking community of contributors to the forum. I suspect that the long-term trend doesn’t look good which would be sad

How big is the community of forum contributors year on year? Same question for the classifieds

Also where the clicks go to matters, is it to content, advertorials/reviews or the forum?

I don't have the data, it's just an impression, if you thought there was an issue you would do something about it, so I'm probably wrong

we are so very close to Pinkbike as the world’s largest online mtb community – last August and September we passed them.

So why aren't the same issues when on PB then? There are no intrusive ads/pop ups on PB to play whack a mole with. How can they get it right with the ads?

What is the Pinkbike magazine like?

Yep. Digital subscription. Cheaper than chips.

That's not only paying for the forum, it's propping up the magazine

Yep. Digital subscription. Cheaper than chip

No, that pays for a digital sub to the magazine with forum extras thrown in.
I want a way to support the forum only. No interest in paying for a mag I don't read, or for articles I don't look at.
Admittedly, I occasionally used to browse fgf, but when it seemed that they employed a twelve year old from MBUK to write the article intros and I stopped.

So can we get a different forum sub, whereby proceeds entirely go towards ending the advertising crapfest?
How many subs would that take?

[img] [/img]

I want a way to support the forum only. No interest in paying for a mag I don’t read, or for articles I don’t look at.

Can you think of any business that works like that, do you think when you buy a bottle of milk from Tesco the price covers the cost of getting that milk to the shelf at the exclusion of everything else in the store? I haven't had a fire or a crime committed against me in years and my council tax goes toward these services, I'm going to email them asking for my money back. I'm probably due a TV licence refund too, it goes towards producing Eastenders.

How do you envisage that would work? Mark sets up a separate "forum only" bank account, and uses it to pay Andy and Tom when they're working on the forum rather than the rest of the site? Maybe we could have a half-price option for those who only read the Chat or the Bike forum too?

Don't be daft, man. You already have your answer, the digital subscription supports the site. If there's bits of it you don't read, that's your choice. It's 5p a day, how much cheaper do you want it to be?

@cdoc why not just get the digital sub and promise not to read the mag?

Cougar - you do know the difference between a tax and a subscription?

Do you think that Sky should have one flat fee for all viewers regardless of what content they consume the way that, say, the BBC does?

Oh, and,

Access to the forum is free, so a "forum only sub" would be something of a dichotomy.

Do you think that Sky should have one flat fee for all viewers regardless of what content they consume the way that, say, the BBC does?

Do you think that the BBC should have a variable fee for different viewers depending on what content they consume in the way that, say, Sky does?

I'm really not sure what point you're trying to make. Sky offers separate products, and charges accordingly. So does STW, you can support the website with a digital subscription or you you can add a printed magazine for an extra fee (and coffee too, now).

In any case, any revenue Sky makes isn't going to be divvied up into lots of separate accounts to be ploughed back into individual business areas responsible for, say, Sky Sports. You don't get to dictate to Sky that your individual tenner a month gets spent on more rugby coverage. That would be an insane way to do business.

Some people choose to subscribe either for their own gain or to contribute towards keeping the site afloat, and that's absolutely fantastic. Others choose not to and that's fine too. But as reasons go, "I only want to support the bits I use" is a bogus excuse.

Fair enough. But if the magazine is not doing so well and it's existence subsidised by people wanting to use an internet forum without ads, then maybe what many are paying for is NOT the magazine.
The online experience could be much nicer without the data mining, click tracking rubbish that is only implemented to keep the magazine afloat, then why not separate the two and allow people to pay for what they want? Sky has had lots of packages that no longer exist due to lack of demand.
I think it boils down to stw maximising their successful components, rather than also expecting them to fund the less successful ones too.

“I only want to support the bits I use” is a bogus excuse.
Posted 10 minutes ago

Is it though? If STW does not want my money for a particular thing when I want to give it, then fair enough. Wouldn't adding a non-magazine based sub only add to the coffers?

Wouldn’t adding a non-magazine based sub only add to the coffers?

Unless a lot of folk didn't then pay for the failing magazine and it, err, failed.

Wouldn’t adding a non-magazine based sub only add to the coffers?

But there is nothing to subscribe to, as I've already said the forum is free.

Alternatively: if you want to subscribe to the forum, it's £1.49 / month. (You get a free digital magazine with it too!)

Honestly, aside from yourself do you think there'd be much interest in such an offer? Do you reckon there's a raft of rafters thinking "I'd really like to subscribe to the forum, but £1.49 is a bit steep..."? I highly doubt it TBH.

You're asking for a forum-only subscription but really that's the wrong question. Rather the question is: are the areas you do use worth £1.49/month to you? And that's a binary answer, if no then crack on, if yes then get a digital sub and ignore the bits you don't want.

if the magazine is not doing so well and it’s existence subsidised by people wanting to use an internet forum without ads, then maybe what many are paying for is NOT the magazine.

Neither you nor I know how well the magazine is doing and can only speculate about what is or isn't good for the site. I know two things with cast-iron certainty though:

1) Mark has detailed site statistics and spends a lot of time analysing them. If an area of the site is or isn't doing particularly well, he'd know. If published articles weren't attracting visitors he'd know (and they'd stop doing them because it'd be foolish to carry on with something that wasn't working).

2) Without the magazine and the rest of the site, this forum would not exist. Now you can dress that up however you like in a "we knew what we voted for" kind of argument but STW is a digital media publishing site that happens to also have a popular forum, rather than the other way around. If anyone thinks that the forum would survive if the magazine went bang, let me know when you get back from Narnia.

let me know when you get back from Narnia.

Cougar, are you not being a bit rude to people who were only trying to be helpful?

Blockquote has stopped working again, but ...

1.49 too much for ya?
It is not about price, it is about what you are paying for.

Forum free dichotomy
The forum is certainly not 'free'. An advert and script heavy version of it is free, but an actually usable version would certainly be worth paying for.

You think people would pay for that?
I have no idea what people would pay for. Maybe give it a go and see?

No magazine, no forum
I keep hearing this. Why would there be no forum if there were no mag? The mag is not going to last forever, whereas the internet forum is not facing any such issues. Seems like a choice. Lots of publications have moved away from print and adapted. Choosing 'print or death' seems a bit over-dramatic.
Hehe, Narnia. It might be really obvious to you why, but there are other cycle based sites that seem to be leading the way without a magazine.

Let it go. STW is leading the way just fine.

Ok, it is gone (:

2) Without the magazine and the rest of the site, this forum would not exist. Now you can dress that up however you like in a “we knew what we voted for” kind of argument but STW is a digital media publishing site that happens to also have a popular forum, rather than the other way around. If anyone thinks that the forum would survive if the magazine went bang, let me know when you get back from Narnia.

Odd statement if the forum and it's data mining, crypto mining 😉 and ads makes the money.......

the only nuance is whether it's the produced content, reviews, advertorials etc drawing the clicks or the forum itself

≤10 people will ever know the truth of that

I subscribe purely because I recognise the effort it takes to try and run a business and it costs relatively nothing per month

I've never bought the mag as 99.99% of the riding/bikes/products bore the shit out of me and only read some stuff on the front page very occasionally

However the forum is a gold mine of crap information and minds who will answer a question pretty quickly

The pinkbike nugget is interesting, having been a member there since it started. It's a much better forum (and buy/sell) but actual traffic is crap outside of the niche threads. Though that's probably due to people debunking to discord groups

Edit though I'd suspect the pinkbike revenue is way above here

Cougar, are you not being a bit rude to people who were only trying to be helpful?

It was supposed to be a funny.

An advert and script heavy version of it is free, but an actually usable version would certainly be worth paying for.

And you can. It's £1.49 a month. Presumably you think this is excessive, so what sort of price point would you consider reasonable then?

I have no idea what people would pay for. Maybe give it a go and see?

No, you don't, and nor do I. I rather suspect that the site owners do though.

Consider:
Scenario 1: people who "only" want the forum sign up. Yay!
Scenario 2: people who "only" want the forum downgrade their existing subs. Not so yay!

Regardless, to my mind it's a hard sell. What are you actually offering here, an advert-free forum with no other perks? Have you seen how often some people boast about having ad-blockers they can get for free? (Often the ones doing the most complaining about how shit everything is, with no concept of irony.)

No magazine, no forum
I keep hearing this. Why would there be no forum if there were no mag?

"Magazine" here includes the digital edition and published content, not just a dead tree through your letterbox. Do you honestly believe that there will be any appetite at all for GoFar to keep a forum running if all the lights have gone out everywhere else?

there are other cycle based sites that seem to be leading the way without a magazine.

How many salaries do they provide?

I could spin up a forum in an afternoon which would be better technically in every way than STW or Pinkbike. If I was really lucky, it'd have two users.

we are so very close to Pinkbike as the world’s largest online mtb community

I would be flabbergasted if that were the case.
All pinkbikes advertising is controlled by Pinkbike directly is it not? No Google/3rd party ads.

So my 1.49 gets rid of the ALL scripts, data mining, click tracking, and all the other third party crap, adds image hosting, and makes it usable? Cool. Might consider it if I start visiting more often again.

'Magazine” here includes the digital edition and published content, not just a dead tree through your letterbox. Do you honestly believe that there will be any appetite at all for GoFar to keep a forum running if all the lights have gone out everywhere else?'

Well, if it still makes some money, then yes.

'Consider:
Scenario 1: people who “only” want the forum sign up. Yay!
Scenario 2: people who “only” want the forum downgrade their existing subs. Not so yay!'

Wouldn't scenario 2 be useful information to you, as a business? It would show the real incentive for purchasing a sub in the first place. It might not be what you want to hear, or it might be all good news. Either way you would know, rather than assuming all subs want the magazine, rather than just a better functioning forum.

Also, I have no idea how many employees PB have, but they seem to do ok.
Trafficwise, they seem to be getting around 6.2M visitors over 6 months, so that is pretty similar to STW with 1.7M a month. But with far less dodgy ads!

Staff bikes

At least 9 bricks and mortar core office staff according to this, but that doesnt include the Radeks, levy, kazimer, RC(ret), Park, Moore and satellite staff Arthur, Sapp etc
I've no idea if/how content contributors are remunerated but there's plenty of those too.
Perhaps PB are less ethical and generate revenue via paid press release in addition to their front page banner ad.

I would be flabbergasted if that were the case.

I'm not making it up.

And you can. It’s £1.49 a month. Presumably you think this is excessive, so what sort of price point would you consider reasonable then?

Well it isn't that useable as half of the links / buttons are illegible / invisible due to the ludicrous choice of font colours (something that would be a sub 5 minute fix)

You're getting it for nothing. Stop whinging.

So my 1.49 gets rid of the ALL scripts, data mining, click tracking, and all the other third party crap, adds image hosting, and makes it usable? Cool. Might consider it if I start visiting more often again.

If you removed ALL scripts then the site wouldn't work. It removes programmatic advertising as Mark said earlier.

I don't know where this "data mining" argument has suddenly sprung from, you make it sound like a Russian bot farm. STW isn't doing anything nefarious beyond the typical social media plugins that are in use by huge tracts of the web. And you can opt out of it in your profile already, for free.

Similarly, image hosting isn't going to happen, I don't know where you've got that from. It sounds increasingly to me like you'd be better advised to go and use all those other sites you claim are better instead.

Well, if it still makes some money, then yes.

Do you imagine that's a likely outcome?

Wouldn’t scenario 2 be useful information to you, as a business?

It wouldn't be useful to me as I'm not a business. It might be useful information to Mark as he sits there working out which member of staff he can't afford to pay this month I suppose.

Ok, you know which scripts I meant! Genuinely though, is it the 'programmatic advertising' that makes this place really slow and makes my laptop sound like it's about to take off whenever I stop by here? I think that the usability of the site is responsible for all the Russian data mining/cryptomining jokes around here.
Similarly, I thought photo hosting was going to be part of the 'upgrade'. I may well have made this up, or it only applied to the classified section, possibly. Either way, ahh well.

There may well be options in the profile settings, but as I only log in to post, then log out again, that makes little difference.

As for the polite 'well bugger off somewhere else if you don't like it' comment. Not really constructive. I really want this place to do well, maybe one day to be the absolute best cycling forum ever, as the user generated information within the forums are often quite interesting, and I certainly would miss them were they to disappear.

'Do you imagine that’s a likely outcome?'

I really don't know why it wouldn't be. Income is income.
The last comment is a bit weird. Mark would rather not know? In his position I really would want to know. It is hard to run a business when you don't know why people are giving you money.

I’m not making it up

Sorry, wasn't insinuating you were. I'm genuinely surprised though.
I assume that most of those visits come from the forum activity?. Today was the first day in I've no idea how long that I visited the home page. My browser auto completes straight to stw/forum as soon as I type "s".
I've given up on mtbr and bike rumor as news sources also. I am obviously a very small sample size.

Ok, you know which scripts I meant!

I don't have the faintest clue what scripts you mean.

Genuinely though, is it the ‘programmatic advertising’ that makes this place really slow and makes my laptop sound like it’s about to take off whenever I stop by here?

Perhaps? Again, I have no idea.

Similarly, I thought photo hosting was going to be part of the ‘upgrade’. I may well have made this up

You have made it up, correct.

There may well be options in the profile settings, but as I only log in to post, then log out again, that makes little difference.

When you initially log in you get presented with privacy controls, as a few vocal users will attest to. And I mean, really, come on, meet me halfway here. You have control over third-party cookies. You can pay like the cost of half a pint per month to make the adverts go away and subsidise a resource you've been using now for like eight years now. And now suddenly your argument is that you can't be arsed to click a couple of boxes?

"I'd pay to turn off Facebook" - "you already can turn off Facebook for free" - "I don't want the bother." ****'s sake, what do you want then?

As for the polite ‘well bugger off somewhere else if you don’t like it’ comment. Not really constructive.

Perhaps not, but I'm not wrong or you wouldn't be posting here.

Say a corner shop is selling a loaf of bread for two quid. A punter comes in, says "that's an outrageous price, it's only £1 in ASDA!" The shopkeeper replies "well, go to ASDA then." The shopper says, "but ASDA is on the other side of town, it'll take me ages to get there!" To which the shopkeeper replies "then that will be two pounds."

Constructive feedback is always very much welcome and appreciated. But if your primary argument is "other sites are better..." then great, I'm happy for you that you've found somewhere better, go there then.

You've still not specified what you think a fair price for a "forum only" subscription to the free forum would be despite me asking several times now. How much less than 5p a day would that be? If you're not going to answer this question then I'm not going to reply to further posts because it's a waste of my time.

The last comment is a bit weird. Mark would rather not know?

I'm rather confident that he already does know. He's actually quite good at this, oddly enough.

Sorry, when I log in I get taken to a profile page. Never really bothered to look and see what can be turned off in the settings. Apologies if it is easier to turn off tracking than I thought it was, but I have just looked and can't find it.
Secondly, stop making it about money. I already donate to the site because it is worth something.
The idea was that maybe you could gain additional revenue by allowing access to a smooth running forum, as there seem to plenty of people who only see STW as that. Many have no idea that there is a magazine out there at all, and would not be interested in it if they were.
But they might like the smooth running forum thing and be willing to pay for just that. As for how much, In have no idea. How many lower rate forum subs would it take to make a difference to stw?
As for the people voting with their cash, I think you may be able to rough guess the number of potential sub downgrades by looking how many 1.49 subs you have vs the number of digital mag downloads. But original the idea was that STW might benefit from further income.

The Asda analogy does not really work, though.
I personally think that 1.49 is a bit cheap for a digital mag and P and have never suggested that it was outrageous. Also, Asda is exactly the same distance away from me and not a chore to visit at all.
But, I really, really like the small shop. It has roots in my local area, I know some of the staff and I occasionally enjoy the conversations of the locals who frequent it.
But, the shopkeeper has QVC shopping blaring in the background all day and keeps trying to sell me a loaf of bread and magazine bundle that has free earplugs on the front cover.
And I still want him to succeed, but I don't want or need the loaf or magazine, so it seems best right now just to shove a few quid in the tips jar.
Just maybe turn it down a bit, like asda does. Or sell earplugs on their own.

Weirdly, the bread is free in Asda. I have no idea how they do it.

I've often thought pinkbike content with STW forum would be the killer website. I go to pinkbike for actual content but occasionally (less than I used to) here for advice etc.

I'm sure they work but it was the click bait headlines etc that finally turned me off. Although a scan of the front page right now suggests they might have been toned down a tad since I last looked.

But if a number would make you happy, then for an smoothly running, accessible on all formats, pretty much bug free version of the forum, and with whatever workable upgrades are wanted by the majority of the userbase, then how about two thirds of the current cheapest sub price? Or the current sub price and bump up the magazine subscription a bit?

I would happily pay that if you just went back to the old classifieds format, but with the new image hosting and the better search options (:

I’ve often thought pinkbike content with STW forum would be the killer website. I go to pinkbike for actual content but occasionally (less than I used to) here for advice etc.

Must say, I have also longingly thought about SinglePinkTrackBikeWorld.com
That would be the one site to rule them all ...

Also, Yay, the quote toolbar is back!

But if a number would make you happy, then for an smoothly running, accessible on all formats, pretty much bug free version of the forum, and with whatever workable upgrades are wanted by the majority of the userbase, then how about two thirds of the current cheapest sub price? Or the current sub price and bump up the magazine subscription a bit?

I would happily pay that if you just went back to the old classifieds format, but with the new image hosting and the better search options

and none of that is going to happen is it, so what to do now? Do you either pay for subs or continue whining at stw for fun? if £20 a yr is too much for you let me know and ill give up the monthly Cancer charity payment I do in favour of you.

The argument isn't just about £20 per year being too much, it's also about what that is spent on. It could, for instance, go towards a better resourced Web development team. However, Mark has stated in the past that running a forum (even the biggest, busiest MTB forum in the world) isn't where his ambitions lie. Hence the magazine (paper and digital) sucking up all the money.