What the heck? Dbasupport banner ?

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Originally Posted by marist89

As Paul Sr. says "What is is, and what was was." The poll is irrelavent. It has come down from above that this is the way the forums will look. If they wanted our opinion, they would have asked for it. If you don't like the new format, don't participate.

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:( I have to agree with you there Jeff... I was just hoping that they might listen to us...

Can you please remove the annoying stuff on the left hand side of the screen. It's ruining my enjoyment of the adverts!

Actually I've found a neat alternative. Buy a 19 inch monitor, put it on high resolution and drape an attractive cloth over the right hand side of the screen. The annoying adverts are gone and it gives your monitor a warm and cosy look...

I must say, on a 19" monitor at high resolution, it's not that bad. At 1024x768 it is barely OK.

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Originally Posted by marist89

As Paul Sr. says "What is is, and what was was." The poll is irrelavent. It has come down from above that this is the way the forums will look. If they wanted our opinion, they would have asked for it. If you don't like the new format, don't participate.

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While I accept this to some degree, I believe our opinion should matter. I accept that we do not pay for this service and it exists because of funding from advertising but that is no different to many of the other forums I participate in yet the user communities opinions are still very relevant.

If some of the more knowledgable people on this site took your advice to not participate then the site becomes useless and people stop visiting it - I have seen it happen. When that happens advertisers are suddenly not intertested in buying space, intrusive or otherwise.

Revenue should never be at the expense of usability.

Just my opinion :)

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Originally Posted by jovery

If some of the more knowledgable people on this site took your advice to not participate then the site becomes useless and people stop visiting it

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hmmmm Howards site doesn't have any adverts.....

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Originally Posted by jovery

Revenue should never be at the expense of usability.

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But see that's just it. This site is driven by Revenue.

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Originally Posted by marist89

As Paul Sr. says "What is is, and what was was." The poll is irrelavent. It has come down from above that this is the way the forums will look. If they wanted our opinion, they would have asked for it. If you don't like the new format, don't participate.

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Jeff it doesn't have to be that way we the users should dictate what we want.

What is is and this webpage IS bad.
Everytime I log in now I just laugh cause I have never seen a layout this bad, even on my own lame-assed webpage.

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Originally Posted by OracleDoc

hmmmm Howards site doesn't have any adverts.....

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Take another look! Top and bottom. Nothing comes for free :)

Re: bad format.

This site makes money because of adverts. The adverts are only worthwhile because of the hitrates the site gets. The hitrates are high because lots of people want answers to their problems. The answers are provided for free by regular contributors. Annoy the regular users and you get no answers. If you get no answers you get no people asking questions. If you get no people asking questions you get bad hitrates. If you get bad hitrates adverisers won't pay the money. Site makes no money so it's closed down.

Moral of this story. Don't annoy your users or you will lose your business. It's the basic rule for sites using this business model!

Cheers

Tim...

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Originally Posted by OracleDoc

Jeff it doesn't have to be that way we the users should dictate what we want.

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When you're paying for the service, then I agree. But this is not the case here.

ps. with Firefox and adblock, I see no adverts.

its not the ads which are the problem, its the layout which plain sucks and looks crap with the oracle news down the side

looks shoddy and unprofessional