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Writing.Com's anti-adblock crusade
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From: rugal , 121 months, post #1
This is the absolute most ridiculous garbage I've ever seen. For those who don't know, on 3/31 users who tried to view stories (interactive chapters at the very least) were greeted by a message telling them to support the site by turning off their adblocker. The chapter would then be hidden and you'd have to click it to make it show up.

Obviously this makes browsing interactives now a pain if you, like any sensible person, use something like Adblock Plus.

People were not happy about this at all. In the technical support forum people expressed their displeasure. One of the people that seems to run the site, The StoryMaster, said that the interactives put a large strain and that the ad revenue is their main source of income. I can understand that but the fact is that going to Writing.com without an adblocker means you're swamped in ads; and not benign ads either. Obnoxious ads that are loud and flashy, pornographic ads, malicious ads that try to infect your computer with malware. The same type of ads that cause people to use an adblocker in the first place.

People pointed this out. StoryMaster's response was basically to call people who browse the site with an adblocker (you know, to protect their computer) "moochers". People continued pointing out that they're not doing it to mooch, they're doing it for safety reasons. He started deleting messages. He started calling people who use adblockers "immoral".

I posted a message saying that it's ridiculous to call people "immoral" for trying to protect their computers. And this might've been a little dickish but I then asked the question, if he thinks that blocking ads on the site is "immoral" and "mooching", does he record TV shows on a DVR but skip through the commercials? With that my message was deleted but there was a response of his below mine stating that in January of last year they removed the ability of free accounts to create interactives but kept accounts from before that date grandfathered in, but now thanks to "rudeness" and "abuse" from people with free accounts that grandfather clause has been removed; if you have a free account you can no longer create interactives.

He then not-so-subtly implied in another thread that the next step, if people didn't shut up, was to get rid of interactives completely.

So tl;dr: Writing.com gives you annoying messages if you have an adblocker making it harder to browse interactives. People voice their displeasure, they're told "tough shit" (more or less) and called "moochers" and "immoral". People point out the reason they use adblock is to make sure they don't see obnoxious and pornographic ads and, more importantly, malicious ads. The staff doubles down eventually removing the ability to create interactives without a paid account and then not-so-subtly implying that continuing to "provoke" would mean getting rid of interactives completely.

It sucks. I like reading stuff on there by certain authors and I especially enjoy collaborating with Seuzz and imaj on The Book of Masks. It's a shame that it looks like the site is going to go down in flames though because it's run by morons melting down at the fact people don't want their computers infected.

From: guest (Brayn) , 121 months, post #2
WRiting.com has always been a trainwreck, my advice is to find your favourite interactives and just make a local backup now before he starts going stupid and completely killing the site (God knows it's happened to other sites before).

There are other interactive sites around there with better run admins and fewer/no ads.

From: guest (Brayn) , 121 months, post #3
In fact, after reason what I just saw in the technical forums by StoryMaster, I would recommend backing up interactives ASAP whether you like them or not, looks like the guy may be taking down every interactive that's, well, "niche" or fetish in short order since he reckons that the people using ad blockers are people who like that stuff.

From: guest , 121 months, post #4
After taking a look at the tech support forum, I get the impression they're doing this deliberately and being as annoying as possible to get rid of the interactives, I'd also suggest backing everything up before those idiots do away with the only part of their site that gets any traffic.
I'd also like to add that I'm a huge fan of The Book of Masks and its spinoff The Wandering Stars and I'd like to thank you guys for creating such an awesome universe, if the worse comes to pass I really really hope you guys don't get discouraged and continue with the stories elsewhere.


From: rugal , 121 months, post #5
@Brayn: What other sites are there? I know I've seen other interactive sites before but I never bothered with them so what they were has slipped my mind. The main reason I like/liked Writing.com was due to the relative ease of navigation. I say relative because it wasn't perfect but from what I remember other sites were a nightmare to navigate or find anything.

@guest: Thank Seuzz for that mostly. Other writers (myself, imaj, Collider, Wordsmitty, etc.) have all done great work but the BoM was his idea and he's generally done a lot of work in trying to maintain a coherent or mostly coherent universe. I like to think that there's a certain quality too that intimidated writers which might seem like a bad thing but at the same time I think it ensured there was a certain standard people figured they were expected to meet which has stopped it from falling into the rot of low quality "writers" that plague a lot of other interactives.

From: guest , 121 months, post #6
I know Seuzz created it, but you and the other writers' collaborations are appreciated nonetheless (I'm really enjoying the storyline you're currently doing with Will/Sienna helping to track down his former comrades). I agree about the quality but I don't think it's a bad thing, because tbh most of the stuff in writing.com is garbage, that's why I was so utterly baffled at how such an amazing universe could exist in writing.com of all places when I randomly stumbled upon BoM last year.

From: guest , 121 months, post #7
Any advice on how to make backups of stories? Some of those stories have thousands of chapters, and given the branching nature of the stories, it's going to be a nightmare to back them up.

From: guest (Ashu) , 121 months, post #8
i have had mixed results whle backing up writing.com stories while i used linux and wget as the tool but if enough of communty wants it then i can maybe reasearch some more make it work somehow and post a guide for both windows and linux

From: guest , 121 months, post #9
BoM is my favorite story on the internet and quite possibly of all time. If it disappears I can't even describe how bummed out I'd be.

From: M2FB , 121 months, post #10
And now my interactive story, Orange Blend (a One Piece fan fic about Luffy melting on to Nami while they sleep and fusing together somehow) has been deleted. Awesome.

From: guest (wassel29) , 121 months, post #11
This whole thing really sucks I have to say. Though I don't actually have any interactives "published" so to speak, I do have a few for my eyes only that I use to back up my chapters (after a lot of them got deleted). And now it seems I'm gonna have to backup my backups offline. Which I imagine is gonna take a hell of a long time.

From: guest (Common Sense) , 121 months, post #12
"StoryMaster, said that the interactives put a large strain and that the ad revenue is their main source of income. I can understand that but the fact is that going to Writing.com without an adblocker means you're swamped in ads; and not benign ads either."

This is the most ignorant complaining I've seen and you clearly don't understand it. If you don't like it then continue to use ad-blocker or take your business elsewhere or start of your own interactive story site.

I like browsing writing.com as much as the next person but they have to make money somehow and if everyone is going to block their ad's then they can't provide you with the service that you want because they won't be able to pay to keep their servers running.

You can't have your cake and eat it to and since the only person who knows exactly what strain the stories put on the servers is StoryMaster we have to take his word for it.


From: guest (SegataSaturn) , 121 months, post #13
@Common Sense

Still, it's unfair that he'd just remove all the interactives in an attempt to get people to stop doing this. This guy is a Nazi, and I'm not going to support his insane attitude by turning ad-block off. He should've made a deal with ad companies that aren't viral or pornographic, then maybe I'd care what he had to say. If money is such a problem, he should just remove free accounts altogether and make it a pay only site. However, he can't do that.

If he did, than people would hate him more and leave the sites in droves. He's trying to ease us into it, by taking the interactives away and trying to make us feel like trash for not wanting to get viruses on our computer. I totally get why you may agree with the admin, but most of us don't. Honestly, this kind of tomfoolery is what made me leave Writing.com and move to DeviantArt in the first place.

From: guest (Me) , 121 months, post #14
Message deleted by cj. personal attack
From: guest (R Mika) , 121 months, post #15
Message deleted by cj. personal attack
From: guest (tsn) , 121 months, post #16
Out of the interactive sites, Writing.com was my favourite. :(
Oh well, some of the stories were ridiculous anyway, with random sex scenes and people hijacking stories.

From: guest (SegataSaturn) , 121 months, post #17
@tsn

Tell me about, my friend had to shut down several of his interactives because people kept adding sex scenes to them or continued to break his pre-set rules. If Writing.com does get rid of their interactives, then they will lose a lot of viewers in the long run. If they took out interactives, than all they'd have left would be stories and poems.

You can get stories and poems anywhere, so there wouldn't be a big reason to use the site anymore. People would just go elsewhere or start their own sites, so there would be no point in going to that garbage website anymore. I kind of wish there was someone with common sense on that staff, someone who would slap away SM's hands when he moved them to press the "Kill Everything People Want" button.

From: guest (Bobbert) , 121 months, post #18
And now I can't even access the Interactives anymore. I don't even have an adblocker, WTF?

From: guest (StoryMaster) , 121 months, post #19
I was sent a link to this thread from my personal forum, and I don't appreciate the amount of flack this decision is getting. I don't understand what kind of kinky fetish site this is supposed to be, but let me make one thing clear: I'm removing the interactives for a reason. I'm not trying to be an outright monster, I'm trying to police things on my site.

What is a business if it can't sustain itself? Ads help my site survive, and it pays me and my employees. Interactives are popular, but I feel that I should restrict them for the time being. If ad-blocking dies down, than I might remove some of my more harsher regulations. Until then, you're all going to have to deal with it. This is a business, not a place where I have to cater to everyone 24-7.

I tolerate your kinks and fetishes out of good will, if need be I could ban such stories from ever appearing on my site. That's not what I want to do, but I'd prefer if you just leave things be. Again, I am not a villain. If anything, I'm trying to help this site survive so we can continue to bring people content. Ad-blocker is a detriment to my business, and I'd prefer if people stopped using it. Now, I kind request the admins of whatever site this is supposed to be to close this thread immediately.

From: Mr. Ram , 121 months, post #20
Ad-blocking programs are here to stay. It seems that you have an unsustainable business model.

Mr. Ram

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