Howdy folks... an Apnea Board member gave me a "heads-up" about this discussion, so perhaps I'll offer some info that may help...
I've personally seen the type of "tricky" ad like was what described in an earlier post here. Ads that state "Get your PDF manual here", or "Register here" or "Activate your account", etc. So this issue is a legitimate one that I'm concerned about and hope to correct (as much as possible).
Apnea Board does have it's own dedicated server, where we host our SleepFiles.com, ApneaBoard.com sites, including all OSCAR files, running server-side bug-tracking software for the OSCAR team, plus a slew of other files that are downloaded on a regular basis (requiring enough bandwidth) and some private areas and file locations that are used solely for OSCAR development. We also have the Wiki and Forums, of course, just as you have here. But we have no commercial organization like CPAP.com to pay for all that, which is why we need to fund operations via donations & Google Adsense.
Unfortunately, with Adsense ads, sometimes it's next to impossible to prevent some of these types of ads from appearing. Adsense allows us to ban certain "categories" of ads, but sometimes sneaky advertizers miss-categorize their ads to by-pass our prohibited categories. So we can preemptively disallow certain types of ads, but that doesn't catch them all. Also, if we see a "bad ad" (like those tricky ones described above), I can personally go into our Google Adsense account and ban that advertizer. But that's after the fact, not preemptively eliminating the ad that was already displayed. There's other options to control certain ads as well, and we've tried them all.
In the end, Google is in business to make money, and with Adsense, they only make money if someone clicks on an ad. Perhaps this is why they're not overly concerned about "inappropriate" or "deceptive" ads.
I wish there were another option to Google Adsense, but as most website owners know, even the closest competitor to Adsense provides a pittance in ad revenue when compared to Adsense. I would love to be able to fund Apnea Board via donations alone, but right now, we need Adsense revenue to make up for a shortfall on a monthly basis. So that's why we continue with Adsense.
That said, I'm definitely NOT pleased with these types of "tricky" ads! And I continue to seek out ways to get rid of them, but I can't catch all of them. Remember,
Apnea Board does not decide which specific ads are placed on our website and forums. All we can do is sign up for Adsense and their system decides which ads are placed. We can and do prohibit certain types & categories of ads, plus a few other minor tweaks to avoid this stuff, and ban some ads after they appear.
I'm especially not pleased with some of the overly-intrusive ads that have showed up as of late, some on mobile devices. Near full-screen ads drive me nuts. I never signed up for that, and I'm going to look into how to turn that type of stuff off for good.
Anyway, I wanted to reach out and give that info, so folks know what's going on. Whether you go to cpaptalk or Apnea Board, I wish you well. There's good and helpful people on both forums, and there's some "annoying people" on both as well. Like has been said, cpaptalk is the more "spicy" forum - maybe that's a better fit for some folks who like all the banter. Apnea Board has it's share of that too, but mostly in the Off-Topic forum that's for registered members only, and we do indeed discourage personal attacks and inappropriate language and on our forums. The owner of Apnea Board (me) is a Christian, so while I never require anyone to hold my beliefs, I do tend to run Apnea Board with my own Christian principals in mind. I'm not overly vocal about my personal beliefs, and I think if you read the forums on Apnea Board for very long, you'll note that I do not make a huge deal about it when someone disagrees with me. In either case, people have freedom of choice, and personally, I kind of like it that way.
In the immortal words of a famous person, "
If you like your forum, you can keep your forum".

So if you're happy here on cpaptalk, by all means stay here and support it the best you can, and try not to make trouble for Pugsy. God bless y'all over here on cpaptalk-- Pugsy, since you're the main Moderator here, you already know that maintaining an even keel when managing a forum can be a major headache. Add to that the full requirements of maintaining a server and a few other tasks, and I'm sure you can understand how frustrating things can become, trying to satisfy everyone.
Thanks for allowing me to explain where we're at over on Apnea Board. If anyone has suggestions on how to improve this ad situation, I'm hoping you'll email me at
apneaboard@gmail.com. I'm open to anything that will work for us. So now, I'm blathering on and on... (it's what I do).. so I'll end it there.
Take care folks, and sleep well...
SuperSleeper
Apnea Board Administrator
www.ApneaBoard.com