I would encourage folks here to read my reply in the other thread, here:
viewtopic/t187724/Apneaboard-vs-cpaptal ... 5#p1451123
Allow me to blather on about some thoughts I have...
That post in the link above explains how there's only a limited amount of control that I have over which types of ads are displayed on ApneaBoard.com. I've been working on trying to get rid of those "sneaky" ads that Google Adsense has placed on our site, and for those who have experience hosting a website that has a large volume of ads via Adsense, they will understand how frustrating it can be to control those "sneaky" (actually deceptive) ads that appear on websites. As was stated,
our SleepFiles.com site (including the official OSCAR download page) has absolutely NO ads whatsover. It's only on the ApneaBoard.com domain where we have ads.
As a side note, it's interesting to me that occasionally we have people complain about "inappropriate sexual ads" that they see displayed on Apnea Board. We ban the "sexual" categories within Adsense, but sometimes those types of ads get through. When they do get through and someone complains to me, little do those folks realize that they are seeing ads that were likely displayed on their computer because THEY had gone to "adult websites", retained a cookie from those sites, whereupon Google served up "sexually-related" ads, thinking they were interested in such things. Those folks don't realize that they are revealing their own browsing habits.
But back to the problem with the deceptive ads-- I'm sort of between a rock and a hard place. Drop the ads, and both SleepFiles.com and ApneaBoard.com go away due to lack of funding. Keep the ads, and attempt to satisfy everyone involved by keeping the objectionable deceptive ads at bay (which is a never-ending task). Actually it's an impossible task, and we'd have to have someone full-time doing nothing but reviewing all the ads in Adsense to take care of those deceptive ads and even then, we could not catch all the "bad" ones. Over the past few days, I've tried to go into our Adsense account and do a search for "download", or "Start here" etc. in an attempt to discover the offending ads. When I find them, I ban that particular advertiser. But let one day go by, and BOOM!-- all of a sudden you've got hundreds more deceptive ads that start showing up. Like I said, it's an impossible task, and Google isn't doing a darn thing about it, since if ANY ad gets "clicks", Google makes money, whether it's a legit ad or a clickbait deceptive ad. So they are incentivized to do absolutely NOTHING about this issue. All of us are volunteers and we have to prioritize our time spent on Apnea Board. Those who run ads on a larger website understand this frustration.
It's easy to criticize an endeavor like Apnea Board or OSCAR when you really have no clue on what all is involved in keeping things going, operating with a shoestring budget and keeping everyone happy while making the entire site useful and easy to operate. Some of you may know what that's like, perhaps. Most have no clue.
I wish I had a perfect answer for all of these issues, but I don't. I'm getting frustrated myself, both with running the site and with doing all that is necessary to support OSCAR development on an ongoing basis. Most people have absolutely no clue what goes on behind the scenes, so they feel free to assume that because we're not over here justifying every little thing we do, we must all be corrupt over at Apnea Board or "Moderator Nazis" or some such B.S.
If anyone wants to start their own CPAP or Sleep Apnea forum and perform all the stuff that's now done on Apnea Board and with the OSCAR project, PLEASE DO SO. Apnea Board has been online since May of 2004 (closing in on 20 years now). That's a very long time. And a lot of the key players are getting older now, and I've tried to ask our key forum and OSCAR staff to come up with "backup" people who can take over if something would happen to one of us. It would be great if a younger and more energetic person could take over Apnea Board and the OSCAR project, so it would not die on the vine if certain key people went off the scene. Truth is, we're all older now, and to be honest, tired and worn-out. Getting old just ain't fun. There's been points where I was tempted to just shut down the entire site and the OSCAR project, and leave it up to someone else to start a new forum and a new OSCAR fork for the future. But I've realized that it would nice for our future replacements to have the benefit of continuing where we left off, and have the benefit of building upon what we've already accomplished (and not have to re-invent the wheel). That's why we really need new blood to keep things going.
I'm not sure if anything I've said here makes sense or will help in any way. I do blather on and on at times. I DO care about what everyone here thinks (well,
most of you)... and I'm not deaf to the problems people are having, so I do appreciate any sincere help or advice that is offered. Personally, I think we've done a lot of good over the past 20 years. But an organization stays successful the way they became successful. With Apnea Board and the OSCAR project, that means that a LOT of people need to continually sacrifice their time and efforts to keep thing rolling well into the future.
I guess what I'm asking for is that people have some degree of understanding and patience with regard to some of these issues. Your comments are not being ignored.
Thanks for listening, folks.