| abstract | - Hi All, My names's Gil and I'm the CEO of Wikia. I wanted welcome you to Wikia and see what we can do to help. In the short term, I had an idea to work with you on creating a list of sites that sell gold, so we can experiment with blocking them and see how much it reduces revenue. I know it will hurt some, but as a fan of the game, I believe it's the right thing to do. Is there any public list of these sorts of sites, or do I need help from you figuring it out? Thanks, --Penchina 20:46, 11 May 2007 (EDT) Here is a list I started about a year ago when I attempted to block them on my own sites. The problem with adsense is that you reach the maximum entries before you can block all the vendors unless it is possible to can make arrangements with google. -- 21:43, 11 May 2007 (EDT) There's one vaguely maintained list on the wiki at WoWWiki talk:Google ads on WoWWiki#Bad Ads, but it's in no way complete. 22:27, 11 May 2007 (EDT) We get a little extra love from google because of Jimmy Wales (wikipedia founder) being our founder and inspiration, but it's true - we may run out of blocking power too. The alternative is to move to a graphical ad network that gives us more control. We did this with Dofus.wikia.com at their request and a couple others. How annoying is it that google lets them get away with this?? I've had 4 gold selling sites call me already... I try to let them down easy Penchina 22:36, 11 May 2007 (EDT) Let em down easy? Bah! We'd prefer ya got nasty with them ^^ 22:57, 11 May 2007 (EDT) Nasty? You know, selling gold is these people's lifeblood. Imagine how you might feel if you were the (ever annoying) poor Phone-baker’s salesman who sold bread, biscuits and cakes by telephone – whilst almost everyone you called began insulting you and telling how much they hated you and your way of living? Kjærleik 04:26, 13 May 2007 (EDT) Can I have some of what you're smoking/sniffing? That way you might actually start making sense to me.... Or, wait, I have a better idea... you can go away and come back when you start making sense to everyone at large? Deal? Mikk (T) 07:32, 13 May 2007 (EDT) I'll remember to be nicer the next time a telemarketer tries to sell me BREAD. 09:53, 13 May 2007 (EDT) Trust me, they sell all kinds of stuff. Bread too. Kjærleik 15:11, 13 May 2007 (EDT) Gold sellers are more related to the guys on the street trying to sell Folexs and Timexx watches. 15:16, 13 May 2007 (EDT) But do we get nasty with them? Kjærleik 16:31, 13 May 2007 (EDT) Some drug dealers also have only 1 way of making an income, its also illegal,,,, are you nice to them too ? i doubt it, Goldselling is prohibited, and a public source should in no way condone cheating or any type of illegal activity.. 09:37, 14 May 2007 (EDT) I think the ads should STAY Why? Simple, gold selling exists in WOW because the game designers at Blizzard created an economy where gold was given an exaggerated value by fixing high costs on items that players want. In other words, the excessive price of epic flying mounts creates a market just as the previously excessive price of epic land mounts. For most players its not worth the time to grind out that much gold, their time and money is much better invested elsewhere. Considering the time to gold earning ratio its less than minimum wage to make the gold in game. So until Blizzard creates causing problems with their economy I don't see why gold ads need to be banned from WOWWIKI, these sites are part of the game Blizzard made. 07:24, 14 May 2007 (EDT) There are so very many things wrong with that logic... first, and foremost, buying/selling gold/items for real money is explicitly prohibited per the TOS. It also goes against the general mindset of this community. Personally, the Gold ads don't bother me, since I have them all blocked on my adblocker, and I am fairly certain that it's 'common knowledge' that the ads that show up through Google are not necessarily representations of what the website agrees with, but it would be safe to try and keep them from showing up as much as possible.-- 09:16, 14 May 2007 (EDT) The adds need to go, the sooner the better... i cant begin to list the reasons since there are soo many. the fact that its prohibited is just 1 of the many. its silly that google doesn't allow better filtering, or at least by keywords as well. (anything that includes the words levelling, gold, cheat, hack, glider should be blocked off to begin with. 09:35, 14 May 2007 (EDT) Levelling should be allowed as that includes guides and not just services. Same for gold. How are you going to be sure you haven't kicked off a site that simply sells a guide? -- 15:46, 16 May 2007 (UTC) The real reason why gold selling is not allowed is because it causes legal issues. When there's a dollar value put on ingame currency, one starts to question things like tax laws. From what I understand, they have to outlaw gold selling for fear of being called a casino. --Chtaiae 22:11, 29 June 2007 (UTC) In any case, the discussion won't change matters, so there's no need to get worked up over it. We should get back to the original question: "Is there any public list of these sorts of sites?" 09:43, 14 May 2007 (EDT) Havent seen any. but type in "warcraft gold" in google and voila [1], insanely long list... ewww. 10:20, 14 May 2007 (EDT) With subject to blocking goldspam.. should this also include links in the wiki that link to sites with goldspam? e.g. [2] 10:57, 14 May 2007 (EDT) You mean linking to sites who have gold ads? I think that's a crusade doomed for failure, unfortunately. We can at least sanitize our lil section and make sure to carry lots of alcohol wipes. 11:20, 14 May 2007 (EDT) Sorry, blocking sites that have gold ads sounds like a double standard. WoWWiki is having a hard time getting the gold spam ads off the site (hense the topic), yet you want to ban sites that have gold ads on them from being in the wiki? 14:54, 15 May 2007 (EDT) Um Tecnobrat....that is what this is all about, removing them from the ads. -- 16:10, 15 May 2007 (EDT) I'm fully aware of that. But I don't believe we can start removing external links that have gold selling ads, until we have taken care of this problem ourselves. Seems a little hypocritical. One step at a time IMO. Just my 2c. 17:03, 15 May 2007 (EDT) What does this topic have to do with removing external links? The topic is about removing the gold ads. -- 17:51, 17 May 2007 (UTC) Re-read, missed CJ's oddly indented comment before, ignore. -- 21:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC) Just to make things clear. I'd love to end the whole Gold-Ads selling discussion here, for those who happen to be a big fan of it. There's one(!) reason for deleting the adds. We are NOT allowed in the Blizzard Website Fanlistings for aslong as these adds exist. Why do we want to be there? First and foremost, because of the extra powers it gives us. Many of the Fanlisted websites get the power to distribute things like Beta-Keys (I've got 10 of the keys that I received through a contact from a website, which I'm not going to name, cuz that's actually not allowed for that person. I had more keys though.) But they also get news straight from Blizzard in certain cases. This includes, but is not limited to information before anyone else gets it, beta-keys and more surprises. http://www.wow-europe.com/en/links/fansites.html gives a nice European overview. Too lazy to go to the American, however, we will be able to apply to both, as our website covers both Europe and America and even to some extent the Asians... This, my friends, is the ultimate goal for the wiki in my opinion. If we reach the listings, the wiki can only go uphill. Add in a few Community Events from time to time and things will increase dramatically. These things are NOT possible for as long as those adds hang around. Once again, I vote for adding a "donate" button. I myself would even donate through that button, but I refuse to press the google ads. There's so many ways of getting a revenue. Perhaps a "Banner" list on the main page, where anyone can buy Banner space to promote their website (as long as it doesn't violate blizzards ToU). With the amount of players passing the website, I'm certain we'll be able to attract people with Banner Space. There's some more ideas running in my brains, but these are the best I can currently write down. I really hope that this Wikia switch will Help against the adds. I'm really happy to see that you care for the Wiki, Mister Gil, I was actually afraid that you were some kind of dude branded on only making money with the wiki. I hope we will be able to work better and better with you in the future. // Patrigan | Talk/ Contr \\ 15:39, 15 May 2007 (EDT) Thanks all for the input. We are a company so at the end of the day we have to pay for extra servers, paying for better image caching, backup datacenters, etc - but I like to be able to sleep well at night and that means following the WOW rules (TOS), and being good to you and the other fans. It's a tough balance, but we will do our best to respect the desires of the community for a great service, a fast site and a vibrant community, while still running a business. If you're not happy with anything, feel free to email me via my talk page. I get 400 emails a day already, so a couple more really don't bother me :-) We're asking google to give us extra blocking capacity, as we've already used up the first 200 sites they normally let you block. Vlad also introduced me to the WOW Forum admins and they should unblock us once we're done! Penchina 05:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC) Found this randomly on the internet. is it something we might be interested in? 17:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC) Why does "nogold" make me think "you no take candle!"? 17:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC) I looked up that site as well Reskar as I remembered it from a long time ago, But it appears like a completely dead project. -- 17:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC) I just moved our jumbled bad ad listing to Bad ads and nailed down a format/standard that is machine readable. If kept up to date, a list such as this could be automatically parsed by ad blocking software. And supervised by our fine admins / RC patrol of course so that we're not blocking things we shouldn't be blocking ;) Mikk (T) 14:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC) I'm loving the new cleaner site... I haven't seen anything goldspamish in the last few weeks... Nice work guys! --Sting-Ray ZA 12:40, 6 July 2007 (UTC) Would it be possible to move them to say, the bottom right corner, in a tiny box? Deters people from visiting the site in my experience, and promotes something I don't believe in. Not that it stops me from coming here, but I've heard that the Warden also scans your headers, and some of the content on the webpages you're on, and reads your RAM which could lead to a ban. This is all pretty much exaggerated but some people may not visit based on those facts. I'll continue to use and contribute. Fr0 09:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC) Even if that were true, it would be dishonest to attempt to hide the ads in such a way. We are trying to prevent bad ads showing, not to hide the one we do have (this site needs revenue somehow!). 15:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
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