This forum`s layout

[MykeXero]

As a web developer (like all of you) i know the necessity to make money, and how bandwitdh and server costs are lame. However, can you approach this advertisment thing a bit diffrently on this site?

As im typing right now 40% (!!!!!) of my screen`s width is covered with advertisements. Im sure you have some decent web designers you can talk to that can integrate these ads a bit better. Its really really intrusive to the overall experiance of the site.

Another example? How far down did you have to scroll to actually read this post? There is a good oh 300 - 400 pixels height worth of adverts before you can even read a topic.

As much as ive lurked (and just recently started posting) on this forum, and as useful as this forum is. I may have to take my time elsewhere, similar forums dont uh... "utilize" the layout quite as much as you guys.

All in all, everything else is great. I figure i`d air my only complaint about this fine forum.

[David Harrison]

Well, I understand that you have a dislike of ads, but they pay for the large bandwidth and power costs that come with running such a popular site, and they also pay the wages of the many people who work for Jupitermedia.

Also, the reason that on thread view pages the ads are all located at the top is because that way they are not located at the side. By not placing ads at the side, there's maximum width available for displaying source code with as little side scrolling as possible. In pages where the width doesn't matter too much, the ads are placed at the side to allow the actual content to be as high up as possible. In my opinion it's the best compromise for each situation.

Besides, how long does it really take you to scroll down 300 - 400 px? For me it's not even a second, just one finger tip length on the scrollwheel.

One final point, web developers, on average, do seem to have larger monitors than the norm, on bigger screens the ads take up less space. For example, on my screen I don't have to scroll down at all to read your entire post. See the attached image (reduced to 256 colours to fit under the file size limit).

I'm sorry you don't like the ads, but I'm afraid you'll have to put up with them, or as you say, lurk elsewhere.