Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊

[Misc] Beginning to agree with Palace



Thunder Bolt

Ordinary Supporter
There are loads of ways to fund a football forum other than users 'paying for it' and NSC receives more than enough income to cover costs. In any case, the site doesn't just have Google ads but incidentally, 'The Other Stuff' forum does include Google ads. Google doesn't dictate that there is a swear filter and what was removed in this instance from the Main Board has nothing at all to do with Google.
[MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]
 

seagulls4ever

New member
Oct 2, 2003
4,338
[MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION]

All of what I said is true. Not sure why you need clarification.

Does NSC receive more than enough income to cover its costs? Yes, just take a look at its Companies House listing.

Are there Google ads on the 'The Other Stuff' forum? Yes, you can see them with your own eyes.

Does Google TOS require a swear filter? No, they just require no 'excessive profanity' - it would be pretty hard to eliminate all swearing from all comments sections on all sites where Google ads are contained, and it wouldn't be very good for their profits if they insta-banned all sites where swearing was found.

Are there ways to fund the forum other than Google? Yes, see Amazon affiliate links, sponsored stickies, other advertising networks that NSC uses such as Taboola and many of the football articles Bozza links to when he starts new threads which contain affiliate links.

Why was the thread move the 'The Other Stuff'? Because using an article about Mark Lawrenson's cancer as a medium by which to have a dig at Albion fans was deemed controversial. Nothing at all to do with Google.

NSC in the past was more reliant on Google and at one point there was a purge of the 'The Main Forum' to make it more ad friendly, which is why you might be getting confused. But, as stated by a mod, the reason why the thread was moved was because it had upset some NSC members and was deteriorating into a binfest.
 

Icy Gull

Back on the rollercoaster
Jul 5, 2003
72,015
If the Palace forum is so good why are there so many high post Palace fans on here? Who on here even bothers to register and post on their forum let alone run up hundreds if not thousands of posts.

What a fecking strange thread to start, this is one of the more liberal mostly reasonable forums I have seen. I believe Palace fans are actually quite jealous that theirs isn’t anywhere near as entertaining, hence their need to almost live on here :smile:

North Stand Korea indeed, twats.
 

The Clamp

Well-known member
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jan 11, 2016
24,155
West is BEST
The thread was over, best it was sent over to the other side. In other news, who gives a shit what Palace think? I can honestly say I’ve never looked at their forums once, I don’t even bother following links to it.
If that shitsack Swillis is an indication of their membership I think I’ve made the right choice.
 


Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 23, 2003
33,686
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
Disappointing direction taken. If you don't like gallows humour then steer clear and don.t keep posting on such threads. There is an decency boundary but that thread, in my view, did not cross it. If it's been moved to the other stuff then why lock it down as well?

And before you ask, I've lost both parents to cancer as well as aunts and uncles and a grandfather I never met because of it. I've also had cancer scares myself.

Again, it wasn't moved because of the gallows humour but because of the 11 page bin fest that followed. If you want to start a humourous thread about cancer without offending people or having it descend in to name calling, be my guest. But do it somewhere that isn't NSC.
 

Wrong-Direction

Well-known member
Mar 10, 2013
13,375
The OP could just f*** off?

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk
 

drew

Drew
Oct 3, 2006
22,981
Burgess Hill
Again, it wasn't moved because of the gallows humour but because of the 11 page bin fest that followed. If you want to start a humourous thread about cancer without offending people or having it descend in to name calling, be my guest. But do it somewhere that isn't NSC.

'Do it somewhere that isn't NSC'! So it was the gallows humour then.

Are you going to move any thread that offends anyone then? Ban people if they are unnecessarily abusive but do you have to act like a censor with a sledgehammer?
 


beorhthelm

A. Virgo, Football Genius
Jul 21, 2003
35,237
But what happens next? Moved to the 'Other Stuff', the polite equivalent of 'closed'. Shame on you Mods, even if it includes EP, the dumbing down of society continues to gather pace,.

what a load of bollocks. moving a thread to a different sub-forum doesnt close it, its still there for people to post until it is actually closed, and it still remains there for anyone to read. you should see typical forums where those sorts of the threads would be deleted and bans issued, there's blanket bans on topics, policing of topics into the correct sub forum, limits on posting untill someone has reached a post count and so on.
 

Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 23, 2003
33,686
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
'Do it somewhere that isn't NSC'! So it was the gallows humour then.

Are you going to move any thread that offends anyone then? Ban people if they are unnecessarily abusive but do you have to act like a censor with a sledgehammer?

It wasn't and EP knows it wasn't because we've been talking about this throughout the day. But go ahead and assume I meant what you thought I meant instead of reading what I typed. You seem to do that a lot.

If you want to waste an entire Saturday on this sort of stuff any time soon then I'm sure Bozza will be looking for volunteers the next time our numbers are down. You'll have to go through a sense of humour bypass though as well as the compulsory NSC Commercials training. Plus, in your case, you'll need to learn to understand what people are typing.
 

Blue Valkyrie

Not seen such Bravery!
Sep 1, 2012
32,165
Valhalla
Stewth, is this still going ? [emoji38]ol:

Move it to Childish Ramblings, give a brief explanation if possible, c'est la vie, the end.
 


Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 23, 2003
33,686
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
Stewth, is this still going ? [emoji38]ol:

Move it to Childish Ramblings, give a brief explanation if possible, c'est la vie, the end.

It's the second "son of". It's almost like some people don't know when to shut up.
 

Stat Brother

Well-known member
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 11, 2003
73,270
West west west Sussex
Stewth, is this still going ? [emoji38]ol:

Move it to Childish Ramblings, give a brief explanation if possible, c'est la vie, the end.

Hey if it wasn't Bozza wouldn't be getting all this really helpful advise on how he should be running his forum.
 

Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
55,529
Back in Sussex
There are loads of ways to fund a football forum other than users 'paying for it' and NSC receives more than enough income to cover costs. In any case, the site doesn't just have Google ads but incidentally, 'The Other Stuff' forum does include Google ads. Google doesn't dictate that there is a swear filter and what was removed in this instance from the Main Board has nothing at all to do with Google.

All of what I said is true. Not sure why you need clarification.

Does NSC receive more than enough income to cover its costs? Yes, just take a look at its Companies House listing.

Are there Google ads on the 'The Other Stuff' forum? Yes, you can see them with your own eyes.

Does Google TOS require a swear filter? No, they just require no 'excessive profanity' - it would be pretty hard to eliminate all swearing from all comments sections on all sites where Google ads are contained, and it wouldn't be very good for their profits if they insta-banned all sites where swearing was found.

Are there ways to fund the forum other than Google? Yes, see Amazon affiliate links, sponsored stickies, other advertising networks that NSC uses such as Taboola and many of the football articles Bozza links to when he starts new threads which contain affiliate links.

Why was the thread move the 'The Other Stuff'? Because using an article about Mark Lawrenson's cancer as a medium by which to have a dig at Albion fans was deemed controversial. Nothing at all to do with Google.

NSC in the past was more reliant on Google and at one point there was a purge of the 'The Main Forum' to make it more ad friendly, which is why you might be getting confused. But, as stated by a mod, the reason why the thread was moved was because it had upset some NSC members and was deteriorating into a binfest.

A history lesson for those that are interested...

The Beginning
Back in the mid-late 90s, NSC was invented and owned by Gary Crittenden, aka Manx Seagull (as he lives on the Isle of Man). The web was young and a bit of a wild West. Hosting websites could also be pretty expensive. It got to the point where the cost of running NSC from his own pocket was getting to a level that Gary was no longer able (or willing) to fund.

When this happened, which would have been around 2000 or 2001 (I'm not sure) I offered to take it on, because I thought NSC had been vital in securing the lift of the football club we all follow, and I was happy to pay for it, initially, but I hoped to find a way of making it pay for itself sooner or later.

The Middle
At some point a way of helping to fund the site was found, and that was Google Adsense - Google's platform to allow publishers to monetise traffic predominantly through banner ads. The Adsense programme comes with a host of "rules" but, broadly, the site has to family friendly in terms of content both written and visual.

Being a site that serves a large number of men who go to football, the site would repeatedly fall foul of Google. Google didn't and don't analyse the site manually, they have bots that scrape sites, analyse content and issue warnings where required.

NSC frequently got warnings due to the nature of the site and often these were accompanied by Google ceasing serving ads on the entire site, causing NSC to not earn any income for a period of time. Sometimes these were well-warranted, sometimes not. For example, on one occasion I had to educate Google that although fag got is an offensive term in the States, here it's a food.

Google operated a strike system, and NSC got to a last chance saloon, which was a worrying time. To deal with this, I created "The Other Stuff" and in the SQL database that sites behind NSC I mass-moved all threads with images and all threads that contained every bad or sexual-oriented word I could think of. This is why that sub-forum contains so many threads, the majority of which are very probably "clean". In that sub-forum I turned off all advertising code so Google would never be serving ads against stuff they didn't like.

The End
Over a period of time, I looked at other advertising solutions to reduce the reliance on Google and the risk of them pulling the plug. We've been through a lot, often several at once and I moved ads again a short while ago to a company called StreamAMP, based on the recommendation of a chap I've come to know who runs a similar site for Ipswich.

Adsense is still on this the site but only when the main partner has a space they can't fill. I still get warnings from Google, in fact I had two today for these two threads:

http://www.northstandchat.com/showthread.php?92457-My-sister-is-a-porn-star
http://www.northstandchat.com/showthread.php?37020-Mutu-Sucks-Blood-In-Sex-Game

In both cases the warnings are for "Adult: Sexual Content"

NSC does also earn from:

- Amazon affiliates - this is where you click on an NSC affiliated link to Amazon and buy something. Clicks themselves earn nothing.
- Sponsored stickies - where a local firm, generally, wants to advertise their offerings.
- Taboola - this is stuff at the bottom of a page but only appears to guests - if you are logged in you'll never see them.
- Tapatalk - they inject ads into the views of NSC that people see and pass on a small kickback for that.
- FootballWhispers (and associated sites) - I get emailed links to articles on FW and similar sites for me to pass on. I only pass them on when I think they add something to the discussion that I've not seen elsewhere, and are a good read. Others Albion sites do the same I believe but share everything regardless of quality. Each to their own.

All of the above do not add up to enough to fund NSC's costs - it's the banner ads that are the bread and butter of paying for the site to run.
 


Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
55,529
Back in Sussex
Picking up on one more point...

Does NSC receive more than enough income to cover its costs?

Yes, yes it does.

Yes, just take a look at its Companies House listing.

I'm not sure the Companies House listing tells you anything about NSC's income (accessed from here if anyone cares: https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07930882/filing-history) as:

a) It doesn't actually list income (or not that I can see).
b) Even if it did, Blue Seagull Technology earns most of its money from me doing stuff that has nothing to do with NSC at all.
 

Bozza

You can change this
Helpful Moderator
Jul 4, 2003
55,529
Back in Sussex
North Korea Chat though, I like that.

I'm not sure anyone has noticed but the Gaetan Bong driving thread has been removed. I'm aware of being accused of censorship previously when threads relating to legal matters affecting Albion players (eg the Jurys thing) was going on, with what seemed to be an assertion that if there weren't threads on NSC on a topic, then we could pretend that thing wasn't happening and make out the Albion and its players were whiter than white.

Not so.

When it comes to Albion matters, NSC is scrutinised very, very closely. I'm not sure anyone has any real idea quite how closely. NSC also does not have the resources to employ a legal team to advise on what we can allow to stay on the site and what we should remove. I'm a Dad with a young family who would prefer to be able to continue to house and feed them. I need to try and manage the risk of being pursued because of something that someone else has written on here. In short I operate "better safe than sorry" policy for my own welfare, and I don't apologise for that. I expect most in my position would do the same.

Oh, and the Bong thread: it may be the case that much of what was written in our local paper was inaccurate which may well land them in hot water. I have no wish to join them.
 


Seasidesage

New member
May 19, 2009
4,467
Brighton, United Kingdom
Moderators are there for a purpose. No one is ever going to agree with every interpretation. Some I do, some I think are OTT. Either way its an inperfect world. What concerns me more personally is the level of abuse some indulge in. I always take the view that I won't say anything I wouldn't say to people's faces but some of the keyboard warriors on here defy belief.

People need to roll with it, accept that others have contrary views and argue it, not call people names and pretend its debate. As for this particular thread in question, I haven't read it, but if its just moved is that really the end of the world?
 

AmexRuislip

Trainee Spy 🕵️‍♂️
Feb 2, 2014
33,711
Ruislip
Picking up on one more point...



Yes, yes it does.



I'm not sure the Companies House listing tells you anything about NSC's income (accessed from here if anyone cares

You maybe right [MENTION=6886]Bozza[/MENTION], but Companies House does invite stalkers, if you get my drift :)
 

Albion and Premier League latest from Sky Sports

Paying the bills

Latest Discussions

Paying the bills

Paying the bills

Paying the bills


Top
Link Here