reprint

<p>Second example</p><div></div>

<p>A large number of animated ads are appearing throughout the site currently. A couple of examples are attached. Firefox 3.6.3 on Win Vista. They appeared almost immediately. Appear to be mostly horizontal ads as shown below but examples also of vertical right column ads seen too. Also they appear with IE8 and whether signed in or not. I know you are trying to track these down so I hope this info is helpful. If you need any more info, let me know.</p><div></div>

<p>A variety of unrelated animated ads are appearing. Including Dance dance revolution and several others. Sample screen shot below.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Josh,<br>

here is another example from this morning though this time it didn't break the right column.</p>

<div></div>

<p>Josh, such ads dont generate revenue in Adsense, they are considered public service ads (PSA) shown when context cannot be determined. May not be the case here but just wanted to alert you.<br>

Firefox 3.0.5 and screen resolution is 1650 x 1080</p>

<p>Josh,<br>

While you are talking to the ad people, I notice a significant percentage of the ads are now non-profit type ads. If they are fall back ads as is done with Adsense, then it will hurt your bottom line. Also they are breaking the layout as shown in this screenshot.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>I too am seeing the Coors ad. Attached a screen shot I hope. Since all other ads are photo related, I suspect this is being slipped in. I am not seeing problems with the page loading though when it is displayed.<br>

<img src="file:///C:/Users/reprint/Desktop/coorsad1.jpg" alt="" /> <img src="file:///C:/Users/reprint/Desktop/coorsad1.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<div></div>

Josh,

I like the idea of separation. Perhaps those entering the critique "stream" could have a probationary period. It would have to be cast in a positive light like an "in training" icon. Perhaps a limit to 2 or 3 critiques a day to prevent the flybys during that period. I suppose having someone review their comments would be too burdensome to qualify to have the limit lifted but having it lifted after a period of time would hopefully have pushed them to think about what they are doing.

I think there truly are two groups of people, those who are hear to have fun and play with the ratings, and those who want to learn and improve. Having groups with two different needs almost begs for two different playgrounds. Thanks Marc for starting such a positive thread.

I knew it would get Josh's attention. A huge amount of work has gone into the site and he has fielded all the criticism while the work was being done. So its time for the thanks to be voiced and the glasses to be raised.

I have to say i am very upset with the server move, Josh. Now i can reach the

site immediately and even have pages load faster than i can get a beer from the

fridge. I am getting a headrush seeing photo after photo after photo. This is

more excitement than i can bear! I am in danger of knocking over my beer.

Also whats with this clean interface? Why cant we have it a nice purple

background with yellow text?

And what ever happened to my request for a category for Taenia proglottid photos

in sepia?

I tell you service today isn't what it used to be. Back in the day, I could take

a photo of a daisy with my Land camera and Bob's your uncle.

Now the eloquent art of complaint writing is in danger of becoming extinct. Such

are the terrible times we live in

You know there is the old joke about a patient that tells the doc that when they poke themselves in the leg, it hurts. The doc says .. well stop poking it.

 

Maybe its time to stop poking :)

John,

 

I know that this is something birders use a lot to identify species (matching calls to photos and birds) but photo.net appeals to a more diverse set of photographers.

Shea, TRP are the top rated photos.

Your portfolio is quite diverse. I find it helps if you pick a style or subject matter and critique those with the same style or subject matter. You are more likely to get feedback.

That was a Paint Shop Pro image which Ican view when i saved it on my computer and changed the extension to jpg.

 

Craig,

You need to save as .jpg file not as a paint shop pro native file.

Josh,

If you read the Wired article linked above, you are in good company .. meaning many major sites have had this issue. It is hard to detect because

"The malware is apparently being disguised as a Flash file that has a redirect function encrypted in the file, so that when publishers upload the ad file the malware is not detectable. Once deployed on a site, the Flash file launches the malicious redirects, perhaps triggered at certain times or in certain locations."

 

good luck nailing it

Lex, with firefox i see the ads. just not with IE

Josh,

Lex is right. That will kill your revenue given the majority have IE. Only seen the pop up ad once last night with Firefox. Hasn't reoccured.

There are ads breaking through that I do not think are intended to be shown on the site. The anti spyware one is surely one. I am sure Josh will prod the ad company back into compliance. It is the weekend so usually the fix comes the following working week.

Nice post, Lex, one message is don't try to be a generalist. Pick a subject and learn it well. Found objects like a building do require time and a novel angle but some like wild animals require knowledge of behavior, habitat and luck. Completely different set of skills needed. So perhaps rating random photos is very superficial. If you can't recognize the skill and quality, can you rate in a way that helps the photographer develop or perhaps even more important can you critique their photos to help them develop? I gave up rating ages ago but i try to comment where i feel i have something to contribute and look forward to the same from others.

 

As far as philosophers rating, they may like the heavily photoshopped stuff, relativists may want to see different versions of the same photo and nihilists will rate everything a 0 on the basis that none of it is any good anyways :)

 

Peter re screen resolutions. Looking at statistics from my websites over last year, 13% are at 800x600 with a very international audience whereas with US focused sites that goes down to 5%. 1024x768 hold about 50% for both with the rest spread out across the big spectrum of resolutions we have these days. Sign up for google analytics and you can get all that information.

 

Peter

Update on pic.playcomet.net. As of today, I see a new ad on each page but only one. It is for another Chinese site possibly owned by the same person but i wasn't able to determine that. That MPCSTAR.com site has Google ads but I doubt those can be targeted at this point. This is probably the end of the line for the moment.

In summary, pic.playcomet.com has been pushed to host within China and no longer has google ads (which are context dependent and profitable). They are running a single ad for a Chinese site. At this point they are driven within their borders with a less profitable setup.

As China modernizes, their copyright laws will have to follow and then sites like this will have to find somewhere else to hide.

Thanks to everyone for their time and effort.

Dave,

While I respect your choice, choosing to email or fax a DMCA to either the host or adsense takes a couple of minutes of your time, nothing like 20 hours. I continue to post etc as I always do but I also file a DMCA where appropriate.

For me that thread was about showing people how they can make a difference with very little effort and still enjoy posting their photos and getting on with their lives. I posted the draft DMCA so people in the future can easily just fill it in and email the host or Google.

 

When there is something simple and straightforward and doesn't take much time and could potentially send a message or at least make it harder for people like this, then why not make the effort?

 

I hope this experience has shown people that they do not have to choose between having no images online or not bothering at all with who does what. There is a happy medium and it will not stop you from enjoying your photography or your interactions online.

Patrick, you are a star! (spongebob reference?) :)

New contact from GoDaddy:

Dear Barry Goggin,

 

We are not hosting this site. We are the domain name registrar only. We have no access to, nor jurisdiction over the content on this site. The hosting provider is the company responsible for the registered name servers available from a WHOIS lookup. Please submit your complaint to them based on their AUP. The name server information is listed below for your convenience.

 

 

Name Server: DNS.BIZCN.COM

Name Server: DNS.CNMSN.NET

 

 

 

Thank you for contacting Go Daddy.

 

 

Copyright Claims Department

GoDaddy.com

CopyrightClaims@GoDaddy.com

 

On the good side:

Hello Barry,

 

We have received your DMCA complaint dated February 13, 2008. We are

currently reviewing the complaint and will contact you when we have

completed processing the request.

 

We appreciate your patience during this time.

 

Regards,

The Google AdSense Team

 

Let it ride and see how it goes.

Oh i forgot one other reason godaddy might have reactivated their account, from GoDaddy:

 

If the site owner indicates they are ready to remove the infringing content, we will re-activate the hosting account in order to allow that to happen.

 

We will see

Interesting. pic.playcomet.com is back up and ip is 72.167.47.67 which is GoDaddy again. GoDaddy is not allowed to put back up the website till a counterclaim is made and then only 10 days after the counterclaim. I will follow up with them tomorrow when i have time out of interest.

pic1.playcomet.com as Bob pointed out is hosted in china but is very slow. pic1 is not indexed by the major search engines which is why they want pic.playcomet.com back.

 

For pic1 i get

% [whois.apnic.net node-1]

% Whois data copyright terms http://www.apnic.net/db/dbcopyright.html

 

inetnum: 222.64.0.0 - 222.73.255.255

netname: CHINANET-SH

descr: CHINANET shanghai province network

descr: China Telecom

descr: No1,jin-rong Street

descr: Beijing 100032

country: CN

admin-c: CH93-AP

tech-c: XI5-AP

changed: **********@apnic.net 20031024

mnt-by: APNIC-HM

mnt-lower: MAINT-CHINANET-SH

mnt-routes: MAINT-CHINANET-SH

remarks: This object can only modify by APNIC hostmaster

remarks: If you wish to modify this object details please

remarks: send email to **********@apnic.net with your

remarks: organisation account name in the subject line.

status: ALLOCATED PORTABLE

source: APNIC

 

person: Chinanet Hostmaster

nic-hdl: CH93-AP

e-mail: *********@ns.chinanet.cn.net

address: No.31 ,jingrong street,beijing

address: 100032

phone: +86-10-58501724

fax-no: +86-10-58501724

country: CN

changed: ******@cndata.com 20070416

mnt-by: MAINT-CHINANET

source: APNIC

 

person: Wu Xiao Li

address: Room 805,61 North Si Chuan Road,Shanghai,200085,PRC

country: CN

phone: +86-21-63630562

fax-no: +86-21-63630566

e-mail: ********@mail.online.sh.cn

nic-hdl: XI5-AP

mnt-by: MAINT-CHINANET-SH

changed: ********@mail.online.sh.cn 20010510

source: APNIC

 

If they move everything to the chinese server, good for them because its very slow. Keeping them off US servers and canceling their adsense account would keep me happy. then they are not making money off our photos.