I have had a couple of my faves bail the duck. They both complained (and some that didn't bail that something was screwy with the updater. Now I have not had any problems with it personally but I have never updated anywhere else. Hell without DD I don't have the skills to do webcomic.My suggestion is that maybe the adds need to come off the updater page. Is it the problem? don't know but it's kinda like finding an add for Viagra in a broom closet.It probably dosn't belong there and is causing more harm than good. Please keep in mind that I am computer illiterate and have no idea what I'm talking about. So be gentle whan you flame me

I'm not going to flame you

I'm not really sure how taking the ads off the page updating page would make a difference though. They're the same ads that are on the rest of the site- and they can be blocked easily with Firefox's AdBlock- I just don't see how the ads would interfere with updating pages when they don't interfere with regular site browsing. :S

Maybe there's something technical I'm missing though...

What's so screwy about the updater page? The only problem I've had is the image bug.

But, you are right. People are bailing, heck even I've got to the point that I've grown tired of drunkduck constantly breaking down in some form or other. Yes, I know the admins will come with their "oh, every site has problems", but drunkduck is constantly having problems, in some form or other. And yes, quite a few times the flash ad-banners cause slow load times or even causing pages to crash.

There comes a point when you are putting your blood, sweat and tears into a project, you get annoyed when something goes wrong. It really pisses you off when you see the host site keeps screwing up and making what you've done look so bad.
Yeah, I know dd is a free site, but it comes down to a point that I am now in a position to be fine and okay with paying $8 a month to a dedicated site host where I can fix any problems if they arise on my end, and get things fixed if they go wrong at their end, instead of relying on someone in a position of contacting the site's tech, to post, eventually (if the stink gets smelly and loud enough in the forum), that things will get fixed if or when they can get round to it.

Don't get me wrong, drunkduck's been an awesome site, but lately, it's starting to show signs that some work desperately needs doing on getting things back to full working order.

You don't need to take the ads away, just vet them and only allow those that fit the site.
Ads for other comics, publications and other comic, comic movie and other related sites is fine. But when you get crush center, TMZ, Viagra, Vagacil and other non-related sites, then it makes the site look like it's been overtaken by Angelfire, FreeWebs, AOL or Lycos free site hosting standards.

Also there have been flash ads that seem to have coding that sometimes screws the loading of the site. And yes, this has happened in the past when one little ad banner brought drunkduck to it's collective knees for over a week.

And yes, if the ads get vetted, then it would avoid adbanners for Girls Gone Wild, Viagra, Dog porn or other stuff from ever popping up on the screens and making the place look more than a little slap-dash.

Yeah yeah, I love people trot out the old "use flashblock" line. That's fine and dandy for us, but for our readers and visitors who find us via the web, who don't know about flashblock or are not even using Firefox, then that line just becomes very much like a broken pencil: Pointless.

Well, you've really summarized DD's problem here. The admins 'trot out' the adblock solution because it's something immediate that can make a difference. We basically have no control over ads or anything like that. We can report things like undesirable ads, and Platinum is nice enough to listen to us sometimes, but they also want DD to make them money. In business terms, I doubt a couple annoyed users are worth more than ad revenue, but they still try to keep us happy.

We would vet ads if we could- but I think in the past we were told that the ad system DD is in doesn't let you vet ads ahead of time, only reject them once they've come into rotation on the site (I don't think they have a list of all the possible ads they can go through, I think they have to see it on the site). I think that is made more difficult because different regions see different ads... Still, you'd think they'd have someone checking that kind of thing?

Advertising is the bane of the internet, and for now Plat sees ads as the only way for DD to bring in income. I think we all agree that the ads should at least be site-suitable and not mess up page loading. I'm not really sure what to suggest to Plat other than that they pay more attention though- assuming it's that simple for them.

True, Skool. But it would be that simple to Platinum. It's just they're far too busy thinking about breaking into Hollywood. But before they should do that, they should be looking after their field of growing possible talent.
They need to hire permenant site and server staff, to keep things running smoothly.
Platinum are so busy jumping from A to Z, without actually taking care of what is happening between B to Y. They need to care about the bigger picture, instead of trying to jump on the comic book movie bandwagon.

If they can't look after and maintain their property, then how can they expect new talent to grow and become viable for IP expansion.

I'm sure Hollywood studios will never take Platinum seriously if they show them drunkduck and the state it keeps falling into. They need to finish this site, fix the problems and sort their crap out before they start getting big ideas of grandeur and trying to swim with the big fish like DC and Marvel.
The big labels have enough comic properties to keep Hollywood satisfied for the foreseeable future, and to be frank Platinum really holds nothing that would make Hollywood sit up and pay interest, apart from some passing "ooh that's a nice idea that we can take and use at a later date" sort of thing.

Skool, I know you and the other admins must get as frustrated and as pissed as the rest of us members when things go wrong, and I know you guys must move heaven and earth to get Platinum to do anything. So, I'm sure you'd wish Platium would either hire people to help keep things in working order or sell Drunkduck to a company that would actually give a crap about the site and the talent that this site has, instead of chasing Hollywood dreams.

Except, there's nothing like that out there. Not with everything DD has to offer, at least. If only we could get about 3,000 more people like you, then we could do what you wanted. But the harsh truth is that people are on a free site and if we charged, they wouldn't be here, and there would be less of an audience all around. I can tell you right now that I probably would NOT pay 8 bucks a month to stay here, even with one-to-one service.

If I want to watch a video on TBS, I have to watch a viagra commercial. Don't even get me started on magazines, TV, or, yes, even other websites. Ads are EVERYWHERE. The reality is that the ads keep the site (and any site) running. As far as I know, it's never stopped people from reading. Most of them know that this is the exchange.

Again, I have said there nothing wrong with the ads. That is fine and dandy, and very acceptable being that dd is a free-site.
What I am saying is that Platinum needs to hire or contract someone to weed out the ads that are not suitable for this site and remove those that cause page loading errors, page crashes, etc.

I'm sure you'd be pretty pissed if you had kids or family members watching TV during the day, when WHAM! Here's adverts for Girls Gone Wild, Girls Going Donkey-Punch Drunk, Old Feltching Grannies Getting Fisted, etc. You know that sort of thing would be very unacceptable.
The same should be for drunkduck, being as this site has young members and readers. If the ads fitted the site's feel, then that would work perfectly. But I don't think many of those on this site need Viagra, porn, plastic surgery or links to malware and spyware infested sites like Crush Center and Get AFree Ipod.

I mean, this place is not Myspace, and so deserves not to look like it.

I sound like a scratched record when I say this, but, I have found drunkduck, this past year, a wonderful site, full of great talent, writers and artists, and it's a shame when their work gets hampered, lost, and messed up by poor site maintainance.

Volte has been doing such a sterling job keeping this site together, along with you admins, but I feel Platinum is in no rush to keep things well ran, or pay anyone to do so.
Trust me, spANG, you and the other admins deserve to be paid by Platinum Comics for keeping this place held together. And this site deserves to be at a level where any problem can be dealt with by a decent site staff.
I know you guys go through a lot of crap whenever something goes wrong, and you come out on top. But, if Platinum wants to attract decent well paying avertisers, then they need to get this place finished, fixed and look like it's worth advertising on by big name comic and gaming industry advertisers, not some two-bit scam/ malware infesting website, back alley hucksters or webporn merchants.

Totally unrelated, but mouseover the phoenix uni ad. it says "test" on the alt. for that long, it's been there as a test. honestly.

Well, now Volte's gone and it seems they haven't hired anyone to replace him. I love DD but even I'm starting to worry that the few annoying problems here are going to slowly spread out into other areas if this place isn't maintained properly. It'd be sad if after happily using this site for years it becomes unusable because the company that bought it can't be bothered to take care of it.

And I think you are over-reacting and exaggerating. The only "porn ad" we had (girls gone wild) was taken care of, and you know it.

Crush Center ads? seriouslly? Because you can't help but click on them? They're HARMLESS. Stupid, but harmless.

Never had a viagra ad, ever. Although there are plenty of ads on TV for viagra, valtrex, and plastic surgery at any time of the day.

All of those ads are stupid, and only stupid people click on them. but if they make money for the site, I could care less.

As far as "ad that are crashing the site" I have NEVER seen them. Report them to us and we'll check it out. We aren't going to take your word for it though. People have a habit of blowing things out of proportion.

Find me when there's a real ad to complain about. This is all unnecessary whining as far as I'm concerned.

I used the Girls Gone Wild as an example of some of the ads that have been known to slip the net.

I mention the Crush Center banner because it's simply an annoying ad banner, that bounces and flashes on the screen and really makes the page look like a sub-par early Myspace layout.
And, yes, one pathetic little flash ad-banner did bring dd into meltdown in June last year for at least a week. Volte found there was some botched coding in one of the ad-banners that caused pages to not load.
And it still happens, but with less frequency. Volte did a sterling job keeping such problems at bay.

But I see you'd rather go on the attack and say I'm some brain-dead dullard who stupidly clicks on flashing adbanners. I don't.
But it's nice to see after I've actually been complementary to you and the site, that it gets repaid with a nice kick in the teeth and a big F*ck you. Generally you'd expect that sort of attitude from Tim Buckley over at Ctrl+Alt+Del. But what can one say?

I never have anything against ad-banners, I know they bring this site revenue, which is much needed, as it seems Platinum seems unwilling to pay out to keep this site maintained.
All I am saying is how about ad banners that fit the genre of this site? That's a suggestion, not a whine.

The fact that it's the only thing close to porn (NOT a pornographic ad, mind you) brought you to a statement of saying DD has porn ad on its site. I'm sorry, maybe I misinterpreted that, but it seemed fair to say that DD has NEVER had a porn ad on it even though you say so.

That said. The Admins SCREAMED when the Girls Gone Wild ad appeared. It was taken out over 3 months ago.

But the thing is - IT DOESN'T. It doesn't jump around and that word balloon appears occasionally saying someone has a crush on you. The ad is no more annoying than any other ad (I'm looking at a resolve ad that's animating more right now).

Again, exaggeration. It was never a week. And okay, it was a fixed. So what is the problem here? Doom and gloom because you don't think anyone will fix it now? Let's cross that bridge when we come to it, if that even happens.

Hey, I never said that YOU would be the type of person that WOULD click on it. I call the people that actually DO stupid. I actually think you are quite clever, and I read GEEKS all the time. But I will say it's a little hypocritical to hear this coming from someone with a My Space link and scantly clad women ON their own comic.

Things that seem are not always what they are. There are people working in the BG of this thing, you know. The site isn't simply "running itself now" as a lot of people seem to think.

All I am saying is that ads like that don't deter readers or detract from a comic. Most people just ignore them. Why don't these ads fit the audience? Everyone has lives outside of comics. Some people clean their carpets, stay at the super 8, eat pizza hut pizza, and use TiVo. Heck, some even have genital herpes (although I will admit, I feel uneasy seeing that ad).

I see we both kinda misunderstood each other. Sorry about that.

Yeah, the Crush Center banner is flashing and dancing right now. It's the one that keeps saying "you have 1 new message from Los Angeles". It's adblocked in Firefox, but when you see it in IE or Safari, it keeps bouncing and dancing and flashing. It's like those annoying flash ads which wanted you to guess who the rapper is and win an i-pod or PS3.

Damn it, Spang you owe me a keyboard for the gential herpes crack.

Yeah, I have a Myspace for the comic, as I have to whore it out promotion wise. besides, if it works for Matt Busch and some of the other artists, then it has to be worth a crack.
Granted, I'm not keen on Myspace, but it's free advertising for the strip, and it was through it TAPS gave me their blessing for their cameos in the strip.
It's like interns; they may be ugly and cheap, but they get things done without pay. :D

And, hey, you can't have a Geek based strip without the Slave Leia references.

Oooooooookay are you guys friends again or shall I avoid this thread?

Spang's a fellow Doctor Who fan, how could I not be friends with him.

I still don't understand why so many American adults are crazy for a British kid's show.

It may be perceived as a "kids show" , but the writing is still...
You know what? I don't need to explain myself here. Go to the media forum. :P

Annnyway, yeah. Nerfherder, I have since seen the "shaking" ad, so I do believe you now, hehe. I still don't think it's any worse than any other ads though.

Skool, may I remind you, I'm British. I only live in Los Angeles.

that jumping ad (along with other annoying ads) promoted me to install adblock in my firefox. I normally don't mind them, choosing to ignore them instead. Once it got to the point of doing countless refreshes before I could actually update my comic I broke down and installed adblock and haven't had any trouble since. I remember reporting an ad that made firefox (not ie) act like an alert coming from my system tray, I still have the pictures on my imageshack folder. here and here I couldn't get the little popup box to reappear, but I can describe it. FF went way down small near the clock, the exact size of the update box (before they changed it to word balloons) and said something like you have 126 errors on your computer, ok/cancel. Luckily I didn't click it but still, any computer noob who is noob would have clicked ok then who knows what would have happened. I was browsing magical misfits. Admins were going crazy trying to find it, and it soon got removed.

Course, because dd is still a little slow, and has been going downhill, I broke down and made a mirror.... I had the site for a while, was just planning on doing additional stuff on the comic, hosting my books, ect. but now I am looking into . . . shall we say alternative uses for my website. Select people know about it and if anyone wishes to know more pq me or visit the mirror. I cannot say any more here.

The add I really hate is the smiley one that talks to you.

Or those ads that cover the whole screen briefly before moving away.

Recently DD keeps wanting to download data from calvinchow.com and everytime it does the site hangs. Well it did till I added calvinchow.com to my adblock.