User blog:RRabbit42/External Sponsor Links

Yesterday, Wikia started automatically adding a new section to each page called the "External Sponsor Links". You will see this if you have not signed into your account (or don't have one) and you will see it if you have "Show all advertisements" checked in your Preferences ("User profile" tab, "Site Layouts" section). It says the following:

* Click here! Buy a sponsored link and description for your website on this page. Act quickly, the few sponsorship slots sell out fast!

You cannot edit this section of the page. It is displayed only. If you click on the "Click here" link, it takes you to the page where you can buy one or more Sponsored Links for the page or the entire wiki, or a banner ad for the top of the page.

Wikia is using this to increase their advertising revenue. We get to use the wiki for free, but they have to pay their employees and pay for the servers, buildings and electicity that run all the wikis, so I don't mind them adding this feature.

However, they didn't tell anyone ahead of time that they were going to do this (as far as I know). Given how many people thought the end of the world was coming with the new Wikia/Oasis skin, they probably didn't want to.

Since we don't have any control over this, I will have to ask Wikia a few questions about what to do when we spot an objectionable ad. This wouldn't be the same the typical spam that shows up since people have to pay for their ad/sponsored link and they have to provide an e-mail address that Wikia can contact them at. Rather, it would be for things that are not appropriate for this wiki and/or are in bad taste.

If you spot something like that, leave a comment here with a link to the page and a brief description of which what the problem is. When I hear back from Wikia, I will post their answers to my questions. 17:10, December 4, 2010 (UTC)