Website Mass-Bans Users Who Mention AdBlock

An anonymous reader writes to recommend TechDirt's take on the dustup over at the Escapist, which recently tried on banning users from their forums for the mere mention of AdBlock. In the thread in which the trouble started, a user complained that an ad for Time Warner Cable was slowing down his computer. Users who responded to the poster by suggesting "get Firefox and AdBlock" found themselves banned from the forums. The banned parties didn't even need to admit they used AdBlock, they simply had to recommend it as a solution to a troublesome ad. The forum's recently amended posting guidelines do indeed confirm that the folks at the Escapist believe that giving browsing preference advice is a "non forgivable" offense. After a lot of user protest, the forum unbanned the transgressors but heaped on the guilt.

Re:They pay the bills, so STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine, I will. Luckily there are sites like Slashdot which do fine without ads.

What happen???

[FyRE666]

Hey, where the hell did my previous reply about Digg go?!!

Rules of Ad Blocking

[gzipped_tar]

The first rule of ad blocking is you DON'T talk about ad blocking!

Re:They pay the bills, so STFU

[Spad]

He's back! [theonion.com]

Re:I don't understand the fanboy mindset

[couchslug]

Apple syndrome? (runs)

Re:They pay the bills, so STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

"I believe one of two things. Either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all. Personally, I lean more towards the side of unlimited rights, which means I have the right to do anything I please. But if I do something you don't like, I believe you have the right to kill me. So where you going to find a fairer fucking deal than that, huh?"

(George Carlin. RIP)

Re:Way to go - 'criminialise' your users!

[L4t3r4lu5]

You should absolutely not use AdBlock, the wonderful advertisement blocking addon for FireFox [mozilla.org] and Google Chrome [google.com], to block irritating and obnoxious advertisements when browsing the "The Escapist" website!

Problem solved.

Re:Find a new site

[suffix tree monkey]

Mod parent up! I can't, without modpoints for months after ticking that checkbox.

Re: = belonging to a group

[martin-boundary]

Sadly slashdot is not immune of this either. It's gotten a bit better these days, but in the old days there was this one editor, JonKatz, who was treated just like a god here. Whenever he wrote some article, it was like everybody worshipped his words, you know what I mean? Serious groupthink! It was a bit creepy, actually.

Re:They pay the bills, so STFU

[Kagura]

Zero Punctuation did a piece on this recently. Here's transcript:

Ananonymousreaderwritestorecommend TechDirt'stakeonthedustupoverattheEscapist, whichrecentlytriedonbanningusersfromtheirforums forthemerementionofAdBlock. Inthethreadinwhichthetroublestarted, ausercomplainedthat anadforTimeWarnerCablewasslowingdownhiscomputer. Userswhorespondedtothe posterbysuggesting"getFirefoxandAdBlock"foundthemselvesbannedfromtheforums. Thebannedparties didn'tevenneedtoadmittheyusedAdBlock,theysimplyhadtorecommenditasasolutiontoatroublesomead. Theforum'srecentlyamended postingguidelinesdoindeed confirmthatthefolksat theEscapistbelievethatgiving browsingpreferenceadviceisa"nonforgivable"offense. Afteralotofuserprotest, theforumunbannedthe transgressorsbutheapedontheguilt. AND THEN THEY ALL HAD LEMON MERANGE PIES.

For the truly anti-punctuation

[jabberw0k]

Nonsense, there is still punctuation -- and capital letters! -- in that. What you want is http://antipunctuation.com/ [antipunctuation.com] for no spaces, no lower-case, truly zero punctuation.

Re:They pay the bills, so STFU

[lul_wat]

Today I used a computer without adblock for the first time in months
I stopped at stared at the ads without realising they were ads.
They were so alien to me I couldn't comprehend why there was a picture of a fat woman on the screen which was ttoally irrelevant to what I was reading

Re:Find a new site

[RichiH]

Heh, just like pretending to take away a cats food when it refuses to eat :)