Thread: Dumping the banner ads
Folks, SInce someone on Advocacy pointed out that Marc switched the banner ads to a mysql-based platform while we weren't looking, I think it's time to raise the issue of dumping the banner ads. I've long regarded them as unprofessional-looking and inappropriate for a community, NPO-supported project. I was planning to wait until we had our Donor Policy and Donor Listings in place, but the little "expose" on -advocacy kind of forces the issue. Marc, could you please acquaint us with the outstanding obligations with the banner ads? Whom have we promised what? Who will we owe refunds to? -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
> -----Original Message----- > From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus > Sent: 10 May 2006 07:19 > To: PostgreSQL WWW > Subject: [pgsql-www] Dumping the banner ads > > Marc, could you please acquaint us with the outstanding > obligations with the banner ads? Whom have we promised what? > Who will we owe refunds to? I cannot speak for the paid ones, but we have always offered our mirror providers a free ad - there certainly should be a few of those still in the system. We might find we cheese off a few of them by removing the ads. /D
On Wed, 10 May 2006, Dave Page wrote: > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org >> [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus >> Sent: 10 May 2006 07:19 >> To: PostgreSQL WWW >> Subject: [pgsql-www] Dumping the banner ads >> >> Marc, could you please acquaint us with the outstanding >> obligations with the banner ads? Whom have we promised what? >> Who will we owe refunds to? > > I cannot speak for the paid ones, but we have always offered our mirror > providers a free ad - there certainly should be a few of those still in > the system. We might find we cheese off a few of them by removing the > ads. Right now, we have active: CommandPrompt - Mirror/Free EnterpriseDB - Expires June 18th ExtendDB - Expires May 15th Navicat - Expires July 4th Pervasive - Mirror/Free PgAdmin - OSS Project/Free Sam's Publishing - Exchange program for 'Show Books' Navicat runs until July 4th, everyone else expires earlier then that ... so we can scheduale dumping them on the 4th of July ... Personally, the use of MySQL vs PostgreSQL for banner ads is 'using the right tool for the job' ... Banner ads aren't "data integrity heavy", who cares if you lose a click or impression here or there in the stats? Just to put things into perspective ... the banners used to run on a 10 line, homegrown script that did nothing more then keep track of # of impressions ... pg_autovacuum ran almost continuously on the one table that did "UPDATE counter SET cnt = cnt + 1 WHERE banner_id = #" ... and the counter table was purely "banner_id, cnt" ... switching over to phpAdsNew allows ppl login to an interface and see extended statistics like countries ppl are clicking in from, etc ... and performing better then the '10 line script' did ... As for Josh's comment about "switching to a mysql platform while we weren't looking" ... nobody ever asked what the backend was ... everyone was complaining that the banners weren't loading fast enough, so I fixed that situation *while* extending the functionality of the system so that more detailed statistics were being maintained ... and I wasn't going to lie about what we were using ... Matteo asked what we were using on -advocacy, and, IMHO, it would have been suspicious if, after you pointedly asked me to confirm, the query went un-answered ... PostgreSQL is a steady workhorse, but there are at least 2 things that I've found it doesn't do well: banner ads and bayesian database :( ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
> >> Marc, could you please acquaint us with the outstanding > obligations > >> with the banner ads? Whom have we promised what? > >> Who will we owe refunds to? > > > > I cannot speak for the paid ones, but we have always offered our > > mirror providers a free ad - there certainly should be a > few of those > > still in the system. We might find we cheese off a few of them by > > removing the ads. > > Right now, we have active: > > CommandPrompt - Mirror/Free > EnterpriseDB - Expires June 18th > ExtendDB - Expires May 15th > Navicat - Expires July 4th > Pervasive - Mirror/Free > PgAdmin - OSS Project/Free > Sam's Publishing - Exchange program for 'Show Books' > > Navicat runs until July 4th, everyone else expires earlier > then that ... > so we can scheduale dumping them on the 4th of July ... Seems reasonable to me. I doubt the mirror sites in question, being those that they are, would pull their mirrors because of this. //Magnus
> -----Original Message----- > From: Marc G. Fournier [mailto:scrappy@postgresql.org] > Sent: 10 May 2006 13:24 > To: Dave Page > Cc: Josh Berkus; PostgreSQL WWW > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Dumping the banner ads > > Right now, we have active: > > CommandPrompt - Mirror/Free > EnterpriseDB - Expires June 18th > ExtendDB - Expires May 15th > Navicat - Expires July 4th > Pervasive - Mirror/Free > PgAdmin - OSS Project/Free > Sam's Publishing - Exchange program for 'Show Books' Didn't realise there were so few now. /D
Dave Page wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org
>> [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus
>> Sent: 10 May 2006 07:19
>> To: PostgreSQL WWW
>> Subject: [pgsql-www] Dumping the banner ads
>>
>> Marc, could you please acquaint us with the outstanding
>> obligations with the banner ads? Whom have we promised what?
>> Who will we owe refunds to?
>
> I cannot speak for the paid ones, but we have always offered our mirror
> providers a free ad - there certainly should be a few of those still in
> the system. We might find we cheese off a few of them by removing the
> ads.
ALthough it is important that we keep our obligations, it does seem odd
that the mirror would ask the requirement. Most mirrors will mirror FOSS
projects for free...
Hmmm... that is usually FTP sites though. Are we talking about WWW?
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
>
> Right now, we have active:
>
> CommandPrompt - Mirror/Free
Well I have mentioned in the past we don't require this. Of course if we
keep them I want one :) but otherwise you have no problem from us.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
> -----Original Message----- > From: Joshua D. Drake [mailto:jd@commandprompt.com] > Sent: 10 May 2006 16:05 > To: Dave Page > Cc: Josh Berkus; PostgreSQL WWW > Subject: Re: [pgsql-www] Dumping the banner ads > > Dave Page wrote: > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- > >> From: pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org > >> [mailto:pgsql-www-owner@postgresql.org] On Behalf Of Josh Berkus > >> Sent: 10 May 2006 07:19 > >> To: PostgreSQL WWW > >> Subject: [pgsql-www] Dumping the banner ads > >> > >> Marc, could you please acquaint us with the outstanding > obligations > >> with the banner ads? Whom have we promised what? > >> Who will we owe refunds to? > > > > I cannot speak for the paid ones, but we have always offered our > > mirror providers a free ad - there certainly should be a > few of those > > still in the system. We might find we cheese off a few of them by > > removing the ads. > > ALthough it is important that we keep our obligations, it > does seem odd that the mirror would ask the requirement. Most > mirrors will mirror FOSS projects for free... > > Hmmm... that is usually FTP sites though. Are we talking about WWW? We have always offered them to both, but clearly many are no longer there anyway. Regards, Dave.
Marc, Dave, etc. BTW, my plan is to have a set of static credits for mirror sponsors somewhere, probably on the "Sponsors" page. I can't imagine that any of the mirror sponsors would be unhappy with that. > > Sam's Publishing - Exchange program for 'Show Books' Ah, right. Speaking of which, we never *received* these books. Who's the contact for Sams? Oh, and July 4th is fine with me. That gives us some time to argue about how to list sponsors. ;-) -- Josh Berkus Aglio Database Solutions San Francisco
On Wed, 10 May 2006, Josh Berkus wrote: > Ah, right. Speaking of which, we never *received* these books. Who's > the contact for Sams? What I have is: kit.kemper@pearsoned.com Would you like me to disable them temporarily, while you deal with the issue? ---- Marc G. Fournier Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org) Email: scrappy@hub.org Yahoo!: yscrappy ICQ: 7615664
Marc, > Would you like me to disable them temporarily, while you deal with the > issue? No, I don't think so. I'll bet we just missed a connection somewhere. -- --Josh Josh Berkus PostgreSQL @ Sun San Francisco
Josh Berkus wrote:
> Marc, Dave, etc.
>
> BTW, my plan is to have a set of static credits for mirror sponsors somewhere,
> probably on the "Sponsors" page. I can't imagine that any of the mirror
> sponsors would be unhappy with that.
>
>>> Sam's Publishing - Exchange program for 'Show Books'
>
> Ah, right. Speaking of which, we never *received* these books. Who's the
> contact for Sams?
>
> Oh, and July 4th is fine with me. That gives us some time to argue about how
> to list sponsors. ;-)
Well mirror sponsors, can just get a textual link (that is how we do
archives,www and searcH)....
And then just have another link under a contribution page of some sort.
Joshua D. Drake
--
=== The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. ===
Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240
Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997
http://www.commandprompt.com/
On Wednesday 10 May 2006 08:24, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> Sam's Publishing - Exchange program for 'Show Books'
>
Could osmeone share the details of this program with me? I might be able to
work out a similar arrangement with Apress depending on the details.
--
Robert Treat
Build A Brighter Lamp :: Linux Apache {middleware} PostgreSQL
Robert, > Could osmeone share the details of this program with me? I might be able to > work out a similar arrangement with Apress depending on the details. > Actually, you can't, since we're eliminating the banner ads. But what happened is that Pearson offered to ship us a box and a half of Korry's book in exchange for a banner ad. They did this in 2002 as well, and we gave away those books at LWE-SF and at JPUG. I'll get in touch with Kit and ship the books so that we can have them for upcomming conferences. --Josh