We have a vested interest in — and make our own — improvements to the user experience on SourceForge. After all, we are at well over one million downloads (and growing every day) from our project page PostBooks ERP, accounting, CRM by xTuple.
Sharing this article on "SourceForge’s Ongoing Effort to Eliminate Misleading Ads" which explains how the open source community can help make their own experience a better one.
SourceForge is home to over 400,000 Open Source projects. Our site and our work to support software development projects is funded in part through advertising. We’d like to give you an update on our advertising initiatives to date and discuss what’s coming next.
Here’s what we’ve been doing to eliminate misleading ads
In November 2013, we launched our BlockThis initiative to remove misleading and confusing ads. For example, ads that appear on our download page and feature a big green download button, which clearly seeks to draw users away from the legitimate download flow. Since starting this initiative, we’ve discovered that approximately 95% of the few dozen ad complaints we’ve received have been legitimate, resulting in the removal of these offending ads. We plan to continue our BlockThis initiative and our work with advertising partners to identify and prevent misleading ads.We’re taking a new approach to unwanted Web space ads
We’re extending this program to include advertising that appears on our Project Web. While we had routed these complaints to project teams in the past, certain recent use of the Project Web service has triggered ad concerns, resource abuses, and Chrome security issues. For these reasons, we will now take action directly.
Here’s how you can help!
If you see a confusing ad, drop us an email at blockthis@sourceforge.net providing a screenshot and, more importantly, the full link to the ad. To copy it: Right click on the link and choose “Copy Link Location” in FireFox; “Copy Shortcut” in Internet Explorer; “Copy Link” in Safari; and, “Copy Link Address” in Chrome. We’ll be sure to review all requests and, if we agree with your complaint, we will take immediate action.
Article originally appeared here.
BC Wilson
With the explosive movement of cloud strategies, BC was promoted to director of cloud services in 2014. Previously, he oversaw operations and hiring of managers for critical lines of business for the Product Management Group, driving return on investment (ROI) for all xTuple products and managed ongoing engineering and development of the xTuple Classic GUI product, including all customer-sponsored enhancements, as well as the xTuple Web Portal product. Prior to xTuple, BC was a senior product manager for Trader Electronic Media, where he directed the development of websites for the classified advertising market. He has also worked as a partner in a web design agency, and a content producer for the Road Runner and Starband broadband service providers. BC began his career as a writer and editor for the Ziff Davis computer magazines.
He holds a B.A. in Theology from Georgetown University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Old Dominion University. In 2012, BC was appointed as a commissioner of Bicycle and Pedestrian Trails in Norfolk, Virginia.