This is overkill. If you are asuming adblockers will remove anything with the id "adTeaser" (as per the code), just use that to display the message! No need for the "setTimeout" or even Javascript:
<div id="adTeaser" style="position: absolute; z-index: 10000; ...">
Please turn on your <a href="https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#ublock-origin">ad blocker</a> to continue browsing this site
</div>
Sure, my mistake. Flip that "position:absolute" for "position:fixed". Note how I wrote "z-index:..." to imply an element covering the whole page.
Also note that activating your adblock does not disable the message in the OP, you'd also need to refresh the page since you are effectively removing the body.
So if I use a standards-compliant browser, I won't be able to see a site that uses this. So I guess I just won't. I also don't visit sites that run annoying ads. Congratulations on being annoying and not even getting money for it I guess.
I don't use an adblocker because I don't like feeling like I'm taking something I'm not entitled to.
I don't like most of the ads I see, but I understand why they're there and that they're the reason why I don't have to get out my credit card to visit the sites I like.
Edit: Didn't realize that not being offended by ads was such a controversial opinion here.
that's interesting, i do use an adblocker because i don't like companies with business models oriented on surveillance and building profiles of my behavior across the internet that they're not entitled to
What contract did I sign agreeing to let ad companies access my eyeballs, let alone surveil me, in exchange for looking at a webpage? If they want to block me, they’re welcome to (or at least welcome to try), but I will cry zero tears over their lost spying opportunities.
Yeah, I kinda feel it is all fair. I am just sending some request for data over the internet to you. You are free to return whatever you want to me, including ads and code to try and track me.
At the same time, I am allowed to block that code and not display those ads.
We aren't entering into any contract when I ask for some bits over a wire. We both can do what we want.
When you order food at a restaurant, there's no contract either. Just an implicit understanding by the restaurant owner and society that you'll pay at the end.
No, it is a contract. There are prices on the menu, and you are agreeing to that price when you ask for the item. Not all contracts need to be signed, but they have to be somehow agreed to.
Every website you visit has TOS. Facebook in particular has extremely clear TOS, written in plain English, that everyone consents to. In Europe, most websites explicitly ask for consent now. Doesn't seem very different to me.
And all of those sites track you before you've even had a chance to see their terms.
Facebook infamously tracked people who'd never had Facebook accounts (and therefore had never agreed to Facebook's ToS), and now claims not to, but who knows?
They can take my use of ad and script blocking as implicit rejection of the terms of their contract, and they’re free to deny me service. If they don’t, I’m not obliged to do it for them.
When somebody walks out of a restaurant without paying, the restaurant is free to call the cops. I therefore invite all website operators to call 911 when I use an adblocker!
I also pay at restaurants because I want to. I don't watch ads because I don't want to. When I was a kid my family would flip through magazines and violently tear out the ads before bothering to sit down and read the articles. When watching television we would change the channel or mute the audio during commercial breaks on television (I don't even bother to download television shows with the advertisements edited out, because I've found product placement to be rampant.) Without calling for state violence to enforce your will on me, you will never stop me.
You seem to have a very dim view of me because I refuse to willingly subject myself to advertisements. Let me assure you, this feeling is mutual. I look down on people who choose to submit themselves to corporate propaganda. Sometimes when I'm visiting people I see them watch television and they stare at the commercials with rapt attention; it disgusts me.
Appreciation of food service workers in particular, and/or a desire to see local businesses thrive. (Neither of which would ever motivate me to subject myself to advertisements.)
Sure, sensible. In the case of the ad industry, I don't appreciate the people who work there in particular, and I have a desire to see those businesses driven from the face of the Earth.
There's a difference here - the transaction of physical goods. There's also a big difference between, "You offered me a burger, you have signs saying I could get burgers here, and there are large groups that index you as the best burger."
"That was last week. Now you don't get to know about the burger until you pay $2."
On a developer forum devoted to software companies, the main argument is that physical products are by nature more valuable than non-physical products. (As opposed to the argument that non-physical products are easier to take and use without permission, regardless of effort put into it or value extracted).
Yes, that is a primary argument. Information exists and is meant to be free. None of the "software companies" would exist without free access to data. I support public libraries over media retailers 100% of the time, as well.
On top of that, I own my computer. I am responsible for the data which is transferred to my computer. I should have a fully-accessible offline copy of any and all data which is transferred to my computer, and not one bit of data should ever be transferred from my computer without my express consent.
Adblocking comes to be a multifaceted statement. It is anticorporatism, it is privacy advocacy, and it is a declaration of data ownership & responsibility. And for some people, it's accessibility layered on top of one or more of those.
I don't think it's a big deal to block ads but I support your sentiment: Not blocking ads is a respectful nod to the site owners who put them there. Sure, some sites I visit may feel undeserving but there is plenty of content I do respect (web comics, youtube channels, HN, etc.).
I don't think anyone should feel super obligated but I get why you and others do.
Edit: When I posted this the parent was downvoted to grey.
I don't know if linking to ublock origin specifically, is the right call. I just did it because I prefer it, and I had to link to something. (otherwise it kind of screws non-technical people)
Hopefully ublock lasts longer than this script does.
This comment seems to be unnecessarily inflammatory. Your link points to nothing that appears to be political or "affiliated with the GamerGate crowd".
And why would you even bring up the philosophical leanings of the group running this GitLab instance (assuming you are correct). It has no bearing on the discussion at hand. Why try and run the conversation off the rails?
From their repos, it’s clear that this particular software community has a strong agenda; rape, incest, and anti-black racism.
The site contains the source for other sites that provide paid email/file-sharing services explicitly to “the date rape appreciation society”.
I’m very glad that they pointed this out. FOSS code and FOSS communities are successful when their work is used, shared, promoted, and contributed to.
I’m all for freedom to be edgy, but this is a dangerous and expressly hateful community, openly devoted to radicalzing young men into hating their own species.
Their logo on sapphire.moe gitgud.io under their services section is a veiled reference to Vivian James, the redheaded clover in hair wearing icon of GamerGate. That's the reference. Also Micheal Sulsenti, one of the people who runs the sapphire.moe account is a self proclaimed "Gamergate leader"
> And why would you even bring up the philosophical leanings of the group running this GitLab instance
In case someone is looking for a new repository host for their next project, so they can avoid inadvertently getting mixed up with a bunch of drama and hate.
But more importantly: who gives a damn? And what source do you have, if someone did give a damn? The linked site only shows several open source products and services.
> The linked site only shows several open source products and services.
Clicking on the "Projects" link brings me to a page that includes racist epithets against Jews and Blacks.
That's why I give a damn. Seeking out any service that aims particularly to shelter that kind of language speaks volumes to me about the author's character and state of mind.
Project link brings to you all projects hosted on the whole instance. I'm sure if you dig enough, you can find awful projects on any GitLab instance and even GitHub. The author of the linked repo themself has no other projects.
As far as I know, GitHub makes a good faith effort to remove explicit bigotry. It would be unreasonable to demand perfection -- what I think is important is the intention.
What if the authors of the service are of the opinion that their job is only to provide the service and not to play the role of a thought police?
By checking out the "Projects" page, only the "Moonman Doom" mod for doom - a shitty mod that you see from 10 miles away that only 10yo at best would take seriously, assuming 10yo today know and care about Doom and modding - fits your description. Checking out 11 pages of projects (there is more but i got bored), everything else is the same stuff you'd find on GitHub: game engines, lisp implementations, web projects, games, etc and none fit your description (at least in their own description).
> speaks volumes to me about the author's character and state of mind
Guilt by association much? The only thing that speaks about someone's character and state of mind is their own actions, not the actions of others (and no, association is not an action).
I clicked the "Projects" page out of curiosity, not because I have 10-mile vision. You don't need to be particularly farsighted to see the slurs on that page (and now that I check, the repo README), either.
> Guilt by association much? The only thing that speaks about someone's character and state of mind is their own actions, not the actions of others (and no, association is not an action).
The last time I checked, I wasn't a court. I'm a private citizen who chooses to use projects and products based on a broad ethical code. One of the elements of that code is not supporting people who seem to be, at best, ambivalent towards associating with bigots.
> You don't need to be particularly farsighted to see the slurs on that page (and now that I check, the repo README), either.
My point is that nobody would nor should take that project any more seriously than the drawing of a teenager who is trying to be "edgy".
> The last time I checked, I wasn't a court. I'm a private citizen who chooses to use projects and products based on a broad ethical code.
Sure, you can act as you like as long as you understand that your freedom ends at the point where someone else's start. However this code of yours is not shared by everyone so you cannot expect people to not find it dodgy that you are making accusations about someone based on something they didn't do.
> One of the elements of that code is not supporting people who seem to be, at best, ambivalent towards associating with bigots.
It is your code, but to me that sounds like "you are either with us or you are against us" :-P.
> My point is that nobody would nor should take that project any more seriously than the drawing of a teenager who is trying to be "edgy".
Like I said in response to 'ehsankia, it would be unreasonable for me to want to police the language of edgy teenagers everywhere.
The original question was "why I gave a damn," and I think I answered it: I find myself concerned when I see projects and products hosts on venues that are aggressively receptive of bigoted language (if not bigotry itself, and that's a big if).
> that you are making accusations about someone based on something they didn't do.
I stated my observation based on something they did do: choose to host on a service that appears (on principle) to be happy to host epithets. That makes me question their character and state of mind; it's neither hard evidence nor an accusation.
> It is your code, but to me that sounds like "you are either with us or you are against us"
I stated my beliefs in the first person intentionally. There's no "us," only me.
> I find myself concerned when I see projects and products hosts on venues that are aggressively receptive of bigoted language (if not bigotry itself, and that's a big if). [...] I stated my observation based on something they did do: choose to host on a service that appears (on principle) to be happy to host epithets. That makes me question their character and state of mind; it's neither hard evidence nor an accusation.
I understand. I still think it is offtopic and not worth the mention (as predicted by others, this discussion is derailed with the only ontopic bits of interest being near the bottom of the page), but at least i see your logic.
> I stated my beliefs in the first person intentionally. There's no "us," only me.
I can see why you feel this way because I have similar feelings towards Voat, an alternative to Reddit that has unfortunately attracted a horribly racist crowd. But jumping to the conclusion that the author is somehow disturbed, especially when you can probably use this site without ever seeing that content unlike Voat, is a bit much.
You might be right, but you might also be assuming a lot about someone who was just looking for a GitHub alternative.
I would have gone with "potentially receptive towards bigotry" rather than "disturbed," but I take your point.
I am indeed making an assumption, and maybe I shouldn't do that. But as a practical matter, I find it increasingly difficult to take things on the Internet at face value. There are enough interesting things out there that aren't associated with bigotry, and so it's a harder sell when projects (perhaps inadvertently) are.
if a nazi and an $acceptable_political_alignment independently write programs that accomplish the exact same task, there is no technical basis to claim that one program is accomplishes the task more effectively than the other because of the character of the author. there are a lot of ways to approach a code review, but starting with "i don't agree with your politics, so i'm going to assume you don't know how to write code either" is very unprofessional.
note: i'm not defending whatever politics the gitgud people have. i'm objecting to the idea that you can base a technical critique on non-technical details. let the software or the math or whatever stand on its own. identity politics are really stupid. i really don't care who is behind the code as long as i can read the source and use it to get my work done.
I actually have a problem with Amazon selling (some) copies of Mein Kampf as well: Neo-Nazi groups have been caught selling their own editions as a way to raise funds. That, to me, seems like a cut-and-dry example of a Bad Thing.
Like I said to 'ehsankia, it's intent that interests me.
I didn't even realize that Git Gud was a real thing when I was playing Cards Against Downtime at the Perl Conference. I just thought it was a weird card.
The cat who left the bag is probably dead by now, but i'd like most of the commercial aspect of the web to simply go away with the exception of paid services that i actually seek myself (e.g. i'm fine with the web allowing me to go to an eshop or egrocery to buy stuff, to a hosting provider to rent a server, to a game developer/publisher to buy games, etc). I'd also be fine with buying "magazines" in the form of ebooks (no annoying DRM though), be it per-issue or a subscription, assuming of course the content quality is better than what people would put out for free on their own time (but TBH i expect people would put out quality content for free anyway). I know some would say that this has been tried and it doesn't work, but this isn't really the case because it hasn't been tried in an Internet without alternatives so we don't really know how it'd pan out.
No, the Web I want is a free and open sharing of ideas and passion projects without all the added nonsense. It's fine if corporations have a limited presence, but frankly speaking, I believe we need to go back to Web 1.0. I'd have no problem with allowing non-Web walled-garden commercial services like Prodigy or AOL used to be. If you want to pay to be part of that (social) ecosystem, that's fine and you do you. For me, I want to be part of a free society of mutual benefit.
Ad networks are routinely compromised and used to distribute malware, or else just don't bother filtering what "ads" they accept and end up distributing malware.
I'm curious why you think I should accept that as a cost of browsing the web.
Fairly similar to what the web was before commercial interests injected megabytes of crap into every website: Mostly collections of personal websites run by private people talking about stuff they're interested in without expecting anything in return.
Now it becomes a cat/mouse game of for-profit privacy violations as a service, where individuals (like OP) are pitted against super rich companies. A more robust solution is probably required here.
