The New Obstructed View (and a word on ads)

As you can certainly tell, OV has gone through some extensive changes. While the partnership with Bloguin alleviated much of the work for us (and when I say "us", I mean dmick89. He is the one that does nearly everything behind the scenes, and OV simply wouldn't exist without his leadership), it introduced other problems. Chief among them were the awful commenting system and the ad redirects, especially on mobile. People come to Obstructed View for bi-weekly game recaps and incoherent ramblings, not to download Words With Friends. Traffic has been down at OV for a couple of years now; the three reasons for that are that I'm the primary writer here, everyone (including me) has just been a lot busier, and that we were part of a blog network that frankly wasn't facilitating the easy use of our website (and that's not a slight to Bloguin, who worked with us pretty well all things considered).

One of the benefits of striking out on our own (again) is that we can choose the ad experience that we want. Right now, that's no ads at all. We aren't heavily trafficked and server space isn't all that expensive. Even the best ad service sites out there have their problems. We aren't in this to make money (at least I'm not), we are in this because we feel that we have interesting things to say, and we enjoy the comments and community that we've fostered here (I say we like I brought people in, but many if not most of the readers here pre-date me). Our blog isn't Bleacher Nation and it isn't Bleed Cubbie Blue (fortunately); we don't live on ad revenue and don't have to answer to anyone. Will that change in the future? I'm not the boss and I don't make those decisions. For now, we like the clean look of this site.

That brings me to something I'd like to talk about: ads. I read a very interesting twitter exchange from Sean Forman, who runs the sports reference business. This family of websites is incredible, and it's no stretch to say that Baseball Reference is the single most important baseball website in existence. I use it daily; I have a Play Index subscription, and it feels almost illegal how little it costs for what benefit it provides. Sean Forman deserves some sort of compensation for the service he is giving to everyone; lots of people don't pay him at all, even by just allowing ads.

 

Places like Sports Reference (and Bleacher Nation, and FanGraphs, and any commercial internet venture) depend on ads to survive. Every time you use an adblocker on baseball-reference, you deny them money. It is stealing from a moral standpoint, in my opinion. I used to use adblockers, but it's hard to do so in good conscience when you actually see the cost. I don't want baseball reference to go out of business; you don't either. At the very least, please whitelist the websites that you visit frequently and have trusted ad services.

This brings me back to Obstructed View. It was very hard to ask you not to use an adblocker on our Bloguin site; in fact, some times it was the only way to actually interact with the website! I personally have no dog in the fight as far as ad revenue: we don't have ads, and when he did, we weren't exactly fielding competitive bids to own the Cubs. If you still want to support us, however, there are three ways you can do that:

1. Support the sites that are necessary for Obstructed View to exist. I couldn't write as well if baseball-reference went down tomorrow (I could, but it would suck a lot more). FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus and Baseball America are all invaluable resources as well. MLB.com probably doesn't need the money, but it's nice that at least their website is serviceable, doesn't serve malicious ads, and allows you to embed videos into posts about as easily as is feasible. 

2. Tell people about us! We have a twitter account that doesn't annoy you (it simply tweets new articles, and not much else). We have a facebook account that does the same thing. We aren't trying to overload you with information, but it is helpful to us if you follow that stuff simply because it gives you a few gentle reminders that we exist.

3. Engage us in the comments! It is usually a positive feedback loop. If you comment, and aren't shades of Yellon, you make a positive contribution to the site. Other people read that comment, gain value from it, and maybe add their own. You read those comments, gain value from it, and the cycle continues. Big if true.

Two things to close this not-Cubs related post out. First, I don't speak for anyone else at Obstructed View, and I didn't tell any of them I was writing this. If the next post is from David announcing a new program where you have to send vials of sheep blood in exchange for access to this site, that's his prerogative. This is only my perspective, and does not necessarily reflect the views of anyone else. Last, while we are certainly always oscillating between re-discreditation and un-re-discreditation, I very much enjoy the community here. While this isn't a dig on sites like Bleacher Nation, as a website grows and grows in popularity, it just becomes harder and harder to moderate, and you necessarily lose part of the familiarity and camaraderie that makes those websites great in the first place (you can try to be a blogger-militant like Alvin, but then you become Alvin). It means a lot to me (and probably to everyone else) that while our posting has slown to a glacial pace (and I'm trying to pick it up again), we've still been able to hold on you guys. Thanks a lot.

To conclude, fuck the Cardinals.

 

91 thoughts on “The New Obstructed View (and a word on ads)”

  3. Merchandising! Where the real money is made! Seriously, though, I’m thankful that my trolling for Pizza MILFs lead me to this site and I’m happy to support it in whatever way I can that doesn’t take any real effort.

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  4. I used to participate a lot back when it was ACB. I became a lurker when it moved to Bloguin. Anyway, I never left, and I have a neighbor with lots of very loud sheep that I would happily collect vials of blood from if you decide to go that route.

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  9. I feel like an idiot, but how do I get a cool avatar picture? I’ve gone to Gravatar and tried to log in, but it doesn’t seem to work.

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  11. TheVan:
    I used to participate a lot back when it was ACB. I became a lurker when it moved to Bloguin. Anyway, I never left, and I have a neighbor with lots of very loud sheep that I would happily collect vials of blood from if you decide to go that route.

    Thanks, I’ll keep you in mind when it’s time to make the offerings to steal the Cardinals Voodoo Magic.

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  12. So is this going to be a serious baseball blog? Or is it going to revert back to a NFL draft, favorite TV shows, favorite dishes to bring to a picnic blog like it was back in the good old days?

    Off topic but I just thought of it……..Does anybody remember the fanpost somebody did on BCB about whether or not Al’s son Mark should get a haircut and if so, what style haircut he should get? Pretty sure it was somebody on here trolling Al. That was a recent BCB trolling I enjoyed. Wasn’t there also a Wall of Fame for the names of everybody Al banned over the years? It would be awesome to see that again.

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  16. Millertime:
    I feel like an idiot, but how do I get a cool avatar picture?I’ve gone to Gravatar and tried to log in, but it doesn’t seem to work.

    Try signing up for a WordPress.com account. I’m not entirely sure to be honest. I am going to look into a local avatar option this weekend.

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  17. Mucker:
    So is this going to be a serious baseball blog?Or is it going to revert back to a NFL draft, favorite TV shows, favorite dishes to bring to a picnic blog like it was back in the good old days?

    Off topic but I just thought of it……..Does anybody remember the fanpost somebody did on BCB about whether or not Al’s son Mark should get a haircut and if so, what style haircut he should get?Pretty sure it was somebody on here trolling Al.That was a recent BCB trolling I enjoyed.Wasn’t there also a Wall of Fame for the names of everybody Al banned over the years?It would be awesome to see that again.

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  18. I like the new look and the view points you have about ads. I really enjoy this site and this post motivated me to comment. Keep up the good work and I’ll try to add a couple fart jokes here and there

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  19. Mucker: So is this going to be a serious baseball blog? Or is it going to revert back to a NFL draft, favorite TV shows, favorite dishes to bring to a picnic blog like it was back in the good old days?

    I can’t speak for everyone else, but I’m hoping it’s all of the above.

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  20. Twitter has just killed my interaction with other sites. Everything is there.

    I like this place though and it looks nice so I’ll stick around again. *puts feet on coffee table* Got anything to eat?

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  22. FWIW, I tend to agree with Myles with regards to ad blockers even though I use them myself. I do whitelist a lot of sites (pretty much any that I visit regularly). I’m not sure I’d qualify the use of adblockers as theft since the website affected still has the option to charge people something to make money (it’s up to them in the end), but I understand the viewpoint. I also respect the viewpoint from those who don’t want to be bothered by ads.

    Way to go, JD. Nice catch.

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  25. If you’re registered here, you should be able to change your avatar now (hover over upper right and edit profile, scroll down, upload image, save). Let me know how it works.

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  28. dmick89:
    If you’re registered here, you should be able to change your avatar now (hover over upper right and edit profile, scroll down, upload image, save). Let me know how it works.

    Worked for me.

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  29. aisle424: Worked for me.

    Should work for all registered users, but you never know. The issue with some commenters being labeled as spam had to do with avatars. I didn’t bother changing the default acceptable avatar grade (default is set to G). Figured we’re all adults so I set it to X and Myles didn’t have a problem commenting anymore (dying laughing)

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  30. GBtS:
    More like Dan Scaren (me with these flyball outs), amirite

    When the Cubs scored today I was thinking they’d be better off taking Haren out of the game already. He’s done alright though so far, but I figure if you can get one solid inning from him, take it and move on.

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  32. GBtS:
    Twitter has just killed my interaction with other sites. Everything is there.

    Now that the Cubs are good again, Cubs twitter has killed my interaction with twitter (dying laughing). I need to do a mass unfollowing.

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  47. berselius: I knew he was better than Castro, but I had no idea he was this good.

    Yeah, he’s been way better than I was expecting. I’d read the scouting reports, but you’ve just got to watch him to truly appreciate it. He’s gonna be so good in the years to come.

    More power than Castro? I’d never have guessed that. Not at this point.

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  55. dmick89,

    I come down squarely on the side that once a consumer can consume the product, the seller’s right to that product is pretty much done with. And whether Forman likes it or not, he’s not directly charging the consumer for his product before letting them use it, which makes it—big shock—free. If he wants to make it a requirement to view ads, great, then make it so the product can’t be consumed legally without viewing an ad. Or, better yet, just charge directly for it. But trying to play the shame game makes him come across petulant. He thinks his product is so great? Fine, have the balls to charge money for it—all of it—he has every right to. But if he’s not going to require consumers to pay a price (in this case enduring so many ads that his Reference pages look like a mess of shit) before releasing his product, then he can’t get mad when they don’t do what he thinks they should do once his product is in their hands. His solution in this case is not to shame the consumer but to make it so his livelihood does not depend on whether or not consumers take steps to remove the most annoying things about his product so they can enjoy it better.

    It’s like these silly sons of bitches giving away software with donation buttons and then putting a guilt trip on the consumer to where if they don’t pay anything, which is every bit their right as the designer has already given them the fucking product, they’re an asshole. JUST FUCKING CHARGE FOR IT.

    Anyway. I’ll shut up. Go Cubes. All hail Starlin Castro: Card Killer.

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  72. uncle dave:
    Videos work here?

    I’m going to guess that it’s not going to be easy to accomplish without sacrificing security. At least that’s what I’ve figured so I hadn’t bothered looking into it yet. I do know there are some plugins for this type of thing, but in my experience, they either weren’t updated regularly or included some sketchy code on the backend. Allowing the embed tag to be used by users can allow someone with malicious intent to easily add some unwanted code.

    I’ll look around, but I’ve already got about 8 or 9 things I need to get to this weekend and that’s probably not going to make the list. Sorry. If I haven’t gotten to it in a couple weeks, shoot me an email to remind me.

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  75. I admit, I wouldn’t mind seeing The Pirates rough up Greinke and Kershaw so as to make the Cy Young race more interesting.

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  77. So Lance Lynn is a whiny little bitch.

    “We disagreed,” Lynn said of taking exception with the strike zone. “We disagreed with some of the stuff he was giving on the other side. The low call wasn’t my way. The high call wasn’t my way. The low call was [Cubs starter Dan Haren’s] way. The high call was his way. It’s tough.”

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  85. Suburbank Id:
    If Cubs sweep Cards this weekend and Pirates win 2 of 3 against LAD, then they’ll both be 4 games back of Cards with about 13 games remaining to be played. Surely it’s mathematically possible this could happen (Cubs tie Pirates for division) — obviously not if Cards are better than .500 rest of way.

    Two down, whole buncha shit that has to happen a certain way, to go.

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  90. dmick89,

    I vote for all of the above. I love this site and glad its around and like the new layout just fine. I came to ACB from 1060 West and have enjoyed mostly lurking through all of its phases. Its nice to see the ban wall again. The sense of being at war with the entire rest of the Cubs fanbase (well, and the organization too) has diminished since then. I’ve only been around here on and off this season, but am looking forward to hanging out over here however many weeks we have left and talking about this team, which is a lot of fun to watch.

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  91. For shits and giggles, I did Myles’s MVP formula on the American League and came up with 1. Trout (#2 in fWAR, #1 in Team WAR percentage by a lot), 2. Donaldson (#1 overal fWAR, #5 in percentage, but several noncompetitive teams were eliminated (sorry your teams suck, Chris Sale, Nelson Cruz and Manny Machado), 3. Lo Cain (#4 overall fWAR).

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