Ok, now for whatever reason, Google have pulled out of the whole paying-for-advertising. They've disabled my account because someone, or something, was clicking for fun on the adverts. They spotted a trend and disabled my account for "invalid clicks". They won't re-instate my account, and I won't get whatever money it's already racked up. So the adsense thing was a complete waste of time effectively.

Anyway, I've got to come up with other ideas to fund cuccoscratch. If anyone's got any ideas, please put them forwards. I'm all ears (well, not literally ).

In the meantime, anyone caring enough to donate to us/me, there's a button on the bottom of the forum's front page (and will be on the homepage shortly too) to link you. As much or as little as you want. I really don't mind. Every little helps (that's actually a slogan from a supermarket chain here).

*sigh*

I feel like we ought to do something special for donors. I'm not sure what though. Custom ranks? Listed here as supporters? Ideas?

Oy... that sucks.


I'm not sure on ideas right now, but there is something I'd like to say on the rewards for paying/supporting...

I've seen other boards reward donors. It doesn't sit well with me personally. It almost always becomes a divider between the people who pay and the others in the community, especially when it's such a small group.  <.< Yeah, we all hope we can be mature enough about it to not get all judgmental, but nobody's perfect.

Don't let my single opinion dissuade you if everyone else is up for public recognition or whatever, but I still wanted to throw it out there, mostly as a caution about letting it take too much priority.


Just for clarification, how much do you think it costs to run this place monthly? Do you think cost will go up or down in the next few months?

I don't think a list of supporters is the way to go. Custom Ranks is a good idea and probably people will be willing to pay for it. I think a subscription feature should be used. Maybe a VIP Board where people could discuss things and maybe have a few added forum benefits. Maybe have some contests to win sigs etc. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Eww, well, there are other pay-per-click systems. I'm sure Yahoo and Microsoft have them, but they weren't reccommended by me (I'm very very very loyal to Google).

As for donations, I would love to have the finances to donate to this site and a handful of others, but unfortunately I can't really afford to spend any money at all right now.

Heh... I think one thing you could do first is put on a poll to see who actually uses that feature.

If Jukebox becomes subscription only, I think I'd like to have 'my' MP3s removed... just in case..

eh, like Yumil I like google, but...man does this suck.

You could always try getting your account reinstated, sometimes they'll reinstate, sometimes not. What you have to realize is that google is doing something cool here with these adsense, however, read the TOS carefully, does it not say that YOU can't click but others can? Did you actually violate any TOS on your side?

Again, remember google is letting you use this service, so don't go demanding adsense back despite the fact it wasn't your fault. But...make them infer that it wasn't your fault, and if there's anything you could do to prevent invalid clicks from happening.

here's a link from a guy who had to appeal twice:

http://stason.org/articles/money/how_to_bring_google_adsense_down.html

what amuses me after reading it, is that, apparently google only reinstates your account if you're well informed, willing to change whatever happened, can provide a logical reason as to how it WILL stop, and are humble about it.

As to alternatives, there are:

http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/01/adsense-alternatives-when-google-bans.html

but...google is so damn nice. try to get adsense back, also...if you do appeal again, make sure it's not just a copy of your previous appeal. They most likely keep track of your appeals, so if they see you have done research and are willing to do anything you can to get adsense back, they just might reinstate.

honestly though, google is trying to prevent fraudulent cases from bots and what nots. There are numerous things that could've happened. With the rise of netbots, and even people who use other people's ips to bypass those captchas, it's insane to be able to police all these adsense sites. so once they see an anomaly of like...100% increase in clicks in one day, they will ban you from adsense.

the only thing you can do really is appeal, and as I said, try to provide them with any info, try to understand how this could have happened, and most importantly try to imply that there is a way you could stop this. maybe for example, it was just a netbot who was clicking ads like crazy to bring you down just for a week. or somebody from nsider2 was probably just trying to be cute and not that they've had their jollies, they're going to go away, or that somebody just went trigger happy and wanted to see what was on the ads, and that you don't condone that behavior, really...there are alot of things that could've happened and alot of solutions to them.

most importantly, remain respectful. they're providing you with a service that you can either use, or not use; don't get disgruntled over it. there are other alternatives, albeit not as well recognized or even good as google, but, they're out there (lol...i noticed nsider2 got adbrite.com to datamine all them nsider2 users xD).

umm...that's the only info I got. My only experience with adsense was with this small webpage for the robotics club at my school...I wish I could help out more, but I am not at liberty right now to donate nor do I have sufficient knowledge to help cuccooscratch out.

i'm totally in 2 minds as to whether to go down the subscription route or not. i've signed up for clicksor, and we'll see what becomes of that. i think my account has be verified or something. we'll see.
i also appreciate that not very many people are made of money, nor are many of the made-of-money people subscribers to this forum (if any). which would in effect make me feel bad in disallowing our members access to something they may never be able to get. especially when they've already had them features and then they got taken away. the jukebox is a huge bandwidth generator, accounting for probably 60% i reckon. however it's not completely finished yet. whether i'll actually finish it is another matter. i lack the time right now.
i think i'll see how it goes with some of these other ppc advertisers. see if i can make anything become of them. will probably take a lot of time though. so anyone who can and is willing to donate, i will appreciate you for all it's worth

-me