"Sponsorship is different from ads" therefore Paid users will see it

[ex_uniquewo]

In September 2006, brad was saying : sponsored "whatever" are ads. don't worry, we (at least most of us?) realize sponsorships are the same as ads. and we remember which account levels see ads and which don't. Paid users won't see sponsored stuff -- ignore the previous post. paid users won't ever see ads. that's why you paid, and we're not in the

Comments

[nathaara]

Where is the post where arie said that? And where do you make these requests? Perhaps a bunch of us could send in similar messages to try getting the point across.

[ex_uniquewo]

I wrote to feedback@livejournal.com - and so did elfwreck I believe. When you write to feedback, your mail is turned into a private request at Support. So you cannot see arie's answer. I've edited my post to make this clearer. But, as I said, I can make a screencap if you think it is necessary.

You can write to feedback too. I've also seen someone open a simple Support request. This request is publicly visible.

BTW, most of the answers that were given on this topic are visible in the comments made on this post.

[nathaara]

Thanks!

[elfwreck]

The reply is a private request, which means it's not searchable, but I think it's still viewable by anyone who has the link. (I could see it when I wasn't logged in.) But I'm not sure if we'd get in trouble for sharing the link; I remember hearing something about that, but couldn't find it in a brief lookthrough of the FAQ.

[kali921]

This post is a tad confusing, and forgive me if I'm missing some pieces. What exactly prompted this? Did you see actual ads, or mood themes? I agree that a "sponsored" mood theme is technically advertising and that it's ridiculous, but are you saying that a paid user saw an ad that wasn't a mood theme? If so, where?

[elfwreck]

This is about sponsored mood themes and sponsored journal layouts, which include blatant advertisements. The journal layout includes a Pepsi Max logo which links to their website.

Their answers very carefully don't talk about how hard it would be to remove the link and cover the logo for paid users... but instead try to imply that not showing paid users these ads would be "restricting" them, because "pretty" ads should be acceptable.

[elfwreck]

Exact phrasing of comment: It seems that the point that you most disagree with is the "sponsored" versus "ads" issue. We believe that sponsorship is different from ads and don't believe in preventing paid users from accessing a feature simply because it's a sponsored feature. Whereas you believe that they are the same thing and should be restricted accordingly -- that paid users shouldn't have access to or view sponsored items like mood themes and journal themes.

I've gone ahead and forwarded your concerns on to the individuals in charge of making these decisions, so that they are aware of users feelings on the sponsored vs. ads issue. I can't guarantee that this will change how we handle sponsored features, but I can assure you that your opinion does matter to us and we are going to continue to consider carefully how we handle sponsorships for all user levels.
emphasis addedI heartily recommend other people open support requests related to this issue--they seem to have a small collection of pre-written responses, and it's

[ex_uniquewo]

*nods* I especially loved the parts which talked at length about how paid users should have the right to use these themes and how we wanted to prevent them from doing so whereas none of us, as far as I know, said anything even remotely close to that. On the contrary, we suggested some compromise that, I believe, would have made all users happy (but, well, obviously, neither sponsors nor LJ happy).

[andy]

Regarding your suggestion to flood the Feedback team -- Do you really think it would take them very much time to open all of our requests in separate browser tabs, copy-paste their answer, and submit? I doubt.

[ex_uniquewo]

I think they have proven that they don't really care about giving people answers, personal or copied-pasted. I don't think that's the point of what elfwreck suggested. The point is to show you disagree with LJ's decision - and this is one way you can show it.

[janinedog]

I'm curious, since this was brought up when sponsored themes first went live with Havaianas...how would you suggest that Paid users be opt-ed out from sponsored themes? There really isn't a good solution for that that we've come up with, because making a user's style look different to some users isn't a good idea for the owner of the journal (who more than likely wants people to see their journal as they set it).

Same with the mood themes. Should we really be changing the way users' preferences show to different viewers? I don't think so. I think we all know that many LJ users are very sensitive about how their journals look (remember when the navigation strip went live?).

So, I really am curious...what's your proposed solution? How can we not display sponsored journal settings (like styles and mood themes) to some users while still respecting the settings of the journal owner?

[ex_uniquewo]

How can we not display sponsored journal settings (like styles and mood themes) to some users while still respecting the settings of the journal owner?

You cannot. That's that simple, which is why I guess I was told that sponsored content was not considered as advertising. It made showing it to Paid and Permanent users perfectly ok.

As I said, LJ is very clever. Sponsored content is presented as being über cool and something that all users would like to use and why prevent Paid and Permanent users from using and seeing this über cool content?

[opalexian]

WTF is with this trend in the last couple years of manipulating words so that their negative/undesired connotations just magically disappear. If a company wants to sponsor LJ with their money, that is one thing; however, if they want some kind of AD SPACE in return, then they will get AD SPACE. 'Sponsored' content on LJ contain ADS-saying it doesn't doesn't make that true. Support is getting pretty slimey by following this hideous trend.

(Before you know it people will be trying to pay off Webster's to get dictionary entries changed.) >: (

[ex_uniquewo]

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing a generic non-branded version of the layout and the theme if I was given the option to do so. How is it different from using ?style=mine?

[tallblue]

If we are going to get the sponsored themes coming from VOX, there is a lot of them headed this way, heck even Bank of America (I still can't believe that one). What VOX did was separate them in a category called "branded" that would be nice here.

One question I have, maybe someone here knows the answer? How long does a sponsored theme hang around? when will they be gone? Are they going to disappear from VOX also?

[janinedog]

I'm not sure how Vox does their themes, but is the category in their design area of the site? If so, we do that for Basic/Plus, by showing sponsored layouts separate from the rest of the layouts (at the top of the list). In the new customize page, there will be a sponsored category that people can click.

And sponsored themes on LJ stay around as long as the deal lasts for. After that, the theme can no longer be selected from the customize area, though those using them can continue to do so until they change their style again. Havaianas is actually gone already. I don't know how Vox does it, though.

[tallblue]

In the new customize page, there will be a sponsored category that people can click.

This is good to know thank you.