I'd happily start something up on my forums which don't really get used at present as I was getting inundated with spam sign-ups, and rather than ditch the forum, until I figure out whether it's worth keeping, I've currently made it almost impossible to sign up by setting the sign-up question to (I think this is what I put) asking what my middle name is. It's put off the spammers, anyway. Wish I knew a way to get round that.

http://forum.dvd-fever.co.uk/index.php

According to the DS Downsized thread, forums get over 7m hits per month. Not sure I could recreate the whole thing. My monthly forum hits are slightly less


Thanks for the link. Had a read and I can't understand (a) why it's on DS, and (b) why is it classed as "Tech". What is technology related about freezing fares on public transport?


Why do that? I just start typie 'di' in my browser, and the top-most (and most frequently used) link is http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/usercp.php

Really? there are plenty on here who preach their "soap box message" 24/7 - Not me, I have a life to lead.
So what are DS forums for? the truth is in my view, just about everything - provided other posters are treated with respect, the DS rules are followed reasonably & nothing libellous is posted.

As for the BBC, it dominates UK broadcasting, it does a hell of a lot - that means it may get some things wrong...... do nothing, & you do nothing wrong.
EG: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...sed-ten-years/
Storm in a teacup?

Personally I wouldn't be surprised if most forums in 4 years time has went the way of newsgroups. The few rare that are left for the remaining years until eventually they have just about died with no activity. Since so many these days has their sites injected with Facebook and twitter.

The thing is you cannot have a discussion like the forums on Facebook or Twitter you would need dedicated pages for each subject and Twitter would be impossible to say more than a few words so no discussion at all.

I know but people today prefer trending than discussion boards. I've always loved forums as you jump in and out whenever you feel like it. That and twitter makes you look like a 6 year old with 140 characters.

Facebook is an absolute mess with their timeline/discussion layout. I seriously detest it.

Twitter is quick reactions to something live at the moment, Blogs and message boards are for longer posts.

Oh dear, i only come here for the forums.

I also use an adblocker so i guess they make 0 money out of me...

I've been on here now for 2 years, and I hope the forums don,t close down, If they want to downsize it they could close some of the other forum sites, but keep the broadcasting forums, radio forums and the other forums threads that get used regularly. And if they do decide to close it down I've had a blast on here.

They'll close the forums if they don't make enough money. We don't know how much the ads make on here (but it will probably be much less than you think).

Also you see alot who post on here bragging they use Adblock.

So digital spy get no money from those visitors. Which now seems to be most people. So no wonder digital spy is going to close. The server costs of running the site are high and the money coming in from ads is getting blocked.

Can't they just keep the forum open and delete most of the old topics after like a week or so? to keep it functional.. that way the costs are low.

I mean you even get free forum space nowadays.

There's a middle-ground solution here, but the members of DS need to be involved with.

I had this argument in the computer section months ago regarding ad blocking. If everyone just blocks all the advertising then the ad supported web will go away eventually.

It's not cheap running a large forum. You also have all the legal headaches of operating in the UK too. If you don't react to the removal of libellous/slanderous content quickly, then you can be held accountable for the actions of your forum members. I would never run a forum in the UK with our laws.

Lets not forget that ads containing malware have appeared on these forums before, if Digital Spy can't be bothered to provide a safe environment for us they can't complain about people using Adblockers.

As irritating as they are (sometimes, not all the time) I've never run an ad-blocker for that very reason.

Some topics go on for years. If people know that topics will get auto-deleted, they won't bother posting in the first place, and the forum will die.

However, if they don't get much ad revenue anyway, then they won't be started up.

I'm still tempted to set up an alternative forum to this if it goes down, but the problems include the spam bots signing up, and the moderation involved.If people with mod experience wanted to join in with that (and for previously zero pounds in return) then it's worth a shot.

Sorry, but the only reason the vast majority of people now block the ads is entirely self inflicted by Digital Spy and no one else. I was quite happy not using one for 15 years, but thanks to the way they load forcing the page to bounce around for a long time, several video and audio ads running simultaneously and slowing the entire experience down to 56 K dial up, then who can blame people who've had enough.

As I've mentioned before the problem affected my computer so much I thought it was riddled with viruses** or about to fail entirely. I installed Ad Block Plus and the issue instantly vanished.

The entire problem is one created by Hearst and Hearst only, they could go back to the old system of advertising which was unobtrusive and didn't take up huge amounts of screen space.

**Remember those who were infected with malware several years ago thanks to dodgy ads.

Exactly this.

My computer became impossible to use - had to keep rebooting.
When I got the adblock it was interesting that every page of DS that I opened up, the ad counter went up to double digits - despite there only being 4 spaces for ads on the page.
This was the cause of the meltdown - and I still see the ad counters rocketing up when on DS, so they have done nothing to fix the problem.

I do believe I've seen it block as many as 50 adverts in seconds, beaten only by the Mail Online with a staggering 94 in seconds!

And when you think a DS web page has slots for only 4 ads - they must all be fighting to load themselves - thus making the whole thing crash

Exactly, my admittedly under powered old computer basically gives up because it can't cope with everything trying to launch together, an issue only on DS without an ad blocker.
Yet the same system with only 3GB RAM will still (just about) play a few seconds of UHD video before buffering then stopping (but certainly not crashing or becoming unusable until rebooted!!!)

Currently, blocking 11 ads if i enable adblocker!
Running without, takes the page 40 seconds (There abouts) to load and stop jumping around and for everything to load!
And my BB isn't slow nor is the machine. So yes, entirely self-inflicted and id gladly go back to white-listing DSF if this wasn't the case.
I have no issue with ads that don't become obtrusive. Those that takeover half the bloody page like IMDb does get blocked!

I've found lots of valuable information from this forum from googling Sky in past years from threads as old as 2010/08.

Okay, in the interests of fairness I've turned off Ad Block Plus and the page didn't bounce around as before. It still jumps but loads in a mere 15 seconds...

However with Ad Block Plus turned off I'm now getting the message from McAfee WebAdvisor on the page forums.digitalspy.co.uk which says

"We tested this page and blocked content that comes from potentially dangerous or suspicious sites. Allow this content only if you're sure it comes from safe sites"

That's why I use Ad Block Plus, and nobody will persuade me not to use it or make me feel guilty. If DS closes so be it, I'll just use another site. In fact I've already signed up to AV Formus, which is more to my liking than DS anyway.

This. Until Digital Spy became such an ad-infested site, I'd never even heard of Adblock until somebody mentioned it in a thread complaining about the adverts. Since then I've never looked back.

I don't like doing it given the ads support the site, but given DS/Hearst still let problematic ads run riot (as evidenced by regular threads in GD complaining about them) then I'm afraid I have no choice.