<p>It's like having a HUGE pop-up window, and so annoying (and likely to become more so as they begin to use it more fully) that it will reduce the use of this site. The latter inference is based on how I behave when the annoyance factor invades other sites, like the overlay of things that block what you really want to read on ESPN now -- you have to "close" that blocker before you can read things, and then it comes back every 15 seconds or so.</p>
<p>If they could shrink that box to half the size, or put it in a corner, I could tolerate it to the same extent that I tolerate the AD in Eudora.</p>
<p>They also seem to have figured out that putting Adstream on the left side of the page makes it even more annoying (less avoidable) since your eyes always sweep back to the left side of the page when you read a new line. If they put it on the right side of the page, it would be a lot less annoying, even in its current size.</p>
<p>Because this is a free service to us, I like to click on the ads that appear here and see if it leads to anything I need or want. It's a small way of supporting the site. BUT, this ad, on a 12-inch laptop screen - leave almost no other room for the posts themselves. The only way I'm typing this is that I've resized my browser window to a width about twice my screen size and moved the entire left-hand side off the screen altogether, just using the ctrl-<arrow> keys to navigate around. It is a pain. I looked at the source code for the page. This could be fixed easily by using a width attribute (say 25% or 30%) on the TD for the left side of this table. Grrr.....</arrow></p>
<p>Wow. This adstream ad has prompted "not-so-positive" responses on the parents forum, cafe and the community forum. I haven't dared venture onto the regular cafe to see the comments there. Should be rich. Lets hope there is a positive response to the expressed opinions. I know that bills have to be paid, but there are better options that don't require constant resizing the screen. </p>
<p>I think curmudgeon took the correct approach in contacting the mods in addition to just venting here. If several people do so, this might be helpful.</p>
<p>We are painfully aware of the problem and share your frustration. Alas, it is a glitch and it can only be fixed by College Confidential's technical staff. It seems that an ad destined for the top of the board was misderected and is now stuck on the left design. It is not by design and is obviously not permanent. The placement of ads on CC is supposed to remain as unobstrusive and pleasing as possible. </p>
<p>Hey everyone. You have to realize that we at CC would not want it to be like it was in the past half day either. However, the moderators are all volunteers and it is a holiday and only one person has the capabilities to adjust this technically. As soon as he was informed, he did so. Thank you Curmudugeon for keeping your humor about this glitch but also for reporting it to the moderators because that is the process here. While I realize this is aggravating, discussing or dissing it on here is not going to solve it. Reporting these problems is the way to go. We obviously want to make this as readable as possible and to have the ads be nonobstrusive. Thanks for understanding. Thank you to Roger Dooley for fixing this on a holiday. </p>
<p>Now, back to our regularly scheduled discussions!</p>