# Obama advert on the dictionary pages



## ceint

Hi. I don't know if anyone else has had this problem, but in the last few days whenever I look up a word in the dictionary there is a certain advertisement that makes my browser freeze for up to a minute when loading. The ad in question is the Obama presidential campaign one, it loads at the top and on the right-hand side of the page at the same time and on my PC takes absolutely ages to load, making all other currently running functions halt while doing so. Admittedly I don't have a very up-to-date PC and flash-based adverts often take several seconds to load when I'm browsing the web, but I've never had anything this bad before. At the moment I couldn't even be bothered to use the WR dictionary because when this ad appears I just end up closing the browser via CTRL-ALT-DLT. I'm guessing people with newer PCs won't have this problem but I'm sure there must be lots of people, especially those from not so well off countries, who use older equipment and these ads that take so long to load are a real pain. At the moment it makes the dictionary page more or less useless for me because of this one ad (and if I was American I'm sure it would put me off voting for Obama).
Anyway, sorry to complain but I thought it would be worth mentioning this.
Thanks.


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## Cagey

I, too, have been annoyed by how long it takes the dictionary to load with this ad.  I have no objection to the content, but find its form obtrusive and time consuming.  

I don't know whether the WRF can control the format of the ads it accepts, but if it can, this might be worth considering.


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## JamesM

I'm sorry to hear that it is causing problems for you.  As far as I know, Mike has no control over the advertisements.   Are you on a dial-up connection, by any chance?  I can imagine that it would be much slower over a dial-up connection.


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## TrentinaNE

I finally saw this ad (I had to use the "English definition" part of the WR dictionary to find it -- no sign of it when I looked for IT-EN translations). Anyway... I suspect dial-up is the problem. It loaded quickly and with no problems at all for me. 

Elisabetta


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## Cagey

I am on wireless DSL, not dial-up.  The page loads, but very slowly.


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## Flaminius

Hello Cagey,

We have some control over what adverts are to be shown on the dictionary pages.  If it is not a big trouble, could I prevail upon you to please take note of the URL of the page to which the advert is linked?  Mike the admain should be interested to check.

Please contact me at this email address: something@iswrong.here (This part will self-destruct when you finish reading the post   )
The URL is probably very long.  When I send an objectionable link to Mike, I attach it as a text file.

I am too sleepy to remember what, if any, is the standard procedure for posters to report adverts to Mike.  Maybe you have a better way to handle this than what I have suggested here.

Guys, I am sorry for inconvenience.


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## Cagey

Flaminius said:


> Hello Cagey,
> 
> We have some control over what adverts are to be shown on the dictionary pages.  If it is not a big trouble, could I prevail upon you to please take note of the URL of the page to which the advert is linked?  Mike the admain should be interested to check.



I just tried the dictionary to get the URL, and the ad has been changed to a different one that loads quickly, on my system at least.  Maybe the Obama people realized they were annoying people and fixed the ad themselves.

Thank you for your attention.  If this happens with another ad, I'll know what to do.


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## cuchuflete

Additional information only: I am using a six year old Mac, with the slowest possible DSL connection.  Load time for the dictionary page is sub-second.  The ad takes about another second to load.


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## mkellogg

Hi everybody,

Let me know (here in this thread) if the ad continues to be a problem and I will ban it and report it to the advertising network to get it fixed.

In the future, just click "Contact Us" at the bottom of the forum pages to report any problems with ads. (I did read a couple of complaints about this ad there, too.)  An even better way to report an ad is to write me at the forum07 email address (that you get forum emails from) and attach a screenshot of the ad.

Thanks!  I appreciate this, and really do want to know about ads that cause problems or are inappropriate.

Mike


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