Forum:Advertisements taking over the background

Today I noticed a new way that Wikia is shafting individual wikis with their advertisements. Below is a screenshot of the mainpage with "show all advertisements" enabled in preferences.

http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/9367/wtfbadfable.th.jpg

(Click to see full-size screenshot.)

As you can see, the advertisements for Fable are taking over the entire page, overriding the normal skin for the site. This is a wiki about the Fallout series. Hijacking the mainpage background to show Fable promotional images will just confuse visitors who need to know the real purpose of this site. The first time I saw this forced background, I thought that I had stumbled and clicked a wrong link somehow to end up at Fable Wiki.

I feel that this type of advertisement (especially on the mainpage) is harmful to this wiki, because it will confuse visitors. If the background advertisements were for Fallout games or merchandise it might be ok, because then it would at least be relevant to the subject of the site. As it is, I am afraid that first time visitors will find this site while browsing, see the prominent Fable banners and background, and assume that this is not the place they are looking for.

Has anyone else noticed this type of advertisement here? How should The Vault respond to this? I suggest that the admins or other concerned community members should contact Wikia about this and demand more relevant/less intrusive advertisements. ~ Gardimuer { ʈalk } 20:42, October 25, 2010 (UTC)


 * This is just wrong, wikia has plenty of advertisement space on the mainpage, they shouldn't change the whole background into an ad. --Anon undefined 20:47, October 25, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, this type of advertising is pretty stupid. Although, just a note, this doesn't only happen on the new skin. I remember it happening on the Monaco skin last year on the Vault. However, I've never seen it on less-traffic wikis. Maybe that's a coincidence, or maybe they're using the Vault because it's getting more visitors as of late. Glomulus 21:26, October 26, 2010 (UTC)