Problems with accessing RoyalMail Chat on my computer

theoneandonly1995 · Post by **theoneandonly1995** » 26 Oct 2020, 16:08

Hello,

I am having problems with the overall accessibility and usability of Royal Mail Chat website on my computer.

Every time I visit a webpage, an intrusive pop up appears on the website with a button about disabling ad blockers, or something like that.
It's not just once off, like other websites, where you press the X, or OK, or whatever, and the message doesn't come back. With this website, every time you go to a page, you have to press the X.
So, as an example:
Home page: accept cookies, press X
Login page: press X
Back to home page: press X
Go to the correct forum: press X
Create topic: press X
Submit topic: press X
Go to correct post, press X
Logout (close tab)

The message is a follows:

"Welcome to royalmailchat
Please allow ads on our site

Looks like you're using an ad blocker. We rely on advertising to help fund our site."

Why not have a Patreon page or some other crowdfunding page where a donation would help to keep the site running?
This is not very user friendly at all and there is no way of disabling this. Blocking individual elements makes the site unusable.

Please can you improve the site design and make the website more user friendly.

Thanks.

Post by **POSTMAN** » 26 Oct 2020, 19:53

Well that is weird because it's a google thing.
One is to confirm/consent to the GDPR thing, the other is in the same Google script regarding adblocking.
I'll look into it as I don't use an adblocker.
Also why would you not turn the adblocker off on the site, especially this one.

theoneandonly1995 · Post by **theoneandonly1995** » 26 Oct 2020, 20:17

POSTMAN wrote:Well that is weird because it's a google thing.
One is to confirm/consent to the GDPR thing, the other is in the same Google script regarding adblocking.
I'll look into it as I don't use an adblocker.
Also why would you not turn the adblocker off on the site, especially this one.

Hello,
Thank you for your reply. Due to the number of clicks I have turned off my Adblocker for this site only (I often leave it on due to websites having intrusive adverts that take up half the page - but this website is fine). I think I shall leave it switched off on RMC if it doesn't cause any issues with how the webpage looks.

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 28 Oct 2020, 17:34

theoneandonly1995 wrote:Due to the number of clicks, I have turned off my Adblocker for this site only (I often leave it on due to websites having intrusive adverts that take up half the page - but this website is fine). I think I shall leave it switched off on RMC if it doesn't cause any issues with how the webpage looks.

I have too, especially because the AdBlocker message pops up on every page I visit on Royal Mail Chat.

AdBlocker - Royal Mail Chat.jpg

k979aaa · Post by **k979aaa** » 31 Oct 2020, 12:00

Why use an add blocker your depriving RM CHAT of revenue it's the same with you tube content is worth a few seconds of your time don't mind ads as long as they don't block the content.

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 01 Nov 2020, 16:58

theoneandonly1995 wrote:Please can you improve the site design and make the website more user friendly.

It may just be a matter of updating the software version of this bulletin board. It looks like an older version of the phpBB 3.0 release. I'd like to see a more appealing style, too.

The latest version of phpBB is 3.3.1 (code name: "Bertie's Twenty), which one of the developers in Munich, Germany announced in August this year. And the software license is generally free (it's the GNU Version 2 license) as opposed to a propriety bulletin board software I've used before, like the beautifully-designed Invision Community (written in PHP and using MySQL).

All it takes is setting aside the time to upgrade the forum version and migrating the old community history to the new upgrade.

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 01 Nov 2020, 21:16

theoneandonly1995 wrote:Every time I visit... an intrusive pop up appears on the website

Speaking of intrusive, a banner ad for Nigel Frogface Farage's website Fortune & Freedom kept popping up on my screen above the forum list. I mean, what the fuque?

F And F.jpg

I was all too happy to select Google's Ad Choice option as INAPPROPRIATE for that piece-of-s**t ad.

Inappropriate.jpg

Post by **POSTMAN** » 01 Nov 2020, 21:44

Thank you for your comments, I will bring them up at the next RMC board meeting.
And dogbiter, the adverts are 'personalised' ads, based on users surfing habits....so I am guessing you get a lot worse ads than Farage!

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 01 Nov 2020, 22:07

POSTMAN wrote:so I am guessing you get a lot worse ads than Farage!

Actually, no. Very few such ads if any. I do visit a ton of political sites, but this is the only ad featuring someone like Farage. And it's only here on Royal Mail Chat. That's what's so odd.

Oh well, he's off my screen now.

Something else I'd like to mention. I'm not at all that familiar with phpBB as I am with other forum software versions, so I was wondering if two comment features are available in phpBB. One is the spoiler tag and the other is the strikethrough feature.

Granted they're minor options for chatting, but handy to have available.

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 07 Nov 2020, 21:43

President-Elect PostmanBitesDog wrote:Something else I'd like to mention. I'm not at all that familiar with phpBB as I am with other forum software versions, so I was wondering if two comment features are available in phpBB. One is the spoiler tag and the other is the strikethrough feature.
Granted they're minor options for chatting, but handy to have available.

No, no, no! I said a spoiler tag and a strikethrough feature. Not a f***ing swear filter!

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 14 Nov 2020, 20:12

I wonder if a Like button would be something this chat community would be happy with? Some boards use this function, which allows members to show their appreciation or agreement to a posted comment. (Dislikes, or Down Votes, are disabled on some community boards because it can cause an atmosphere of strong negativity.)

The closest we have is a thumbs-up emoticon that can only be posted as a comment as well.

Post by **SpacePhoenix** » 14 Nov 2020, 21:27

On the computer I'm on now, with Adblock disabled, I rarely see ads on this site so some ads must possibly be getting blocked either by the firewall or at an ISP level. Strange thing is that my other computer (different location) is the same ISP and firewall software

PostmanBitesDog · Post by **PostmanBitesDog** » 15 Nov 2020, 23:01

This update is looking good so far. Fresh and snazzy.

Good work, Postman.

Post by **adb2aber** » 16 Nov 2020, 11:16

PostmanBitesDog wrote: ↑
15 Nov 2020, 23:01
This update is looking good so far. Fresh and snazzy.

Good work, Postman.

Much harder to see at a glace which threads have new replies however.

Post by **POSTMAN** » 16 Nov 2020, 11:49

adb2aber wrote: ↑
16 Nov 2020, 11:16

PostmanBitesDog wrote: ↑
15 Nov 2020, 23:01
This update is looking good so far. Fresh and snazzy.

Good work, Postman.
Much harder to see at a glace which threads have new replies however.

https://www.royalmailchat.co.uk/communi ... 75#p923575

ROYALMAILCHAT