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September update: Community Ads are now live network-wide. All ads with a score of 6 or higher, or with a score of 4 or higher and no downvotes will be displayed (except for any that have a note from the CM Team explaining why it wasn't selected). Go to the main post on MSE for a list of the ads that are being displayed. And stay tuned for 2022's edition for the next opportunity to submit more ad proposals!

AUGUST NOTE: This post has now been locked and new submissions are not being accepted. Ad submissions are now undergoing review by the Community Team, and this question will be updated once the ads are live.

We're almost halfway through 2021, and in case you missed it, Community Promotion Ads are gonna be a bit different this time! TL;DR: submit and vote for ad proposals before August 2nd!

What are Community Ads?

Community Ads are community-vetted advertisements that will show up on the main site, or on other sites in the network. They can show up in the right sidebar, or in banners in question pages. The purpose of this question is the vetting process. Images of the advertisements are provided, and community voting will enable the advertisements to be considered by the Community Management Team to be displayed.

Why do we have Community Ads?

This is a method for the community to control what gets promoted to visitors on the site. The goal of this initiative is for future visitors to find out about the stuff your community deems important. This also serves as a way to promote information and resources that are relevant to your own community's interests, both for those already in the community and those yet to join. You may want to promote external resources, or Meta guidance for newcomers, for instance.

This initiative has an added goal of providing your community with an opportunity to showcase exemplary questions from your main site, as well as frequently-linked-to guides from your Meta site. While the latter makes sense to be shown solely on this site, the former can be shown all across the network. These should avoid hot button topics, and instead focus more on evergreen questions that show what your community’s all about.

Why do we reset the ads?

Some services will maintain usefulness over the years, while other things will wane to allow for new faces to show up. Resetting the ads every year helps accommodate this, and allows old ads that have served their purpose to be cycled out for fresher ads for newer things. This helps keep the material in the ads relevant to not just the subject matter of the community, but to the current status of the community. Historically, we've reset the ads every year — since this is the first run of a new format, we'll run the ads collected in this post through the end of 2021 and reassess the rotation cycle then.

The community ads have no restrictions against reposting an ad from a previous cycle. If a particular service or ad is very valuable to the community and will continue to be so, it is a good idea to repost it. It may be helpful to give it a new face in the process, so as to prevent the imagery of the ad from getting stale after a previous exposure.

Are there restrictions to the ads I can post?

All proposed ads need to abide by our Code of Conduct. Our ad creative guidelines also generally apply (note that the first 2 bullet points on the “Tracking” section do not apply, and a lot of the guidelines surrounding claims, comparisons, proof, etc., while still applicable, may not be particularly relevant). Finally, ads can not be promoting products nor soliciting programmer time or resources for: knowledge sharing or collaboration tools for technologists, or for sites where ad buyers are primarily targeting technologists.

How does it work?

The answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules, or they will be ignored:

  1. Each answer must relate to a single ad submission. Please do not post multiple ad submissions in the same answer.

  2. All answers must be in one of the below formats:

    1. If you have an image for the ad you want to display on this site (must be the case for ads to external sources):
    [![Image name. Example: "community_ad_name_300x250"][1]][2]

  [1]: https://image-url
  [2]: https://clickthrough-url
    1. If you want to create an ad for a question from your main or meta site, to be advertised on this or other sites in the network (staff will generate a frame for the ad with this site's theme, for brand consistency):
    Question title  
Question URL
Ad size (right sidebar or banner ads)
Site(s) to be displayed in. Can be:
  - "self" for ads to be displayed on this site
  - "all" for ads to be displayed all over the network
  - a specific subset of sites

  3. Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to discuss something, do it in the comments.

Image requirements

  • The image that you create must be 300 x 250 pixels for right sidebar ads or 728 x 90 pixels for banner ads. Images can be double that if high DPI.
  • Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (imgur)
  • Must be GIF, PNG, or JPG
  • No animated GIFs
  • Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB
  • If the background of the image is white or partially white, there must be a 1px border (2px if high DPI) surrounding it.

Selection process

This post will remain open for ad submissions and voting until August 2nd. At that point, the question will be closed/locked, and no more ad submissions will be accepted. For ad submissions to be considered for selection by the Community Management Team, they must have a minimum score of 6 at the time the post was closed/locked for submissions. Given this is the first run with this new format, we may adjust the score threshold to be a bit lower if we see ads struggling to get to it (especially if the ads are not getting downvotes) by the time submissions and voting are closed.

Reporting statistics

Once this cycle is over, at the end of 2021, the Community Management Team will provide you with reporting statistics, as described in the "reporting" section of this post.

Feel free to use the question's comment section to ask for any clarifications.

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  • $\begingroup$ I'm sorry for being naive, but I have never seen these community ads +_+. The community-widest promoting thing I saw was active questions, when going through the main stack-site. Is it normal? $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jun 17, 2021 at 21:09
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    $\begingroup$ @Tortliena it's been a while since community ads were last seen - and I'm of the opinion that the new changes will continue to keep them rare. They used to show up all the time. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Jun 19, 2021 at 7:10
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    $\begingroup$ @JBH Now that you posted the two commissions, something tingles in the back of my head, but it's still really fuzzy. That's sad. $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jun 19, 2021 at 13:21
  • $\begingroup$ @JNat, I just posted a meta.se question encouraging more participation with this post, but I was also wondering... would it be possible for SE to create a temporary community ad that advertised "this post" (in the context of each Stack) during the submission and voting period? Frankly, it seems almost no one has noticed this post. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Jul 7, 2021 at 23:42
  • $\begingroup$ This post is [featured] so it is visible in the bulletin on the main site — your post isn't, so it's likely to be less visible. I don't dislike an ad-type of thing as you suggest, and while I can't promise I can make that work for this particular iteration, I'll bring that up as something to explore in future iterations for sure, @JBH. Also, don't worry too much about the posts not meeting the minimum score of 6; as I mention in the post "we may adjust the score threshold to be a bit lower if we see ads struggling to get to it (especially if the ads are not getting downvotes)" this time. $\endgroup$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Jul 8, 2021 at 8:01
  • $\begingroup$ @JNat Is my second proposal about Writing Q&A respecting the size limits? Looks like that depending on the system, you get different size results, probably due to how KBs can have different meanings (1 KB = 1024 bytes or 1KiB = 1000 bytes)... $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 20, 2021 at 7:50
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    $\begingroup$ It's larger than 150 KB on my end, @Tortliena. If you could find a way to slightly reduce its size, that'd be nice ^_^ $\endgroup$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Jul 20, 2021 at 8:09
  • $\begingroup$ @JNat Okay, now I'm annoyed because I read that JPGs are not allowed and therefore my submission won't fit. Annoyed part by me who assumed it was, part by this contest whose rules makes no more sense to me. Why aren't JPGs allowed? It's the part of web standard, and especially good for anything looking more or less photo-like. At least much more than the "quality" of gifs which always look bad when they're not animated. And both gif and png web usage are for transparency (+animation for gifs), which obviously doesn't fit for an ad as there's a need for a black border if white background... $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 20, 2021 at 22:54
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    $\begingroup$ Nice catch, @Tortliena! That was actually a remnant of the previous iterations' format, and there really is not a technical reason for that restriction to still be in place — I've edited the post to clarify that JPG files are fine too. $\endgroup$
    – JNat StaffMod
    Jul 21, 2021 at 9:48

8 Answers 8

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Improve your question in the sandbox!

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  • $\begingroup$ That was an interesting art training. I'm not used yet to such constrained space ^^'. $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jun 19, 2021 at 19:53
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Build the story to go with your world on Writing.Codidact.com!

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  • $\begingroup$ Always fun to retouch photos and to draw vector images even if it's mostly rectangles and text. And now I know how to make fake adhesive tapes x). Photo credits by Pierre Bamin, under the Unsplash license, free to use in this context therefore. $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 9, 2021 at 17:30
  • $\begingroup$ Hello again! I just noticed that this image is 152KB on disk, and that they say there's a hard limit of 150KB. (The ad I reposted from last year is even bigger and they ran it last year, but they're also changing how they do this, so they might enforce it this year.) Is there something you can do to shrink the file size just a bit, without changing the display dimensions (which also have a specific requirement)? Maybe something with color depth? (This is so not my field...) I just want to make sure your great ad doesn't get rejected on a technicality. Thanks! $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 20, 2021 at 2:14
  • $\begingroup$ @MonicaCellio I redownloaded the picture, it's at 147 KB for me, using Windows Explorer. I think it's due to the choice of unit scale, with the KB and KiB $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 20, 2021 at 7:35
  • $\begingroup$ I'll get to JNat to know if the image is under the limit. Or I'd need to remake an export, which is kinda boring x). $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 20, 2021 at 7:48
  • $\begingroup$ Oh, interesting -- my size report is from a Mac. I didn't know that varied. Thanks for checking! $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 20, 2021 at 13:05
  • $\begingroup$ @MonicaCellio And reduced quality to from 81% to 79%, which lands me at ~143KB. With the conversion, it should be around 147-148 KiB, definitely under the range, even under SI units. Check on your side if it's ok, I don't have neither mac nor Linux to test ^^' $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 20, 2021 at 22:14
  • $\begingroup$ Mac says 147KB, and I can't see the difference -- nice! Thank you very much for your work on this. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 20, 2021 at 22:24
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Q&A about Science Fiction and Fantasy on Stack Exchange

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Build the story to go with your world on Writing.Codidact.com!

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  • $\begingroup$ Image by Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2. I'd welcome a version that has some of the language of the SciSpec ad, but I lack the skills to make it pretty. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 8, 2021 at 0:47
  • $\begingroup$ What do you mean? What did you wish, text-wise? If I had the original picture without the text (or even better the raw file), it's easy as the pie I've eaten :p. Otherwise, uh... You'd need to find an equivalent picture, or remove the text with some kind of clone tool I guess, which is nasty; Very nasty. $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 8, 2021 at 8:41
  • $\begingroup$ @Tortliena I don't have the original image and I don't know if Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2 is still around (I don't have contact info). I'd like to include "run by the community it serves" and "help us build another great Q&A community" -- the "another" there emphasizes that we're not trying to take anything away from here but instead are doing something different. If that's too much text I'd keep the "help us" line and drop the "run by" line. I love the art on this ad, which is why I didn't make a more basic one like for Scientific Speculation. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 8, 2021 at 13:25
  • $\begingroup$ I see. Perhaps I'll get the time to make that, always a good practice. Well, provided I find an open source picture to replace the old one, if that is; I doubt my art style matches what you're seeking x). $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 8, 2021 at 19:26
  • $\begingroup$ Annnnddd... Done. $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 9, 2021 at 17:25
  • $\begingroup$ @Tortliena nice! Thank you! $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 9, 2021 at 17:27
  • $\begingroup$ Playing fair and square (why not round for once?), you should import this picture and reexport it into a JPG, as this picture stands above 500KB (PNG is good in that it's lossless regarding quality, but a bad fit for small pictures in general). This can be easily done in GIMP or Krita (export, change type, reduce % and reduce subsampling). Or you could try your luck at online PNG compression tools, like this one. $\endgroup$
    – Tortliena - inactive
    Jul 20, 2021 at 22:19
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    $\begingroup$ I'm not disagreeing. :-( We'd have to ask JNat what's up with the requirements; I'm just going by what's in his post. I have no idea what's motivating that rule. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 20, 2021 at 22:53
  • $\begingroup$ @Tortliena thank you! That's much better. I'm going to clean up some of my obsolete comments now. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 21, 2021 at 12:52
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Be inspired by stories

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    $\begingroup$ Nice to see you again, Monica. Happy to support the effort. $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    Jul 8, 2021 at 15:48
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks @JBH. I came by to support these proposals. Feel free to ping me over there (or in our Discord server), or via the other contact info I left in my profile here. $\endgroup$
    – Monica Cellio
    Jul 8, 2021 at 15:54
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