Someone clicked on a link here alerting me to the fact that WordPress has now decided to show advertisements here. I guess that’s what happens when someone posts enough content that other people find useful or interesting on a site that is free to use.
About These Ads
The site you just visited is part of WordPress.com. There are two reasons why you might see ads on a WordPress.com site:
- The site is part of the WordAds program and has elected to show ads to earn money from their site.
- The site is one of the sites hosted on WordPress.com that has not purchased the No Ads upgrade, and we are running ads to cover the costs of operating the site for the user. We run these types of ads sparingly in an attempt to interfere as little as possible with the experience of reading a site and for logged in users we don’t show ads at all. There’s more info about our approach to ad serving in this blog post.
…
Since I’m not part of WordAds (they’ve never contacted me and it’s unlikely I’d have enough control over the ads to want to inflict them on you) it looks like the only way to get rid of the ads is by paying WordPress $30 a year. As I live off a very limited income, I’m unable to pay. If any of my readers find the ads bothersome enough to donate that fee (via paypal), I will gladly confer the benefits to all of you.
Otherwise, if you see an inappropriate ad, please report it to support@wordpress.com. I’d think any ad that is for anything that harms the environment or health in any way during it’s life cycle would be inappropriate here…
UPDATE: On April 4th, 2013 I paid to have no ads for 1 year.
Seriously "Sensitive" to Pollution 
Hi Linda
I changed my blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org; the difference being the fee ($99) but also the free-will to post my own adds or affiliate adds (which I have not done a lot of, because (a), if I don’t fully agree with it, then why put it on my blog? and (b), it’s a huge learning curve and use of my time to be able to display these adds (using code, reading affiliate contracts and all that)) and the reasoning behind doing this was i thought that any money I earn would pay for the blog [insert crazy lady giggle] but I’ve not earned anything as yet. But before I did this, I read how wordpress.com can display adds, and I pictured them advertising fragrance products or something supporting some company that wants to destroy our planet, and I didn’t want to put my writing next to something like that; so it was always my intention to go private. I don’t want my blog to be about adds, I want it to be a platform for my voice, which I’m still developing.
Your blog is an amazing resource for C.S people.
I didn’t realise that the reason I never see adds is because I’m logged in. Thanks for explaining that. And if I ever see something inappropriate, I’ll definitely contact wordpress.com
Thanks Miche!
WordPress at least gave an email address to complain about inappropriate ads, and like I mentioned, anything fossil fuel, oil, gas, petro-chemical, pharmaceutical, or otherwise life damaging is inappropriate here.
My income doesn’t allow for extras now, like paying for a no-ad site… there are still basic needs I’m doing without because there’s no $ for them.
And like you mentioned, there’s also a huge learning curve to be able to find and develop an appropriate ad base, if such a thing exists…
I think I tend to be more non-profit oriented, shared/gift economy, small business, educational…
I took the plunge and paid to have an ad free site.