all of my base are blocked by the escapist :(

[vdrandom]

I also have poked several holes through the firewall for people who have let us know [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/contact/] what their static IP is. I'm sorry if your prior ticket was lost in the shuffle; we do follow up on everything, so there may have been an email issue.

Thank you, I can now access the articles and forum from work. :3
Moar ways to procrastinate ftw!

 

[Rattja]

Show your support by clicking the red button.

... God damnit. I knew what that button does, I've resisted for so long but for one second there I just did not think. Congratulations, you made me click it.

Hell while I am at it I'll click the spinning one as well, click ALL THE BUTTONS!

 

[Kross]

I think you should write a piece for some part of this site explaining these issues, why ads matter, why subscribing matters in this very real way. In a few posts you've taken me from angry to understanding, and I doubt I'm alone on this.

I'm glad I could clarify things a bit. There's always more compromises then one might like for making something you enjoy pay enough to avoid other soul-draining labor. I've been whining about these things internally for years in various ways, but olitics: and other issues relating to pretty much everything get in the way of... lots of things. As far as more public clarifications, maybe someday, but there's lots of toes to be stepped on first. At least in here, I can say these viewpoints are me being mouthy rather then the company poking at our gracious money providing overlords. The other side of the advertising coin is how hard it is to even get the attention of the decently paying ads (that are worth the eye-sore/etc... we tried running Adwords for filler a couple times, and they paid such trivial amounts it wasn't worth the space and user annoyance)

We also spent literally years not being able to fill our ad inventory due to lazy (remote) ad-sales people who said they were working while doing nothing but selling themselves; and then later for not being a "top 3" site in our niche, companies wouldn't even buy ads despite having perfectly serviceable page views. There's so much tradition and lack of interest from the networks and PR companies reselling the ads, that you don't get anything unless you're at the top of their internal lists. This is why Quantcast and the like can demand so much money for the privilege of being in their database (though this is much better now then it was 4+ years ago), as certain large PR companies won't even look in your direction for ad buys unless you're at the top of your demographic. When you see "house ads" (ads pointing at our own content) or other really unspecific filler ads to random things, that's because nobody is currently buying a real ad for that spot. Anyone around 3+ years ago saw those quite often I imagine.

Thank you, I can now access the articles and forum from work. :3
Moar ways to procrastinate ftw!

Hah, no problem. I've helped run an IRC network for years, and we would regularly open "web" related ports like 8080 for similar reasons.
It's also where I got my first real server hosting experience in a hostile environment. We would get DDoS'd multiple times a month for years due to all the bored IRC kiddies, more then I ever had to deal with on a website - but fantastic learning experience regarding dealing with proxies[footnote]I actually use similar proxy lists (DNSBL) to dynamically block posting/messaging/registration - but not for the actual firewall (as I do indeed want as many actual people to read the site as possible)[/footnote] and such. That's likely the primary reason I take a relatively "unique" (aggressive) approach to network filtering, due to the trauma and trials of IRCD hosting.