Chris,
Would there be a way to work in a "Sponsors" link around the top of the main forum page? Or maybe even a button like the "home", "search", etc. are? I don't know how tedious it would be to code just for a link or if the forum software would even allow it.

matt

Matt,

See the post earlier on this thread that Chris made....he suggested that exact same thing! Great minds think alike...

Doh! I thought he was talking about having it linked in the moderators' sigs. I apologize.

matt

Well, this brings up a question I've been wondering about. When B&H became a sponsor, a link was cited and we were asked to use that link so B&H would know dvinfo members were going to B&H's site. I marked the link as a "favorite" and have been using it to access B&H's site. Since I know zero about tracking, however, and the page that comes up is the usual front page of B&H's site, does marking the link as a favorite and accessing B&H from my favorites menu do any good for dvinfo?

Second, I agree with the idea of showing the sponsors on the first page of the discussion forum. Maybe their logos at the top with links. I wandered into the site and set up the discussion forums page as a favorite, which means that I usually bypass the front page completely, which then means I tend to overlook dvinfo's sponsors (though much of what they carry is targeted more at pro users than at the home movie crowd like me).

On the other hand, and here's my gratuitous comment of the week, please don't do what camcorderinfo is doing. I think I'm about to stop visiting that forum completely because of the way ads now intersperse each new post! Worse than pop ups and pretty demeaning to those posting (how'd you like to be a lead-in to an ad for a sponsor about whom you may know nothing). At least Yahoo only does it once in awhile in its groups and not after every post.

Patricia,
Actually, bookmarking that B&H Photo link will probably not work to support us because the identifying tag in the URL disappears as soon as the main page loads.

If you know how to manually edit and/or set up your bookmarks, here's what it should be:

www.bhphotovideo.com/?BI=155

Thanks, Ken. I think I managed to do it. At least, when I opened the favorites window in msie after clicking organize, I managed to edit the address to the one you gave me. Hope it works.

Ken,

I would assume this would be a good thing for one to do if they bookmarked most of the sponsers? Or, does it matter?

Clay...

Good question. But I don't think that any of the other sponsors have given us tracking codes. So you might as well just bookmark the main links to their sites.

At this point in time, B&H is the only sponsor that tracks the hits from DV Info. The rest of our sponsors just rely on you telling them where you found 'em when you call. Thanks,

The idea of putting some kind of button or link at the top of each forum page, ala "DVi Community - Support Our Sponsors," is a much better solution than signature tag lines. It keeps the button, which would direct us to appropriate links (and perhaps instructions for making our own shortcuts), visible at all times but is not as intrusive as ads, pop-up or otherwise.

Perhaps I'm unusual, but I pretty much ignore signature tag lines. They tend to be static; once you've been hanging around for a while you know what the tag is going to say. That makes it boilerplate, with no reason to read over and over again. Sooner or later I forget it's there and become insensitive to changes.

The advantage of the top of every forum page is that it is always visible when the page loads no matter what you happen to be reading. There's enough room there to put in a tasteful link without taking up forum real estate.

Will