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I just got this advertisement next to my AskUbuntu feed:

Advertisement linking to AskUbuntu review queue.

Which linked to the review queue for AskUbuntu.

Since I'm below 500 rep, I can't do anything in the review queue yet.

Why are unqualified users (such as myself) being displayed this advertisement?

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    I would guess because the ad box is just a script that shows upvoted ads at random. It could possibly be made to detect a user's rep and show appropriate ads, but then the ads would have to be manually marked to only be shown to certain groups. It would get pretty complicated.
    – TheWanderer
    Commented Mar 29, 2016 at 1:27
  • The idea is to get you more involved with this community. As you can see, maintenance and moderation are community responsibilities. The moderators manage :special" problems such as spam and user maintenance. IMHO advertising such things and participation is important and should be continues to all users regardless of reputation so users understand how it works. All too often I see people upset with high rep users without understanding this site is community maintained.
    – Panther
    Commented Mar 29, 2016 at 13:26
  • Take it as encouragement to get to 500+ rep.
    – Carl H
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 10:59
  • @Zacharee1 Also that's a massive database overhead
    – Tim
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 21:05

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The system does not know what the content of the ad is. The ads are (mostly) manually created images by users of the Stack Exchange network, which are then voted on by other users. See Community Promotion Ads - 2016 for this year's ad selection process (vote accordingly if you don't want this ad to be shown).

The only connection between reputation and ads is that you're shown less ads above a certain threshold (200, IIRC).

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  • That was why I was surprised. There is, at least, some knowledge in that system of my reputation, so surely it shouldn't be shown when under 500 rep as it makes no sense. However, I understand this may be unnecessarily complicated for a minor misleading.
    – tudor -Reinstate Monica-
    Commented Mar 29, 2016 at 2:04
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    @tudor - you do not want to learn more about the site? education on how the site works is relevant regardless of your reputation.
    – Panther
    Commented Mar 29, 2016 at 14:32
  • @bodhi.zazen I fail to see how that image, or it linking to a page with everything blocked out is helping me understand the site any better.
    – tudor -Reinstate Monica-
    Commented Mar 29, 2016 at 22:28
  • You still see sidebar ads above 200. It's the banner ones that go.
    – Tim
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 21:06
  • @tudor to make it so an ad only appears to users above a certain rep would require the creator to tag it in a special way, and have the system pick up that tag along with the ad, and somehow incorporate it into a complex rep-tracking ad system with a lot of ifs and elses, so that it wouldn't be shown to lower-rep users. Getting rid of a whole ad space above a certain rep is a lot easier, and much less dynamic.
    – TheWanderer
    Commented Mar 31, 2016 at 1:16

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