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:
Each answer must relate to a single ad submission. Please do not post multiple ad submissions in the same answer.
All answers must be in one of the below formats:
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-urlIf 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
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.
