Bitcoin Forum

The forum sells ad space in the area beneath the first post of every topic page. About 25% of ad income goes to the forum moderators as thanks for all of their work. (There are many moderators, so each moderator gets only a small amount -- moderators should be seen as volunteers, not employees.) The rest is stored in the forum's treasury (verifiably (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155000.0)), where it sits until the forum needs it.

Ads are allowed to contain any non-annoying HTML/CSS style. No images, JavaScript, or animation (no marquee or blinking). Ads must appear 3 or fewer lines tall in my browser (Firefox, 700px wide). Ad text may not contain lies, misrepresentation, or inappropriate language. Ads may not link directly to any NSFW page. Ads may be rejected for other reasons, and I may remove ads even after they are accepted.

There are 10 total ad slots which are randomly rotated. So one ad slot has a one in ten chance of appearing. Eight of the slots are for sale here. Ads appear only on topic pages with more than one post, and only for people using the default theme.

The ad lasts at least 7 days starting from when I put it up. (However, if you look at the ad history (https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats) you'll see that ads usually get at least 8 days, and sometimes as many as 10, but this is random and definitely not guaranteed.)

Stats

Exact historical impression counts per slot:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adstats

Info about the current ad slots:
https://bitcointalk.org/adrotate.php?adinfo

Ad blocking

Hero members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators have the ability to disable ads. I don't expect many people to use this option. These people don't increase the impression counts for your ads.

I try to bypass Adblock Plus filters as much as possible, though this is not guaranteed. It is difficult or impossible for ABP filters to block the ad space itself without blocking posts. However, filters can match against the URLs in your links, your CSS classes and style attributes, and the HTML structure of your ads.

To prevent matches against URLs: I have some JavaScript which fixes links blocked by ABP. You must tell me if you want this for your ads. When someone with ABP and JavaScript enabled views your ads, your links are changed to a special randomized bitcointalk.org URL which redirects to your site when visited. People without ABP are unaffected, even if they don't have JavaScript enabled. The downsides are:
- ABP users will see the redirection link when they hover over the link, even if they disable ABP for the forum.
- Getting referral stats might become even more difficult.
- Some users might get a warning when redirecting from https to http.

To prevent matching on CSS classes/styles: Don't use inline CSS. I can give your ad a CSS class that is randomized on each pageload, but you must request this.

To prevent matching against your HTML structure: Use only one <a> and no other tags if possible. If your ads get blocked because of matching done on something inside of your ad, you are responsible for noticing this and giving me new ad HTML.

Auction rules

Post your bids in this thread. Prices must be stated in BTC per slot. You must state the max number of slots you want. When the auction ends, the highest bidders will have their slots filled until all eight slots are filled.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made. In particular, bids from people with less than 15 activity points are likely to be rejected. I recommend not getting into a bidding war with someone who has less than 15 activity points, as their bids might not be accepted, but your latest bids will still stand. If you need to know right away whether someone's bids will be accepted, PM me.

So if someone bids for 8 slots @ 5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 8 slots. If the two highest bids are 8 slots @ 4 BTC and 1 slot @ 5 BTC, then the first person will get 7 slots and the second person will get 1 slot.

The notation "2 @ 5" means 2 slots for 5 BTC each. Not 2 slots for 5 BTC total.

- When you post a bid, the bids in your previous posts are considered to be automatically canceled. You can put multiple bids in one post, however.
- All bid prices must be evenly divisible by 0.05.
- The bidding starts at 0.50.
- I will end the auction at an arbitrary time no more than 12 days from now. (I will probably end the auction 1-3 days before the ads are scheduled to go up.)
- If two people bid at the same price, the person who bid first will have his slots filled first.
- Bids are considered invalid and will be ignored if they do not specify both a price and a max quantity, or if they could not possibly win any slots

If these rules are confusing, look at some of the past forum ad auctions to see how it's done.

You must pay for your slots within 24 hours of receiving the payment address. Otherwise your slots may be sold to someone else, and I might even give you a negative trust rating. I will send you the payment information via forum PM from this account ("theymos", user ID 35). You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

8 @ 0.5

8 @ 1

1 @ 1.1

8@2

1 @ 2.1

8 @ 2.05

2 @ 2.1

4 @ 2.1

8 @ 2.15

1@2.1

4 @ 2.2

2 @ 2.2

8 @ 2.25

2 @ 2.3

4 @ 2.3

8 @ 2.4

4 @ 2.45

2 @ 3

1 @ 3.05

8 @ 3.1

2@4

1 @ 3.3

5 @ 2.5 + 3 @ 3.1

8 @ 4.05

1 @ 4.1

1 @ 4.15

 :-\

1@4.5

2 @ 4.2

4 @ 4.1

1 @ 4.15

1 @ 4.2

2 @ 4.2

1@4

8 @ 4.25

7 @ 4.3

1 @ 4.35

8 @ 4.4

1 @ 4.45

1 @ 4.5 

You already posted that bid. Are you in for second slot?

4 @ 4.45

2 @ 4.45

2 @ 4.5

No.  I wrote this comment because the following after the first ignored my bid.

1 @ 4.55

4 @ 4.5

1 @ 4,7

1 @ 4.6

2 @ 4.55

1 @ 4.7

8 @ 4.75

1 @ 5

 When the end of the round ?! Already half of the month is coming!

It will be when the last bidder will stop breathing.

Stupidest auction what I was see in my life.

It's quite clear. Today is probably the last day.

It doesn't help when you keep trying to scoop up all 8 slots instead of settling for just a couple. 
Good luck.

2 @ 5

3 @ 5.05

4 @ 5.05

4 @ 5.1

1 @ 5.1

1 @ 5.15

1 @ 5.1

1 @ 5.15

1 @ 5,2

By the way, administrator, that do noobs here?
This is very strange. So, as he had nothing to risk with higher interest rates.
More strange, I think clone - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=384341 which sends the PM on behalf of the administration and for some reason still is not locked. Leads to some thoughts.

1 @ 5.25

May I ask what you are doing? 


This means you cancelled your bid of 1 @ 5.15 (which could have survived your competitors) to bring it up to 5.25.  Why didn't you just keep it at 5.15?

Either you aren't aware of what you are doing, or you are trying to bring the bids up as high as possible before ending.

You even ditched your bid of 4 @ 5.1....
very strange.

1 @ 5.25 + 2 @ 5.15 + 4 @ 5.1 + 1 @ 5.05

This is stupidest auction, that's i see in my life.

No, you are just confused.  Write down a table/chart with all the bids and keep track of what you're doing. :)  After that, just keep in mind that only your last post counts.

Sorry for the delay.

Auction ended. Final result:

Slots BTC/Slot Person
1 5.25 BIT-X.com
1 5.20 Fixx
2 5.15 BIT-X.com
1 5.10 sunxiaoxiao
1 5.10 PBmining
2 5.10 BIT-X.com


Whenever you place a bid, your previous bids are cancelled and you lose your place. If you want to bid at multiple prices, you need to put them all in one post as you did there.

The rules are intended to minimize confusion. They've been refined over 133 rounds (more than 2 years) into something that generally works pretty well.