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. Ads must appear 3 or fewer lines tall in my browser (Firefox, 900px 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. Nine 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 12, 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/Legendary 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 stats 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.

Designing ads

Make sure that your ads look good when you download and edit this test page:
https://bitcointalk.org/ad_test.html
Also read the comments in that file.

I will send you more detailed styling rules if you win slots in this auction (or upon request).

Auction rules

You must be at least a Jr Member to bid. If you are not a Jr Member and you really want to bid, you should PM me first (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=pm;sa=send;u=35). Tell me in the PM what you're going to advertise. You might be required to pay some amount in advance. Everyone else: Please quickly PM newbies who try to bid here to warn them against impersonation scammers.

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

So if someone bids for 9 slots @ 5 BTC and this is the highest bid, then he'll get all 9 slots. If the two highest bids are 9 slots @ 4 BTC and 1 slot @ 5 BTC, then the first person will get 8 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.

I reserve the right to reject bids, even days after the bid is made.

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) after announcing the auction results in this thread. You might receive false payment information from scammers pretending to be me. They might even have somewhat similar usernames. Be careful.

Note that from now on there are 9 slots for sale instead of 8. Each slot still has a 1-in-10 chance of appearing.

What was taken down? Was it the PIA slot or the advert slot? If it was the former, then there is still an advertisement for PIA at the bottom of every page, and if it is the later then I would say that I very much enjoyed reading the adverts, and that I did learn a few things over the months from them as well.

The PIA sponsorship was ended (by me). I will remove their stuff at the start of ad round 155.

5 @ 1

1 @ 1

1 @ 0.5

1 @ 0.5

1 @ 0.55

5 @ 1.55

2 @ 1.05

1 @ 1.05

1 @ 1.1

4 @ 1.55

Oops. Correcting my bid:

4 @ 1.6

1 @ 1.65

1 @ 1.6

1 @ 1.6

5 @ 1.65

1 @ 1.7

1 @ 1.7

he has already received a negative trust, so it should not be a problem for the community (but who knows).

So auction is ended or not?

not

Do u guys make what you invest ? Like, you have already committed 5*1.65, i.e. 8.25 BTC for 12-14 days. Would u be able to make 8.25 BTC back within this time period ?

4 @ 1.8

1 @ 1.75

1 @ 1.75

5 @ 1.75

correcting bid 5 @ 1.8

1 @ 1.85

1 @ 1.85

there is no auction end is there?

3 @ 1.85

1 @ 1.85

4 @ 1.9

5 @ 1.9

1 @ 1.9

Its getting quite pricey in here.

1 @ 1.95

1 @ 1.95

This is because two casino are bidding for 4-5 slots each.

4 @ 2

2 @ 2

3 @ 2.1

1 @ 2.05

4 @ 2.1

I think, all further bids including those listed above will be counted as invalid as they were posted after August 15, 2015, the auction end date accourding to OP.
12 days starting from August 4, 2015 is August 15, 2015.

correcting bid 5 @ 2.1

Theymos decides when to end the auction. I assume he likes to stretch it out a little sometimes to squeeze a little more BTC out of people. :P

Actually most of the time he forget to close this thread. He's a busy man. You should PM him if auction time's up.

I also hope that he keeps the 12 days deadline. Thats why I didn't feel the need to increase my bid

No I think he took a *hiatus or maybe doesn't have an internet connection.   *from bitcointalk, reddit etc...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=349090
or maybe he's just not at home.

In that case, everybody would bid in the last minutes on the 15th of August (btalk time). That would not make sense. Theymos always stretches auctions, and it ends whenever it ends -/+ 3 days, as he noted. So, I think auction still continues.

2 @ 2.15

No. Because in the auction rule, it is stated that...

end the auction an arbitrary time no more than 12 days from now.

That means it might end any time before, say 10 days. If you waited for the last minute, you'll miss out the opportunity to bid. But, it'll go no more than 12 days. So, -3 days is within the rule, but +3 days is not. That is why the pace of bid increased as the last day approached.

4 @ 2.2

5 @ 2.2

3 @ 2.2

Correcting my bid: 3 @ 2.3

5 @ 2.35

1 @ 2.35

2 @ 2.4

4 @ 2.45

1 @ 2.4

5 @ 2.5

2 @ 2.5

2 @ 2.7

2 @ 2.6

4 @ 2.7

5 @ 2.75

4 @ 2.8

2 @ 2.8

5 @ 2.85

2 @ 2.85

4 @ 2.9

2 @ 2.9

5 @ 2.95

2 @ 3

2 @ 3

Auction ended. Final result:

Slots BTC/Slot Person
2 3.00 MariaQin
2 3.00 victorhing
5 2.95 FortuneJack