GuildWiki:Advertisements

The operations of GuildWiki incurs costs related to hosting (server/bandwidth), technical support (maintaining/upgrading MediaWiki software and extensions), and community support (which we as a developed wiki don't really utilize much, except as a medium to communicate hosting or tech support issues). These services and costs are covered by Wikia, which generates revenue via advertisements placed in all its wikis.

Bad ads
Inappropriate advertisements may be reported at Wikia staff noticeboard.

Types of ads
There are currently four classes of advertisements on GuildWiki:
 * A horizontal banner ad on the homepage
 * Everybody sees this ad
 * An ad at the top inside the body area of content pages that are not "too short"
 * The ad is 250x300px "almost-square" by default
 * The ad becomes a horizontal banner ad when an inhuman algorithm determines that having a square ad would make the page layout look weird (mostly have to do with tables starting at the top of the page).
 * Anon users are forced to see this ad
 * Logged in users may choose to see this ad (by default logged in users do not see this ad).
 * A vertical banner ad on the sidebar for content pages that are very long.
 * Anon users are forced to see this ad
 * Logged in users may choose to see this ad (by default logged in users do not see this ad).

Additionally, Wikia also has "Wikia Spotlights", which are small banners about other Wikia wikis, scattered in the sidebar and footer. These are typically not considered as "advertisements" as they are not used for revenue generation

Playing with the ads
Wikia's terms of use prohibits anyone to "block, remove, or otherwise obstruct the proper functioning and view of advertisements by other users". However, users may modify their own personal css/js to mess with the functioning and/or viewing of ads by themselves.

Additionally, tinkering with the algorithm to influence whether the in-page advertisement shows up as an "almost-square" or a horizontal banner is not explicitly prohibited.
 * To force the ad to be a horizontal banner, one can use at the top of the page.
 * To force a floating infobox to display next to, instead of underneath, the "almost-square" ad, add the class "clearnone" to the infobox.