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Keith,
Sorry, but I felt compelled to cancel my subscription to your daily, monetized, gout update. The advertisements on your site are overcrowding the information too.
I’m sorry to see this happening to a very important, (unbiased?) website for gout sufferers, like myself. I was quite interested to see your update on Uloric’s new warning on liver side-effects – I am on that med.
I know you have spent a lot of time re-designing your website over the years and have recently added other feeds. I know this takes money but I think it would be to your benefit to keep the ads out of the content on the website and placed away from the articles. Many of the sponsored medical websites do a good job of separating the information from the sales pitch – you should follow that model. Your “Latest from GoutPal’s Gout Blog” updates are just ads and today’s e-mail is what moved me to cancel.
Please think about this and help to bring your website back to the important resource it started as.
Interesting.
I’ll address the last paragraph first, and say that GoutPal is, and will always be, an important gout resource. Where else can you get free unbiased (without the question mark) advice from someone who truly cares that you control your gout?
I am currently going through all advertising and paid links to make sure they are clearly marked as advertising, and not just links within content. I’d love to see a few practical examples that demonstrate “I think it would be to your benefit to keep the ads out of the content on the website and placed away from the articles. Many of the sponsored medical websites do a good job of separating the information from the sales pitch ? you should follow that model. ”
I think my model is less intrusive than that of, for example, WebMD, but what do other people think? I accept that I can always improve, but I’d appreciate an insight into those websites that you feel are worth emulating.
Ultimately, I’d like to remove all advertising from the main website, except for some clearly marked links to my Gout Store. That will depend on the success of the Gout Store. Early indications are good, but progress slow, and unlikely to be a candidate this year.
One possibility is to introduce a paid-access service that removes advertising for participants. Would anyone pay for an advert-free GoutPal site? If so, how much? Similarly, who would like to see an advert-free update email service?
An easy example of keeping the ads separate would be the format of this page we’re on now. ?The content area, in which I’m writing now, is on the left and the updates are nicely separated and organized on the right. ?Ads or links to an ad page could also be separated, out of the content similarly.
I don’t imagine you could run this without regular, paid income so I don’t suggest going ad-free. ?I merely dislike regular e-mail updates with ads rather than content and. ?I also felt the content pages have become overwhelmed with ads and it sometimes becomes difficult to distinguish them from content.
I would like to know if I’m alone in this?
No, you are not.
While I have never said anything about the ads, I have said several times, and other “old gouties” have agreed, current “GoutPal” ain’t the same as the ORINAL?GOUTPAL? when GoutPal?was a “gout family” website with more than 30-40 gouties chiming in and helping other gouties, particularly newcomers, like me in Dec 2009, understand and do something about GOUT.?When we were, like sitting around the table, tossing bits and pieces at each other, trying to understand and trying to do something about our gout. As I have said several times?already, thanks to YOU, Keith, and the other “old gouties”??I have been free of gout attacks now for more than two years, which I never was between 1984 and 2011 (27+ tears).
Keith, I am not going to start it again, but I am going to point out that?one doesn’t?have to be a?rocket scientist to figure out that YOU are the only one left to respond to any gouties or newcomers. I am truly, honestly sorry and chagrined that this is happening.Apropos Ads: Keith, are you aware that your ads don’t worh here? I saw one item Iwas going to buy, and all I got was:? ……Empty URL and a blank page. I just tried it it again, just for kicks. and the same results
US flag BUY NOW, the same.
Are you paying for advertising that ain’t doing you any good???.
I am going to chime in for the first time in years. I have been a member of this site for at least 4 years or so…ever since I was diagnosed with gout (under control with 300mg Allopurinol daily). I remember when hansinnm joined. 🙂 I get the daily email summarizing each day’s postings so I dont visit the site very often anymore except when intrigued by a particular thread.
Hasinnm is both right and wrong. Up until Keith started this site, the information at our fingertips was sketchy and random. Most of it coming from doctors or friends and none of it comprehensive.
Then Keith started this site and a community was born out of the need to coordinate our learnings and seperate the truth from the BS. (I was glad to one of the many praying for him when he took a swan dive to the pavement below his flat.)
A second revolution quitely occurred in the last couple years. Now that new drugs are coming onto the market and more resources become available for gout sufferers, the need for a community is evolving from the (now fairly comprehensive) Wiki-type knowledge repository to a?place for a new diagnosis to get all they need to know while the regulars slowly determine if the new crop of drugs is really an improvement over good old-fashioned Allopurinol. (I would say they are worse…) And build a consensus about how effective they are.
Anyone new to gout can find pretty much everything they need to know in the existing posts and never have to join the community. We have become a gout-wikipedia.
Keith does this out of passion and I am ever grateful for it. I do not begrudge him defraying his costs by slapping a few ads on the page.
What you are seeing is this…All this passion has turned Keith into an expert on gout. All the knowledge and research and discussions about the various treatments has absorbed into his head until he can provide most new people with the information they need right out of the gate instead of the flailing in the dark we used to do just a few years ago. There is less of a need for many of us to write since most of the most important information can be communicated in his initial responses to new posters.
My opinion is colored by the fact that Keith and I beleive the same thing about allopurinol being the best treatment and all the “new” medications are not as good regardless of the advertising millions behind them. I am an allopurinol fanboy. Though, I feel that Keith should push lifestyle changes as strongly as his other advice.
Many of the old guard are still around. We just tend to watch from the sidelines now instead of jumping into the fray. 😛
Note to Keith: Push harder the life-style changes. I truely believe this was 50% of my success. Secondly, encourage them to report back what their doctors say or prescribe. It would help us see trends.
My two cents. I will wander back to my cave now.
Interesting, and more interesting.
I wish I had time now to respond more fully to all the points. Safe to say, all three of the people who have been kind enough to respond here have inspired me to new heights. This is in wonderful contrast to my personal lows of the past two years.
Time constraints are down to me moving home. At last I’m getting away from near-death flat. The new chapter in my life is bound to influence new chapters for GoutPal. I’ll save my rant at the bastard landlords for another day.
Am I really coming out of it, or just fooling myself? Is another unforeseen psychological minefield just round the corner? Who knows! Stay tuned via the over-commercialized update service for the next thrilling story of the fall and rise of GoutPal.
Quick responses to your comments so far:
@Bhart I’m confused whether the issue is the website or the update service. This website uses the same basic layout as GoutPal.com. I’m desperate to keep you onboard, so please spell out to this thick person what I need to do to keep you.
@hansinnm Thank you for testing my adverts. Are you going to tell me which one caused the problem, or is my punishment going to be that I have to test them all? This might be difficult for me, as the ads are geographically targeted. I cannot see what you see unless I test it from the States. If you can’t tell me the troublesome link, I guess I should visit to see what the real problem is. Do you have a spare kennel for this old dog to stay?
@Tavery Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Reason and clarity personified. I’m inspired to redouble my efforts into non-pharmaceutical options for that significant group of gout sufferers who might benefit. Crowdsourcing is a new trend for alternative ways to solve many problems. I do not see why it cannot apply to natural gout remedies. I think I can see a way to make the personal gout management services that I am building provide exactly the type of trend information you refer to. Happy days ahead.To the three who have joined in so far – a massive thank you.
To the thousands who are lurking – please post your experiences, opinions, or questions in an existing topic, or start a new one. You will be surprised how quickly your gout gets better when you talk about it on a personal basis rather than following other people’s gout stories.
I promise to address the root issues raised in this discussion in more detail, soon. In the meantime – please get posting.
Keith, it doesn’t make any difference. e.g. any ad in the box for pH test strips, the “Buy Now” ?and “Buy pH test strips for you gout” all have the?same results. Unfortunately, The URL is so long that only part shows up in the address field. When I click on it I see momentarly the?entire URL, that’s how I know that the end of it says:…..EMPTY?URL.?
Hope this helps.
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