27
\$\begingroup\$

Success!

We have officially garnered 48 clicks (more than CR's ad) on ads on Programmers, 9 clicks on Game Development, and a whopping 171 clicks (6 per day) on Theoretical Computer Science! Hooray!

UPDATE: Ads have been posted! Vote for us!

There was a tie, with two answers at 10 votes, so I just decided to post them both. Ads have been posted on Programmers (1, 2), Mathematica (1, 2), Game Development (1, 2), and Theoretical Computer Science (1, 2)! Vote for our ads there so they start showing up on the sites!

So I noticed that Robotics Stack Exchange made their own little ads to post on other sites' community ad posts:

robotics stack exchange

I think we should make one of our own! It could be posted on Stack Overflow, and it would really help bring in more traffic, which we really need. It might also fit on other programming-related sites.

So, make an ad and post an answer below! Here are the rules you must follow for the ad:

  • The image that you create must be 220 x 250 pixels
  • Must be hosted through our standard image uploader (i.stack.imgur.com)
  • Must be GIF or PNG
  • No animated GIFs
  • Absolute limit on file size of 150 KB

It should also have a border.

The highest voted ad once it has been at least two weeks, or there are at least 3 submissions with 3 votes each, or there is a submission with over 10 votes, will be posted on the community-ads post on various programming-related sites.

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13
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ I suck at drawing, but here's my idea: have a piece of code with a two-letter variable laying on grass, with a golfer standing next to it and firing one of the letters (could be an o symbolised by a golf ball) into the distance. \$\endgroup\$
    – John Dvorak
    Mar 29, 2014 at 7:01
  • \$\begingroup\$ Immediately, I picture Reddit-style sidebar ads. :P \$\endgroup\$
    – cjfaure
    Mar 29, 2014 at 11:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ok, so I'm somewhat stupid and can't figure out how to upload pictures to i.stack.imgur.com. When I go there, it says, among other things "you're probably not supposed to be here". No upload button. I think this is a great idea, so could anybody tell me how to upload stuff? \$\endgroup\$
    – wec
    Mar 29, 2014 at 12:04
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Tungsten If you create an answer to this question and use the image button on the editor, it gives you the option to upload the image. \$\endgroup\$
    – Gareth
    Mar 29, 2014 at 12:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ Do we have to pay for this to be hosted? \$\endgroup\$
    – TheDoctor
    Mar 30, 2014 at 16:20
  • \$\begingroup\$ @TheDoctor Umm... what? \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Mar 30, 2014 at 16:44
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Doorknob most sites have you pay to put up an ad. \$\endgroup\$
    – TheDoctor
    Mar 30, 2014 at 19:37
  • \$\begingroup\$ @TheDoctor Nope; that's why they're called community ads. ;) \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Mar 30, 2014 at 19:40
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ They're also called community ads because they're selected by the respective community, so I don't think you should be encouraging people who aren't regular participants in the other stacks to upvote ads to appear there. \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Taylor
    Apr 1, 2014 at 9:09
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ You could have handled the selection process a bit more fairly. Picking yourself as a winner after just 3 days and only two hours after receiving two new submissions seems a bit rigged to me. #jussayin \$\endgroup\$
    – r3mainer
    Apr 1, 2014 at 9:42
  • \$\begingroup\$ @squeamishossifrage Meh, 10 votes each on the answers seemed like enough support to me. And next rotation of ads, we need different ones, so yours could be used then. \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Apr 1, 2014 at 12:29
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ It's still poor form to change the "winning criteria" after submissions have been entered. \$\endgroup\$
    – Geobits
    Apr 1, 2014 at 13:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ Maybe this ad should be posted on Stack Overflow. \$\endgroup\$
    – tbodt
    Apr 7, 2014 at 19:38

6 Answers 6

Reset to default
50
\$\begingroup\$

This one's a bit retro :-)

Programming Puzzles & Code Golf

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6
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ I think this is the best one, but there is a lot of untapped potential here. For instance, to illustrate better what codegolf really is, the yellow trace of the ball could be a string of ones and zeros, or maybe a line of golfscript :) And "Let's play" -> "Fore!" \$\endgroup\$
    – daniero
    Apr 1, 2014 at 10:12
  • \$\begingroup\$ @daniero Good suggestions! Maybe next time. \$\endgroup\$
    – r3mainer
    Apr 1, 2014 at 10:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ +1 like. Though on the less-is-more front, if clicking on it takes you to the site I don't think the URL is needed. You could beautify a bit by taking that out and working more with the space. Here's a quick hack job to show you what I mean. \$\endgroup\$
    – HostileFork says dont trust SE
    Apr 9, 2014 at 4:01
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Another suggestion with the space... get the flag out from in front of the planet, here's an even bigger hack job on that suggestion that I'm not going to bother to try and do correctly. :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – HostileFork says dont trust SE
    Apr 11, 2014 at 1:53
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ I like this, but I voted for success kid. \$\endgroup\$
    – Almo
    Apr 11, 2014 at 17:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ I really like this one! It has like a retro-style golf, and a kinda geeky edge to it! \$\endgroup\$
    – Dozer789
    Apr 14, 2014 at 20:45
41
\$\begingroup\$

codegolf.SE gone Reddit with a hint of self irony ;)

Imgur Imgur

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2
  • \$\begingroup\$ 19 because 19th byte and all \$\endgroup\$
    – daniero
    Apr 1, 2014 at 0:13
  • 17
    \$\begingroup\$ I vote for the second one. At least it gives a little context. \$\endgroup\$
    – Justin
    Apr 1, 2014 at 5:28
32
\$\begingroup\$

Here's my entry:

PCG ad

It's got the name of the site, a call-to-action, and a cheeky subtitle - all of which you can read without breaking out your base64 decoder or firing up your IDE :)

GIMP source file is here, the grass texture is in the public domain, and the fonts are all OFL, i.e. freely usable. The image above is a PNG and below the file size limit, as required by the spec, but JPG would be much smaller.

\$\endgroup\$
9
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ I really like the simplicity of this one! +1 \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Mar 31, 2014 at 12:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Doorknob Thanks! Like you said - people look at ads for a precious few milliseconds at most. The message has to be simple or it won't come across in time. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wander Nauta
    Mar 31, 2014 at 12:08
  • \$\begingroup\$ Although, I just noticed it doesn't have a border. Fixed that for you ;) \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Mar 31, 2014 at 13:02
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Doorknob Thanks for the reminder. I made the border a little more subtle, I hope that's okay. \$\endgroup\$
    – Wander Nauta
    Mar 31, 2014 at 16:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ Great ad! I've posted it on four sites; vote for it so it starts showing up! :D \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Apr 1, 2014 at 2:11
  • \$\begingroup\$ Nice! How do I vote? \$\endgroup\$
    – Wander Nauta
    Apr 1, 2014 at 8:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ Just click on the links at the top of this post, and upvote the posts they link to! (You may have to create accounts on the respective sites first, but with the +100 association bonus you'll still have enough rep to vote.) \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Apr 1, 2014 at 12:27
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ If you're going for the "mystery click" I'd omit the reveal of what it's for at the bottom of the ad, and from a graphic design perspective I'd lose the small text. Maybe lure a bit with Unle4sh y0ur 1nner puzzl3r. leetspeak. Or perhaps the grass sort of overlay and decay into something green-terminal-matrix-y? \$\endgroup\$
    – HostileFork says dont trust SE
    Apr 9, 2014 at 3:45
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ Maybe add a golfball... \$\endgroup\$
    – TheDoctor
    Apr 29, 2014 at 22:13
13
\$\begingroup\$

Here's my idea that I'll start off with:

Programming Puzzles and Code Golf Stack Exchange

The puzzle graphic is licensed under the public domain. The font is Neuropolitical, and the code is in Courier New and is from this wonderful answer.

Feel free to use the same text and/or ideas in your own ad, if you think this could be improved!

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 4
    \$\begingroup\$ Hmm. There's something about pointing out that a thing is fun that makes it seem... less fun. (And something about that logo reminded me of an old high school text book :/) Good effort tho :P \$\endgroup\$
    – daniero
    Mar 31, 2014 at 23:50
9
\$\begingroup\$

That's a real challenge, describing what this website is in a clear and small graphic.

Here is my attempt:

CodeGolf

Sources:

\$\endgroup\$
1
  • 3
    \$\begingroup\$ No offence, but to me this looks sort of like a conglomeration of some text and a couple icons, with random punctuation marks at the bottom. \$\endgroup\$
    – The Guy with The Hat
    Apr 25, 2014 at 16:58
-3
\$\begingroup\$

It's a bit plain, so I'll probably have to think of a way of brightening it, but it conveys what I want it to convey.

enter image description here

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13
  • 7
    \$\begingroup\$ To me, this doesn't really yell "programming puzzles" or "code golf." It just looks like a bunch of random characters followed by an ==. \$\endgroup\$
    – wec
    Mar 29, 2014 at 11:49
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Tungsten The == doesn't hint at anything to you? \$\endgroup\$
    – Gareth
    Mar 29, 2014 at 11:50
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ it sort of does, but I think it would be clearer if you had a title that made it clearer this is an ad for code-golf.SE. \$\endgroup\$
    – wec
    Mar 29, 2014 at 12:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Tungsten You have to decode the text to get the ad. \$\endgroup\$
    – Gareth
    Mar 29, 2014 at 12:12
  • 8
    \$\begingroup\$ Meh. Remember that we're not targeting current users of the site; think like a non-golfer! :-P \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Mar 29, 2014 at 12:34
  • 5
    \$\begingroup\$ @Doorknob If people aren't interested in solving puzzles, why would they come to our site? :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – Gareth
    Mar 29, 2014 at 13:30
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ Indeed, but people would probably just ignore the ad when glancing at it (people usually don't study ads for longer than a second) because they don't even know what it's advertising! \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Mar 29, 2014 at 13:31
  • 2
    \$\begingroup\$ I find it more suitable to advertise Cryptography beta. If at least would be written with better font, so OCRs could read it… \$\endgroup\$
    – manatwork
    Mar 29, 2014 at 14:50
  • 1
    \$\begingroup\$ @Gareth: very nice puzzle (although I'm still trying to crack it :)), but I agree with others that this is more targeted to existing CG users, because standard users would just skip it. \$\endgroup\$
    – rubik
    Apr 4, 2014 at 14:55
  • \$\begingroup\$ @rubik Yeah, it seems my idea has not gone down well. Ah well. :-) \$\endgroup\$
    – Gareth
    Apr 4, 2014 at 15:39
  • \$\begingroup\$ +1 for effort, but most people will stop after "Good Start!" and not know the point or if they typed it in right... \$\endgroup\$
    – HostileFork says dont trust SE
    Apr 9, 2014 at 3:41
  • \$\begingroup\$ If you haven't seen base64, you won't know that the == is the padding. \$\endgroup\$
    – Almo
    Apr 11, 2014 at 17:52
  • 6
    \$\begingroup\$ i would decode this if it wasn't an image... and i can't be bothered to type it out \$\endgroup\$
    – user16402
    Apr 18, 2014 at 12:42

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