You may have noticed something different.

[Steve Ashton]

Hi folks,

I wanted to let everyone know so that there are no questions later.
You may have noticed something different in the look of the forum when you logged in today.
In the top logo banner of the forum are four placeholder advertising spaces.

Over the past year that have been many companies who wish to bring their products to you for your consideration. I currently have 8 advertisers waiting for space on the forum.

As you can imagine I have a problem where to put these ads in our given space without the forum looking like a mid-eastern bazaar.

There are a few options we are looking at.

One is to make the advertising banners larger. This has the disadvantage which you see above. The top logo banner takes up a large part of the page pushing the actual posts further down. You have to scroll down to read posts.

Another option is to rotate ads within a space. There is a disadvantage to the advertiser because they get less exposure.

Another idea that the staff and I have been working on is an "X Marks the Scot "Ethical Business Practices" seal of approval."
This seal would let everyone know at a glance which businesses have a proven record of offering their products and services in an honest and ethical manner. The seal would be displayed in the Advertisers profile and they would also be able to display it on their website.

Ultimatly we would like to convert the current version of vBulletin that we use over to the newest ver.4.0. One advantange to the new version is an expanded member profile section. Each member would have the ability to have individual photo galleries within their own profile.

Please be patient for a few days as we try out some ideas.
Nothing is yet decided, but if you have ideas and comments I would like to hear them.

I can be reached via the PM system or via email at: steve@xmarksthescot.com.