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Background

Every year, we have the opportunity to design some "Community Promotion" adverts that will appear in rotation on our site, plugging other web-sites, products and services.

If you haven't already submitted some ideas and voted for all the ones you wouldn't object to, go do that now: Skeptics.SE Community Promotion Ads, 2014

But what about us?

Wouldn't it be great to plug the Skeptics Stack Exchange on other Stack Exchanges? Each site has its own corresponding election we could submit to.

Here is a funny one that @boo came up with on Gaming:

Is the cake actually a lie?

(It's an in-joke for Portal fans.)

How do we do it?

Option 1:

The system is available now. If you have graphic design skills, you can design and submit on whichever sites you like. You don't need permission from me.

However, if you would like some help doing all the submissions or some help with the graphic design, or would like to help others, here are some alternatives:

Option 2:

Design an 220x250px advert for us. (Specification)

Post it here as an answer. We'll comment and vote on it.

Option 3:

Despite that I have poor graphic design skills. I (or maybe someone more skilled will jump up and volunteer?) will take your pithy saying and add it to a [s] logo.

It will look something like this template:

Template advert

Yeah, seriously, that bad, unless we get a volunteer.

Simply post your short slogan here, and we'll comment and vote on it.

While there is no need for every site to have a unique advert, if you have some site-specific ideas, there is no reason we can't use them. Mention the site(s) you want to target.

At some point, we'll go spam the adverts around, and see if they get enough votes to get into rotation.

Note: Historically, we don't get many votes on these sorts of meta ideas, so your vote probably has a lot more power than you might expect. Use it.

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  • Try updating the Community bulletin in case that helps.
    – ChrisW
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 14:09
  • @ChrisW: Nice suggestion. That was exciting; I've never tried doing it before.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 14:36

3 Answers 3

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Truth in Advertising? <-- slogan

(logo)

[skeptics].stackexchange.com <-- footer like on the cake ad

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  • I'm posting this because I figure anything is better than the nothing that we have at the moment (sfaik we have nothing except the "Help this community grow" Twitter ad).
    – ChrisW
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 11:11
  • Just to clarify: The Help this community grow Twitter ad only appears (if voted up) on our site. This is about appearing on other sites.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 12:36
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Match the landing URL to the community

This comment was disappointed to find no cake- or gaming-related question.

Because Skeptics is kind of meta-topic, it's appropriate to customize the landing the URL to match the community on which the ad is placed. For example, the URL for an ad on Biology.SE could be, https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/biology?sort=votes ... and for Bicycles.SE, https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/bicycles?sort=votes ... and so on.

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  • (LOL! The "Is the cake actually a lie" is actually a lie!) Very happy with this idea, but it is almost a comment. What would the text/ad be with those specific link?
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 13:34
  • I tried to answer 'what text?' in a separate answer so that it could be voted separately.
    – ChrisW
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 13:36
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Match the text to the community

Pick a question that's popular and high-quality.

If we drop the logo then there's room for two question titles, e.g. an appeals-to-children one and an appeals-to-serious one.

For example, looking through the https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/biology?sort=votes list,

Do cats always land on their feet?

Is race a discredited scientific concept in biology?

[skeptics].stackexchange.com

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  • FWIW, we already get free ads on other sites connecting to hot questions on ours. No reason not to do this though.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 13:35
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    'Hot' questions are selected by a (stupid) bot. Hand-picking the question title gives you editorial control. Having two question titles give you an opportunity to advertise the (wide) range of permissible questions.
    – ChrisW
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 13:39
  • Went to post a Biology-specific example, on to discover Biolofy.SE is still in Beta phase - no community promotions, I believe.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 16:26
  • @Oddthinking Most sites are still in Beta. You can tell, I think, by whether they have simplistic pale blue logos in the "StackExchange/Explore our Sites" list on the Top Bar.
    – ChrisW
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 16:37
  • @Oddthinking The only not-beta site which looks like a potential cross-over seems to be Physics.SE -- some (not most) of our skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/physics?sort=votes questions might interest them. Oh well; sorry about that. Maybe next year (if more sites come out of beta).
    – ChrisW
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 16:43
  • So the fallback (for other sites, such as StackOverflow etc.) would be to use a generic (not community-specific) ad.
    – ChrisW
    Commented Dec 7, 2013 at 16:45

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