Hi,
Over the last few months, I've read a number of posts regarding the adverts we run on the site and some users finding them overly intrusive.
As you're no doubt aware, running a busy community like WGS does have a significant cost - in terms of time as well as financially and so, like many communities online, we rely on advertising income to help pay the bills. Advertising is managed through a third party - we supply the slots, they fill them. Mostly, it'll be standard banner ads, but sometimes, advertisers will wish to run different kinds of rich media ads to grab your attention - we try to keep these to a minimum, but again, we have to balance the books at the end of the month.
If you're finding the ads too intrusive, or, if you simply wish to make a donation to WGS (for which we'd thank you!), then you can now upgrade your account to a special "WGS Supporter" account for a small fee of £5.00 per year. This comes with a host of features listed below, including the removal of ads here on the forums.
Features:
- Ad-free forums
- 25% Discount on all WGS merchandise
- WGS Supporter 2011 Forum Badge
- Unlimited access to downloads area
- No limits on Personal Message Storage
- No limits on reputation scoring
- Ability to customise your Profile page
- Ability to view who gave you reputation points
- Larger signatures
- Higher image upload limits
- Ability to edit topic titles
- Ability to hide and restore own posts
- Ability to upload videos into Gallery
This kind of Supporter account is popular across many online communities, and as we're getting bigger all the time (with the associated bandwidth increase in turn), then I thought we'd give it a go.
If you'd like to upgrade your account, then please go here and follow the instructions - it all should work automatically, but ping me if not. If you don't want to upgrade, but do wish to make a donation (again, thank you!) then you can find a donation box at the top of the sidebar on the forum index.
Hopefully, this provides a way for those frustrated with advertising to switch them off, whilst helping us keep the community going! For those who don't think we're worth the money, then there's no change to your experience 
Best wishes
Terry