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Meta Stack OverflowOpen Source Advertising - Sidebar - 1H 2010
[+165] [87] Jeff Atwood
[2009-12-04 22:45:08]
[ discussion open-source-advertising crowdsourcing ]
[ http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31913/open-source-advertising-sidebar-1h-2010 ]

Possible Duplicate:
Open Source Advertising - Sidebar - 1H 2011 [1]

Here is your chance to create a Free Vote-Based Advertisement for an Open Source Project [2]. Create a graphical ad for an open source programming project and post it as an answer to this question (in the right format), and it will feed live remnant ads on stackoverflow.com [3].

Ad Requirements

It must be an advertisement soliciting the participation and contribution of programmers writing actual source code. This is not intended as a general purpose ad for consumer products which just happen to be open source. It's for finding programmers who will help contribute code or other programmery things (documentation, code review, bugfixes, etc).

In order to work, the answers you post to this question must conform to the following rules.

Answer Template

[![Tagline to show on mouseover][1]][2]

  [1]: http://image-url
  [2]: http://clickthrough-url

Please do not add anything else to the body of the post. If you want to add any commentary, keep it in the comments.

Image requirements

The output, which ultimately will be served in an ad slot on Stack Overflow, can be previewed by clicking through to this URL:

http://rads.stackoverflow.com/ossads/220x250

There is a minimum score threshold an answer must meet (currently 6) before it will be served up by that URL and shown on Stack Overflow. You can see all the ads that currently make the threshold and meet our criteria on this page:

http://rads.stackoverflow.com/ossads/all

lol this question is already serving it's purpose. I'm curious about some of these projects I've never heard of before. - Doug T.
(3) Will there be similar ones for the rest of the trilogy? Apps like pidgin could go to superuser and serverfault could get admin-oriented tools. - alanc
Should the ads indicate what kind of help the project is looking for? Are ads for open-source programmer tools acceptable? - Don Kirkby
(3) @Jeff. I think this is a wonderful scheme you have going here. The only thing is I find it frustrating to see the add and not have a explanation of what it is. I know you said this can be done via comments but it doesn't seem to be happening so far. - Tim Murphy
(7) Can other sites run these ads? IE are they contributed beyond just stackoverflow? - dlamblin
+1 for @dlamblin You could easily provide listings for other websites. - chakrit
Quibble on the format, but is it just Safari, Chrome and Firefox or does the "Tagline to show on mouseover" not show? - dlamblin
(3) Is it just me, or are the majority of the ads here not an ad for programmers, but for a product? - Powerlord
(3) R. Bemrose, one assumes that programmers would want to try the product then contribute to it. So the rule is, the project must allow outside code contributions and somewhat actively solicit outside code contributions. - Jeff Atwood
@dlamblin: If you open up a new question called something like "running open source ads on 3rd party websites" we can start to flesh out how that would work. The initial problem is that the ad size on StackOverflow (220x250) is not an IAB standard and few websites (if any) will be able to use this size. But start the topic and let's try to figure out how to make it work. - Portman
(2) It would be interesting to see a report comparing the effectiveness of the adds (how many people clicked on them) vs. how high they were voted. Are Meta user's effective add pickers or are they just oppinionated? - community_owned
The ad I appreciated the most was the JQuerySharp. I think there's only one thing more motivating to a geek than to be addressed as "My Lord." - Carl Smotricz
(1) Just wondering: has the minimum score threshold been changed? Because there are two ads with 5 up votes that seem to meet the other criteria (meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31913/… and meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31913/…) but are not on rads.stackoverflow.com/ossads/all - or is some manual approval involved and it just takes some time? - Fabian Steeg
I was going to update the info on the minimum score threshold to 6, based on what I observed to be the current value (see previous comment), but I got a message that I have to add some specific tags, which seemed wrong here. - Fabian Steeg
@fabian try now - Jeff Atwood
@Jeff: Worked this time, thanks. - Fabian Steeg
(2) Rather than adds for Open Source Projects, I'd really appreciate a list of projects that need help with a quick summary of what needs to be done in each one--what they are hoping to accomplish with this additional manpower. If there is such a site, advertise that! - user140390
@billkressonaim: SourceForge comes to mind: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31913/…. - Alix Axel
(5) Are dupes with different ad images acceptable? Doesn't exactly seem fair to load up multiple ads for a single project and drown out others. - random
[+228] [2009-12-05 12:20:21] JonB

Synergy+. Connecting Computers.


(10) +1 synergy is great. To quote a co-worker regarding his ability to control four computers in his home, "Now I never have to leave my bed!" - ベレアー アダム
(7) Yeah, it's amazing. I use it every day. Don't know what I would do without it! It's not in a great shape at the moment though and could really use some work, especially with the recent OS releases we have had. - JonB
I'd like to help, did you contact the original dev about forking it? - joshperry
They're trying to get back in contact with original devs so it can be merged under one product/project. - JonB
(1) I find the thing really stable. I use it everyday on all 3 platforms. Although it there are still a lot of bad edge cases to iron out. - chakrit
(2) I <3 synergy! I thought it was a dead project though, so this is awesome! - James
(1) I had no idea this even existed, thanks a lot! - William
(1) Ohh haw many times have i bumped my mouse against the edge of the screen and stumbled back again... but I want the mouse on THAT computer... and why can't i click on my coffee mug! - Arthur Ulfeldt
(2) oh please, I'd upvote this five times if I could. - Nicolás
1
[+225] [2009-12-05 15:18:58] Tom Ritter

SSH on Windows


(14) I think this doubles as an ad for figlet too. - Tom Ritter
(31) I think you need to make it a bit more contrasty, love the ad and love putty - waffles
Maybe use univers for Putty, and use thick for the subtitle, although then you lose the joke on the epic font. But those fonts are definitely higher-contrast. - ベレアー アダム
(8) I don't want to steal your idea, but here's my screencap with ANSI color added: img268.imageshack.us/img268/7831/puttyad.png - ベレアー アダム
(4) This is one of the projects for which I would have used an actual size capture of the upper left just after login. It's recognizable without the ascii art. I didn't know they actually needed developers though, which is what the advertising is about... so mission accomplished. - dlamblin
This one really got my attention - mletterle
Putty FTW (15 chars) - Charlie Somerville
This should go the way of Pidgin, along with winscp - Chris S
Putty + Launchy + code.google.com/p/putty-launchy-plugin is a nice combo. - jonelf
(13) Hard to read image. - Donny V.
You know what, the reality is that this is by far the best ad when it comes to CTR. Don't change a thing! - waffles
Putty :x . FTW \m/ - nXqd
Huh. Are these fonts hinted? - SamB
Nice. But it is PuTTY, and perhaps it could better be served centered. - user147001
What would I do without PuTTY on Windows? lol Pretty Epic. - Caleb Thompson
2
[+221] [2009-12-05 04:23:22] Hogan

jQuery


(40) I love jQuery as much as the next guy, probably more (I'm wearing a jQuery t-shirt right now and I made a project based on jQuery that I've posted in this thread). That said, do they really need the promotion?? Those guys are doing fine. - Runscope API Tools
Was that the point of this? I was was more about the humor. - Hogan
(3) I'm not sure making jQuery extensions is more fun than working (unless you're a Barista) - Chris S
(9) @Chris: I see you're trying to make coffee for an ungrateful rich yuppie. You should totally drop that and try JQuery instead. - John Rudy
(5) Yaay, subshells! - nailer
(5) When I first saw the ad, I thought it was about Prototype. $() isn't specific to jQuery, so you might want to mention jQuery somewhere in the ad. - Charlie Somerville
@Charlie: It can be for Prototype too -- I'm easy. - Hogan
jQuery is pretty neat, but it does bother me that it's been promoted like it's a done deal it won the JS framework wars - which is far from the case. - user132053
(8) @cruachan No, no, no, no, no it's a done deal. jQuery's won by a long shot. When Microsoft tells you that they want to include your open source Javascript framework with the next release of their IDE, it's a done deal buddy. Please believe. - user130648
(2) Mootools didn't want to allow (read: put up with) new users in, and jQuery did. Done deal for people like me. - Xeoncross
@John Sheedan I agree. jQuery is the best, but everyone already knows. Things like Django and big projects like that are where we need support. - orokusaki
@Chris Making espresso is a lot of fun. I'd do it for a living if it paid well. No joke. - orokusaki
@Charlie Agreed! - orokusaki
It saddens me that jQuery won the framework wars. I believe Prototype is far superior to jQuery. - Charlie Somerville
@Charlie Somerville: Do you have any reasons for that statement? - Austin Kelley Way
jQuery make scripting more effective than ever :) - nXqd
@Austin Kelley Way: I believe that you just can't go past the excellent documentation of Prototype. jQuery's pales in comparison - Charlie Somerville
What is this font? - marharépa
@marharepa : They are both Courier new. The $() is bold and I believe the comment was set to not do Kerning -- but I'm not sure. It was a while ago. Also, I used an online "banner maker" and who knows exactly what they were doing. (No, I don't remember which one.) - Hogan
(2) @Charlie Somerville: To me the jQuery docs are way better... For the record I was a big prototype fan before I ever heard about jQuery, and it took only about 2 weeks before I was a convert. jQuery is, in my opinion, better in just about every way when it comes to writing webapps. I also currently develop on WebOS, which uses prototype, so I still use both frameworks a lot. Prototype has some nice features that jQuery doesn't, it's just that the core stuff that you use over and over is much more clumsy. That said, I don't think jQuery needs these advertisements :) - TM.
3
[+171] [2009-12-19 15:04:09] perbert

Django: the web framework for perfectionists with deadlines


(5) This ad is 250x250 instead of 220x220, which is why it is not showing up. - Portman
@Portman: thank you for making me note this. I hadn't realized that I had used the wrong size. - perbert
(7) What, no magic pony? - Seth
Feel free to ad another one :) There is some whitespace that could be used. - perbert
There are some smudges on this image. - Thomas
(19) It should say: "Rails, without the Ruby... Or the suck". - orokusaki
Is is possible to change the size ? - Natim
(2) Awful lot of space left over on the bottom... Instead of the detailed description (the tagline already tells us what django is), I'd add a call to action. 'Come help make the Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines even better!' Maybe a description of who you're looking for (Python devs?). At the very least, capitalize 'high-level'. The inconsistency will drive me nuts. - user145347
@The Big Cheese - I agree with mllerustad. I think that a call to action will elicit more clicks to Django, which will create more Django developers. - orokusaki
4
[+161] [2010-01-29 23:10:13] Tobu

The world's most advanced open source database.


(1) Done. logo source, font: wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Image:PostgreSQL_logo.3colors.svg en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxi_(fonts) - Tobu
(41) +1, love the "JOIN us" statement. - Alix Axel
5
[+128] [2009-12-20 00:05:18] Jeff Atwood

Legendary hackers hack on Emacs


(32) I know, explaining jokes should be unnecessary, but for those who don't get it: xkcd.com/378 - Michael Stum
(3) Also: scratch (the buffer name) is a pun on scratching your own itches. And '(Lisp)' (the major mode), is in parens, ahem... And 'legendary': you have to assign copyright to the FSF to have your code accepted into Emacs, so you end up on the Roll Call of Honour: a Legend. Or something... - community_owned
Uhm, vim fans are going to vote it down :D - Flavius A
This is a great ad. Colorful, easy-to-read text, in-jokes but you don't have to get them to get the gist of the ad... I might make 'Legendary hackers Hack on Emacs' in bold to put the emphasis of the ad there, but it's good as is. - user145347
(2) btw, what window manager is that from? - mlvljr
EMACS MUST WIN. I do not have enough rep but just signed in to voice my vote, even if I am not rich enough to make it count. - user143204
(1) @mlvljr: do you want to know the window manager, or the theme?-) - tzot
@tzot what's the theme? - aviraldg
6
[+127] [2010-01-01 22:57:01] C. Ross

Help people communicate with Pidgin!


Be merciful, I'm a programmer, not a designer... - C. Ross
+1 from me. Great bit of OS software - user132053
(15) Great product, but the ad would be better layed out if the pidgeon was on the right looking left. A user looking at the page will see the pidgeon first, follow the pidgeon's eyes, see your tagline (this is good) and then see the edge of the page (this is not so good). This only happens because the advert is placed on the right of the page. The whole page and your advert would feel more ballanced if the user's eye went from pidgeon, to tagline, to the rest of the page. - Richard
I use it, but I would like to see more frameworks and libraries than applications in the ads - Jader Dias
(2) @Jader Dias Well, to be technical Pidgin is based on the LibPurple library for chat communication, but I thought it'd be harder to make an add for the library. - C. Ross
I agree with all that @Richard said, just reversing the placement of the bird would reverse the flow of the ad and create contrast, drawing the eyes along the tag line. Good ad otherwise! I love Pidgin, and developing for them would be something I'd love to do, should they be looking to expand into the iPhone market! Who's with me; an iPhone app would be stellar. - dmanexe
(3) ...is...that... is that a Goodfeather?? - quack quixote
@danbirlem Excellent idea. - C. Ross
The bird is cute! - wump
7
[+117] [2010-02-20 18:23:23] Alix Axel

Python Programming Language


(4) Shouldn't it link to python.org/dev ? - perbert
@voyager: Fixed it. - Alix Axel
8
[+101] [2010-01-15 20:50:26] Lance Fisher

Schemaless, document-based, storage engine, with a RESTful, JSON API for Windox, Linux, and OS X.


S(c)hemales(s)? sorry, imageshak is blocked here(中国), so can only see the alt text - Moak
9
[+95] [2010-02-20 11:26:41] Alix Axel

SQLite


(1) Not sure if they are needing developers, do your justice. - Alix Axel
(4) I think it's fine. SQLite is great, and anyone using it (i.e. programming with it) might end up finding bugs, writing blog posts with tips, etc. I consider that a valid interpretation of the rules. +1 - balpha
(1) +1, As far as licensing goes, SQLite is one of the most generous projects that exists. Its also very well maintained, documented and lets not forget its usefulness! - Tim Post
(1) for some reason I saw trumpets spelling the word Jazz in a strangely calligraphy, until I moved away from the screen a bit and saw the feather :) - George Profenza
+1. I'll take my vote down if they start adding engines by the dozen - Marco Mariani
10
[+94] [2009-12-22 02:54:18] Fusspawn

Pygame - Python Game Library


(3) +1 love the control at the snake's mouth - nosklo
pygame - great framework, horrible logo, classic :) - George Profenza
11
[+92] [2009-12-20 22:30:48] Jeff Atwood

Sugar interface for OLPC


(18) This is a FANTASTIC cause, but that picture needs work - waffles
(13) This is a FANTASTIC picture. - delete
(6) The photo is great, it's the rest of the ad (the whole image/'picture') that's the problem. The text isn't clear enough, especially the "OLPC" which is kind of the whole point. Also I'm not sure about the green borders etc. - rjmunro
Re: OLPC text is unclear; this is simply the location of the photo itself, which is CC-By licensed. You are supposed to be enticed to click the add, not read the small print :-) - community_owned
Everyone except developers, the target audience? - Kzqai
(16) You need a pic of a kid who doesn't look like he's on drugz. This is the most unappealing pic on the whole page. - Carl Smotricz
(2) Ad needs work, but it's definitely a worthy cause, so still gets my vote - Sam Murray-Sutton
(3) Also, the link between the ad and the destination isn't totally clear - I expected to see something about education in africa, OLPC or whatever - you at least need the logo for the destination site on the banner. - Sam Murray-Sutton
@everybody: I think most people will know what this is referring to even without clicking the link or seeing the URL. I just came across it, and I felt like it "worked". - Joey Adams
12
[+85] [2009-12-08 22:52:23] Dan Dyer

See...there are some practical applications of genetic algorithms after all.


(5) Apologies for the Northern Hemisphere bias. - Dan Dyer
(7) +1 for the rip on ID. And for it being a great add. And cool product. Wait that's +3! - Portman
Would be nice if the link worked... - Joel Coehoorn
@Joel: Works for me. - Dan Dyer
(10) @Portman: I didn't see it as a rip on ID; it sounds more like "Even evolutionary algorithms need to be designed." (Even though I've read uncommons.org before and I know it was likely meant as a rip.) - mmyers
(5) To be honest, I don't care about the Intelligent Design debate. Evolutionary algorithms work whether you believe in evolution in nature or not. One of the distinctive features of Watchmaker compared to other Java programs is its design. Specifically the way it uses generics and does not require the evolved type to be coupled to any framework classes or interfaces. On occasion I have used the term "intelligent design" to get this point across, playing on the double meaning of the term in this context. - Dan Dyer
This ad will make no sense at all in the summer. - Alix Axel
It's autumn here. - Nicolás
simple design, good typography, great copy/text +1 - George Profenza
@Dan the funny point is that evolution works whether you believe in it or not – just like the Watchmaker framework. ;-) - Konrad Rudolph
13
[+81] [2010-02-01 16:38:52] orokusaki

FileZilla


Had Fire Rodan in there for a minute, but it got too crowded. - orokusaki
Who needs FileZilla when you can have WinSCP? :P - Alix Axel
(2) @Alix Axel I haven't tried WinSCP, but FileZilla releases updates all the time, has an easy updater that takes like 30 seconds, supports SFTP, has a great site manager for storing sites, allows you to back everything up in JSON format, supports all the normal stuff like custom ports and passive FTP, and it's blazingly fast. - orokusaki
(1) Oops forgot... They have a client, and a server, both equally awesome, an awesome logo, and a cool name. - orokusaki
I know, I've used it before. That's why I'm saying I preffer WinSCP! =D - Alix Axel
(1) @Alix: FileZilla is cross-platform. And from screenshots, WinSCP has a much worse interface. - DisgruntledGoat
(6) @orokusaki Are they actually looking for developers? Seems to me everyone in this thread keeps posting their favourite open source apps without knowing whether they accept help or not. - DisgruntledGoat
@DisgruntledGoat I don't know to be honest. I thought all open source projects needed help, but I don't seem to find anything about it on their site now that you mention it. I figured since I've been using it for like 3 years I'd better do my part (I certainly am not learning C any time soon so this is it for me). - orokusaki
Based ony my experience WinSCP is horrible and can't transfer files properly at all. I'll definately try FileZilla one of these days as a replacement for it. - Esko
(1) @orokusaki You're right, all FOSS projects can use help. Just from my experience of a few apps, the developers seem reticent to take suggestions on board. I'll stop complaining now since this is not directed at FZ really :p - DisgruntledGoat
Filezilla is just awesome. I'd never use anything else. - Kyle Sevenoaks
Great stamp, but that is one weird silhouette :) - George Profenza
@George, lol, when it had Fire Rodan in the background behind Godzilla it was even weirder. - orokusaki
The letters are big / I am a bad haiku scribe / I weep for myself - Electro
FileZilla is good, but its interface is a horrible mess. - Will Vousden
14
[+81] [2010-02-20 17:51:22] Alix Axel

Notepad++


Needs a better image. - jjnguy
@Justin Nelson - jjnguy: Updated it. - Alix Axel
@Alix Looks way better. - jjnguy
@Alix: are they taking contributions? I had added a Notepad++ ad, but deleted it after somebody pointed to me that the original developer wasn't taking code. - perbert
@voyager: I'm not sure if he accepts core code, but AFAIK plugins, syntax highlighters, themes and translations are welcome. - Alix Axel
(6) They really need help on their site. No script, tough luck. It's also getting old that every update disables all the existing plug-ins. - QueueHammer
I which I knew how to make this editor work within Visual Studio - Dr. Zim
(6) More than anything, Notepad++ needs UI improvement. - DisgruntledGoat
One of the worst logos I've seen so far, and usually developers don't even bother much. Horrible colours and the software reminds of sciTe, only I like sciTe better -1. I am horrible, I know. - George Profenza
@George: I agree with you on everything, except the sciTE being better. - Alix Axel
(3) This editor is promising on many levels, but, in addition to some of the drawbackss mentioned above, this one IMHO needs the touch of someone with really good design sensibilities, and it would be great if it were scriptable in a higher-level language such as javascript, python or ruby (see e.g., Sublime text editor for a comparison sublimetext.com). - dreftymac
Notepad2 much better. - stacker
@stacker: I don't agree. - Alix Axel
@Alix Axel I also agree with you, except I didn't say sciTE is better, it's just me just me that likes it better :P - George Profenza
15
[+79] [2009-12-05 15:32:06] Tom Ritter

I like to move it move it


(1) I'm a crappy graphic designer, I encourage others to make ads for putty and winscp. Shop my images if you wish. - Tom Ritter
(12) Product ad, not a call for developers. - Ryan Graham
I made two variations based on the logo and colours on your web site: pekkagaiser.com/stuff/winscp1.png pekkagaiser.com/stuff/winscp2.png Feel free to use them if you like them. - Pëkka
image doesn't help. - George Profenza
16
[+78] [2009-12-04 22:45:24] Jeff Atwood

jQuery Timeago: your server output cache will thank you


(23) Looks like an interesting project, but I object to the "one line of jQuery" part. It's meaningless - anything can be "one line" if you're just calling another function... - DisgruntledGoat
Heh, it's cool seeing my little project make this list. Thanks. - Ryan McGeary
(14) Shouldn't "Try it!" be more like "Help us write it!"? As-is, seems to be advertising the product rather than soliciting development as an open project. Though it appears this is a common issue (but "try it" overemphasizes it, perhaps?), isn't the request for ads "soliciting the participation and contribution"? Have I misunderstood? - Gnome
Roger, You have to try it before you would ever consider contributing. The more people that use a project, the more likely someone will come along to help out with it. - Ryan McGeary
(1) Ryan: that argument doesn't seem to work for some ads: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31913/… I like the concept of timeago and I'm glad to have found out about it through this Q, just trying to improve the ad. - Gnome
(4) Irony: stackoverflow.uservoice.com/pages/1722-general/suggestions/… - Rob Fonseca-Ensor
(2) @DisgruntledGoat - no, one line is still important when you're asking someone to implement your code. One added line is tremendously easier to ask for as compared to 10 lines involving configuration and conditional calls. - jsoverson
(1) @jsoverson: I see what you're getting at, but like I said, you can make any code "one line", whether it's one function of a whole lotta config. Practically all jQuery plugins are one line anyway, plus you also need to include jQuery and the plugin code and some document.ready code, so it's far from your definition of "one line" anyway. - DisgruntledGoat
anyone else sees a hand with 3 uniformly fading fingers, which one would expect to fade incrementally for some reason ? - George Profenza
Wow, this page called me a loser - kibibu
17
[+72] [2009-12-05 01:10:10] casey

How do you implement full-text search for that 10+ million row table, keep up with the load, and stay relevant? Sphinx is good at those kinds of riddles.


Sphinx is an important part of my site - I figured that this would be a nice way to thank the developers. - casey
(6) PS - the art is a legit purchase from iStockphoto and legal to use in a digital advertisement. - casey
Sphinx rules! very professional looking ad. - waffles
(3) Can't vote this one up because I'm too new on meta :( - Julien Tartarin
(5) very professional, but it doesn't actually show a sphinx. silhouettes of egyptian gods aren't really the same thing. - quack quixote
I'm a fan of Sphinx - Sam Soffes
This is confusing, I thought it was for sphinx the python documentation engine sphinx.pocoo.org - hasenj
nice illustration - George Profenza
18
[+66] [2009-12-19 14:02:01] Douglas Tosi

Firebird RDBMS - Simple, Powerful, Scalable, Fast - Join us


(1) Big thanks to Carlos Cantu for the banner design. - Douglas Tosi
(1) While there might be FB users on SO, I don't see a good way to tell them to come to meta. - Milan Babuškov
I came here for the Watchmaker framework ad and stayed for the JQuerySharp ad. :) But it so happens I'm a fan of Firebird too. - Carl Smotricz
19
[+63] [2009-12-04 23:34:46] Runscope API Tools

RestSharp: .NET REST Client


(8) beautiful sign }# - rest sharp! - Shimmy
Yay! This is nice. So many people (at least in Sweden) don't get that it is a sharp sign, not a "quadruple plus" or something. Here it is obvious. Great ad! - Johan
(1) I figured anyone who could recognize a rest symbol would also recognize the sharp.... - Jimmy
I'm not sure I like the "Fork it." statement. I know what it means, many developers who come here will know what it means, but it still sounds almost insulting, and more so to people who don't know the technical term "fork". - Ricket
knife it. stab it. tooth it.. :) - mlvljr
(1) "Fork it" / "Fork me" was stupid to begin with and now it's just getting really old. - macek
Simple and effective +1 - George Profenza
20
[+58] [2010-02-08 14:57:26] Fabian Steeg

Contribute to Eclipse


(3) Add a impacting phrase will make the Ad much more interesting. - Nathan Campos
@Nathan: I was considering that, but didn't have anything witty on my mind. And the official phrases don't seem perfect in this context either, as I feel Contribute to Eclipse is a bit dull here and Get involved! of course is too generic. So I decided to stick to just the official logo in its current state for now. Also, I think there is reason to hope the logo will be easily recognized by people that could be interested in contributing to Eclipse. - Fabian Steeg
(2) You need to let people know you are asking for help though. No one is going to click on it (even if it just "Eclipse") if you don't. - Austin Kelley Way
@Austin: Yes true, added a caption. Thanks, also @Nathan. - Fabian Steeg
[Eclipse Logo] Don't scream at it - help us make it screaming fast! - scunliffe
not very original, but quite ok. - George Profenza
21
[+55] [2009-12-23 20:32:28] Jeff Atwood

Kernel Newbies: gotta start somewhere


(3) He looks like a shinier Alan Moore. - random
(44) Is Alan's face the best way to promote kernel hacking? - perbert
(5) Yeah, this isn't ideal. I was originally going to have it say "Newbies Wanted" but that seemed to much like taking the piss, where as I just wanted to poke gentle fun. It was then going to be a playing card: Kernel Hacker Cards, collect them all, but I didn't like the suite emblems in each corner. I guess I removed too much and it's now just a man with a beard. Oh well, maybe some one else will be inspired to try harder. - community_owned
(2) This guy is like a god to me! - Nathan Campos
(9) if the Evony clone is disallowed, this should be disallowed as well! - Marek
(4) Did anyone else have a "Shining" moment when this popped up in SO? Heeere's Johnny! imdb.com/title/tt0081505/quotes, imdb.com/media/rm3631716352/tt0081505 - tvanfosson
AFAICS this advert has the best click-through rate of the adverts right now. Alan must have a friendly face :) - U62
(2) I agree with the Shining quote. I didn't click on it until i read these comments because and was still fuzzy on what this was actually for. This add and dancing baby mortgage adjustment ads may have high click though but they are more smoke than genuine interest. The project is cool, it deserves a better ad. - QueueHammer
(2) This ad is so conspicious that I just had to click on it! And then I checked the text below the ad and it lead me to this page and learn to know about the OS ads. So it must be good. - frunsi
(2) For some reason this looks more like "Alan Cox - R.I.P." to me. - Georg Fritzsche
(2) This is probably the most effective image in terms of getting clickthroughs. I know I've clicked it before, just because Alan Cox's face is so damn alluring. - rjh
(1) It's a fan boy poster in a man crush sort of way. Unnerving at best. My mind keeps asking: upon clicking, will this picture invite me to the gates of kernel hacking or the gates of Hades? - John K
I think Alan Cox wants to sex me. - Won't
like Tux was even necessary :) - George Profenza
Awesome. That is all. - fmark
This really needs a better tagline. - Kzqai
22
[+54] [2010-02-17 04:03:09] dreftymac

Drupal.org: when you can't pin all the blame on PHP.


(18) plz send us the developers!!!1 - perbert
(1) Re: point 2: the move to Git is underway. - ceejayoz
(16) Hilarous (and unfortunately accurate). Still, it may annoy Drupal more than help them. - Macha
(11) Downvote. This is not what ads are for. - Agnel Kurian
(3) Too many words! - Joe Polski
(7) I've been using (and developping for/with) Drupal for almost 10 months, and what this "ad" says is, unfortunatly, true... But I really don't think this will attract developpers that could help the project : as a PHP developper, I don't want to go develop Drupal when I see this (Even if I know some nice things can be done with it -- imagine if I didn't know...) - Pascal MARTIN
(7) Nice things can be done with Drupal, and nice things can be said about Drupal, but the spaghetti behind the scenes and other "inconvenient truths" are just bubbling beneath the surface. This ad is just one tiny attempt to address the issue with some humor, instead of ignoring it, and letting good developers abandon the project because they think everyone must be happy with the status quo. - dreftymac
(1) -1 for completely missing the SO freehand circle meme. - tvanfosson
(1) Meh, this ad sucks. It's trying to hard to be ironic. - Joseph Silvashy
(2) Yes, insulting the project is a terribly mature way to help Drupal. - John Fiala
(2) @John Fiala: Sometimes that's the best way to motivate somebody to fix their stuff the heck up - and as an advert, it lets a potential programmer know what they're getting in to, so they're less likely to simply leave when they see the project from the inside. Now -that- is a bad way to help :P - Phoshi
Why drive developers to a project that produces developers frustrated enough to make this kind of ad? Because 29 people liked it? Antagonizing something is almost always a bad idea. - Tim Post
@Tim Post probably more like 43 people upvoted and 14 people downvoted (assuming a 1:1 mapping between votes and people). - dreftymac
(4) This is the most hilarious advert I have seen in my life. When you get used to hacking around with the quirky user interface, you can do a huge amount on Drupal without writing a single line of code. But the second you want to start writing code, OH NO! - Finbarr
Nice! You need to be honest with developers. They will dig the truth anyway. And leave.. =) - user147001
downvoting also. this is an open source project, so you can help improving it. if you don't want (or aren't able) to do so, just leave it alone. but don't be childish and post such an insulting ad. that's not what SO's OS ads are ment for: It must be an advertisement soliciting the participation and contribution of programmers writing actual source code. - ax.
(2) @ax: I respect your viewpoints. Nevertheless, the ad says "please help" and links to drupal contribute: 100% meeting the ad requirements. ALSO, nowhere does it say Drupal is a "crappy" CMS. There no denying there is some very un-pretty spaghetti in there though, many Drupal veterans make this point themselves on blogs and in archives of past Drupalcons on screencast - dreftymac
@ax: oh - and lots of people use MSFT Windows as well. That alone doesn't mean it is perfect and cannot be improved upon. Lots of people use duct tape to repair furniture, fix plumbing and make wallets, that alone does not prove it is the optimal solution. - dreftymac
@dreftymac: as others point out in the comments, this ad does not help bringing new contributors to the Drupal project. which is what SO OSS ads are meant for. that's my whole point, and that's why i think this ad should be removed. - ax.
scary...it's so bad, it's good! :) - George Profenza
-1 This ad completely drove me away from Drupal. I haven't worked with it much, but now I probably never will. Watching a development community whine about their bad code really doesn't inspire me to join the project... - Kenaniah
It's most likely not going to help at all, but I have to say, it's the first ad that's motivated me to click on it. - Dan Heberden
+1 This ad completely drove me away from Drupal. Which is good, because I avoided using a horrible CMS when far better alternatives are available. Thanks for the warning! - rjh
@JohnFiala: It's called trolling, and this ad is a nice example of how trolling can be used for good as well as evil ;-). - SamB
23
[+52] [2010-02-02 22:43:59] Greg Bacon

Get started with hacking on GHC!


(4) imgur.com/MxSqK.gif What do you think of this, gbacon? The one you posted is really blurry. - Austin Kelley Way
@Austin Animation is verboten. - Greg Bacon
cool image/lambda reference. - chakrit
Not sure if the glossy gradient and the drop shadow was necessary. Clever symbol though. - George Profenza
@chakrit: Isn't that just a rendition of the Haskell logo? (Which is a cross between a lambda and ">>=" (which is pronounced bind).) - SamB
@AustinKelleyWay: The "cursor visible" frame would probably work nicely as a still, though! - SamB
24
[+45] [2009-12-21 06:55:56] dlamblin

Of course you'll run NetBSD


(1) I think "How can I help" is all that is needed here.. the tiny text should be axed, and the flag and "how can I help" made larger - Jeff Atwood
Okay; the old one is at: i48.tinypic.com/2dah88x.png I just took it from netbsd.org/gallery/advocacy/flyer.pdf because there isn't really a great landing page for recruitment as such. - dlamblin
not in balance, also, have I seen this orange/gray logo combination before in the world of software ? hmmm... - George Profenza
25
[+45] [2010-02-08 14:27:26] user131177

Clojure is looking for contributors and programmers.


My potentially lousy attempt at creating a nice ad for Clojure. Comments appreciated. - user131177
(8) I'd move the "it" into the next line, so the lines are more visually balanced. - Chris Jester-Young
(6) Unless you wanted to emphasise the "wrong", in which case, shrink the text on the line above it. :-) - Chris Jester-Young
(2) Up yours, buddy! Your momma did it wrong! - P Daddy
Hmm. Some people might get confused and think it's just that they aren't doing state the right way, rather than realize that state is the wrong way... - SamB
hate that j. interesting colours, but what's up with that logo, I mean I'm not sure if it's trying to be a tnuva(tnuva.co.il/site/EN/tnuva.asp?pi=20) or a scheme logo(upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/… talking about colour distribution, not just the lambda in a circle - George Profenza
@SamB For those people, there's clojure tutorials? - Kzqai
26
[+43] [2009-12-20 22:29:14] Jeff Atwood

Life's basic utilities. You depend on them, they depend on you


Is poor vs pour a pun on users of ext2fs? - dlamblin
(1) It is a pun on anyone who sees a message with 'fsck' in it in general, because at that moment you're fsck'd. I had originally thought fsck on Linux was part of a general utilities package, and that's what I was advertising, but actually it is it's own package: e2fsprogs. Oh well, I think people still get the idea, and it is moderately amusing... - community_owned
Ted Ts'o will give you a big hug for this. e2fsprogs are anything but rewarding to maintain. - Tim Post
(1) got the fancy fcuk and other fashion references, but the poor homme in a domain dominated by males, that seems a bit much, if not sexist...and it could not even be intentional. like the discreet poor/pour thing though. - George Profenza
27
[+43] [2010-02-02 15:19:17] makevoid

Ruby on Rails - we are in beta! help, docs, patches are welcome!


(2) Ruby on Rails - few weeks to rails3 beta! help, docs, patches are welcome! - makevoid
(23) I've never really understood why Ruby on Rails' logo looks more like a strip of film than a railroad. Maybe it should be Ruby on Film Location which could be shortened to ROFL. - orokusaki
(6) I always thought it looked like the tentacle things from Half-Life. - hobbs
(1) Looks like a wizard hat to me. I like it! - Bua
To report a bug and/or submit a patch: rails.lighthouseapp.com/projects/8994-ruby-on-rails/tickets - makevoid
@orokusaki, me neither, but it makes the logo awesome. Literal rails might not reach most people. Don't like the orange background and the second ruby. Clean white background might have worked better (cleaner, nicely aired out) - George Profenza
28
[+43] [2010-02-19 19:06:42] Shane

The R-Project for Statistical Computing


(2) SOMEBODY set us up the bomb! - JD Long
(8) @JD Long: No, "somebody set up us the bomb". :-P Don't swap the "up" and "us" around! :-) - Chris Jester-Young
Logo is tacky. Hey 1991, we have internet webpage. - macek
@macek: I agree, but that's what we have to live with... - Shane
Although the logo might safely ride with Michael J Fox straight Back to the Future, I think that's a strong point, as I read: "to busy with the Maths, don't care about the logo, don't need to." For some reason, the nerdier the logo is in a scientific software, the more I believe in the app. +1 - George Profenza
Can't search R on Stack Overflow! - ilhan
@ilhan: sure you can; just enter [r] into the search window. It's a very popular tag. - Shane
I actually think the logo looks pretty nice. It's certainly a lot better than Haskell's old one was! (Man that thing was so busy...) - SamB
29
[+38] [2010-02-27 03:21:38] Joe Polski

SciPy, the Matlab Killer


Sorry, I could not find a better image. I am not even associated with the project, but I LOVE IT and I hope someone comes up with a better logo. - Joe Polski
(1) Please correct to the specified format. - waiwai933
(1) @waiwai933: Fixed image. - Alix Axel
(1) How did this get the huge number of votes on the listing? - Daniel A. White
Fun logo, totally needs a call to action. - Kzqai
30
[+37] [2010-03-11 19:47:55] Mauricio Scheffer

Castle Project


31
[+33] [2010-02-08 22:13:54] Austin Kelley Way

The elegant MVC framework


did you go to the "accounts" tab and associate your accounts? the system tells you to do this when you create a new account.. it also helps to use a stable openid (eg not google gmail) that works across domains. - Jeff Atwood
Thanks for the help Jeff. Also, one quick question, what is the problem with using a Google openid? - Austin Kelley Way
Google OpenID creates a per-domain hash, which makes it a bit difficult for them to line up accounts across the sites. @aus - random
"fixxit" --> "fix it" - user145347
@mllerustad: it's intentional... - Nicolás
32
[+32] [2010-02-20 18:15:03] Alix Axel

Project Help Wanted @ SourceForge.net


source forge blocks some countries .. not so "open" - hasenj
@hasen j: Never heard of that before. - Alix Axel
@hasen j, @Alix: Not really their choice. Stupid US export laws... - SamB
(1) I'm tempted to downvote this everytime I have to put up with their atrocious site design. - Agnel Kurian
33
[+31] [2010-02-08 16:38:09] nuba

Moose is a postmodern object system for Perl 5 that takes the tedium out of writing object-oriented Perl. It borrows all the best features from Perl 6, CLOS (LISP), Smalltalk, Java, BETA, OCaml, Ruby and more, while still keeping true to its Perl 5 roots.


(6) I knew Perl was a psychedelic language. :) Looking very nice and I guess the colourfulness is in keeping with the slogan! - Pëkka
(1) I'm guessing post(MO)dern (O)bject (S)yst(E)m - John K
nice graphics, but I'm sure the background painting is copyrighted (and on exhibit at the Hirhhorn, but I forget the artist's name) - msw
34
[+29] [2010-01-07 21:21:28] SamGoody

MooRTE: Rich Text Editor Framework - IFrame Free WYSIWYG Editor


(2) Note: this ad is 220px × 229px. Needs to be 220x220 for the ad to actually be served. - Portman
Resized ad to 220x220 (moved text up a bit to accommodate) - dbr
(5) People will not read all that text. Make a simple sexy graphical image with a simple message instead. - Joe Polski
No iFrame you say? - SeanJA
(3) @user141287 I dunno, it IS an ad for a text editor. I like that it's specific about what dev help it needs--most of the ads here are missing that. - user145347
(1) @SeanJA - correct - no iFrame. Very flexible. Hope to have some big updates soon. Specially if this ad pulls in anyone :). @dbr, I am assuming this ad will be served, coorect? - SamGoody
@samgoody: It seems likely (he says after following the "like" link under the ad) - SamB
You should disable inline spell checking for that screenshot. - Nicolás
@Nicolas: inline spell checking adds another level of realness - I love it. - John K
@JohnK: It might be better if JavaScript was spelled correctly, though -- Chrome, at least, believes it should have a capital S. - SamB
35
[+28] [2009-12-20 18:03:51] Jason Diller

Tweetsharp - A .Net Fluent Interface for the Twitter API


Good library..I used it with a mapping app I built. donnyvblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/tweetgis.html - Donny V.
(4) No! Twitter does not belong in everything!! - rjh
36
[+27] [2010-02-08 16:59:43] nuba

The elegant MVC framework for Perl


(2) Wrong dimensions. - Alix Axel
(4) imgur.com/sG9kz.png This version should be correct, if someone want to switch them. - Austin Kelley Way
@Austin Kelley Way: Just did. - Alix Axel
What's the programming language for that? I spend about 10 clicks on that link and I never was able to figure out! - OscarRyz
@Oscar: Since CPAN is mentioned on the front page, I guess it's Perl. - balpha
Yup Perl should be mentioned :/ But you see they are referring to mod_perl - the_drow
37
[+26] [2010-02-21 02:31:48] Alix Axel

Pidgin - IM Client


Another one for Pidgin? - Wayne Koorts
@Wayne Koorts: Sorry, I've only noticed the disallowed ad. Should I delete this? - Alix Axel
(2) @Alix, I wouldn't. The other one was disallowed because it seemed a bit too much like an ad for the app, not an ad to encourage development for the app. - perbert
@voyager: Yeah, but it seems that a valid ad for Pidgin was already posted: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/31913/… - Alix Axel
(1) @Alix, sorry forgot about that one. May be let the community decide which one to be used? If Jeff doesn't like it, he will take care of it :) - perbert
Obviously, it looks like an ad for the app. However, since it is a great one, it should be encouraged. - Riduidel
38
[+25] [2009-12-22 00:14:03] Sergey Ilinsky

Ample SDK - Open-Source JavaScript GUI Framework


39
[+25] [2010-03-29 00:30:12] keturn

OpenHatch: the open source involvement engine!


(1) aw, baby penguins! - quoo
The poor site itself needs help. returns 500 at the time of writing - Midhat
40
[+24] [2010-02-08 16:41:09] nuba

Perl Application Development and Refactoring Environment


Maybe there should be a call for action on the logo. What about this one? "Hack your editor in your mother tongue." - szabgab
That only works if you learned perl on your mother's knee... - SamB
It is beautiful, but some other softwares use the same blue butterfly (I think it is very rich now :) ). Use another animal that when people think about will remember of your product. I think more text is necessary, but at right-bottom corner with the smallest readable font. - kokbira
41
[+23] [2009-12-05 00:41:16] waffles

Media Browser


Feedback and ideas to improve this are more than welcome. - waffles
why not modify one of the "fan icons" on your web site and turn it into an ad? They look great. - Pëkka
I took the liberty of making two suggestions based on your artowrk on the site. Feel free to use it if you like. pekkagaiser.com/stuff/mediabrowser1.png pekkagaiser.com/stuff/mediabrowser2.png - Pëkka
@Pekka! You rule! I updated the Ad! Thanks heaps - waffles
42
[+23] [2010-01-22 19:18:07] Xeoncross

Assaultcube Game Engine


(2) Real game engine code, relaxing social activity. - Xeoncross
(9) this seems like an ad for a game, not a call for programmers to contribute - Jeff Atwood
(5) They don't need more players, they need more people interested in working on the game engine. - Xeoncross
+1 Agree totally with Xeoncross! - Nathan Campos
When I first saw this I was wondering why a game would advertise on SO.. didn't look programming to me at all - Earlz
their website is awful - zpesk
(2) I know this says horrible things about me, but when this ad comes up in my peripheral vision, my eyes flick over to it and read "Fag Crossing" with a crosshair on a running person. I'm pretty sure that this isn't SUPPOSED to be making me think of homophobic rednecks but.... - JUST MY correct OPINION
(2) @ttmrichter: agree completely. Anyone having looked into marketing knows that adverts are normally fast read, thus, are often misread the first time so you have to be really careful about what words you use. That, together with the use of nazi red and black colours only is an awful combo. Yeah it gets attention very well, but not the attention the project deserves... - Alex
Not obvious at all what it's for... - SamB
(1) @Alex Nazi red? You mean, a full red? I think you're overthinking things a little too much, I didn't look at it and think "OMG, that's a swastika". Agree on the text though. - Matthew Scharley
43
[+23] [2010-02-21 22:15:48] dreftymac

The power and extensibility of Emacs and Vim with 21st century usability.


+1, I would just change the link to openkomodo.com/participate. - Alix Axel
good idea, done. - dreftymac
Image is missing now for some reason, but I gotta +1, komodo is great. - TM.
can't see image, maybe imageshak is blocked in China? - Moak
+1, LOVE Komodo! - Linus Unnebäck
44
[+23] [2010-04-11 19:33:20] perbert

Help build KDE


Favorized this over the other, because here the blue KDE logo is better distinguishable. - Boldewyn
@Boldewyn: the only thing that I'm not completely happy with on this one is the Black text with a shadow, which on the other one seemed nicer. Any advice welcomed. - perbert
Is this ad about contributing to KDE (that sounds way too broad) or contributing to the documentation hosted on Techbase? :/ - Nicolás
45
[+21] [2010-02-19 18:45:47] Shane

The R-Project for Statistical Computing


(7) more slogan options: R: Pirate for Statistics! // R: SAS Should Have Seen This Coming // R: All Your Stats R Belong To Us! // R: Because Every Time You Use SPSS IBM Kills A Kitten. - JD Long
Those are great! I'll post those later, or feel free to do it yourself... - Shane
(2) This slogan is ridiculously good in a nonsensical matter. - Esko
Also, Stats'R'Us? - Esko
(5) This is a pretty well-known R slogan. Because R is derived from the S language and is one letter over. If you shift IBM by one letter you get HAL, the name of the 2001 AI computer. Of course R is probably also derived from the fact that the two creators' first names both start with "R". - Shane
46
[+19] [2009-12-19 14:52:56] Eduardo Molteni

WPF Reports: Simple Open Source Reports for your XAML


Simple and beautiful, ad & project +MaxHeight - Shimmy
+1 for the project. A bit of colour scale on the grey background would be nice - DrDro
47
[+19] [2010-02-23 15:52:09] Alix Axel

CKEditor - The Text Editor for the Internet


(10) Glad they decided to drop the F... - SeanJA
Is this a call for developers though? - Pëkka
@Pekka: Not a very clear one! - SamB
This is very nice, but too un-actionable. Should I contribute to it? Should I download it? Is it even free? (I know the answers, but they are not obvious from the ad as seen on the site). - Andrey Shchekin
48
[+18] [2009-12-09 13:19:06] Ludo

OpenDS: LDAP services made easy


(12) Why "mn" instead of "minutes"? There's plenty of space. - Joel Coehoorn
(28) Installs and runs in less than 3 Minnesotas? - random
(4) Don't just about any servers install in under 3 minutes now? It's the configuration and customization to your application that takes all the time. - dlamblin
(7) @dlamblin You've clearly never installed Microsoft SQL Server :) - U62
(4) That image has some nasty compression artefacts. Regenerate it as a gif/png? - therefromhere
@therefromhere: Yeah, besides JPEGs are not allowed as ad images. - Alix Axel
@random - yes, I tested it scientifically. I started the install and began with one Minnesota .. two Minessotas ... it was done by the time I got to three. I spoke very, very slowly. - Tim Post
@Tim: the traditional state for that is Mississippi - SamB
@SamB - I know, I was being sardonic. - Tim Post
49
[+17] [2009-12-05 00:18:30] Jared Harley

editorial: disallowed -- this is not an ad for programmers, but for a product.

IM all your friends in one place


(1) is this really a "developer" thing though? Seems more like an ad for the client software than the fact that it's OSS you can hack on.. - Jeff Atwood
(2) Damn! I just read "Create a graphical ad for an open source project" and didn't see that you said it was going to be on StackOverflow only. I was just so excited to make a Pidgin ad! I guess you could use it to chat with your dev team! - Jared Harley
I would really love to see a Pidgin add for developers, could this be fixed? - C. Ross
50
[+17] [2010-02-01 15:42:23] Alix Axel

Open Source Hosting Control Panel


51
[+17] [2010-02-17 07:58:01] Yann Trevin

Open, extensible, and neutral automation platform for .NET testing tools.


(8) Looks like a toilet. - random
(1) The Gallio Automation Platform is an open, extensible, and neutral system for .NET that provides a common object model, runtime services and tools (such as test runners) that may be leveraged by any number of test frameworks (MbUnit versions 2 and 3, MSTest, NBehave, NUnit, xUnit.Net, csUnit, and RSpec). Gallio provides tool support and integration with AutoCAD, CCNet, MSBuild, NAnt, NCover, Pex, Powershell, Resharper, TestDriven.Net, TypeMock, and Visual Studio Team System. - Yann Trevin
Needs fewer but sexier looking words. - Joe Polski
(3) Really looks like a toilet. Also the "column" is improperly drawn - its upper base is not parallel to the upper base - the ellips of the upper base is too compressed. - sharptooth
52
[+15] [2010-02-05 12:06:54] Željko Filipin

Watir, automated testing that doesn’t hurt. Looking for developers.


(13) +1, but a description (or at least a name) would be useful. Otherwise everyone is gonna get curious and click it (good tactic btw). - Alix Axel
I have provided this text with the image: Watir, automated testing that doesn’t hurt. Looking for developers. I thought it will display as tool tip. Not sure what went wrong. :) - Željko Filipin
(1) Added tool tip. Took a look how Rails did it. - Željko Filipin
Thanks to everybody that voted up, and to those that tried. :) - Željko Filipin
Added (really) the tool tip. =) - Alix Axel
(8) -1 because it doesn't say anything - Tronic
There is tool tip text. - Željko Filipin
a) I see no tooltip here. b) It should state what it's for without requiring the user to mouseover and wait for a tooltip to appear. - Dave Sherohman
(1) Tooltips are done with title="", not alt="". - Christopher Parker
Yeah, doesn't everybody know that tooltips are only for the extra bonus punchline? - SamB
Artwork is boring and drab. - macek
(3) My response on seeing that ad is "What is this ad for?" This is not what you want in an ad where you're looking for people. Maybe I'm just too old and jaded, but when I see obvious "faux mystery" ads I pass them over without a second glance because I hate the gimmickry. - JUST MY correct OPINION
53
[+12] [2009-12-05 00:00:56] Chris S

editorial: disallowed -- while the joke is funny, not enough people would be "in" on it to understand why we have scantily-clad ladies in advertisements on the site.

Write and compile jQuery in C#


2 downvotes, how could anyone dislike Evony?! - Chris S
(2) I hate Evony, but your take on their advertising is genius! :D - Michael Stum
(13) @Chris: Sorry, meant to click the up-arrow, but i got... distracted. - Shog9
(4) it is funny but a) it's hard to read and b) for those not in on the joke it's just an ad with cleavage which they'll probably email us to complain about. So -1 from me - Jeff Atwood
I can see how you couldn't realistically be able to show it. I'll attempt a none-lawsuit version. The font is way too small I agree - Chris S
(1) I love the ad, but I don't like the project... what to do.... - Hogan
jeff already pimped evony on his blog, so you can't pimp it here either :p - Darren Kopp
(2) @Chris: I could have lived my whole life and not seen the moob pic. Thank you for scarring me. (Also, those Evony ads have actually gotten worse: contexts.org/socimages/2009/07/14/…) - John Rudy
(3) I like the joke, but wouldn't actually want the ad served on the SO. - Joel Coehoorn
54
[+12] [2010-03-31 21:39:12] Simon Steele

Programmer's Notepad - Help Wanted


Yeah, I suck at making adverts, but I'm not bad at writing text editors :) - Simon Steele
Very sexy ad IMO, +1 from me. =) - Alix Axel
(1) Yeah, it's the best of, well, this last page anyway ;-) - SamB
(1) It's now off the last page :) Let's keep pushing it up. I don't want to be the only one to discover this in spite of the people spewing Notepad++ everywhere... - that one guy
55
[+12] [2010-05-23 11:03:20] detly

RabbitVCS - Git on board


RabbitVCS used to be known as NautilusSVN. It's basically a clone of TortoiseSVN for the GNOME desktop. It comprises a set of extensions for Subversion workflow in Nautilus, GEdit and Thunar. We're also working on getting the Git side of things up and running. It's written in Python (PyGTK for the UI). - detly
+1 I hope this gets more votes! - uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN
Me too! We're a two person team at the moment, so we'd welcome any and all help :) - detly
I just gave this the 6th vote to get it served. Nice clean ad :) - macek
Woo! Thanks guys :) - detly
56
[+12] [2010-05-25 06:38:30] Eli Barzilay

Hack, Make your own language, Become a Racketeer!


(1) Great way to generate buzz, ambiguous add that points to a "coming soon" website. Not very informative but appealing to the sense of curiosity. - dreftymac
I should have explained that "coming soon" thing -- our project is a language that is currently called "PLT Scheme" (plt-scheme.org) and we have been working for two months on renaming it to "Racket". This moves includes a new domain name which is what this should point to -- but since we're not done with the new release we don't have the content up yet. We're now busy with the new release, so the content will be there very soon, within 1-2 weeks at most. (And coming up with a new language means that we're eager for contributions hence the ad idea...) - Eli Barzilay
Upvoted for my favorite pl,but I can't believe this is actually happening! - kunj2aaan
kunjaan: Sure it is... It's just around the corner now! - Eli Barzilay
57
[+11] [2010-02-02 06:09:21] Nathan Voxland

LiquiBase-Database Version Control


This is just a bit too cluttered and hard to read, is there another version without the schema in the background? - rob
Removed the schema. Does that seem less better? - Nathan Voxland
"less better"?! - Alix Axel
Leaking oil is a bad thing right now... - macek
58
[+11] [2010-02-20 17:38:40] Alix Axel

XAMPP - Apache, FTP, MySQL, PHP and Perl for Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris


(54) Is that a penis? - P Daddy
(22) And following the link, the girl on the page has a look on her face that says she's rather disappointed that it's bent. - P Daddy
(1) Lol, xampp. Real gurus install apache themselves. DIE! (not enough rep to downvote, unfortunately) - Flavius A
@Flavius A: I've installed Apache et all many times before but XAMPP makes it not so boring. They have over half a million downloads per month, must mean something. - Alix Axel
(3) This is the easy to swallow pill that allows people to get hooked on a WAMP stack. Plus it can be run off a USB stick. - QueueHammer
(2) This is also the way allowing people not to learn anything about the environment they are, actually, programming. Why are there so many crappy PHP programmers? Go figure. - Flavius A
(2) The apache setup you have running behind the scene has nothing to do with the quality of your code... note the drupal ad - SeanJA
(3) You have a point @Flavius but if you expect everyone who wants to learn build web applications to learn how to set up Apache first, they'll be bored to death before even writing the first line of code. XAMPP is great. - Pëkka
(2) why is there a big giant wang on stackoverflow? BTW, I love XAMPP, hate the logo though - Allen
XAMPP is great, logo is better suited for a lower resolution I suspect. I saw exactly what everyone else sees. - Nathan Taylor
You people need to stop watching so much porn! The logo resembles a bone or a rounded "X" way better than a half hard, half flaccid penis. - Alix Axel
I thought it was a dog... - Skilldrick
@Skilldrick: I bet you're into zoophilia then... xP I see a woman with big (kinda squared) breasts and with her legs wide open. - Alix Axel
I understand it's supposed to be a creative X but it just looks like a blob instead. - macek
@Alix Axel: Don't blame us for watching too much porn when you're the one posting phallic symbols! - John K
im sorry but that is a wang. branding fail. - nickthedude
Phallic or not, WTF? What does this symbol have to do with PHP or Apache or anything else? - Agnel Kurian
@Agnel: It's an x, where x is either [L(inux)/W(windows)/M(ax)] for a A(pache)M(ySQL)P(HP)P(erl) stack. - Alix Axel
@Alix, There are so many other ways to depict an 'X' without being suggestive. - Agnel Kurian
59
[+11] [2010-02-23 03:56:33] hasenj

Help to improve WYMeditor


FYI, it's a semantic text editor. Yes, the ad needs more information, and a catch phrase, like: "help make the content on the web sanely structured", or something like that, but more catchy. - hasenj
(3) absolutely love WymEditor but the ad could be way catchier :) - ChrisR
Maybe spell out WYSIWYM, with the WYM emphasized? or at least the M? - SamB
(1) I understand you're a coder and you want to attract coders but the use of code in the ads is getting a little over-done. It's a <p> tag for crying out-loud... - macek
60
[+11] [2010-03-04 13:26:46] Ikke

Kohana needs Documentation!


(2) Huh... This image kinda sucks... - Alix Axel
Too bad, I did my best. - Ikke
looks good to me - Mauricio Scheffer
I wish I knew where to start with contributing, this would be a project I'd like to offer my programming time. - alex
I like Kohana very much, so some constructive criticism. While the logo looks nice in itself, it looks nothing like the Kohana logo on the home page (www.kohanaphp.com, we are talking about the same project right?). There's 0% recognition effect this way. Then, it would be really nice to be led to a page that explains what the matter is: Why Kohana needs people to document it, where the project is at in terms of versions etc., what is already there, and a step-by-step guide on how to get started. In its current state, I don't think it's attracting too many developers. - Pëkka
(2) @Pekka This is the new logo: v3.kohanaphp.com. Most things are still under development, like the official site. I am depending on that. Thanks for the comments. - Ikke
61
[+10] [2010-03-17 13:45:01] Artyom

CppCMS Needs Your Help


I am highly interested on the topic, but the website really needs some work. Why does it highlight the coding style of the project, but does not tell anything about the project itself? The ad at least shows a little code fragment. Make the front page catch the user's attention, make him interested, make him desire to use the product and have him take the action of actually downloading and trying it out (marketing 101). - Tronic
(1) @Tronic, as you can see the link redirects to the "how to contribute" to project page -- because, according to policy these ads are rather ads that ask to help the project rather the project itself. So you only need to go to main page -- cppcms.sourceforge.net/wikipp/en/page/main to see what is all about. - Artyom
(7) The black text makes it a bit unreadable with that background. - fretje
What color would you suggest for text? - Artyom
White in this case, I'd say. - Pëkka
I've tried but white looks even less readable over blue sky. - Artyom
White or black, also make it bolder. Too thin to read well on my laptop. - John K
This whole concept is just crazy. Web app? C++? What the heck? - SamB
(1) @SamB Read this <cppcms.sourceforge.net/wikipp/en/page/rationale>; and this <cppcms.sourceforge.net/wikipp/en/page/faq>; before you say "Crazy"... - Artyom
(1) Use black text with white border? - Nicolás
(2) The dark, grey-blue sky is dreary and depressing. Based on this ad alone, I'm not excited about CppCMS. - macek
(1) The extra time/energy/cost spent by debugging, bug reporting, yelling, smashing computers and getting new ones, visiting insane asylums, cleaning up after hackers smashing the stack, memory leaks etc, etc will certainly be more than whatever CO2 was saved by coding in C++... - Longpoke
@Nicolás why not white text with black border? more distinctive with bright bg - Max Gontar
@Longpoke, smashing the stack? memory leaks? These problems have already been solved once and for all in the C++ world... RAII takes care of not only memory but any resource type... - Agnel Kurian
@Agnel Kurian: and yet the programs, they still crash sometimes! - SamB
(1) @SamB as java, python or any other language - crash - Artyom
@SamB and @Longpoke, I just wrote some code today instantiating objects (3rd party objects... lot's of trigonometry and floating ponts) on stack and calling methods on them within an if block. These objects and methods are quite resource intensive. Using C++, I know that all resources are released once I exit the if without having to muck around with finalize() methods. I know this simply by having looked at the source code for the destructor. Which GC only language can give me such peace of mind? If I want a GC, I already have one: hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc. Thanks. - Agnel Kurian
(1) -1 Lets stop using C++ for everything because its insecure and old.(Its funny because i'm a C++ dev for a living) PHP's hiphop is an exception because your developing/debugging in a modern language. - Rook
@Artyom: Java is superior to C++ on the order of magnitudes in terms of security. A crash in C++ usually means someone can take over your computer. A crash in Java means perhaps a system partially fails. @Agnel: Orly? Then why do I get malware when I boot up Firefox (written in C++) and visit a few sites? GC is the only potential bad thing about high level languages, the tiny (and mostly mitigated) overhead of virtual lookup etc simply does not matter as its WCET is O(1). What does finalize have to do with anything? If I want determinism, I have it, RTjava, Ada.. - Longpoke
62
[+10] [2010-04-11 19:31:41] perbert

Help build KDE


Needz moar details... - SamB
I like the logo - yeti
63
[+9] [2010-04-07 09:48:36] draegtun

Perl (and Python!) Template Toolkit


Cool. What about it? - macek
(1) @macek: What do you want to know? Template Toolkit it arguably one of the most used opensource templating systems out there and used by some big companies. Its a grandaddy of the template systems and as influenced many others of the years. TT2 is currently available in Perl & Python. And there is a complete TT3 rewrite which could always do with a hand or two: github.com/abw/Template-TT3 - draegtun
(1) Dang True! For what it does TT is one of the open source greats. TT docs should be required reading for anyone who works with or builds any kind of string templating system. - dreftymac
I was giving you a hard time because it doesn't solicit programmer contribution. You're advertising a product. - macek
@macek: I didn't realise u were giving me a hard time :) TT is an opensource project like others on here and like them programmer contribution is their life blood. - draegtun
64
[+8] [2009-12-04 23:39:35] Chris S

N2 CMS


(3) I thought this was about contributing, not trying it out. - dlamblin
(1) You'll probably want to try the product before before contributing. The checkins are very active, usually daily - Chris S
(1) upvote to 5 because I'm feeling nice :p - Charlie Somerville
I can't figure out what license this is distributed on. - Dave Van den Eynde
@Dave GNU Lesser Public - Chris S
Web site is down! - user130648
@user130648: might want to go to your profile page and pull in the bio stuff from your SO (or wherever) profile ... - SamB
65
[+8] [2010-02-20 03:15:21] liebke

Incanter, Data Sorcery with Clojure


+1 Looks good, David! - Shane
Thanks Shane! I like both of your rstats ads too, and will vote for them once I've got enough reputation :-) - liebke
+1 bump it to six :) - Ian Quigley
66
[+8] [2010-05-04 08:59:24] S.gfx

All-in-one installers and virtual appliances for open source server software


Nice icons, ad, and product:) - Renat Zaripov
67
[+7] [2010-03-01 05:26:31] Leniel Macaferi

NPOI for your Excel needs


(3) Can someone with graphic talent give this image some love? - scunliffe
(3) I can't tell what NPOI does. - Mauricio Scheffer
(1) @Mauricio - NPOI needs someone with graphic talent to give it some love! :) But in the meantime, NPOI is used to read/write Excel .xls files in Microsoft .NET Framework. - Leniel Macaferi
Is that a coffee cup? On a .NET ad? - Nicolás
is this supposed to be npoiX? where the X is a paper and gumball grinder? "I'll take a small paper gumball macchiato, please" - macek
I used this in my project. It's good stuff. - Bayonian
68
[+6] [2010-04-24 12:48:41] Charlie Somerville

bbsharp - a DOM parsing BBCode implementation written in C# - help us develop it!


I see no image. - Nicolás
(1) Looks clean and fresh. - macek
69
[+6] [2010-05-26 22:55:28] Marco Mariani

all over the manual


70
[+5] [2010-03-08 17:00:42] Karussell

Find Time For TimeFinder!


(2) Find Time For TimeFinder and join the Team! - Karussell
Looks cool but IMHO it's too abstract - Mauricio Scheffer
What do you think should be improved? I think this ad is targeted to developers and they will understand, won't they? May I should put the 'Find Time For TimeFinder' slogan directly under the images? - Karussell
I wouldn't count on it. At least add a tagline or brief description or something below the equation stuff--you've got plenty of room. - user145347
71
[+5] [2010-05-30 03:23:33] uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN

Go to the so++ homepage!


Okay, basically this is a C++ wrapper for the StackOverflow/ServerFault/SuperUser/Meta/StackApps API. It has come a long way and supports the vast majority of API calls. - uɐɯsO uɐɥʇɐN
72
[+4] [2010-03-11 22:52:09] incarnate

Circumflex — lightweight Web framework and ORM for Scala


+1 nice ad + cool site :) - Diadistis
@Diadistis thanks :) - incarnate
+1 Congratulations for your hard work. - Nathan Campos
@Nathan thank you! - incarnate
Hrmm. Where's the ad? - SamB
Our data center must have been off for a couple of hours for maintenance. Sorry. - incarnate
(1) the script text is barely legible. - macek
Yeap. They usually call it branding. - incarnate
73
[+4] [2010-04-05 14:51:18] draegtun

PDL - the Perl Data Language | Number crunching capabilities for Perl


It shows "This photo is currently unavailable" to me. - KennyTM
@KennyTM - I thought it was SO cacheing the image that caused that.. but I have now noticed extra cruft on end of the image URL :( Have fixed now. - draegtun
PDL rocks. While the logo isn't really elegant, it's showing the library's roots in astronomy nicely. - user145970
I'm probably not the first to say programmers aren't designers for a reason... - macek
@macek: Well at least it got it 15 mins of fame - readwriteweb.com/archives/stackoverflow_business_funding.php - draegtun
ouch, can you even see the logo if you're colour blind? - quoo
Needs more Unicorns! - btw, what is PDL? should the image not contain some info about what it is? - scunliffe
Its an old logo which has recently been updated along with the website. The logo still doesn't describe what it is but I did add it to the ALT element here (which only shows when ad is used though!). PS. PDL is for Perl Data Language. More at website and also how to contribute here: pdl.perl.org/?page=mailing-lists - draegtun
74
[+4] [2010-04-23 13:18:18] Olivier Bilodeau

Contribute to the world's leading open source NAC!


PacketFence is an amazing open source project. I've met some of the people behind it and I know that they really deserve to get some more attention / love. - François Proulx
The text is a bit hard to read; letters too vertically stretched. You should consider another font. - Nicolás
Includes checklist? Check. - macek
75
[+4] [2010-05-20 20:09:03] Joel Mueller

The sky is the limit!


(1) Wing Beats is an internal little language (DSL) for creating XHTML. It is based on F# and includes an ASP.NET MVC view engine, but can also be used solely for it's capability of creating XHTML. - Johan Jonasson
76
[+3] [2010-02-17 18:48:37] Vikrant Chaudhary

Kopal - Distributed Social Networking.


(1) I think this deserves a lot more attention. - frgtn
(2) "Help us get better"? "Help us become better"? The poor grammar, it burns us. - user145347
(1) "I'm not a native English speaker and learning only by experiences. Also I'm still not convinced that help us getting better is incorrect grammatically. I might change my views and the ad picture if get more comments about it." - Author. - Vikrant Chaudhary
Just a humble request - If you find the advertisement grammatically incorrect, please respond by a comment and not by a negative vote. You're also welcome to suggest a better statement. - Vikrant Chaudhary
@mllerustad: I guess they really do need help! - user140810
+1, but how does this differ from Diaspora (joindiaspora.com)? - Alix Axel
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - macek
(1) Yes, getting better is wrong.. - User
@Alix Axel - Well, they have 200,000 USD and media coverage to boot with. - Vikrant Chaudhary
@user140810 - For start, you can help with English documentations. :) - Vikrant Chaudhary
EDIT Reverted back to previous image. - Vikrant Chaudhary
77
[+3] [2010-02-20 11:00:10] Alix Axel

PHP TestFest


78
[+3] [2010-02-23 10:32:23] shahjapan

Open Source Management Solution - ERP


79
[+3] [2010-05-09 22:59:27] Albert

Contribute to OpenLieroX


My god, I loved liero. Albert, the ad could still use a little work, though. - macek
As said in another post, "Liero is a game that is totally worth checking out. That said, this ad doesn't do it a lot of justice." (macek). Just a digging worm cannot call more programmers and players. Put 1 more worm and more 2 players with another skin, more weapons shotting and some explosion on a better level. The text would be in a more aggressive font; the text could be and like that: "OpenLieroX: a game with a lot of explosions for worms and brains". You can add piece of code as watermark in some picture part - like little lua commands. - kokbira
80
[+2] [2009-12-19 09:50:46] KiNgMaR

ZNC: The best IRC bouncer, now available for Microsoft Windows!


(16) I like the sentiment and the project seems cool but the ad needs to be less.. obnoxious :p - Jeff Atwood
(3) To bounce less? - Ladybug Killer
(40) You can't use the Microsoft Windows logo, even if you do 'shop out the (R) mark. - community_owned
(2) also, why use the MS Windows logo, if doesnt even runs in windows out of the box! - Fladur
(1) @Fladur ..because the linked-to project is about a Windows port? "[...] to bring the best IRC bouncer out there to Windows as well" - dbr
@unknown: You can if it's about windows. There are other examples in this thread. - Tobu
Good idea for an ad; but I suggest smaller font for 'suck'... maybe the size of 'less'. Either way, 'suck less' should be same size imho - Nicolás
The ad sucks, too. - macek
81
[+1] [2010-03-23 20:55:50] Nathan Campos

Ruby on Rails


(5) * Until you try to upgrade from one point version to the next and find that one small thing has changed and your code no longer works - SeanJA
-1, already a RoR ad here - Charlie Somerville
Ad is for product, not asking for help! - SamB
82
[0] [2010-01-30 18:44:57] user142591

A toolkit for building scalable, community-oriented web applications.


(3) For starters, that logo doesn't fulfill the size requirements. - balpha
(1) If you have a better image, please say you do, post the URL in the comments and someone with enough rep will fix up. - random
(1) This has to be one of the worst mascots ever but here is a better image: fisheye.openacs.org/browse/~raw,r=1.1/OpenACS/openacs.org-dev/… - Alix Axel
How about a description of what OpenACS does? - Mauricio Scheffer
@Alix Axel, that is a "better" image? :) - macek
@macek: At least it has a higher level of detail. =) - Alix Axel
83
[0] [2010-03-24 19:24:18] Tronic

Join the team and enhance the fun


As requested, a new version that hopefully clarifies what Performous is. - Tronic
First ad I see that mentions an IRC channel. I think it's a good idea. - Nicolás
84
[0] [2010-04-25 13:39:17] SztupY

Working quick start ASP.NET MVC on mono


pictures mashed with <insert graphic> words. italics. S#aml. - macek
really helpful. Care to explain more? - SztupY
The formatting is just sloppy. Why is everything italic? Define the elements: you have 1) a logo, 2) big ad text, 3) ad body text, 4) mono logo. They're all scattered about the page. This ad simply directs my eyes to look somewhere else rather than actually continue reading to find out what it's about. - macek
85
[-2] [2010-03-18 17:30:24] Cheok Yan Cheng

JStock - Free Stock Market Software


(6) Tells me nothing! - SamB
86
[-11] [2010-04-11 21:35:24] takpar

I, THE WHITE HOUSE USE DRUPAL; read more...


all drupalists'! vote to take off over the previous shaming ad of drupal. - takpar
(3) Respectfully, you may wish to re-consider your approach if you are trying to make a more 'favorable' impression. How does this ad help to counteract the message of the previous ad? If anything, it seems to perfectly reinforce the point. Even if people can decipher your point about the White House, U.S. Government agencies are notorious for deploying sloppy, bloated, inelegant code that no one wants to acknowledge, let alone maintain. Ask anybody with knowledge on this subject. - dreftymac
here is for advertise a project not attracting developers. i don't know what was the aim of the previous ad. i just want to cover it's bad aspects on visitrs. - takpar
(3) The Ad requirements say: "It must be an advertisement soliciting the participation and contribution of programmers writing actual source code. This is not intended as a general purpose ad for consumer products which just happen to be open source." - dreftymac
yes, you right. but most of ads above have nothing to do with developers. they are just ad. - takpar
(2) Um, the ad means nothing to me... - SamB
(2) VERTICAL text is very easy to read with my top and bottom eyes. - macek
I wish I could vote this down again. - macek
I like the semicolon, But I'd change the rest of the image. - Matias
So what do they use and why do I need it? I have no clue what this ad is advertising from the look of it. - Malcolm
87