Jagex approves Runewise

Runewise was added to the Jagex's list of approved/recognized fan sites!

I guess, I am happy. And I am definetely grateful. Jagex also went public (on Twitter) with Runewise's collaborative anti RWT ads filter. Since then 7 fan sites joined the initiative (to make it 12) and I expect more. To be honest, I attribute Runewise's approval mostly to the work I've been doing on this RWT ads filter, though Runewise's unique services and content helped too. As for the filter - it is simple and it works, and Draynor.net is a living proof to it :-) It is very gratifying to see RWT ads disappearing from Runescape fan sites because of this tool.

With that I also want to thank Joost from RuneTower for sharing the initial filter with me two years ago. Without him the filter wouldn't exist in the first place.

Anti-RWT ads filter

As you might have noticed Runescape Reader's Digest blog is RWT ads free. Today I'd like to tell you how it was achieved and how you can do the same on your fan site or blog.

It all started when Joost (owner of Runetower) shared with me his "black" list of RWT sites. I poured it into my AdSense Competitive Ads Filter, changed all ads to graphical ones and voila - RWT ads were gone. Only two weeks later I spotted a new RWT ad and had to update the filter. And so it went, very little maintenance was required.

But there was still a need to update the filter periodically and the list grew over time. I again started to feel like fighting my own battle against RWT ads. I did not want to fight it alone! So I ended up creating a simple "collaborative" tool, where fan site owners could go, grab the latest filter and contribute their "black" lists. I shared it with Runetower and TruthScape and since then was making all filter updates in there.

To be honest, I am not sure if Joost and Qeltar are still using this tool. In any case, I do and it is still there, up and running and containing the latest "black" list of RWT sites. If you are interesting in receiving access to this tool, let me know (via email please, vaskor_runewise@yahoo.com), and I'll be happy to give you access to it as well.

P.S. Eventually, I'd love to see Jagex hosting this kind of list and collaborative tool. That way all fan sites could benefit from it. I did post a suggestion about it on RSOF (feel free to bump it, by the way :-))