hyperkik - 5:30 pm on Sep 10, 2005 (gmt 0)

My forum is more informational than conversational. Within that context, I use one block of ads at the bottom of the forum thread, displayed to readers who are not logged in, with what I find to be good results. I had poor results with a leaderboard above the thread, and (despite Google's indication that many forums get good CTR's by placing ads after the first post in a forum thread) I simply don't care for the appearance of forums where ads appear within the thread.

My reasons for not displaying the ads in the same way to users who are logged in may not apply universally - the ads come close to the reply and preview buttons, raising a possibility of accidental clicks, and for people who are participating in the discussion seem to interfere with the flow of the discussion.

An ad after each of the first three posts? Have you considered experimenting with the idea that "less is (or at least can be) more"?