okay.. really…
If you have a website, do not… NOT… have your web page reload automatically. Period. End of story. No excuse.
There is no website whose content is updated so frequently, (other than maybe Girls in Bikinis with Lollipops and Bad Wigs), that they need to interrupt my reading in the middle of a page to present me with a whole new set of advertising. Not popups, not cookies, no flash,… NOTHING bugs me more than a web page reloading right in the middle of reading it.
Please keep in mind that this post is more than 3 years old. Opinions change. Tastes change. Everything changes. I may still agree with this, or like this, or I may not. But everything is kept up here for archival purposes.