Bitcoin Forum

Hello folks,

I've been involed in a few signature ad campaigns of the past few years.  By involved I mean that I've rented my signature space out.  To be honest, the first few campaigns I was involved in were completely professional and there were no issues regarding payment, payment-ontime, etc.  However, the last few campaigns I've been involved in have had serious issues.  Either payments weren't done on time.  Or they were done on time for some people but not for others.  Or everyone was paid but some weren't paid in full.

In my opinion, those who rent out their signature need to stick together on this front.  When a signature renter doesn't pay one of us in full, it's really a damage to all of us---that's because any of us might be the next one not to be paid.  I'm not trying to organize an official union or monopolize the labor market or anything like that.  However, I am thinking that there should be some basic "signature bearer's rights" and that signature campaigns who violate these rights for even a single individual in the campaign should basicially find their ad removed from all the campaigners by solidarity.  I think this sort of thing would force folks renting signature space to be respectful and professional and to fulfill their contracts.

The opposite of this sort of solidarity is what I'm seeing a lot now.  As soon as one person says "hey i didn't get paid" half of the newbies jump on him and say "well there must have ben some problem with your posts" or "well what did you do wrong" or "stop spreading FUD".  In any case, if the person really did have something wrong, that's one thing.  But I can reference specific incidents in a number of recent campaigns where folks left unsatisfied after basically bearing the ad in their signature for free.

I don't want to propose anything too concrete here, I just want to prompt discussion about solidarity among signature renters.  My opinion is that would drive signature campaign advertizers to treat their contractees with professionalism and improve the market conditions for these contractees.  What are your opinions?

i'm with ya. after getting screwed by tradefortress and bitcoinsports.eu, i gave up on signature advertising for a while. minersource has been good so far, but i see what you mean with all the problems around updown.bt and xbtec.

My idea is basically to start a culture whereby when this kinda thing happens, all the campaigners drop the signature at the same moment.   Let's call it the equivalent of a strike.   So, for example, perhaps as a staring point, I'd suggest that when a campaigner who doesn't pay all the participants by 24hours past the time agreed upon, all the campaigners should immediately remove the signature until the campaigner settles the debt.  If everyone acts in soldiarity, the campaigner would basically realize that he's not going to get away with any free advertizing, he needs to make everything right before anyone would be willing to bear his ad.

A stronger version of this, which I'm not 100% sure is a good idea, would be to place text over the ad which says "UNRESOLVED ISSUES WITH COMPANY X---DO NOT BUY".  I think this would be a sort of extreme measure.  Say after a campaigner has failed to rectify the debt for weeks and is not willing to negotiate to make it right.

Good luck with this.  Lots of time people do start scammer threads when sig campaign sponsors don't pay but obviously by then the damage is done.

It looks like up/down bit may be a good chance to try and see if your proposal can get any traction.

I would actually be more worried about borderline spammers making scores of low value posts that essentially "drain" the sponsors bank compelling them to limit or end the campaign or so alienate users that they ignore all of us who have rented out our space.  While sponsors should look out for themselves there are so many people in campaigns that they just impose limits or give up.

Never really realized that people paid for signature space. A interesting way to advertise for sure. What is the going rate about does anyone know?

I know what you mean; I have heard there are a few scams out there regarding signature space rentals. I think after July 10 I'll see whether Luckybit actually pays out, and then maybe try turning my signature over to a couple of the affiliate programs I know about. See if that works.

Sure.  I guess what I'm talking about is that I've seen it such that several people aren't paid, they start the scammer thread, but then others who were paid continue on bearing the signature.  Then others jump into the spots vacated by the people who got scammed.  Thus the sponsor can contiue to half-pay or pay when he chooses as long as he doesn't alienate everyone obviously, he can get a lot of free advertising.  I think what's ever worse is that when the next campaign starts, people start to think that this is the way things are (everyone for himself!) and things just get worse and worse for the ad-bearers.


You may be right, things are looking bleak there.  I'll probably drop a line in that thread and ask folks to consider my proposal (act together!). IMHO, it's a shame that a lot of hero and senior members are still wearing the ad.  If you ask me, they should all drop the ad immediately and demand payment in order to put it back.  Obviously, this only really works if people act as a unified front. If only a few remove the ad, up/down will prolly just say "see, they cheated, no payment for them..." :(


I really think that quality of posts is orthogonal to this issue. Spam/low-value posts obviously clog up the board and make us all unhappy. What's more, advertisers who legitimately care about their image don't want to be associated with such antisocial activity.  IMHO, the scheme by bitmixer.io is really honorable, it doesn't encourage folks to post any more than they already would.  However, the rates are so low there that it's not very competitive.  Nevertheless, I think the problem of weeding low-value posters out of the campaign is not related to the problem of sponsors failing to uphold their contracts in a whimsical way.

seems like a good idea.  but actually getting people to do it is prolly like a pipe-dream...

I see what you're getting at but this won't work. Like with all strikes you get scabs. Not everyone will be willing to take the risk of removing the signature in case that actually voids them from payment. There's nothing you can do really. People are greedy at the end of the day. I've seen users join signature deals plenty of times even after the campaigns are looking like they're not going to pay or have serious problems. I'd suggest not joining any campaign until they put enough money in escrow or made significant steps to prove their intent to pay, but even that can turn sour quickly (see UpDown.bt) and there's always the greedy ones who won't care about any of that and just join because the campaign is offering a little more than the others.

Why not just ask for the fee for certain period of time. maybe for around 6months the signature link will be up and after 6 months you can disable it if he discontinue to send message and pay for another 6months.

I am not in favour of organised action
System works pretty well as things stand now
Pretty clear who has rep and who doesn't

Exactly the same, I was screwed by Tradefortress and bitcoinsports.eu too. After that I gave up for some time but for the past few months it has been going quite well.

The rates have been good too. Its satisfying having a fixed amount of guaranteed earning each month.

There are too many members here, some will jump to any campaign even if it doesn't pay, they have nothing to loose.

Well, they will learn eventually after getting no payment for their works.

Why don't you just switch to a reputable campaign and let everyone make their own decisions? If they want to get scammed - let them, it's none of your concern.

Pilot Im with you but Xbtec paid me and im going to give them too Friday to pay the rest, I think a strike would be good if we implent a negative on there accounts right now the strike should go more on uptown, at least xbtec came and notify the issue and still in ok standing with me since he did pay me and owe me one more payment.  Right now im speaking against uptown for the moment

Yes, xbtec owes me one remaining payment.  FWIW, I believe he will pay, he doesn't seem dishonest, only disorganized.

To the folks who say the system works well as things stand, I'd say you're only partially correct.  Sometimes the system works well, sometimes it doesn't.  If signature bearers with a little more solidarity, I think that advertizers would be forced to get their acts together more quickly.  Really I'm not trying to organize anything "official", I'm merely trying to facilitate a discussion about generating a culture in which certain kinds of abuses aren't tolerated by the community.


Zyborg, I think you missed my point entirely.  I have no power to prevent or "let" everyone make their own decisions.  Nor would I want such a power.  My question to you is this: what would you do if your campaign paid you and failed to pay someone else.  Do you just "let them get scammed"?  Or do you do something proactive under the notion that you may be the next person to "get scammed" by such a campaign?

a working community is more effective and is the right thing to do, if you got scammed, wouldnt you like a group to come to your aid especially if you have a newbie status?

Apparantly things have gotten pretty bad over at the updown campaign.  Some folks continue to bear the signature while those who drop the signature in protest never get paid.  As long as some folks keep putting the signature on, then the OP gets free advertising.  Obviously this is a stupid business decision in the long run (I believe)---word will spread through the community eventually about how he fails to honor his contracts and then he will essentially have accomplished "antiadvertising" on this forum.  Anyway, it would all stop right now if the updown advertizers would simply drop the sig together until the situation was straightned out.

No. There will be more threads like this if a lot of them gets no pay. Its better to support everyone. 
Lucky enough someone like tspacepilot voice it out.

+1 I agree with you.

In my case I've tried Primedice for the experience and comments of all the users (More than 400 pages) and we have to be unite to protect other users that are scammed... by the companies that pay for signature space!

It shouldn't be taken as a work but rather getting paid for what would you post anyway.

The way UpDown has behaved with his campaigners... he has actually unleashed a ferocious army against his business. Now, not only ont BitcoinTalk, but also on reddit or elsewhere, wherever UpDown will try to campaign, people will bad name him/his business. Someone may try to Dox him too...

How are we going to unite? No one should join any campaign unless escrowed?

Would every member remove their updown sig help? They are not going to be paid unless someone or group can: pulldown their site, delist their TBF membership, or sox them out.

We do our best to act as ethically and transparent as possible and I feel that users of this site know that we honor our word/payment as long as they do not spam.

He did not pay me for last month while the first two weeks i got paid.

I have changed my signature today as well and changed my feedback from positive to negative.

Stunna this is not against you, is  against uptown and bad sig owners. you dont have to worry about this unite act,  your golden already so need to worry

Zimmah awesome IMAO

Also im going to put his website on scammer sites listed so people can stay away so you uptown have 10 more hours, I will give links to the site so you can guys can report him there too.  Not gonna allow this op to take advantage of any of us.

so having a record of previous payouts and being a gold member of bitcoin foundation is not reputable enough?

scammers will scam anyway, no matter how reputable they might have been in the past.

the only way to stop it is by organizing and forming a team against them to show them they can't get away with it.

I got paid by Luckybit just now. Decent outfit (made .05 BTC). I think I'm going to make my signature a referral link to see how that works until I'm a Full member at least, just to see how that works compared to Luckybit.

I understand this point, but I think it detracts from the issue.  Whether or not this is "work" may be debatable, but it's clear that it is a contract.  A failure to fulfill contracts is the relevant context, I believe.


I suggest coming up with a set of "best practices" or "community guidelines" or whatever you want to call them.  Essentially, I want to help engender a culture whereby advertizers know that if they mistreat even a few of their ad-bearers, all of the adbearers will drop the ad until things are fixed.  I note that in the case of Up/Down there were issues even back when he was doing things weekly.  If people had stuck together in that moment and dropped the advert together, this fracas of a month of free advertizing would have never happened.

And, to address your second point, I know that if I had worn an up/down signature all month last month, I would have text that says: "the following website is currently in arrears on payment to contractors, visiting this site is not advised" just above the updown ad.  Ideally, all the updown campaigners would join and this would put more pressure on updown to resolve the situation sooner (I believe).



I've heard no bad reports from Stunna's advertizers.  I just joined the campaign myself.  This thread is to talk about what kinds of things campaigners can do to support each other when campaigners are not so upstanding.

Great in concept but I suspect this would be about as easy as convincing the bitcoin core developers to change bitcoin's PoW mechanism.  Only way something like this could possibly work in my opinion is if all participants 'pool' their collective payouts and agree to evenly dispurse said funds amongst all existing members (essentially spreading the loss out amongst many).  Mandatory membership!  Won't happen.

No, no, I wouldn't ever want to try to get anything "mandatory" going on.  I'm simply talking about the culture. Note the message that bitcoininformation has on his profile now (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=615953.0).  That's the kind of action I'm talking about.  I don't know if bitcoininformation was one of those who was done wrong or not.

I got paid correctly, but I do not agree with his actions (even though I defended him for a while). So I decided to leave his campaign and change my signature to reflect my opinion about it. 

Yes, I have joined another signature campaign, but they allowed me to keep that message (which is the one of my main reason that I joined them).

That's very cool, bitcoininformation, this is essentially the kind of solidarity that I'm trying to promote!  I think you're setting a very good trend with this.

Make a labor union of signature renters? I doubt it would work. There are few trusted signature campaigns, only one or two open, and no qualification needed to join the market. Plus lots of greedy and dumbness from many people to make collective movements works.

Maybe in the future, if we get more advertisers, and with more bitcoins business. Maybe...

I think what I'm suggesting at this point is much more informal than any official union.  However, you're right that it's the spirit of solidarity and looking out for each other that I'm trying to promote.  I suggest that and injury to one is and injury to all and that if we stick together to demand good treatment and professional contracts from the advertizers that overall the marketplace will be healthier and will thrive.

You are suggesting.. a union?  Dude, this is a forum.  We should really be taking getting paid per post as a privilege, not a right. 
A union would be very hard to organize, and it'll just promote greed.

monbux, I think he's saying that he's not suggesting a union.  I read the thread and tspacepilot says at least 4 or 5 times that he's not trying to make a union/anything mandatory.

Geez, I keep having to reiterate that I am not trying to form a union.  For the record then:

I am not organizing a union.

I am talking about acceptable/unacceptable practices by advertizers and how to avoid them/how they can be nipped in the bud.  I think this has to do with the kind of action that bitcoininformation is taking.  He's making a statement about an advertizer who has not paid all his contractees even though he himself was paid.

Noboday said that getting paid to post is a right.  But if I make a contract with someone to pay me to bear their advertizement, if they default on that contract that is a serious matter.  IMHO, it's the greed of others when people don't stick together that allows campaigns to get away with this stuff.  Note that before up/down went away for a month, he already had failed to pay a certain subset of his contractees during the weekly rounds.  However, because of greed, people continued to bear his signature and he got away with stolen advertizing and broken contracts for another month.

Please folks, I want to talk about what we expect from advertizers who want to rent space, I don't want to officially organize you into a union.  I want to promote a culture of honesty and comaradery.  See my earlier post with concrete suggestions about the conditions under which contracts should be made and what people should do when those conditions aren't met.  Note again that this is my opinion about what people should do.  I cannot force anyone to do anything nor would I want to.

That informal union should be aware that people will try to scam you.
People don't paid due to spamming will act like they are victmin, people that change signature in the middle of the month and don't get paid will make the same. So you'll need at leas the same level of verification of posts and signatures as the campaigns do.

For sure, but to be clear, those people are mainly trying to scam the advertizer.  Everyone has a responsibility to evaluate anyone's claims for him/herself.  If someone isn't deserving of payment, I think that's a pretty important topic to bring up in this context.  When, exactly, is someone not deserving of payment?  Obviously this will be dependent on the conditions of the particular campaign.  Where I think this "informal union" may be of use is driving advertizers to be specific about those conditions beforehand.  That is, if our culture is strong, we won't just throw a signature on willy-nilly, but instead we'll say to the advertizer.  First, you need to clearly:

1) lay out the conditions of the campaign (what posts count, in what subfora, etc)
2) lay out the conditions of payment (what day, for what term, who does the counting, should pms be sent)
etc  ...?

This is what this discussion should be about.  What sorts of conditions should a campaign be run under?  What is fair for both advertizers and their contractees?

I do what I always do, trying to help out. And if I can help you guys out with my signature, I will.

I think it's very good that I may retain my signature from FastBluff. Definitely 10 points for them.

That's still a union IMO, what you're suggesting.  I have no problem with that.  I think that we should just continue what we have now; everyone is free to decide which campaign to join, they should judge it themselves.  If that campaign does not payout, you leave negative feedback, and you take off the signature.  Isn't that what you're suggesting?  If so, don't we already have that now?

Also, if an advertiser wanted to scam, everyone removing their signatures would just encourage the advertiser to run faster. :P

well, at least xbtec paid out... updown still a mess. it's being discontinued, right?

But why is it so hard to just go with a reputable campaign instead of a new one that promises ridiculously high rates? If the offer is too good to be true - then it is exactly that.

Armed, you're missing the point here.  It's not about choosing a reputable campaign or overlooking things which are too good to be true.  This is about sticking together when a campaign advertizer tries to screw some contractees but not others.  Take a look at what happened in the xbtec thread, when some of the members with visible trust gave negative feedback, the problem was resolved for all the others within hours.  Note that those guys that gave the visible feedback had been paid themselves, but they put the negative feedback as a sort of solidarity with the others who had been screwed.

UpDown.BT has just send their final payments and I have removed my negative trust rating and signature accordingly. Glad to see everything got sorted out in the end.

EDIT: It seems that UpDown.BT hasn't paid everyone yet. Negative reputation and signature has been added again.

Thank you community for sticking up for us members that didnt get paid.

Well, of course you should put negative trust on people who deserve it. If you've been scammed, go to scam accusations and make your case, get a person from the default trust list to mark the scammer, if your claim is valid.

Well, I'm glad you agree.  I think we can take it to the next level, though.  If people decide the kind of things that the advertizers need to get together before the campaign starts (say details about payment timing, for example), and then refuse to add the signature until these kinds of things are clarified up front, it seems to me that a lot of unfortunate scenarios that we have witnessed could be prevented.  Really, I'm not trying to shove anything down anyone's throat, I'm just trying to faciliate a discussion about how to best stick together and get a better marketplace for the advertizers and campaigners.

You can't tell us to unite and then say it's not a union :P. I previously used the overview thread for this, but I guess we could switch.

I guess you are right, but in general it's your choice who to pick. As i can see you use one of the best or maybe the best sig campaign provider.

Sure I can.  The same way that I can say we should drink a beer together and yet say that I am not enforcing rules on how we drink beer.  I think you're having fun with the pun, which is fine.  But in all seriousness a 'union' implies a certain formal organization whereas the act of uniting is as generic as the interpretation in the moment.

For more such examples, consider that you and your mates may congress in the hallway, that does not mean you've been elected to the United States Congress; you can jockey your way into a line, that does not mean you're necessarily on a horse; you can advocate for your idea, this does not mean you are a barrister, et much c.

About the overview thread, I think the main point there is to categorize the offers currently available.  The point here is to discuss measures of solidarity and to build culture.  I think that they don't really overlap such that one supercedes the other.

Exactly. My overview topic is just about showing available campaigns and basic information about it. Updates about campaigns and a few personal opinions are allowed, but really discussing stuff on there is discouraged.

Hey bitcoininformation,

Did this thread influence you in putting the protest message about UPDOWN on your signature, or was that something that you already were going to do?

I thought about it earlier, the best solution would be to setup a 3rd party escrow/marketplace for signature selling.

1) Advertisers joins Marketplace, confirms he/she is the owner(operator) of the said domain.
2) Advertiser setups up campaign and funds the said campaign through a multi-signature amoung (Marketplace Admin, Advertisement and 3rd Party External Escrow)
3) Posters join the Marketplace, and apply for campaigns.
4) Advertiser, Poster and Escrow agree to said commitments (for campaign)
5) Marketplace data-mines the posters activity every X amount of time: checks to ensure poster doesnt remove said signature, quality checks the posts, keeps a daily post count log
6) Upon the end of the agreement, payments get made.


Seems simple, it can also be expandable to other forums and also helps all the said parties.
~ Advertisers get a flexible and semi-automatic system
~ Posters get the ability to find promising campaigns and the ability for an escrow.


If anyone has any interest in doing this type of system, let me know because I already have something like this in mind and could easily build it off of an existing script (that I have).

Could be very cool.  I used the bitmixer.io campaign for a while and I can say that the automated part is also very convenient for the posters.

No, I changed it before this was created. It was discussed on the UpDown.BT Signature Campaign topic and I decided to join them.
FastBluff was kind enough to let me keep the signature, because I'm active member in this community (and as long as his campaign is on on top).

fair enough.  I think it's cool of you.  Can anyone who knows more about the situation update us on the current state of affairs?  has anyone else been paid yet?  is there any movement at all?

I heard about XBTec but not updown.bt . Anyway it is really bad, if they didn't pay. ::) :-X

IMO the forum can make an option for that. Every advertisers can make an option and pay at that time, 1st day of each week or month and participants can apply on any service. This forum can use Coinbase for paying as it has automatic sending option. So we can guarantee the payment better that trusting a person who pay. I don't know whether it can be established, I just told my opinion/suggestion.

Kindly,
        MZ

It's an interesting idea but I don't think the forum operators care to get involved in this sorta thing.  They have their business---running the forum.  They really don't have much incentive to get involved between advertizers and their contractees so I doubt it would happen.

That is why I told this ;) :

I know it is very hard for the developers but they can hire some one who is willing to do for free. I think there are many persons who like to contribute to BTC. This can be used as a good opportunity for them.

Kindly,
        MZ

I think you would find that the forum developers here have tightly circumscribed the activities they're interested in policing and those they aren't.  Note, for example, the buying and selling of accounts, which as far as I can tell is allowed, even if the forum adminstrators admit that it's shady as hell.

I'm having some issues dealing with the OP of the fastbluff campaign.  I've quit the campaign but the dude is opening up a flame war against me now.  I don't know if any of the brother signature bearers in this thread have advice.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=684966.msg7978466#msg7978466

Looking at the thread, it looks like you guys found a way to sort things out.  Anyway, That issue really seemed to go from 0 -- 100mph really fast.  I was going to suggest simply waiting a day for everyone to think about their position.

Wow... thanks for letting me know :).