Bitcoin Forum

Quite a bunch of people put adds into their signature (dice companies -.-, mining, etc) and answer/write posts with irrelevant content in order to earn money. This process is known as "signature campaigns" and is of course sponsored by companies.

On this forum I sometimes run into "signature people" having a 300+ post history and having no clue of how bitcoin works.

The result is that "honest" forum users waste a lot of time reading these irrelevant answers/posts.

Some people came up with solutions like "ignore list sharing". But I believe most honest users, especially new users aren't aware of them. And blacklisting is not really in the spirit of Bitcoin after all. However I use one because I feel I don't have the choice, and sometime I click on a post and all of the answers are ignored.

Instead, why not just disable signatures in order to improve over all user experience ?

Complementarily we could have a little bitcoin offchain wallet embedded in the forum and require some fee to post. For example 5 cents worths of bitcoins per post, or per KBytes, or a mixture of both.

This could perhaps incentive people to make searches instead of asking a question that has already been raised 100 times, and this could help funding the forum.

so you are whining about signatures, creating new thread...and 7 lines below on same section is this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=786662.0 where it is discussed for last half a year..

 ::) ::) ::)

Disabling signatures entirely would affect innocent users as well. A way to disable signature ads specifically would be good.  Ignore certain signatures (which would ignore all of that type), and maybe an auto ignore at a certain point is probably the best solution.

Or force all revenue for ads to go to the forum and not let users or 3rd parties advertize in this manner. Ban all campaigns etc. Personal ads in a sig promoting your shop etc is fine but these account sellers / sig campaigns are spam inducing and for the most part truly annoying. Even worse was Dogie's format of selling ads within his guides. Please clear this crap out make all ads be a revenue stream for the forum that way you can regulate more easily and it will reduces the spam a great deal.

The reason I believe this will never happen is that a lot of people actually post on here due to the ads, and is what makes it very active. I guess theymos could perhaps disable ads for a week and see if the posting is still as wild as it gets these days.

If signature campaigns are banned:

1. Accounts won't be bought/sold as people mainly buy farm accounts for signature campaigns.
2. Accounts won't be held as collateral and some members will even stop lending due to this.
3. Members (except scammers) will stop creating new accounts as now their account won't have any value.
4. Activity as well would be affected


I support banning signature campaigns if the first 3 points do take place as I don't support these account sales and find it immoral to farm accounts just to earn few bits. 

And if this system was implemented, how would new users post?
5 cents is alot to pay if you are living off faucets

Yeah, that's the problem. They are spambots and their words are meaningless. They just clutter the forum with nonsense and start threads with titles like, "What kind of beverage did you drink today?"


I like this idea, it should be done as an experiment. That or disabling HTML in sig space altogether. (I know, its not HTML...)

Forum Profile Information
Disable ads:
Please don't do this unless you really need to. The forum's ads are not very annoying!

You should add that disabling forum ads is only available to certain ranks (Hero/Legendary members, Donators, VIPs, and moderators)

Hm, https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=178608.0 needs an updated OP then.

Maybe this forum is profiting indirectly with signature campaigns...

Sig campaign = More activity from people = more traffic = more revenue from the official advertising space.

Personally, I'm not against sig ads, but if you're making money with this, maybe it would be reasonable to send some part of the profits (5-10%) to the forum donation address. I would do this if I was in a sig campaign.

As far as I know, there is a software here created by a mod to lessen out the visual quality of annoying signature ads. If you don't want to see ads, then you might find that software useful. There is no need to disable forum signatures imo, but yes, I can agree that post quality nowadays are lower compared to last year when there are only a few signature campaigns available to the users.

(I'm also in a sig. campaign and read this post fully & clearly before ignore).

Actually what's the purpose of a sig. space? More or Less all forums having sig. space right? If sig. campaigns should be disabled, then why should they provide sig. space for forum members?

What if sig. campaigns should be paused? I/all members of this forum will put their own referral link/blog or something else. Also post/spam lot to promote their link/blog or whatever they put in their sig. space (this will happen mostly) right?

Same, but instead of displaying own link/blog, i/they display others ads/blog/link/something else just for money.

And think what if sig. are disabled?
All sig. campaigns will be  disabled and the forum be less active (I'm sure).

And yes i agree that quality posts are less because of sig. campaigns



UPDATE: sig. should not be disabled. This is what i'm too try to explore (and i read all the replies/posts)

~Rude Boy

I clearly stated in my post here that there is no need to disable forum signatures. This is another problem that I see on people with signatures: they reply hastily without even reading the whole post or having a second look to check if they really understand the point of what the poster prior to them is really saying. Heck, there are even people with signatures who doesn't even read a single post on a thread and replies just to pad up his/her post count. With that kind of attitude, other users of this forum will surely get annoyed. The signature campaigns and the forum signature aren't the problem here, it is those users who doesn't really take time to read a single post before they reply, which therefore results into a low-quality, and sometimes an off-topic reply.

I agree, the post quality has declined, you see so many newbies with the 777coin signatures and they are posting useless stuff in useless topics just to get the couple satoshis from the signature. However, disabling the signatures will only remove the signature, not the useless post made by the signature user.

But once signatures are disabled, you will see a drastic change on the number of low-quality posts that are related to signature campaigns. Low-quality posts and off-topic replies are sometimes made by newbies with their signatures so as to get a couple of satoshis. I myself do not support the idea of removing the signature, but maybe set another limit to newbies? Maybe they shouldn't be allowed to wear any form of signature until they reached the Jr. Member rank because as far as I can see, the most off-topic and nonsense posts are usually made by members with a newbie rank.

I think the forum should add some special staff members to be very aggressive and their job is to hunt down spammers. Imagine a few dedicated signature spam hunters...might work? I think that personal signatures should always remain even if paid campaigns are banned.

I would rather have less spam and a few extra bans if given the choice. Signature spammers are pretty easy to spot though...just a thought.

If you wear a paid signature you just have to deal with it.

Yes there are many REASONS for it and many reasons that would benefit the forum if we were to remove the scourge of paid signatures. Are any of the mods participating in signature campaigns or account selling?

Keep sigs. Kill sig adverts.

I also support your idea, ban the signature campaigns and the problems will be resolved ... at least we can try for 1-2 months and see what will happen. People (that who were banned) are still continuing to create or farm account every single day and I remember a couple of months ago the things were more different than now.

Banning probably decreases activity. I think enforcing rules on campaign managers are better for better management. If spams are higher from a campaign, banning it. Anybody?

IIRC, somebody posited that the official forum ad fees can cost more because of the defacing & degrading shitposters. Shitcan the shitposts and ad revenue goes down?

I do not think the forum staff has the time to manage all the signature campaign, a ban period test will be really useful (but it will be also a form of censorship and I think it is always against the philosophy of this forum).





This (probably) is another reason of why sig. campaigns are not banned from the forum... a little decentral. of ads is more effective and I think sig campaigns bring more traffic than the forum ad.

The forum is a center for bitcoin related commerce. Signatures are a major way that bitcoin related companies are able to advertise their products and services. This is not just for paid signatures, there are a number of people that advertise their own business with their signature.

If signatures are disallowed, then existing bitcoin related companies will have an advantage over others that wish to enter the marketplace and the bitcoin economy will become more centralized. Also disallowing signatures would inhibit the freedom of speech of both user and companies that wish to advertise via paid signatures.

I think a good solution to the signature spam problem would be to publish a report as to how many people who are participating in each campaign are banned due to insubstantial posts+paid signature, as well as other stats such as average post length of members posting in each campaign, number of posts deleted by members in each campaign, number of scammers in each campaign and other similar stats. This would hold companies more accountable for the participants in their signature campaigns and would give companies greater incentives to better manage their participants.  

It can be seen in the span of 2 months as a test and I am sure that many would be inactive but the number of spam posts (although trolls will continue trolling) would reduce and account buying and selling would stop.

I don't know when the signature campaigns started but it has given rise to farming accounts and such scams/spams which is a bigger problem and it would slow down the activity as well (but people who are genuinely interested in bitcoins will stay).

Till now these campaigns are allowed because they bring traffic to the forum but there needs to be a solution as well.

In my experience so far, banning has little effect, the compensation and incentive is too much. It doesn't really have the desired result of reducing the spam. This isn't a problem that can be solved with more moderation. Consider the change from post based ranks to activity based ranks a while back, you could make hero member in no time at all as long as you posted enough. A lot of people ended up getting banned, and eventually we went to activity based ranks. It removed the incentive to spam posts, reduced moderation, reduced bannings, and overall lead to a better forum. Leaving the cookie jar on the table and smacking people every time they try to take one, instead of just moving the cookie jar is a waste of time and ends up in lots of unnecessary conflict.
 
Though sig campaigns have completely undone that, and we are back where we started.


This forum has existed for a long time without signature campaigns. Sig campaigns came about because this is an active forum. Sig campaigns actually harm the forum in several ways, and not just the random sig spam.

1. it decreases forum revenue via advertising
2. that in turn decreases compensation for staff
3. more spam, in conjunction with point 2 accounts for the current state of the forum
4. increases workload on staff, along with less compensation mentioned above, means things that aren't sig spam go unhandled
5. Broken windows theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory), the presence of spam, then encourages more spam
I'm gonna stop here because the rest will be subjective and just lead to more circular arguments, but I could go on.

The forum only had the one ad spot for a reason, sig campaigns make it look like crap. If the competition would be too stiff, adding more spots would certainly be preferable to sig campaigns, maybe some of it could even go to posters, I don't know if that's legally feasible though, with tax concerns and all.
 
Stopping it temporarily would have no effect, people would keep posting in order to "prove a point" and increase their activity for the inevitable return.

It increases forum revenue by increasing the traffic.


If you are against sig campaigns then why are they still here? theymos disagrees with you?

I think the opposite. The activity can still be increased by just making one post a day. But people here essentially make 20-40 a day , which I believe is more because of the signatures . Maybe theymos should just test it out by disabling signatures for a week.

BadBear...then why are the paid campaigns still allowed to continue? I myself have a flat rate so I am paid the same no matter what. It is a shame that these farmers ruined these campaigns for us non spammers. Either ban the campaigns or force them to some strong rules might do it?

Only a set amount of users
If members spam in your campaign - boot them or be shut down
No paid per post only a flat rate
Etc...

I think that would force the campaigns to pick only good posters and not farmers.

First I agree the buying and selling of account's is not a good thing for the forum.  I think it's sad I spend a year to get my level and someone with money pay's some farmer to jump up activity levels.   There is lot's of issues with these accounts not mentioned to much is scamming these account's probley account for a decent amount of scams.  Even if you get rid of signature accounts there will still be a market for scammers to buy accounts.

I think there are good things with signature campaigns as far as user in forum.  With user you can go through your normal routine and get a little btc.  I personally use all of mine on mining gear (or in a lot of cases some new fan's for summer to help me keep mining).  It may seem small but over time it allows me to buy miner's test them out and do guides, help others with issues, among other things.

I think it gets you good content (in some cases).    So yes there are pro's and cons.   I personally hope it keeps going as it provide part of my hardware budget.  

*Edit: And as badbears sig say's there is a good option to block all signatures - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1003570.0 .  I highly suggest anyone who does not like signature campaign's to us it. 

No he agrees (in general, I don't know about the finer points), and there will be changes eventually. Lack of time, and a general unwillingness to significantly modify the current forum when a new one is under development are the main reasons it hasn't been done yet.


See above, and that would be a significant time investment to essentially run campaigns for them, with nothing in return. I'm also not sure how I feel about the forum inserting itself into the business deals of others. Seems a little... Big Brother-ish.

It is an easy modification. A new rule which says paid signatures are not allowed.
Are you saying that will take more time than you spend finding and banning spammers?

yes they are ı think people too think like me ı saw 777coin at signature and maked some dice

Even if there are dedicated staff members whose purpose is solely spotting spammers, it isn't enough because a few edit and some sprinkle of "good" words would probably conceal the spam. That would work, but if you read the post thoroughly, you will see that the words added to the main point of the post is completely irrelevant as to what was really the point of the post. Special staff members aren't necessary in tracking down these spammers; the forum members here alone do so by reporting a post in which they think is insubstantial or is irrelevant to the discussion that's been going on.

Do you ever watch a sports competition? there so many brand who's sponsoring the competition. Are those really useful?

Yes this is a well know thing, without the sig ad this forum will have fewer 'visits' but I am (still) thinking the sig campaigns bring more damage than good thing.... maybe it is only my theory.




sig campaigns are a good compromise to everyone and also if we ask the complete removal ... it will never be accomplished.

Re: Are Forum signatures really useful ?


Yes, they are. Signature campaigns is needed to bitcointalk.org

Are you trolling or what?

---

I forgot to reply to your post, I only want to say that I agree with you. The forum staff should only manage the forum and not lose a lot of time trying to manage all the signature campaign.


What do you think if all the users that who are participating to the forum ads auctions will start to rent the users signature? Will the forum be happy of this decision or not?

I will agree with sig campaign if every campaign manager review all the participant's post, they will be accepted if their posts are constructive . I do not agree with bitmixer and coinomat, so far, I see 23 members of Indonesian board who wearing their signature and almost all of them gave nothing but BS and spam post.

I think this is an interesting angle that is often un explored - why not help the signature sponsors hold their participants more accountable?

I can't imagine that signature sponsors really want the forums to be full of useless posts that they pay for.  If the problem is mostly the useless posts, though I agree it is surprising that the forum allows its users to compete with it, then maybe they are a more useful avenue to pursue? 

Is there some kind of enhanced reporting that could be turned on?  Like a special moderator category, sig sponsors get it and signature participants have to enable it.  In addition to a report button there is a report to sig sponsor button?

I realize it is just easier to ban sigs, and am encouraged by bad bear's statements that improvements are in the works.  But I think when done responsibly signature campaigns can allow people to get a little btc to play around with, especially now that mining and faucets are not a realistic way for new users to get started.

The forum allows normal users to live with it and sig campaign managers turn a blind eye, i often report users with insubstantial posts to the yobit campaign manager but it seems he only listens to admins when it comes to taking people out of his campaign, lets hope the new forum has a solution to all of this

Of course signatures are useful.  I've seen several that contain useful information or just promote a person's own projects or whatever.  But they do have to be read, and if people are more inclined to just hide everybody's signatures - or read completely past them - in part due to the many signature campaigns, then that does defeat the point of having a signature.

Case in point, your own post:

That would be the software mentioned in BadBear's signature - "Tired of annoying signature ads? Ad block for signatures (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1003570.0)" - 10 posts above yours.
https://i.imgur.com/eqyCpUH.png (https://i.imgur.com/eqyCpUH.png)
And yes, that's a lot of "(ad space removed)" placeholders in this thread, thanks to (a modified version of) that very Grease/Tampermonkey script.  Can definitely recommend it.

Perhaps you've just desensitized yourself to signatures, missing that bit in BadBear's sig entirely.  That would be one unfortunate piece of collateral damage of signature campaigns.