There are many of us here who believe that signature campaigns should be banned, or at least subject to scrutiny and approval.

I obviously have a special account for Talk Merit, as it doesn't have that option/link. I'll wait for the next activity update, and I'll close this thread.

Thanks, but I'd be really bad. I've got really strong social and political views, I'm not politically correct, and I support the big red button.

We probably need both of them, especially if they are in different time zones.

I'm started an off-forum site to help, and this is the url - https://fittotalk.com/english-talk/index.php

I decided to go off forum, because all that happens to threads here is that they get spammed with external links. It may help people to use these external sites, and Goggle translate, but it doesn't give them a chance to focus. Spamming the threads with such links in the hope of getting merit, doesn't help the people trying to learn.

I wanted to create somewhere with not activity ranking, no merits, and no chance of signature spamming. It does have the traditional Karma though, so members could rank each other to give encouragement.

Let me know if you think it is worth opening it to members by invitation.

It looks as if newbies can't send messages to newbies, and there is an option in the Hero profile that you have to enable ( or maybe disable ) to receive messages from newbies. I may have disabled it because I was starting to get spam. I wanted to be able to receive PMs from newbies on Talk Merit, but it looks as if I will have to wait for the next rank update to check if I can receive them.

We've got sex, religion and politics in this thread. Now we just need the Rock 'n' Roll

Now I'm giving away my age.

You should post this in the alt and bounty sections.

I'm putting posters who may be sending merits there on ignore to try to keep merits out of their nepotic community.

I gave you a merit for presenting your points logically, and laying them out so that readers could scan and understand them quickly.
If only other posters could use this as an example. It would make my search for posts to award with merit so much easier.

I think you are on a loser in trying to get most new members to improve their posting skills and english. I've tried a number of things, and I've just started this site to try to avoid threads being over run with spammers. - https://fittotalk.com/english-talk/index.php

I'm considering starting another help and discussion area, but it doesn't look as if there is much interest.

I wonder how difficult it would be to make a video of this thread. If I had some animation skills, I'd be tempted to have a go.

Please read the information stickies before posting incorrect information. Merit and activity are not the same, and they aren't even related. Activity increase is the thing that makes you eligible for upranking. Merit is the blocker that stops you upranking if you gained activity by posting rubbish, or at least posts that aren't worthy of merit.

I used serious discussion as an alternative

Simple answer - stop producing those annoying great posts that get you put on ignore.

Not completely. Mother Nature has a philosophy of creating millions of seeds, and spraying them everywhere she can in the hope that one or two germinate. Spammers have the same philosophy. A while ago, I think one sale per million email spam messages was considered good. That is the sort of mentality we are up against.

The sale of accounts means that the trust system is now useless for any trade evaluation. "Caveat emptor" these days seems to mean watch it as they empty your wallet.

You might do better if you posted some simple text descriptions. I've had to put you on ignore because that post is so large and intrusive, and it isn't worth the struggle to try to discover what is on offer.

Learn to read the threads about it. They are spammed everywhere.

The latest feature of the merit system is it's use as a detector of new members who are too lazy to read the stickies, or the numerous threads about it. It lets merit awarders put people on ignore, as they are unlikely to make useful posts if they can't read the other threads.

Just as an indication of this, I've got every person who has made a post before this one on ignore, so they won't be able to receive merits from me.

There is a spelling error in the title.