Are Forum signatures really useful ?

[JeromeL]

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 ?

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[JeromeL]

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.

[Xialla]

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..

 

[BadBear]

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.

[Bicknellski]

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.

[Twipple]

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.

[erikalui]

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. 

[tarsua]

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,

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

[nutildah]

The reason I believe this will never happen is that a lot of people actually post on here due to the ads

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 guess theymos could perhaps disable ads for a week and see if the posting is still as wild as it gets these days.

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

[TheButterZone]

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.

I'd like to be able to auto ignore forum ads as well. Just a thought.

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

[botany]

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.

I'd like to be able to auto ignore forum ads as well. Just a thought.

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)

[TheButterZone]

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.

I'd like to be able to auto ignore forum ads as well. Just a thought.

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.

[nachoig]

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.

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.

[dothebeats]

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.

[Rude Boy]

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 ?

(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).

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

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.

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

~Rude Boy

[dothebeats]

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.

but sig. should not be disabled.


~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.

[funtotry]

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 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.

[dothebeats]

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 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.

[Blazed]

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 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.

[Blazed]

... Imagine a few dedicated signature spam hunters...might work? I think that personal signatures should always remain even if paid campaigns are banned.

The problem's that spam is so subjective. And the problem with signatures is each time I read something potentially stupid/insipid, I jump to the most likely conclusion: It's being posted to make some change. The fault is partially mine, I should be ready to give the benefit of the doubt (for the sake of that 1% who would've posted the inanity without getting paid). But we all know life doesn't work like that.  
See what I mean, sort of?

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.