a way to stop signature spammers by punishing the campaign managers

[SFR10]

IMHO a direct approach to punish those who run the signature campaigns for lack of effort in maintaining a clear and valuable forum is going to end up with result more on the negative side than the positive one... a better way would be to use an indirect way instead meaning if there were many spammers from any campaign in particular, the campaign itself should be punished by way of their ads don't show up in the signature area, even when the code is correct and instead something to show until they resolve the situation: (maybe some sort of tag like ~Censored Due to Increase of Spam Posts From This Campaign~)
each punishment depending on the extent of it could be either until further notice which it will be monitored daily or if much more lengthy punishments like 2 days up to even a month off for their signature codes to appear in the forums again depending on the extend of the damage done by their respective campaigns

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[mexxer-2]

IMHO a direct approach to punish those who run the signature campaigns for lack of effort in maintaining a clear and valuable forum is going to end up with result more on the negative side than the positive one... a better way would be to use an indirect way instead meaning if there were many spammers from any campaign in particular, the campaign itself should be punished by way of their ads don't show up in the signature area, even when the code is correct and instead something to show until they resolve the situation: (maybe some sort of tag like ~Censored Due to Increase of Spam Posts From This Campaign~)
each punishment depending on the extent of it could be either until further notice which it will be monitored daily or if much more lengthy punishments like 2 days up to even a month off for their signature codes to appear in the forums again depending on the extend of the damage done by their respective campaigns
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Erm you do know that there are nearly more than a million users to check the signature from? This will require as I posted here , more resources, for follow up:

And anything more complicated would require more resources i.e= higher cost i.e= lower ad revenue or now revenue at all for the site and etc.

And they can just change their signatures designs anytime.
I think it makes sense banning the users spreading the spam not the campaign managers , at least for now

[SFR10]

Erm you do know that there are nearly more than a million users to check the signature from? This will require as I posted here , more resources, for follow up:

And anything more complicated would require more resources i.e= higher cost i.e= lower ad revenue or now revenue at all for the site and etc.

And they can just change their signatures designs anytime.
I think it makes sense banning the users spreading the spam not the campaign managers , at least for now

Regarding them having the ability to just use another signature codes, it can be fixed more than simpler than you think... Any signatures that use same link as those signatures (under suspension) could easily be blocked therefore changing the codes even with same URL's could still be easily manageable so no problem on that one... plus once a campaign has violated and instead tries to cheat the system into making it's signatures appear again, without going through the suspension period could be punished directly so that way they don't try to cheat the rules (if ever there will be for this matter)

As to users getting banned, yes that is a must but on a side note, there's a reason why a campaign manager is chosen and it's not to just count and pay each user for posts but also to take responsibility for how the campaign users perform therefore lack of effort from the users, has also a negative reflection on the campaign manager or rather to whoever that runs it so some sort of adjustment (indirect punishment) is necessary on this matter

[BadBear]

There are intelligent filtering algorithms that would cover more than just one variation of a design/website, it would also be a lot of trouble for them, and potentially a waste of money (paying for posts that had no ad). It would take some time to keep it updated (though changing a signature to intentionally bypass forum filtering makes it easier to justify banning), but less time than is currently wasted on dealing with sig spam.

I do agree that sig spam is a problem, but punishing/banning people isn't really working, there's too much of it, and eventually too many people are going to end up banned. It's all we can do right now though.

Only viable long term option is to remove the incentive to spam,  SFR10's idea is a bit more centralized, though so is banning.

I'm still a fan of using a system more centered on the users, an ignore a specific signature button, which ignores all sigs of that type, and at a certain point they would automatically be ignored for everyone, though this is more complicated to implement.

[Athertle]

TBH, I agree that focusing on the users would be a better idea. I have to admit that there are a couple of quality posters in YoBit/BitMixer; if the campaign itself was closed down because of the spammers, then that would mean that they would be affected as well.

I'm still a fan of using a system more centered on the users, an ignore a specific signature button, which ignores all sigs of that type, and at a certain point they would automatically be ignored for everyone, though this is more complicated to implement.

Not sure if I understand what you mean. Are you saying that the signature itself would be automatically ignored for everyone, regardless of the user showing the signature? IMHO, ignoring a specific user instead of a signature type would be better; we would weed out the spammers, and the people who were making good posts with that signature would continue to get paid.

I like the idea of the ignore color; it sounded like a good idea. Maybe implement that again, but a less CPU-consuming method?

[tmfp]

Why not trial a simple limit based on activity/post ratio for anyone carrying a paid sig?
Whenever I see above about 6:1 and check them out, it's usually contentless repetition. It would certainly make people think twice before posting crap.

[BadBear]

TBH, I agree that focusing on the users would be a better idea. I have to admit that there are a couple of quality posters in YoBit/BitMixer; if the campaign itself was closed down because of the spammers, then that would mean that they would be affected as well.

I've banned, easily, hundreds at this point (can't give an exact number because some just received a normal ban). It's had very little, if any effect. At some point you have to accept it's not doing any good, and at some point you will cross a line where you are doing more harm than good. We spend a significant portion of time dealing with it, to the detriment of everything else. 

Not sure if I understand what you mean. Are you saying that the signature itself would be automatically ignored for everyone, regardless of the user showing the signature? IMHO, ignoring a specific user instead of a signature type would be better; we would weed out the spammers, and the people who were making good posts with that signature would continue to get paid.

I like the idea of the ignore color; it sounded like a good idea. Maybe implement that again, but a less CPU-consuming method?

Yes, ignores that signature for all users if enough people have ignored it, maybe add highlighting to the ignore signature like the ignore user had.

Why not trial a simple limit based on activity/post ratio for anyone carrying a paid sig?
Whenever I see above about 6:1 and check them out, it's usually contentless repetition. It would certainly make people think twice before posting crap.

They'll use multiple accounts instead.

[XinXan]

It seems like the mods and staff dont really care, every idea that is proposed they just turn it down with pretty silly explications sometimes, there are plenty of ideas that would work, punishing sig campaign managers would work. They ban spammers why not ban campaign managers that allow the spammers? Badbear explanation is just silly, honestly.

What ideas are you pointing to exactly? Punishing campaign managers will not work for the worst two spam campaign, they just use a bot to determine how many posts should be made and even if the campaign manager accounts are given a ban they can keep paying for the shitposts outside the forum.
And anything more complicated would require more resources i.e= higher cost i.e= lower ad revenue for the site and etc.

If everyone agrees what are the worst 2 campaigns, ban everyone that is wearing them, ''You are banned until you stop using the 'x campaign' signature'' Problem solved, not too hard.

[Lauda]

If everyone agrees what are the worst 2 campaigns, ban everyone that is wearing them, ''You are banned until you stop using the 'x campaign' signature'' Problem solved, not too hard.

So this is your 'simple' solution? Exactly what do you think that is going to happen with these people once they get unbanned? Firstly this would require even more effort as we'd have to check if user has X signature. What would happen is that they'd most likely just join a campaign Y which is not one of those "worst" campaigns and continue their spamming (possibly improved, but still spamming). There is no simple solution to this problem.

[saturn643]

I'm still a fan of using a system more centered on the users, an ignore a specific signature button, which ignores all sigs of that type, and at a certain point they would automatically be ignored for everyone, though this is more complicated to implement.

The problem I have with that is that it removes the signatures, not the spam posts which I really don't want to see. I don't use the ignore button because sometimes people who post a lot of spam every so often come out with something constructive. I would rather there be some incentive (i.e. not getting paid) for them to not spam and some incentive to post constructively. The idea of this was that the campaign managers provide that incentive to the users as an incentive to prevent their own accounts from being banned.

IMHO a direct approach to punish those who run the signature campaigns for lack of effort in maintaining a clear and valuable forum is going to end up with result more on the negative side than the positive one... a better way would be to use an indirect way instead meaning if there were many spammers from any campaign in particular, the campaign itself should be punished by way of their ads don't show up in the signature area, even when the code is correct and instead something to show until they resolve the situation: (maybe some sort of tag like ~Censored Due to Increase of Spam Posts From This Campaign~)
each punishment depending on the extent of it could be either until further notice which it will be monitored daily or if much more lengthy punishments like 2 days up to even a month off for their signature codes to appear in the forums again depending on the extend of the damage done by their respective campaigns

I think that is also a good idea. It is giving an incentive to the business to crack down on spammers so their ads can be seen. It could be done relatively easily by just searching for specific strings in the signature area.

[XinXan]

If everyone agrees what are the worst 2 campaigns, ban everyone that is wearing them, ''You are banned until you stop using the 'x campaign' signature'' Problem solved, not too hard.

So this is your 'simple' solution? Exactly what do you think that is going to happen with these people once they get unbanned? Firstly this would require even more effort as we'd have to check if user has X signature. What would happen is that they'd most likely just join a campaign Y which is not one of those "worst" campaigns and continue their spamming (possibly improved, but still spamming). There is no simple solution to this problem.

Well it seems like it's already happening, check the yobit public list of spammers. It is a good solution and the excuse of ''what will happen once they get unbanned'' is not enough to not do it. Some people are already searching for the spammers to facilitate the mods job so yea.