[1] All managers ask (or should ask) for "constructive posts". What are "constructive posts"? How can we define constructive posts? Should they be defined as "replies on the subject, no matter their length" (including one liners)? Or should they be considered constructive only if they meet a minimum character length? I saw that some managers accept small posts as being valid for their campaigns, while others don't. No matter if the posts are on subject and usefull; they just deny them. We need a consensus here.
To start, constructive posts are determined by the manager of the campaign. Their decision is their decision and all managers do not think the same. That's like asking all DT members to share the same opinion or all forum mods to do their jobs the same way. It's just not gonna happen. If you don't like a managers rules, leave the campaign and go elsewhere, if you can find another campaign.
There are xxx campaigns and 100x more users looking for spots in those campaigns, so getting accepted isn't always easy. Adapt to the managers rules or don't be in a campaign.
[2] Should some boards be banned from any campaign? I saw that some managers say that posts in some sections are not accepted; other say that posts from other boards are not accepted. Can be a general rule for boards not accepted in any campaign? Example: ban all posts from Politic&Society and Off-topic boards.
Boards are banned due to the quality of posts usually found on banned boards. For example, Games&rounds, noone should be paid for claiming a few satoshis from a site by posting their username and btc address. That's just a shit post. Users can still post on boards that aren't paid, but they won't be paid for said post.
I doubt all managers will unify and only ban certain boards as a whole. Some managers think boards that I find posts unconstructive on are constructive.
[3] Should participants be accepted only if they meet
a certain amount of merits in the past 1-2 months prior applying to the campaign (and also prior being accepted inside the campaign)? And another suggestion here, the merit number could be fixed for each kind of rank, but lower for low rank users and bigger for higher rank users. Currently,
out of 21 signature campaigns, only 4 or 5 have a merit requirement; can such requirement be implemented for all campaigns? But I'm not talking about a trivial minimum threshold as the actual one is (5 merits); I'm talking about a
serious threshold, such as 20-30 merits.
Again, this is a managers discretion issue. Some managers feel that if they make users earn merits throughout the week, then they are doing their part in getting constructive posters for the campaign.
I tried this approach once and found out that users can buy merits, so it's really kind of a waste of time. Not to mention the fact that there is no general rules on what type of post merits can be sent to. It's not always easy to see merit abuse.
A guy can be earning 20$ a week in a campaign and spending 5$ of that per week to buy merits and keep himself earning 15$ per week. It's a sacrifice but it guarantees them money.
[4] Should participants be excluded from campaigns if they don't earn a minimum amount of merits per week? Furthermore, similar to (3): could this minimum threshold be a fixed number for a low rank, a bigger number for a higher rank and so on?
Same answer as above. It's at the managers discretion. Not much users can say or do about it.
[5] Should be accepted inside any campaign only members of certain ranks (eg. minimum Senior users)? Several campaigns are oriented only to high rank users; why wouldn't be applied here a general rule to be accepted in all the campaigns only these kind of users?
This is really up to the company that's paying for the campaign. If they have a small budget weekly, then they likely want to look at hiring jr members or members vs only hiring sr or above. Users can post constructively at all ranks, even newbie, but to hire all sr member or above you need a larger weekly budget.
[6] All campaigns have a minimum and a maximum posts number per week. Could these limits be fixed for all the campaigns? Example: have a minimum of 10 posts/week and a maximum number of 25 posts/week.
This is actually something that I think all managers could get together on. Companies want their name seen as much as possible all over the forum so that they can get business driven to their site, but regular forum users want spammers to stop spamming. So if the weekly requirement is lower, in theory it should reduce the spam. No guarantees though. Some people come in for 2 days and punch out their weekly requirement and hop on to another account.
For me personally, I would like to see 15 posts weekly be the standard, but companies may not be willing to pay a decent rate for fewer posts.
[7] All managers ask that participants don't have a negative trust; what if this rule would be improved to high rank users, meaning to be required to have a positive trust in order to be accepted?
I have been accepting some users with negative trust at times. Depends on the reason for the trust. Getting positive trust can be kinda hard for some people. Getting a negative is as easy as waking up in the morning.
[8] Can there be set a common sense rule for
maximum number of posts accepted per day? Example: only 5 posts per day to be taken into account. Currently,
out of 21 signature campaigns, only one states clearly that it accepts maximum 7 posts per day, four state they accept maximum 8 posts per day, while
15 mention only that burst posting is not allowed, without giving any definition of burst posting. So what is "
burst posting" then? In order to eliminate spam even more, can it be defined as a certain number of posts per day?
It does not matter what you set the limit to. Users still spam. Users still do not care about the forum. Users are greedy as hell. Users will log in, make their daily post cap and log out. Not caring 1 bit about where they posted or what they posted about. Not all users, but a good portion.
Look at the mess of shit that happened with yobit. I had to look at 600 profiles+ multiple times a week. I seen the same shit over and over from a good load of users. Log in, do 5 posts, log out. Rinse and repeat daily.
Now with all your concerns answered, I am going to speak my opinion on some matters concerning signature campaigns and managers.
1. Some of these managers should not be managers. There are a shit load of managers now and they do
NOT even come close to doing a good job. They don't even grade a campaign correctly. They open a spreadsheet see what number post a user had ended the previous week with, then see the number they have for the current week and just subtract giving the user a total for the current week. They don't even take the time to read users replies for the week. Just do a little math and move on.
Users have posts deleted every week(not all but alot do), so a manager needs to actually open a profile and count the posts for the week. Then, they need to check the posts and sections posted in. Check to make sure they're on topic. Then subtract the junk posts and end up with a total for the week.
I'm all for people trying to start a career, but if you cannot do the job, don't try.
