Signature Advertising is Getting Out Of Hand

[misterbigg]

As if the TradeFortress "Ripple is a Scam" signature ads were bad enough, now everyone is copying his "business model" of offering newbies a raffle ticket for a bitcoin if they put this junk in their signature. PrimeDice being an example. It's not limited to just TradeFortress.

This is diluting the value of the advertising for the board. Note that TradeFortress no longer bids on the ads, since he found a cheaper way to advertise (1 BTC for hundreds of signatures that last forever). Furthermore, newbies are being encouraged to make a lot of useless posts, they get paid based on their post count and how long they keep the ad in their sig (PrimeDice is doing this).

While I believe that people should be allowed to express themselves however they want, now we are getting large fonts and garish signatures with a lot of different colors in the background. Pretty soon half of the page on every post will consist only of advertisements in signatures.

I'm not sure how to fix this. Maybe make all signatures small font with no color backgrounds? The signal to noise ratio of the board is steadily increasing thanks to this nonsense.

Here are some of the sources of the advertising signatures:

Buying Your Signature! Up to 0.15/month

Free bitcoins (up to 0.25BTC/mo): Advertise these links in your sig!

I also noticed that they are sometimes getting placed in the Newbies forum. If everyone did this, newbies would be deluged with worthless posts and promises of "free bitcoins." The forum as a whole would suffer. Off-topic posts are regularly moved into the appropriate forums. But link-advertising is a loophole, a way around the system of moderation. They are the ultimate form of off-topic posts since they follow the user around no matter which forum they post in. The offer of paid signature advertisements is not sustainable behavior, left unchecked it will grow without bounds.

Here's an example of newbies being targeted. In my opinion this is a detriment to the board:

Newbies: 1 BTC FREE RAFFLE - Just add this link to your sig!

This is what the signatures look like:

[Lethn]

It's ironic you complaining about TradeFortress first when you have a ripple ad in your signature

[misterbigg]

It's ironic you complaining about TradeFortress first when you have a ripple ad in your signature

I don't see any Ripple ad? I see a link to a post I wrote explaining the Ripple system. No one paid me for that, nor am I encouraging others to copy it into their signature. Are you trolling?

[Minor Miner]

It's ironic you complaining about TradeFortress first when you have a ripple ad in your signature

I don't see any Ripple ad? I see a link to a post I wrote explaining the Ripple system. No one paid me for that, nor am I encouraging others to copy it into their signature. Are you trolling?

I do not think he is trolling.   If ripple is a pump and dump (not saying it is) your "educational" posts would be considered advertising.   That is the model of how most ponzis and pump and dumps work as I am sure you are aware.   It is the same with pyramid schemes and multi level marketing.   Many people who get in early, tell others of the great new thing they have found (just for information sake).   So, anyone that is skeptical about the intent of ripple would view yourself with suspicion.
I have told you before, what makes me the MOST suspicious about ripple are the "altruistic" posters "that have no stake in it".

[misterbigg]

That is the model of how most ponzis and pump and dumps work as I am sure you are aware.   It is the same with pyramid schemes and multi level marketing.   Many people who get in early, tell others of the great new thing they have found (just for information sake).

Typically, what Ponzi schemes, pump and dumps, and MLM all have in common is that they urge the listener to invest or buy something. I have never suggested that anyone buy anything, least of all gamble on XRP which I am very careful to point is extremely risky as an investment and for all the reasons that others have mentioned (not open source yet, OpenCoin has almost all of it). Therefore, I'm having difficulty understanding how you can equate anything that I wrote with a dishonest scheme.

It's been stated numerous times that the Ripple system is not just the built in currency but that is a fact that gets overlooked. I've also been accused of being a paid shill, etc... although one has to wonder when people are receiving the chance of winning money in exchange for putting ads in their signature, who is really the shill?

I have told you before, what makes me the MOST suspicious about ripple are the "altruistic" posters "that have no stake in it".

So anyone with a desire to provide knowledge and clarity on anything which is not Bitcoin should be viewed with suspicion? I'm not seeing the logic there.



You don't see me or anyone else going into the Newbies forum and telling them to put their money in Ripple, or telling them they are going to get free Bitcoins, etc... Well actually wait a second there is someone who is doing that, and their name is TradeFortress!

[grue]

It's ironic you complaining about TradeFortress first when you have a ripple ad in your signature

"Ripple Explained, for Bitcoiners!" is less of an ad than "⚠ Ripple is a scam"

[knybe]

ads in sigs make me gag... they do not make me want to click that's for sure.

[Minor Miner]

Typically, what Ponzi schemes, pump and dumps, and MLM all have in common is that they urge the listener to invest or buy something. I have never suggested that anyone buy anything, least of all gamble on XRP which I am very careful to point is extremely risky as an investment and for all the reasons that others have mentioned (not open source yet, OpenCoin has almost all of it). Therefore, I'm having difficulty understanding how you can equate anything that I wrote with a dishonest scheme.

It's been stated numerous times that the Ripple system is not just the built in currency but that is a fact that gets overlooked. I've also been accused of being a paid shill, etc... although one has to wonder when people are receiving the chance of winning money in exchange for putting ads in their signature, who is really the shill?

So anyone with a desire to provide knowledge and clarity on anything which is not Bitcoin should be viewed with suspicion? I'm not seeing the logic there.

I do not know how to do the embedded quotes like you do, so I will just answer each of the above.
1.  my opinion is that there is investment going on by creating an insanely high value to a company by setting "exchange prices" and then getting more and more people to start trading it.   Looks VERY similar to a pump and dump to me.    No one in there right mind would value a piece of flawed software at $200MM.
2.   I have not called you a shill but I am suspicious of your intentions (that is called honesty).  People who put ads in their signatures are not shills as they are explicitly telling you why they do it.   Shill came from vegas, and there is a nevada law that anyone at any table can ask and the casino must identify....   Not a bad law is it?
3.  I think anyone on the any Bitcoin forum should be viewed with suspicion when their advice could cost you money or provide wealth to others.   I think that have been proven many times in the last three years and I think you to pretend that you are shocked by this is disingenuous.

[ensign_lee]

I agree with the original sentiment behind this thread.

It cheapens the value of bitcointalk.org and makes me want to go to reddit or somewhere else to talk about bitcoin instead.

[SGExodus]

I think buying and selling of signature space is free market at play.  Some of you who have been using using the Internet long enough would have seen signature such as "This space for rent" in the past.

However, I think offering raffle to get free advertisement is inappropriate.   There is no way to ensure that the poster will honor the raffle or will he be rigging the raffle result, or he may cancel the raffle half way through the advertising period (such as claiming not sufficient participation) but still ripped the benefits of getting some newbies into advertising the site for free.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Raffles can be provably fair..

You can disable signatures in your settings.

ITT: ripple shill bitching about anti Ripple ads. Just wait and see what a blanket AdWords+CoinURL campaign looks like.

[SGExodus]

We will need full upfront payment to a escrow for raffle payment for advertising.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

Why don't we need full upfront escrow for everything?

You are kinda out of touch when I bid ~50 BTC a week on forum ads and you think I'm going to run with 1 BTC of ads?

[SGExodus]

Because not everyone that is trying to buy signature space has the same kind of reputation rating. 

Doesn't hurt to have a more formal approach to it

[bitcoinbear]

You can disable signatures in your settings.

ITT: ripple shill bitching about anti Ripple ads. Just wait and see what a blanket AdWords+CoinURL campaign looks like.

+1

If you do not like all the ads you can just turn off the signatures. It is much better now than a couple years ago, when people were allowed to have images in their signatures, and some people had massive signatures that took up a whole screen height. For the most part I just ignore signatures, but I am also one who has sold my signature space in the past.

Selling signature ads does not hurt anybody, it is a nice way for newbies to get a bit of bitcoin and get a feel for how it works. I myself doubt the effectiveness of signature ads, but I am not one to turn down earning money just for placing one line of code in my forum preferences.

@misterbigg: You targeting the anti-ripple ads in your post sends up red flags based on your very outspoken pro-ripple stance. It sounds like you are trying to silence your competition. That will not fly on this forum, where the admins have from the beginning been openly advocates of speech freedom. Even people who generally agree with you will turn against you if you start using dirty tactics.

[glongsword]

I agree with OP.  I'm new to this forum so I haven't seen it before the signature ads, but I have never before seen a forum where signatures were allowed to have large fonts, freaky colors, background colors, and hyperlinks to obvious scams/pyramid schemes.  What's next?  1999 style blinking GIF's and pop-up messages that take over control of your browser window?

My opinion is signatures should be limited to size 8 font (at least a smaller size font than the posts themselves), and only be allowed in black font on a white or light blue background.  Posts in the newbie forum (or anywhere else) offering a "bounty", "reward", "raffle", or "lottery" for using a particular signature should be deleted on sight.

[lch]

I think a poll is in order, to determine if people want to remove large, colored fonts, with hideous  backgrounds in signatures.

This will benefit advertisers because if the signature are less annoying, people are less likely to turn of signatures, thereby increasing the amount people viewing your ad.

Everyone else will benefit because they can concentrate on the post and look at the ads when they want to.

[Mahn]

Maybe make all signatures small font with no color backgrounds?

This. Please do. Nobody needs the full color spectrum of the rainbow or ridicously large fonts for a forum signature.

[BadBear]

I prefer the different colors actually, makes it easier to skim over them.

[bitcoinbear]

I agree with OP.  I'm new to this forum so I haven't seen it before the signature ads, but I have never before seen a forum where signatures were allowed to have large fonts, freaky colors, background colors, and hyperlinks to obvious scams/pyramid schemes.  What's next?  1999 style blinking GIF's and pop-up messages that take over control of your browser window?

We had people using blinking GIF's, they were obnoxious and are now all images are banned from signatures.