Is the Ivory Tower proof we shouldn't restrict other sections like the I.T.?

[Jet Cash]

Signatures aren't bad in themselves. If I add a link to one of my sites in my sig, then it helps that site with Google. If I promote a sponsor, then I may make a bit from affiliate commissions. All of those mean that I can decide where and what to  post. The problems start with rented signatures, and the conditions that a renter paces on the posting habits required. For me a post requirement of 50 is trivial, I could knock that out in a day. However some members seem to have problems in making any decent posts, and they are forced to spam , or to create posts using discouraged methods.

The real solutions are good moderation, restrictions on new registrations, and specific boards for startup members. I'd like to give some merits to new members, but the beginners board is still useless for that. I end up putting more people on ignore, than finding posts to merit. Please get rid of the bounty, ICO Twitbook and other rubbish from that board, and lets make it a proper crypto introduction board.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Four months after this post was created I’ve been thinking how right OP was. Nobody has written anything since August, 31st. That’s four days. And we have to bear in mind that this section still has the merits incentive. You can’t wear a signature but you can still get merits.

The Serious Discussion one has more movement but more banal comments.

[Jet Cash]

Merits shouldn't really be an incentive here. I'd like to see some good discussions amongst the intelligent senior members. By that i mean sensible business and political discussions, rather than the ones one would expect to find in school debating societies. I've got loads of topics that I would find interesting, such as the rise of statins, the cholesterol and cancer myths, and the rise of unicorn politicians around the world.

Don't forget that unicorns are nasty creations by man, and were designed to lead free spirited horses into captivity and slavery.

[cryptohunter]

Ivory Tower was supposed to be a section without spam and a section where serious discussion and intellectual debates would take place.

It sort of achieved that.

Why sort of?
Well, there is no spam, just quality posts.

However, how many of them?

Once we've removed the incentive from the posters, we witness a mass decrease in posts overall.

There are spammers in other sections, but we must not forget genuienly good posts are incentivized too which makes them quite active unlike Ivory tower which gets a reply once a week or so.

Compared to the other sections which boom with activity.
Besides, since merit was introduced, there really isn't much incentive to spam pointless posts, since you need quality posts in order to rank up.
There is some incentive for people who have already reached certain ranks to spam, as to fulfil their sig. quotas.

My personal opinion is, although there is obviously some negative effects from sig.campaigns they are most certainly good for the forum overall.
They incentivize people to be active.
They help create active threads, sections, SEO rankings etc. etc.

Why do you disagree? Or do you agree  

Totally disagree.

There should be junior boards for bitcoin and altcoin discussion.

Just like the old noob jail. Instead of reporting scams and shills and generally doing negative stuff to remove these types. One could spend time on the junior board rewarding good effort there enabling their entry to the senior boards by giving merit .

It would be a decentralised way to mod the boards.

Of course you will find those that can game it to an extent. They will be deleted and perma banned.

Before the first icos the sigs were not even used by most members. The discussion and environment then was WAY WAY better and more active. Activity by real posters who had real opinions not people just posting anything or regurgitating the same comments for 10 pages.

Ending noob jail was a big mistake but it was of course inevitable in it's old form.