It's quite time for some cooperation or moderation toward signature campaigns.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Anyway, this is an exciting topic, but maybe we should move somewhere else. Anyone care to create a thread about this issue? It would be best to give @eternalgloom peace of mind and wish him good luck for his future endeavors.

OK, hear me out before you come to a conclusion, the signature industry on the forum is still a very vital feature of the forum and should not be ignored quite yet unless the total eliminate of the privilege comes into implemented. There's is a reason theymos hasn't removed the privilege yet, he might still be looking for a better solution to make the industry a little bit conducive for the forum. Right now the lack of cooperation or moderation of the sector is also contributing to the problems it's facing.

Users are been required to produce excessive amount of post while recieving peanuts as payment which also contribute the high level of spamming the forum is recording.

This question was asked on the previous thread, this conversation was ongoing,

Hence, how to drive up pay rates? I only know to cut supply (less shitposters sigcamp participants) or increase demand (more casinos service providers).

I gave this suggestion:

Or simply, the campaign manager should come into an agreement to set a minimum payrate per rank then projects willing to pay participants above the minimum payrate are free to do so but no projects will pay below the minimum. This way project hoping to employ the best posters on the forum will be forced to increase their payrate to attract them. Some signature payrate are just so ridiculous they only attracts spamming.

For the payrate, I recommend minimum;
Member = 0.002BTC
Full member = 0.004BTC
Snr member = 0.006BTC
Hero member  = 0.008BTC
Legendary  = 0.01BTC

Like I said payrate are only subjected to minimum payment, projects that's are capable of paying more are free to increase their payrate pay rank. These too has to be match with a reasonable amount of maximum post count per week (haven't come to a conclusion of any number that would be suitable). I understand all fingers aren't equal although the suggestion above isn't that much considering the level of publicity you'll be recieving by advertising your product on the forum.

I recommend we give this a try, if it doesn't improve the current situation of signature campaigns then we brainstorm on other solutions or call for a total elimination of the privilege.

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[Little Mouse]

Like I said payrate are only subjected to minimum payment, projects that's are capable of paying more are free to increase their payrate pay rank.

It's true that with lower fee, a campaign will certainly not get a higher output or quality output. For example, if we look at Darkstar, Yahoo and Hhampuz, and compare their payrates with others for management, we will see a huge different. Not different in the pay rate, we will see different in the management as well.
However, it's not that as easy as for each projects to pay high amount initially, you know everyone wants least cost with higher output. Projects will try to reduce their cost.
On the other hand, imagine BTC is at ATH. 0.01 BTC = $200 for 25 posts max, I don't think with current rate, much people will be interested to post 25+ in a week (It depends on user too, Royse posts 100+ each week although he is not required to do so).
With ATH rate, a project will be paid a significant amount per week which may bring them loss. Fixing the rate will not get anything better. I think rate isn't something we should account, it's always the campaign manager and users. If CM recruit regular poster, payrate will not make any much different.

[TECSHARE]

I have a suggestion. The primary issue seems to be signature managers not upholding standards which results in spam and other issues. I think these issues could be largely combated by forming a sort of signature manager's union. This would be loosely organized but focused on making sure each of its manager members upholds certain standards which protect their own industry by using sustainable business practices.

Once formed, campaigns which explicitly flaunt these standards could be blacklisted, and users who participate in blacklisted campaigns would themselves be barred from participating in the well managed campaigns. Obviously this method has some potential for abuse itself, but if transparency, clearly defined standards, an fair notice is given to users participating in barred campaigns, I think abuse could be minimized while also choking out the worst of the abusers.

[yahoo62278]

From my perspective as a campaign manager for years now, I think quite a lot has changed around here as far as Signature campaigns are concerned. We have had multiple accounts banned, Multiple accounts receive signature bans, the merit system has been introduced making it harder for shitposters to rank up, as well as tons of posts are reported every week and deleted or threads archived/deleted.

I can remember a year or so ago, when I would launch a campaign for a company, there would be 10 pages of applicants of all ranks within a couple hours of launching the thread. I could fill 100 spots in less than 24 hours easy. Not too mention I could fill 100 spots in multiple new campaigns in a week.

Now, I can barely fill 25-50 spots in 1 new campaign. I almost always have an open spot for member ranks and most of the time full members.

So IMO the system we have has been working and there are less users creating the shitstorm on the forum then there were before.

Now on to your rate suggestion. It will NOT work period. Not every company just starting up has a 10btc bankroll for campaigns. Look at all the campaigns. Look at the number of users allowed into each campaign. When us managers are contacted we find out how many weeks the company is interested in running their campaign, and how much of a weekly budget they want to commit to the campaign.

Yes, we give our input and try to get the rates as good as we can, but ultimately it depends on the company and their budget. Some companies have a big budget, some don't. Go and tell Pepsi they have to match Coke's weekly budget and see what answer they give you.

I have lowered the minimum weekly post count to 20 posts in most campaigns depending on the payrate, but at the same time companies want as much bang for their buck as they can get. They're not gonna pay someone 100$ a day to make posts on a forum if they see no results coming from it. So i'd say if you guys want the rates to go up, then do something to help that happen. Bitching about it is not the way to go about it.

Companies need sign ups, companies want users asking questions in their threads engaging in conversation about their website/service. Companies do not just want users wearing an advertisement and posting trash in their thread. Research the site that hired you and show a general interest in the company buying your food that week IMO.

Just my opinion

[tranthidung]

It is simple. Remove all signatures like 8 years ago or "require payments to wear sig ads" that is what theymos wrote.
No more signature images

Signature images are making too much of a mess, so adding them is now disabled for everyone. Existing ones have not been removed, but they will be removed next time you change anything on that profile page.

Choosing one among three ones below.

What are everyone's ideas for improving post quality?

I have mostly ruled out:

 - Removing signatures or sig ads globally.
 - Requiring payment to wear sig ads.
 - Banning account sales.

Fortunately, merit system changed the forum, and recently the bump changes have started to change the forum much better.
Shitposters already unable to join good campaigns, and from now on bounties, campaigns will reduce their campaigns' intensity (IMO) because making posts in Altcoin section (Announcement, bounties) don't bump threads (that not what companies wanted).

In addition, from theymos' perspective to maintain the forum as a welcome one for 'good' newbies, I think he also want to welcome good 'newbie' companies here, even they are good ones. So I guess they have allowable rights (so far) from admin to run their campaigns with their funds at any pay rates they can manage to pay for participants and to run their campaigns as long enough to have effects, as long as they don't pay for shit posts.

A 'newbie' company from third-world nation mostly has lower original fund than one from developed nation. Consequently, having a fixed minimum pay rate will automatically create a gap between different world-class companies.

There are users usually make very high quality posts, so payments from campaigns mean nothing with them. Good posters who often join campaigns will keep making good posts when they are free from signatures.
In contrast, shit posters will keep posting shit ones no matter how many satoshis they can earn per post.

There is no abuse or slavery hidden through signatures. Everyone have rights to wear signature (correspond to their ranks, of course) and join campaigns or not. Don't join campaigns and say companies abuse participants.

Months ago when merit system came, people cried (me too  ), complained, made noise, but the fact is they have their freedom to leave the forum, and the forum does not abuse them through merit points. If they accept rules as well as challenges from merit system, join it, then make good quality posts and rank up. If not, simply leave and enjoy their lives or freedom of posting shit in other forums.

There is no rules on minimum pay rates to avoid spam, in my opinion.
A campaign results in spam or not from their participants, it mainly depends on their management style and rule:

• Minimum characters of posts: Despite of the fact that post length is not the only factor to determine post quality, but it should be used as one of requirements to prevent spam.
• Time gaps between posts: Require time gaps between posts (such as 30 minutes) might prevent spam. By the way, I would like to emphasize that most of experienced managers don't have this rule or at least exactly minimum time gaps, but they have their own rights to judge which posts are burst-posting ones.
• Maximum of post cap per day to avoid both spam and burst-post
• Each companies have their own funds to run their campaigns, so they should have fair chances to run their ones here. As the core vision of theymos is maintaining a place for good newbies (as well as good start-ups, IMO).
• The management style of campaign managers will play important role to prevent spam. Managers will kick out spammers or reject to pay for spammers. So they will be kicked out or will do change their posting style (at least within period they join such strictly-managed ones)
• Campaigns need to be run in a long period to have effects in return for companies, so companies should expand their campaigns to as more weeks as possible with their funds for that purpose

Payrate is just one of vital components for successful campaign. I agree with payrate's contribution to quality of participants for each campaign, but it is not enough. You can pay a participant 0.005 BTC per post, but if you (as manager) or others play as managers of campaign don't have strict rules to choose participants, and after that to check their post quality before sending payment, such campaigns will end with failures and spam. Even good posters will decrease their post quality if managers are not strictly manage after choosing them into campaigns. In campaigns I joined, there are sometimes managers have to send warning message after payment sent, because some of participants show signal to turn into burst posting, that is not good for managers, and for companies.

Yobit, months ago, run their campaign with high payrates, but there is no one says that campaign is a successful one. That campaign attracted both spammers and good posters. Spammers banned temporarily if reported by users; good posters did not ban because they made posts that are good enough to not get reports from users. Because of terrible management, the number of spammers overwhelmed the number of good posters among Yobit participants.

[PrimeNumber7]

Minimum wages and arbitrary regulation almost always results in negative outcomes. I don’t think it would even be possible to enforce minimum payments because signature campaigns could be arranged on reddit or elsewhere, or arrangements could be made such that participants would need to give back a portion of their earnings if they want to be accepted, or if they want to stay in the campaign.

The free market is already working to find the correct price for signature campaigns. There are currently a decent number of open spots in various signature campaigns with posting restrictions, and requirements to post in certain sections.

[DdmrDdmr]

I like @suchmoon’s study on the Effect of signature bans. Granted that it is a very small sample (and thus far from conclusive), but it gives us insights on the significance of Signatures on the forum. The sample studied reduced their posting count by 75,47% due to a signature ban. As I said, it´s not an extrapolable to the whole forum, but it does on hint a direction.

Signatures campaigns pivot around five main elements:

- The corporation, who wishes as much exposure, awareness and click-throughs as possible (for as little as they can pay; fair in the best cases). Budget will be very variable, and, as we know, is tokenized in most cases due to the lack of it beforehand.

- The managers, who for the most, are managing a tokenized campaign, and (unfortunately) do not spend the time to control posting quality as maximum exposure seems to be the main goal (arguably perhaps not the best approach).

- The campaign subscriber, who wished (I guess) to be paid is something more tangible, but tends to be happy to take tokens in return for posting.

- The campaign’s target audience.

- The forum as an entity, who overlooks the generality, and I figure strives to keep an equilibrium between visitors and growth vs post content quality.

Now reality is that most campaigns will not have a budget such as that proposed, even if desired. Imposing minimum payments would give the forum a more implicated role which I don’t think it wants to have, aside from the measure probably driving down very noticeably the amount of live campaigns on the forum. That in turns drives down traffic to the forum (not a desired effect I figure), and makes the running campaigns less valuable (less target audience).

Sure the forum would benefit content wise if campaigns were to be controlled and parametrized as are the top running campaigns, but arguably the scenario depicted in the paragraph above would happen, which I figure is likely against goals.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Like I said payrate are only subjected to minimum payment, projects that's are capable of paying more are free to increase their payrate pay rank.

However, it's not that as easy as for each projects to pay high amount initially, you know everyone wants least cost with higher output. Projects will try to reduce their cost.
On the other hand, imagine BTC is at ATH. 0.01 BTC = $200 for 25 posts max, I don't think with current rate, much people will be interested to post 25+ in a week (It depends on user too, Royse posts 100+ each week although he is not required to do so).

That can be worked on too, for each $5000 price gain of bitcoin the minimum payrate can be revisited and adjusted in a manner it would be suitable for both the projects and campaign participants. I don't intend project paying as much as your example suggested, I used the current ~$10,000 bitcoin price to make this suggestion. The idea is the participants are been paid poorly and when that's the case what do you expect the output to be like?

Garbage in, garbage out. Take a closer look at well paying campaign, the quality of post been delivered by the participants are way above the others, in some instances, the posts counts (irrespective of them been paid for those extra post counts or not) are even more because this guys are been encourage by the payrate they recieve. We're humans here not robot don't forget that, we work with emotions.

[yahoo62278]

Like I said payrate are only subjected to minimum payment, projects that's are capable of paying more are free to increase their payrate pay rank.

However, it's not that as easy as for each projects to pay high amount initially, you know everyone wants least cost with higher output. Projects will try to reduce their cost.
On the other hand, imagine BTC is at ATH. 0.01 BTC = $200 for 25 posts max, I don't think with current rate, much people will be interested to post 25+ in a week (It depends on user too, Royse posts 100+ each week although he is not required to do so).

That can be worked on too, for each $5000 price gain of bitcoin the minimum payrate can be revisited and adjusted in a manner it would be suitable for both the projects and campaign participants. I don't intend project paying as much as your example suggested, I used the current ~$10,000 bitcoin price to make this suggestion. The idea is the participants are been paid poorly and when that's the case what do you expect the output to be like?

Garbage in, garbage out. Take a closer look at well paying campaign, the quality of post been delivered by the participants are way above the others, in some instances, the posts counts (irrespective of them been paid for those extra post counts or not) are even more because this guys are been encourage by the payrate they recieve. We're humans here not robot don't forget that, we work with emotions.

Signature campaigns are a privilege, not a right. You're earning money for posting on a forum, which not many forums can give you that option. If you don't like the rates, then by all means don't join a campaign and post for free. Not an option you want to consider right?

Not sure why you think you deserve more money for posting on a forum. Go look at the rates when campaigns started on here. The rates are not gonna go up because half the world doesn't want to go out and get a job. This forum isn't the classified ads section of your local newspaper.

Rates will only rise if companies see that campaigns do them good.

The biggest thing about posters that join campaigns that pisses me off is the fact that if the post rate is 20 posts per week, guess how many they do? 20 damn posts right on the nose, then they complain because 1 or 2 posts got deleted and they didn't get paid.

Stop doing the bare minimum people. Help the companies that hired you and make signature campaigns worth the money. Otherwise take the money you make and be happy.

[TECSHARE]

I just wanted to add, that as a dedicated student of economics, minimum wage centralized price control systems are always counter productive and IMO are not a solution to these issues here.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

Not sure why you think you deserve more money for posting on a forum.

There are some things not everyone is open to airing out but in their inner most mind they all want that, don't consider this my suggestion to be me just wanting to be paid more for posting, it's like a open discussion that everyone is open to air their views irrespective of the suggestion been poor or not.

The biggest thing about posters that join campaigns that pisses me off is the fact that if the post rate is 20 posts per week, guess how many they do? 20 damn posts right on the nose, then they complain because 1 or 2 posts got deleted and they didn't get paid.

I know I'm not in a position to give you any suggestions on this but how about punishing the offenders so they learn from their mistakes, there are far more individual willing to give in their best for the successful of the project. An extra amount of post isn't much of a deal irrespective of you not been paid for them.

PS: No personal attacks please lets keep the conversation professional.

[AB de Royse777]

I will keep this short, I have some work in line to do. Just spotted the topic and thought to leave my thoughts here.

Signature campaigns are a privilege, ~snip~

Not always. Ex: Livercoin, Yobit.

Honestly speaking the privilege thing is not always right only for the participants. Sometimes a campaign management feel privileged when they can hire some particulate forum members. Ex: Suchmoon in ChipMixer, some other users in ChipMixer and also various campaigns.

In this forum, although we do not know (99.99% cases) anyone by facial or in real life but every user has their own image, their own personality. A user born when they join and their forum activities build up their character. Ex: If I mention game-protect then we know who we are talking about, if I mention yahoo - he has an image, me has an image, the OP has an image. Similarly almost all the users has their own images and in a signature campaign, the image of a user reflects their worth. Everything has it's own price.

So, I kinda slightly disagree on saying "Signature campaigns are a privilege". It's an opportunity for users to get some financial benefit with the things they already are doing and from the companies perspective - it's a way to monetize the traffic of this forum so that they can build up a business. Both party are getting benefited.

[eternalgloom]

The biggest thing about posters that join campaigns that pisses me off is the fact that if the post rate is 20 posts per week, guess how many they do? 20 damn posts right on the nose, then they complain because 1 or 2 posts got deleted and they didn't get paid.

Stop doing the bare minimum people. Help the companies that hired you and make signature campaigns worth the money. Otherwise take the money you make and be happy.

I really like it when people do that, it's the biggest cause of people getting removed from campaigns, so new spots open up regularly
You're right though, I do think it's only fair that you give companies something back for the money they pay you.

I'm not a big fan of the F/P model though, after being in F/P campaigns for just about 5 years straight, the weekly minimum post requirements do start to wear on you.

It would be good if some new companies started signature campaigns on Bitcointalk and perhaps changed things up regarding the current signature campaign model.

[The Cryptovator]

Admin gave us opportunity to a wear signature on our profile, what more we can expect from him? This is not a big opportunity for us since forum isn't money making machine? We should not force him fixed pay rate for us. Fix pay rates a task of managers how they could convince a company, and its totally depend on budget them.

The question is, why should we join a low rate campaign? If all quality poster avoid apply on low rates campaign then manager and company might reconsider pay rates. There might be managers association and they might fixed a pay rate for campaign. So it will be out of moderation by forum.

Regarding spam, its depend on managers. I don't think a manager will encourage to choose a spammer even there is low pay rate. Since there is merit system, a spammer will not able to rank up and could not join any btc signature campaign. So I think this is not appropriate to ask admin for fixed pay rate for signature campaign.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

I guess people are still not aware of the fact what a discussion forum actually is. I have been part of various torrenting forums where I upload movies and TV-series of my self-interest and none paid for me at that time. If every uploader need to be paid for uploading a movie or TV-series which makes the website popular then the admin of the site should pay around $10,000 per month for plenty of uploaders who have been spending their time and money for such stuffs.

The campaign participants are promoting products but are they really helpful for the companies? Almost 90% of the people posting in Gambling Section are posting only for getting paid for their weekly campaign and there are hardly only a few of them being gamblers in real life.

As yahoo said, Signature payments are kinda privilege and they are being paid just for posting in a forum. I have never seen in any of the forums, that posters are being paid for their posting. This payment which I receive is like an extra pay for me per week and they are somewhere very much lesser than what I am getting paid in my real life work. People who are not willing to get a job or have a insane minimal pay rates in their real life might be sticking onto the campaign payments to feed them. Many are striving hard for freelancing works and not many of them are successful in getting one, but the forum provides a very good opportunity to earn money just by wearing a signature and posting.

Similarly almost all the users has their own images and in a signature campaign, the image of a user reflects their worth. Everything has it's own price.

What price does other forums give for us? None, but people seem to be contributing to every other forum regardless they are getting paid or not. For members receiving alts as payments for campaign : Are everyone doing their work perfectly for what they are getting paid? Posting comes from the user's perspective and not from what they are getting paid for! Even how good they are paid, some seems to post shit and on other hand, even how low they are being paid they would be contributing endlessly.

[mu_enrico]

Thanks for bringing this topic @CryptopreneurBrainboss

Or simply, the campaign manager should come into an agreement

You are suggesting a cartel mate...

Cartel won't work, mate. Even with the cartel, there will always be someone willing to accept a lower payment. Thus, lower revenue for the coalition, so that it would destabilize the coalition.

minimum wage centralized price control systems are always counter productive and IMO are not a solution to these issues here.

I, also as a "student" of economics (supporter of free-market to be precise) agree with @TECSHARE opinion.

If small businesses cannot pay its workers at a required minimum wage, there will be fewer jobs, which means that some of the members who are willing to accept lower wage will lose the opportunity to get some income. And for the same reason, the small businesses also lose the opportunity to get some marketing effort to grow then to afford to pay more for the salaries. In short, it will stunt the bct-economic growth.

Merit system works at a certain extent,
Campaign managers already work as professional as they can,
So what's the solution? I don't know atm, let me think while playing slots on MintDice.

But Wiseman says, "The problem is always about revenue." Instead of thinking about how to limit the posters, pressuring managers to make it more efficient, etc., think about how to attract more business here.

[hilariousetc]

You can't force people to pay minimums and I don't think that's something the forum should get involved with. It doesn't matter whether someone is getting paid a cent per post or $100. The issue is the quality of posts and campaign managers and regardless of how much a user is being paid they should be upholding some minimum standards and for those that don't there should be repercussions as I've long said. If you let people do what they want then the greedy and lazy will abuse that.

So, I kinda slightly disagree on saying "Signature campaigns are a privilege". It's an opportunity for users to get some financial benefit with the things they already are doing and from the companies perspective - it's a way to monetize the traffic of this forum so that they can build up a business. Both party are getting benefited.

And that's why it's a privilege. Nothing here is guaranteed. theymos could remove signatures anytime he wants if he feels that's what's best.

[o_e_l_e_o]

We already have a pretty comprehensive set of rules for both campaign managers and participants here: Signature Campaign Guidelines (read this before starting or joining a campaign).

This sticky gives very clear guidelines for what is considered spam, and what bans will be handed out to signature spammers. It also gives very clear guidelines that managers should be monitoring their participants, and campaigns which don't do this will also be banned. The problem is that these rules are going completely unenforced, and without some clear direction from theymos on this issue plus probably several new mods, this will continue to be the case.

I think this would need a considerable amount of work to start with, but would settle down relatively quickly. Once word starts spreading among the bad managers and users that both users and campaigns were being rapidly banned for spamming, I suspect they would quickly clean up their act.

I agree with many of the points above that enforcing some sort of minimum wage does little to address the underlying problem, and is mostly an unworkable solution.

[hosseinimr93]

It's companies right to determine the rates. Also, participants has the right to decide whether accept the rates or not. No one forces the users to participate in a signature campaign. It's up to users to decide whether participate in a campaign or not.
Here we have a free competitive market. ChipMixer has the highest rates. They can attract the best and most constructive users and they are benefiting too. There are some other companies that cannot afford high rates and are not able to attract good users. They have to stop their campaign after a few weeks.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I agree with many of the points above that enforcing some sort of minimum wage does little to address the underlying problem, and is mostly an unworkable solution.

I'm begining to see reasons in that too although what's I'm advocating for is for some attention to be given to this sector. Great, i have see those signature guidelines you highlighted a link to although, most of those rules aren't been enforced. The section is just been allowed to surfer. The forum did something to some extent to address the spam rate on the forum (which has reduced spamming to some extent). We have the bump system and merit system implemented to tackle that problem, something that doesn't involve total elimination of the signature privilege should be done too.