Damn...
I expected some comments telling me I’m wrong, but I guess I’m not wrong and nobody has any balls..
Correct: You’re not wrong, and
nobody has balls.
Simply making post quotas each week gets the signature seen, but companies can get help in more areas. For example, posting in their topic to help them get some exposure in a specific section. Seeing other threads where users are asking about certain services, if that post refers to the service you are advertising for, pop in the site to that thread. Visiting the companies social media pages and following, liking, retweeting their content etc.
This is not only a tacit invitation to spam-bump threads, but also a hint to spam social media sites. All with plausible deniability:
Oh, no, users aren’t being paid to spam! The suggestion is simply made that if you spam, then you may get onto the “helpful” list that’s a fast-track to coveted slots for Bestest Mostest Lucrativest Blockchainiest Bounties.
Frankly, I am of two minds about the social media stuff. I hate the social media sites, and I want for them all to die miserable deaths. In darker moments, I think that perhaps social media spam should be encouraged; it is an attack that turns the sites into sewers of shilling. But I hate spam even more; so...
I know it's customary for you forum users to make drama, but it's not necessary.
Accusations of “making drama” are a poor stock answer to the cogent expression of a legitimate concern.
And what’s with “you forum users”? Are you, yahoo, not a forum user, too? Or are forum users a degraded class prone to drama, to which you, a CM, are immune? N.b. that eddie is a financially disinterested party, insofar as he doesn’t wear paid signatures. Whereas you signature campaign people (insert criticism here).IMO, a good CM should rate as “helpful” those members who are most helpful
to the community. In the long term, it makes better business sense, too: It gets a signature ad seen in threads where the company is not being discussed. It gets the ad seen by users who have never even heard of the company.
Looking back to OP:
Helpful members are categorized as members that post in a companies topic [...]
Why not members who answer n00b questions in Beginners & Help, discuss code in Development & Technical Discussion
(where mods nuke sigspam with extreme prejudice), give peer to peer technical support in the mining forums, etc.? Those seem much more “helpful”.
If I were an advertiser, I would prefer such members to mere fanboys trying to kiss up to me on threads were everyone already knows about my company. Of course, I would appreciate
substantive discussion on my threads by people who genuinely appreciate my produce or service; but that is something that needs to be organic, lest it become an unreadable megathread of echo-chamber shilling. On the customer side, I myself tend to avoid reading commercial threads where useful information is buried in fluff; who has time to read through such threads!?
...what you're getting paid for when you join a sig campaign. It's a simple financial transaction: signature/avatar rental for a certain amount of bitcoin...
Theoretically, yes. But theoretically, if people were inherently good, we wouldn’t need Byzantine Fault Tolerance. Or digital signatures. Or spamfilters. Or laws.
The Golden Age
The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc’d by punishment, un-aw’d by fear,
His words were simple, and his soul sincere;
Needless was written law, where none opprest:
The law of Man was written in his breast:
No suppliant crowds before the judge appear’d,
No court erected yet, nor cause was heard:
But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.
We
(academic “we”) hypothesize that there is a game-theoretic Nash equilibrium under which every opportunity for advertising will tend towards spam. In this context, the only solution would be to ban signature campaigns altogether. We
(royal “we”) posit that reputable CMs should want to avoid such an eventuality.
