The signature campaign “syndrome”

[sujonali1819]

I am in this forum since starting of 2017. Never I ignored the signature or avatars. And to be honest I enjoy to see them. (Don't know how many people will agree to me. But I really enjoy it)

To my personal view signature campaign keep the forum active, But it also true that signature campaigns help to increase the spamming here. And this could be prevent atleast a little if the campaign manager make the rules that there is no minimum payment for week. So that people don't feel pressure and make spam.

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[UserU]

That's exactly how the ChipMixer campaign has been set up. There is no weekly minimum to get paid. You can make 1 post that qualifies for payment, and you will be paid for it. In fact, if you take a look at the spreadsheet for CM, you will notice plenty of users who haven't been active several weeks in a row, but they still remain participants in the campaign. Others post just a few posts per week and ask the manager to hold their payments until they gather something significant to withdraw to their wallets.

That's one rare case. Doesn't that just leave the campaign with lots of "dead" members should they decide to become inactive? If I'm a marketer, I would definitely not want to operate on such model because my brand isn't being advertised frequently. Don't mind the rates, but there are times when you'd prefer to spread the message as broad as possible.

In the end, it's up to the owner's discretion.

[LTU_btc]

I have a bit similar syndrome. I tend to pay less attention to posts made by users who participate in non-Bitcoin paying campaigns. Especially if it's made by users who isn't familiar for me. Maybe now it's not that big problem, but few years ago when bounties where bigger thing, reading posts by bounty participants was big waste of time.
And I don't hide signatures and avatars. I wear paid signature myself, so I would be hypocrite if I would do this.

I find that 25 a week is a sweet spot. Divided by 7 days, that averages to 3.5 a day. Not too demanding if you ask me.

My campaign requires 20 posts a week and I think that 20-25 is optimal number. Bigger requirements would significantly reduce quality of posts I think.
But still, when I have bussy week or I don't find interesting topics to post, sometimes reaching even 20 posts isn't that easy.

[Jet Cash]

, I'll ignore most of the users that participate on a low-paying signature campaign,

I have absolutely no idea which sig campaigns are low paying. I ignore all sigs that appear to be a part of a campaign, as I don't believe that the members use the products, and have no idea of their quality or benefits.

[Findingnemo]

I find that 25 a week is a sweet spot. Divided by 7 days, that averages to 3.5 a day. Not too demanding if you ask me.

My campaign requires 20 posts a week and I think that 20-25 is optimal number. Bigger requirements would significantly reduce quality of posts I think.
But still, when I have bussy week or I don't find interesting topics to post, sometimes reaching even 20 posts isn't that easy.

Some forum members still make 100 posts which are on topic and do some contribution to the forum even when their campaign needs 25 posts or less than that so it depends upon the user and how much time they got to spend with the crypto related activities.

25 posts per week is average number for most of the campaigns for very long time, but the pay rate of the campaign actually give an assumption about the quality of posts they are making? Nope for me!

[TheBeardedBaby]

Just for the record, I have both sigs and avatars off.
I know most of the nicknames of the old and the valuable members and it's easier for me that way. Avatars could be confusing sometimes.I was replaying toa post while looking only at the avatar and it turned out that I replay to a another person, because I didn't look at the nickname.

Reading the posts in most of the threads you can easily see who are posting only to fulfill the signature campaign requirements.

[shahzadafzal]

Can't blame the advertisers for setting such criteria. Having paying the participants on a weekly basis, surely they'd want to make the best of their budget. That's how business works.

I find that 25 a week is a sweet spot. Divided by 7 days, that averages to 3.5 a day. Not too demanding if you ask me.

If everyone simply posts like a few times per week, it's unfair for other participants due to the lack of rotation.

That's true some how from business perspective but from user perspective it depends yes 3.5 posts/day does not seem a lot but problem appears when you skip a day or two? Now pressure is on the user to complete 10+ posts in day or you gonna loose the whole week.

Yes many users can keep up with this pace without compromising the quality. But I'm looking at it from my own perspective, I know If I join any such campaign and I skip a day which gonna happen then I won't be able to complete the task with some "shitposts"... or posts just for the sake of completing my post count.

If you search a little bit more, you'll find them.

I never knew about those well to be honest I never searched for it, I automatically assumed that no such thing exist but yes now I agree they do exist but once in a blue moon

That's exactly how the ChipMixer campaign has been set up. There is no weekly minimum to get paid. You can make 1 post that qualifies for payment, and you will be paid for it. In fact, if you take a look at the spreadsheet for CM, you will notice plenty of users who haven't been active several weeks in a row, but they still remain participants in the campaign. Others post just a few posts per week and ask the manager to hold their payments until they gather something significant to withdraw to their wallets.

Thank you for highlighting, yes i knew ChipMixer is one of the very few and highly credible signature campaigns and i did not notice that they have relaxed rules on number of posts which indeed is a good sign and without any pressure on the participants. Thank you for sharing

[libert19]

In my experience, I find posts of people who are 'trying' to rank up more spammy than the ones who are participating already.

Most BMs prefer quality posting, so people who participate usually try to make better posts.

Also, I'm impressed with poll, despite most of the bitcointalk detesting signature campaigns they don't disable them.

[UserU]

My campaign requires 20 posts a week and I think that 20-25 is optimal number. Bigger requirements would significantly reduce quality of posts I think.
But still, when I have bussy week or I don't find interesting topics to post, sometimes reaching even 20 posts isn't that easy.

True that. Ngl if the topics were to cover beyond just Bitcoin and Meta, things would be more interesting. Sadly Off-topic is not counted since that place is spammed to hell.

Serious Discussions and Ivory Tower are meanwhile, another level on their own.

That's true some how from business perspective but from user perspective it depends yes 3.5 posts/day does not seem a lot but problem appears when you skip a day or two? Now pressure is on the user to complete 10+ posts in day or you gonna loose the whole week.

It happened before (myself included), but I'll usually even out over the week. Not too long ago, I saw Hhampuz addressing the issue of members just barely reaching the minimum quota.

In the end, it's the attitude. If one has an extremely busy schedule at work, it's highly advised to not join unless he or she has very good time management because it's quite easy to overlook/ take things for granted.

[actmyname]

The association of bad campaigns with spam posts is not necessarily a bad thing.

Take heed of the origin of such notoriety - the likely result of a low-input (economically and functionally) campaign should be prejudiced against considering the lack of oversight. Any newly-minted token/coin campaign requires even less consideration than ones offered in the Services section: with low expectations from the campaign participants, low risk from the managerial side, and an oversaturated market and board, you have chimeras of spam waiting to be created in the alt boards.

YoBit is an another example, serving as an exchange that you would almost certainly never recommend - certainly, if the campaigns were managed with such passivity then one wonders about the quality of the platform itself. There is some truth in price denoting quality: an advertiser that can pass the threshold to launch a larger campaign must certainly have a feasible product, and the capacity to increase the budget should have some relationship with their overall growth.

[skarais]

From the start I didn't hide my signature and avatar because it didn't bother me. Hiding signature and avatar will only make the monitor screen look like a white, colorless and possibly boring screen. Meanwhile, signature and avatar are advertisement that are distributed by various paid campaign participant and these ads will be useful if seen by everyone and that's what the project owner expected.

I also don't ignore users who currently look like users who aren't make quality post because it's still possible that one day they'll change and start posting useful. If indeed their post are not up to standard, reporting it to the moderator is the expected solution. I'm just going to ignore the trolls and those who don't want to change and keep publishing junk post all the time. This is just my perspective, and I've read that some of us have different points of view.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I ignore all sigs that appear to be a part of a campaign, as I don't believe that the members use the products, and have no idea of their quality or benefits.

I bet you that those signatures do get clicked on, though I have no idea at what rate.  Somehow it's hard to imagine signature campaigns going on this long if there was no benefit to the businesses that ran them.  You'd think that if they were ineffective, that information would quickly be discovered and there wouldn't be so many of them over such a long period of time.  Doesn't that make sense?  And people come here because they're interested in crypto.  These signature advertisements probably don't look like the typical spam advertisements that you see all over the internet--they're specifically targeted toward the very people who would visit a forum like this, so my guess is that a lot of members (especially newbies) do click on them.  Whether that translates into revenue for the underlying business I've no idea.

Good to see you're still around, Jet Cash!  I rarely see you posting anymore.

[UserU]

I bet you that those signatures do get clicked on, though I have no idea at what rate.  Somehow it's hard to imagine signature campaigns going on this long if there was no benefit to the businesses that ran them.  You'd think that if they were ineffective, that information would quickly be discovered and there wouldn't be so many of them over such a long period of time.  Doesn't that make sense?  And people come here because they're interested in crypto.  These signature advertisements probably don't look like the typical spam advertisements that you see all over the internet--they're specifically targeted toward the very people who would visit a forum like this, so my guess is that a lot of members (especially newbies) do click on them.  Whether that translates into revenue for the underlying business I've no idea.

The results do vary. While I didn't create an account for the campaigns I join, there was one casino (exception) which had like over 30 members that joined. However most of them were dead and only played with the free credits. Only had a handful of Satoshis and the screenshot below was just taken.



Most of the time, traffic quality is somewhat below average unless the casino has lots of engaging promotions or you advertise in a more niche market, like a gambling forum.

[BlackHatCoiner]

I don't put signatures on ignore because I find it to be deceptive to participate in a signature campaign, and at the same time have those signatures on ignore.

Why that? You're advertising a product to other viewers. You're not obliged to be constantly advertised about that product.

I bet you that those signatures do get clicked on, though I have no idea at what rate.

Those signatures help A LOT with the search engine optimization (SEO). If your website is linked from another website, it'll increase its SEO performance. The more traffic (higher SEO) the site that links you has, the better it is for your business. Now imagine how good would it be if you'd be linked thousands of times on a place that is ranked #6,787 in global internet engagement. By wearing your signature you have to understand that besides those that will notice it, you're automatically bringing more clients/people to the product outside of bitcointalk.

I believe that's the main motivation of the long-term signature campaigns here. The others are most probably following your thought.

[Igebotz]

Signature bearers post > Non-Signature bearer posts
I think the signature campaign has done more good to the forum in terms of post quality than bad, I work in the gambling sub-board and I can boldly say 89% of users representing a brand are quality posters, most of the users on my ignore lists are mostly Newbies and Non-Signatures users who spam every post with two liners replies mostly off-topic. ^{Shit posters cannot represent a brand anyway.}

[KryptoKings]

I have been in this forum for 1 year and I've noticed that the main motivation for making high quality posts is the fact that you can get paid out of it. While I'm a strong believer that signature campaigns enrich this forum's quality and that “it keeps it alive”, it is advisable to mention a downside of this procedure and specifically:  The “syndrome” of signature campaigns.

I'll speak out my personal view about this, it may not be true for everyone. Once I read the replies of a thread, I'll ignore most of the users that participate on a low-paying signature campaign, by the thought that they are shit posters. But, that may not be true. I observe a form of prejudice. I'll actually take a closer look to a post made by a high-quality signature campaign participant rather than a newbie.

A user may have thousands of merits, but he/she may create low quality posts. Someone with 4-digits post count and 2-digits merit count would be quickly rejected into your mind, either because he/she may have promoted failed/scam tokens or made shitty posts for pennies. But it's much more different with avatars/signatures. Most of the times, when I scroll a thread I'll skip those replies, without even looking at the merit/post count ratio. It just makes a splash! And that's because along with the avatars/signatures, I will have formed a bad picture of the ones that advertise it.

I wonder if this happens to you too, and if it does, do you hide avatars and signatures to prevent it? This poll may be a great feedback for the campaigns' owners too.

It is human nature that they need any kind of motivation to do some job. What is better motivation then money. So if someone is getting paid for creating quality posts and giving their opinion on matters, what's wrong with that?
Yes like any other things, signature campaigns too have cons but the pros out weigh them.
This forum has seen tremendous growth over the years and signature campaigns is also one of the reasons for it.

[Welsh]

Signature bearers post > Non-Signature bearer posts
I think the signature campaign has done more good to the forum in terms of post quality than bad,

That entirely depends on your perspective, as I know a lot of older users would prefer the atmosphere back when there was a smaller, more tightly knitted group of users. So, doing more good isn't exactly a good measure, as what I might think is good for the  forum, you might think otherwise. Although, undoubtedly signature campaigns have helped with the growth of the user database, and has likely contributed to the amount of activity here.

I actually quite like we have a sort of sub economy here, even if that is advertising. Something which users usually want to get away from. Although, the difference is I actually do want to see Bitcoin services being advertised, as they are usually better than their centralized fiat alternatives.

^{Shit posters cannot represent a brand anyway.}

In a perfect world, but some of the campaigns or bounties look like they actually actively target those that are low quality, so they can pay them peanuts, while also getting their brand out there through sheer volume.

[vapourminer]

i have sigs turned off forum wide. in fact most all forums im on i disable sigs as they just waste space and most of the time are actually annoying wit those ridiculous colors and fonts etc.

avatars are still on for now as theyre an easy way to find a particulars persons post when scrolling. but any animated avatar get the user ignored instantly.

if i want moving content in my monitor ill turn on the telly. when i read i want static images and sensible fonts etc.

[Igebotz]

45 posts a week is ridiculous and the signature bearer of this campaign are spamming on every posts on the forum to meet up the weekly posts counts.

Make a minimum of 45 eligible posts each week that you participate to receive a payment.

^{Shit posters cannot represent a brand anyway.}

In a perfect world, but some of the campaigns or bounties look like they actually actively target those that are low quality, so they can pay them peanuts, while also getting their brand out there through sheer volume.

I think bounties signature bearer are the ones making every other quality posters representing a brand looks like spammers, and the only solution lies in the hands of the managers and the moderators, the forum should have standard rules when it comes to weekly posts quota.

[Koro-Sensei]

I have that same kind of attitude right now specially with 4 digits postings with 2 digit merits. I have been reading in the forum for the last 2 years and im skipping those newbies post without even scanning what they have to say. However, signature camps are making one member to be motivated enough to make good and quality posts.