The signature campaign “syndrome”

[Botnake]

Let's be honest, the majority of us here are in the forum because we want to make money, the main attraction is the signature campaign. Shit posters are everywhere, one can be a shitposter even a person not knowing he is, like they said, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder", I'm just citing an example though.

Being paid to post is really a motivation, I knew a lot of good posters who joined a high-paying signature campaign, but when they got removed, they lose their interest in posting in the forum, or they are less active.

[NotATether]

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.

Websites advertised in the signatures actually do not get better SEO rankings because theymos put the rel=nofollow tag in the Signature html box (in other words - this linked page should not be crawled by Google and so it has no effect on its ranking).

[Pmalek]

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. 

I remember reading a post by someone a long time ago who talked about the benefits of signature campaigns. He was advertising a company and had a referral link in his sig. After a while, he checked his stats and noticed only 1 or 2 clicks. Campaign-wide, it wasn't any better with the other participants. But the campaign still kept going.

Naturally, he started wondering how can that be beneficial to the company if they aren't getting any clicks? I don't remember exactly if someone told him or he came to the conclusion himself. But even though, many people don't click on the signatures, they remember them. Somewhere back in their mind, they'll memorize it. The next time they want to gamble (since that is the most advertised service here), they'll ask themselves what was the name of that casino I saw in that colorful signature on Bicointalk? And boom, they remember it and navigate to the site. That's one way that a signature can result in more traffic without actually increasing the clicks count.

[mediaBuzz]

Websites advertised in the signatures actually do not get better SEO rankings because theymos put the rel=nofollow tag in the Signature html box (in other words - this linked page should not be crawled by Google and so it has no effect on its ranking).

I don't see the no-follow tag you are talking about. I'm not sure if the UGC (user-generated content) tag transfers link juice or not, but at least it's not no-follow



More than 100k ^{(I manually checked 3-4 of them and they were do-follow, ahrefs says 60% of these 110k are do-follow and the rest are no-follow}) from around 150k overall backlinks that ChipMixer.com has are from Bitcointalk.

They actually do not care about that as long as they do not compete for their SERPs (but honestly they should, there are very valuable keywords out there like "crypto mixer", "bitcoin mixer", "best bitcoin mixer", etc. that are taken by some low authority sites. If ChipMixer had some more content (and a few hundred keyword anchor backlinks) or maybe a blog on their site, they could have easily ranked 1 by these keywords because of these 110k backlinks from Bttalk).

[The Cryptovator]

I am late here. However, I don't hide the signature of the forum. My personal view is, companies paying us for wearing signature, means they expecting few impressions from the forum where real crypto users engaging crypto-related discussions. So, if I hide signature mean other campaign's signature banner will not show to me and they wouldn't get impressions from me. But I am wearing one and I am expecting impressions as well. It's kind of selfish IMO.

During reading posts, it doesn't matter the poster wearing a high-paying campaign or low paying campaign. Low paying campaign always doesn't mean simply there is all spammer. Although I admit most of the spammer, but not at all. Their opinions would be valuable for the community. Once I feel this is a spam reply, then I just simply skip to the next reply. During reading a line enough to determine either post is good or spam. To be honest and a major part of signature participants do not read all the replies. I am not excluding myself, sometimes we reply based on the main post.

[actmyname]

I am late here. However, I don't hide the signature of the forum. My personal view is, companies paying us for wearing signature, means they expecting few impressions from the forum where real crypto users engaging crypto-related discussions. So, if I hide signature mean other campaign's signature banner will not show to me and they wouldn't get impressions from me. But I am wearing one and I am expecting impressions as well. It's kind of selfish IMO.

Taken as a don't bite the hand that feeds strategy perhaps. An economy of services requires multiple parties for an exchange, after all.

Though considering the number of guest users is a magnitude higher than that of the logged-in users and that you can expect a large chunk of the latter to be the sig-spam type, unless you are a prospective whale client, the impact of you hiding signatures is equivalent to simply skimming over the ad as most are apt to do. I'm sure you don't notice half of the signatures when you are reading through a thread: it should be analogous to forgetting passing faces on the street.

[kawetsriyanto]

Being paid to post is really a motivation, I knew a lot of good posters who joined a high-paying signature campaign

It is like a mood booster or motivation. That's also a reason to maintain the quality of our post. On some signature campaigns, you may be removed if your posts cannot fulfill the requirements or not quality enough. There are a lot of members who can replace you if you cannot maintain your quality posts. So, this becomes one of the reasons for you to always keep post quality. I think it is a good side impact for signature campaign participants.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I remember reading a post by someone a long time ago who talked about the benefits of signature campaigns. He was advertising a company and had a referral link in his sig. After a while, he checked his stats and noticed only 1 or 2 clicks. Campaign-wide, it wasn't any better with the other participants.

I wasn't aware you could check on how many clicks you've had on your signature--not that I'd really check, because it doesn't really concern me.  I don't know what campaign that guy you were referring to was in, but I suppose some of them just don't generate a lot of clicks, whether that's because the project has a bad reputation or doesn't have an attractive banner or whatever.

I can't imagine sig campaigns are completely useless for the project/company that runs them, else they wouldn't do it, especially not the longer-running ones like Chipmixer, 777Coin, and Yobit and secondstrade some years ago.  If they're run by people with some actual business sense, they'd be analyzing how much revenue their advertising brings in and whether it's worth it to run a signature campaign.

[savetheFORUM]

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.

That's a bad mentality, sorry don't mean to be personal but you cannot judge someone based on their signature and its payment.

I judge people based on what they post and then I see their signature (sometimes, not always) so I don't know how you judge before reading. But I can't blame you either because most of the low-paying campaigns are hiring shit posters.

You may read English and posting manner here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5338161.msg57033865#msg57033865

The guy represents ChipMixer, one of the highest paying campaigns and he doesn't even write in English that one would classify as a secondary language, let alone native.

NOTE: Make no mistake, I never judge people based on English because it's a language not the measure of one's ability. But to put things into perspective, not everyone from a top signature campaign represents quality.

[UserU]

I wasn't aware you could check on how many clicks you've had on your signature--not that I'd really check, because it doesn't really concern me.  I don't know what campaign that guy you were referring to was in, but I suppose some of them just don't generate a lot of clicks, whether that's because the project has a bad reputation or doesn't have an attractive banner or whatever.

I can't imagine sig campaigns are completely useless for the project/company that runs them, else they wouldn't do it, especially not the longer-running ones like Chipmixer, 777Coin, and Yobit and secondstrade some years ago.  If they're run by people with some actual business sense, they'd be analyzing how much revenue their advertising brings in and whether it's worth it to run a signature campaign.

Either he could have used some tracking parameter with the URL or a shortlink that leads to the same URL.

Results might vary though. When I joined 777campaign, my account accrued over 30 referrals, albeit dead ones. On the flipside, this campaign (Rollbit) I joined netted me zero referrals.

I feel that most advertisers are missing potential customers by not paying their earnings to their on-site accounts (rather just the BTC to any specified address). Plus the fact that the participants might have their preferred sites/ casinos to play on makes them less feasible in the long run, I somewhat agree sig campaigns tend to have lower CTR.

[Daniel91]

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.  

I remember reading a post by someone a long time ago who talked about the benefits of signature campaigns. He was advertising a company and had a referral link in his sig. After a while, he checked his stats and noticed only 1 or 2 clicks. Campaign-wide, it wasn't any better with the other participants. But the campaign still kept going.

Naturally, he started wondering how can that be beneficial to the company if they aren't getting any clicks? I don't remember exactly if someone told him or he came to the conclusion himself. But even though, many people don't click on the signatures, they remember them. Somewhere back in their mind, they'll memorize it. The next time they want to gamble (since that is the most advertised service here), they'll ask themselves what was the name of that casino I saw in that colorful signature on Bicointalk? And boom, they remember it and navigate to the site. That's one way that a signature can result in more traffic without actually increasing the clicks count.

Thanks for this example.
I’ve actually always been interested in how effective these signature campaigns really are and how much they really help those companies that advertise in such way.
Personally, I don't remember ever clicking on a link in a signature campaign and I believe that most other members on this forum also don't click directly on those links in the signature.
Since all of these companies still pay members of the signature campaign and also have some costs they obviously benefit from such advertising otherwise they would not do it.
Your explanation makes sense to me, although I'm not sure if this kind of advertising is really the best.
Wouldn't it be better to give bonuses to members who bring their friends or to advertise on social networks and in telegram groups?
I think most members on this forum understand campaign signatures as business and don’t really care at all what they advertise in their signature, or what is advertised in other signatures.  
If nothing else, thanks to the signature campaigns we have more activity on the forum, which does not necessarily mean that we got a higher quality  
I agree with the OP in that.

[UserU]

Wouldn't it be better to give bonuses to members who bring their friends or to advertise on social networks and in telegram groups?

Yeah, those sites have referral links which players could promote and earn commissions from their invitees.

[Welsh]

I don't hide signatures. I've definitely been influenced by signatures here on the forum in the past, and I'm sure that's true for everyone that doesn't hide them. Being influenced even by a advertisement isn't always a bad thing. I've discovered some quite cool projects over time, and I'm sure there's been instances that people have found services that appeal for them, well its a given really.

I remember reading a post by someone a long time ago who talked about the benefits of signature campaigns. He was advertising a company and had a referral link in his sig. After a while, he checked his stats and noticed only 1 or 2 clicks. Campaign-wide, it wasn't any better with the other participants. But the campaign still kept going.

Depends on the type of participants that they had as a data set. However, a referral link isn't a catch all. Advertising doesn't always work for direct links, however getting the product in the mind of a potential customer is what you want to do. I tend to be quite good at blocking out advertisements on TV etc, but I've even noticed that Sponsored videos on Youtube, while I haven't used the infulencers direct coupon code, they got the product in my mind, and when I needed something like that, it was that company I thought of.

So, there's direct advertising, and indirect. We know advertising works, because I bet the majority of this forum are aware of the companies that regularly advertise through signature campaigns. In fact, the very lure of getting paid to post, is an advertisement, because it creates brand loyalty. If x company pays you to post, and you use them, you're more likely to actually use their service over a competitors.

Therefore, even if you don't get direct referral link clicks, the advertisement itself is still working. I've even had messages asking me about the advertisement in my signature in the past. So, people are definitely noticing them even if they aren't clicking them directly. We have to remember as well, not everyone will know that the links are clickable.

Personally, I don't remember ever clicking on a link in a signature campaign and I believe that most other members on this forum also don't click directly on those links in the signature.

This might just be because none of them interest you. We know advertisements work, since TradeFortress built their entire online wallet out of the advertisements. It become widely used, and I would assume that this was majority built on his signature campaign they were running at the time.

I've not clicked on many, but I have. Especially, more personal projects. I'm visited quite a few personal websites of users here. A few years ago, it was more common to use the signature for either personal projects or personal interests. For example, I used to have a Slackware link, because at the time I was tinkering around with it, and enjoying it.

So, for a advertisement to work it needs to hit the right audience, and the number of clicks a referral link gets doesn't necessarily indicate how good the advertisement is working. Its an indication, but because most people would likely digest that advertisement subconsciously or indirectly look it up, then it only catches a few, and isn't a catch all.

I can't imagine sig campaigns are completely useless for the project/company that runs them, else they wouldn't do it, especially not the longer-running ones like Chipmixer, 777Coin, and Yobit and secondstrade some years ago.  If they're run by people with some actual business sense, they'd be analyzing how much revenue their advertising brings in and whether it's worth it to run a signature campaign.

We know advertisements work. Edward Bernays taught us that the human mind is very susceptible to information, even if its completely wrong propaganda. If anyone hasn't read his book, I recommend it to get some insight on how governments control its people. However, going back to if advertisements work; they work very similarly to propaganda, and both are used to influence the population. Just think of it, anywhere you go on the internet, real life, or just anywhere you will see probably 100s of advertisements a day. You might not register all of them consciously, but you've seen them subconsciously. So, the next time you want something related to that advertisement, you'll remember it.

There isn't an argument to be found when arguing against the effectiveness of advertisements. We know advertisements work, in fact we are now more aware they work, since our platforms like TV, and even Youtube are becoming more, and more advertisement friendly. Youtubers have found out that, they can earn more money, and companies can earn more money by putting a sponsored video by the infulencer inside the actual video, instead of via Youtube ad breaks, because its more personalized, and the followers of that person are more likely to take note of the advertisement. This is the same for this forum, if you particularly like someone or someone's content on here, you are probably more likely to be interested in what they are advertising.

Take theymos talking about Grin coin, now he was very cautious about clearly defining that he doesn't necessarily recommend investing into Grin coin, but was more excited by the technology behind it, while clearly defining his opinion on the rather big short comings. However, take a look at how many people rushed to the announcement thread once Grin coin was officially accepted on Bitcointalk for Copper membership. Now, most of them would have likely never heard of it or at least it would have taken years for them to even take a whiff of the name GrinCoin. However, that announcement thread was flooded with all kinds of users, even those that probably don't even visit the altcoin section.

Just to be clear, I don't think theymos was advertising GrinCoin (at least not directly), but you can see the impact that someone who is maybe looked up too, can have on others. So, advertisements in signatures work in the same way.

[ScamViruS]

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.

Bitcointalk has many members who participated in the low paying signature at the beginning of their journey and later got a chance in the high paying signature campaign. If he/she participates in a high paying signature in the future, he/she must have posted good quality posts from the beginning.

So if someone participates in a low paying signature, it does not mean that the member does not have the ability to post good quality posts. So if someone is in a low paying signature campaign and writes good quality posts, then there is no point in ignoring him/her. But everyone has their own way of thinking, so everyone can share their personal opinions. You share your opinion, but it's not always right.

[Daniel91]

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.

Bitcointalk has many members who participated in the low paying signature at the beginning of their journey and later got a chance in the high paying signature campaign. If he/she participates in a high paying signature in the future, he/she must have posted good quality posts from the beginning.

So if someone participates in a low paying signature, it does not mean that the member does not have the ability to post good quality posts. So if someone is in a low paying signature campaign and writes good quality posts, then there is no point in ignoring him/her. But everyone has their own way of thinking, so everyone can share their personal opinions. You share your opinion, but it's not always right.

In fact, it’s hard to expect newbie members to write quality posts on this forum from the very beginning.
Newbie members usually do not have enough knowledge and experience to be able to write such quality posts, which can help other members.
Therefore, I advise new members not to write much on the forum at the beginning, but to read other posts more, get informed and learn.
Over time, they will gain the necessary experience and knowledge to be able to write better and to benefit from it through signature campaigns.
Clearly many members can’t or don’t want to wait and they join in signature campaigns that are lower paid initially, and that’s ok, they have to start somewhere.
I always give such members a chance, even if they do not write well on the forum in the beginning.
I believe that everyone deserves their chance and to prove themselves as good members of this forum, those who contribute to the forum.

[n0nce]

I've noticed that the main motivation for making high quality posts is the fact that you can get paid out of it.

Damnn, I've been registered for a short time, but long-time reader and I really noticed often times, that e.g. someone needs help and even though the question has been answered or issue resolved, people with often very low knowledge base and very low effort try to 'help', sometimes even spreading false information. I didn't understand why they'd do that - especially seeing that many have tons of posts and activity, yet no clue about Bitcoin. Now I understand, since they all have some casino signature or similar....

Imo, quality contribution cannot be forced or faked, those who try to do this will run into trouble eventually with the forum rules,

I'm wondering when I see these very low-effort, low-quality, clueless 'helping' replies, if it's correct to report them to clean the threads a little? Because they're technically not 'abusive or wrongly posted messages'.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Damnn, I've been registered for a short time, but long-time reader and I really noticed often times, that e.g. someone needs help and even though the question has been answered or issue resolved, people with often very low knowledge base and very low effort try to 'help', sometimes even spreading false information.

And it gets worse. If someone actually wants to help the OP, he'll choose not to, because the thread will have filled with tons of meaningless posts and his post won't be even read by the OP. The OP will have already ignored his own thread, due to this meaninglessness that will prevail. And still, while no one wants these people, there're managers who'll pay them for doin' it.

I've proposed a solution, but it doesn't seem to be liked from both the users' and the admins' side.

I'm wondering when I see these very low-effort, low-quality, clueless 'helping' replies, if it's correct to report them to clean the threads a little? Because they're technically not 'abusive or wrongly posted messages'.

Read my proposal.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Damnn, I've been registered for a short time, but long-time reader and I really noticed often times, that e.g. someone needs help and even though the question has been answered or issue resolved, people with often very low knowledge base and very low effort try to 'help', sometimes even spreading false information. I didn't understand why they'd do that - especially seeing that many have tons of posts and activity, yet no clue about Bitcoin.

That's funny--I was in the same position back in 2014 when I was lurking and just starting to get interested in bitcoin.  I was reading all of these really crappy posts by members who obviously couldn't write English very well, and they were basically just writing garbage posts anyway.  I had no idea what a signature campaign was or what would motivate someone to write those kinds of posts.  Only after I registered and started to get a feel for the forum did I become familiar with the reasons behind the plague of shitposting.

Also, it's great that you lurked before becoming a member.  Not many people do that anymore; they just come here to participate in campaigns or bounties and their contributions are usually net negative to the forum overall.

And it gets worse. If someone actually wants to help the OP, he'll choose not to, because the thread will have filled with tons of meaningless posts and his post won't be even read by the OP. The OP will have already ignored his own thread, due to this meaninglessness that will prevail.

I don't know about that, because I've started a few threads in which I was asking for help or information, and while there were inevitably crap posts made, I did usually get my answers.  One thing members can do is create self-moderated threads to eliminate nonsense replies (though some members don't like them and will choose not to post in self-modded threads).

[Mpamaegbu]

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.

I believe this prejudice cuts across. I do that too, though I get disappointed on a few occasions where participants of reputable campaigns don't live up to expectations by the standard of posts they make. It's worse for me once a poster is promoting a fraudulent enterprise, I don't bother to read them even if they were once people I read and enjoyed their posts. I don't read comments because those who wrote them have enough merits. No, that will be getting deceived because I know giving merit is subjective and doesn't in most cases reveal in truth the quality of post(s). Besides, having enough merit could even come from merit trading.

[n0nce]

That's funny--I was in the same position back in 2014 when I was lurking and just starting to get interested in bitcoin.  I was reading all of these really crappy posts by members who obviously couldn't write English very well, and they were basically just writing garbage posts anyway.  I had no idea what a signature campaign was or what would motivate someone to write those kinds of posts.  Only after I registered and started to get a feel for the forum did I become familiar with the reasons behind the plague of shitposting.

Also, it's great that you lurked before becoming a member.  Not many people do that anymore; they just come here to participate in campaigns or bounties and their contributions are usually net negative to the forum overall.

Funny indeed, seems I experienced the exact same thing as you did, right now I'm actually honestly wondering how those people even know about the signature campaigns and just sign up for those and not for the forum itself. Since I knew nothing about those so far until after becoming member (like you).

One thing members can do is create self-moderated threads to eliminate nonsense replies (though some members don't like them and will choose not to post in self-modded threads).

I'll keep this feature in mind! If I understood correctly, in a self-moderated thread I can delete any reply, correct?