What would the Bitcointalk Forum be like without Signature Campaigns?

[Davidvictorson]

Have you ever wondered what the bitcointalk forum would be like without signature campaigns? I have thought long and hard about this question. There have been numerous controversies regarding post bursting and spamming just to meet the weekly post count and other vices on the forum, all in the name of joining signature campaigns. As a result, many users have faced punitive measures such as temporary or permanent bans, registration tags, and more. The reputation board, which is the court house of the forum, is brimming with disciplinary cases, most of which are related to users in signature campaigns.

Therefore, I ask, what would the forum be like without signature campaigns?

Would it be more sanitized?
Would it be less filled with spams?
Would there be fewer alternate accounts?

[elevates]

One thing I am pretty much sure that the number of active users will go down significantly. Which in turn would reduce the number of new topics created on different boards. In a nutshell the amount of traffic everyday that the forum gets will be reduced. Almost everyone here is part of a signature campaign. Those who are not are trying.

Spam will still prevail as spammers have their own personal objective. Alt accounts are allowed by the forum. I don't think removing signature campaign would stop them.

[Nwada001]

You forgot to add a signature ban on the shitposter as part of the punishment. I can't remember which thread I read about it, but there is some sort of punishment where the user won't be allowed to wear a signature for either a week, months, or years, depending on the level of the offense, unless those rules no longer exist.

If there were to be no more signature campaigns on this forum, we would definitely see less shitposting, bostposting, and some unnecessary thread creation. Some of those shitposters are not yet wearing signatures, but they are still posting because they are in search of merit and activities that will qualify them for ranking up and give them possible chances of participating in the signature campaign.

Not only will it stop shitposting, but it might also make the forum kind of boring to some extent because not every quality poster derives joy from posting, especially when they don't have an expected pay week. I have seen a member in this forum whose posting style and post quality I so admire. But when the current signature that the user was wearing ended, there was a gap in how the user was posting. There are also lots of members here for whom I have not seen a signature code since I joined the forum, but they are always active and have made this place their home, people like Franky1, JayJuanGee, and many others.

[mu_enrico]

Therefore, I ask, what would the forum be like without signature campaigns?

Like any other forum without signature campaigns.
There will still be users and marketing campaigns for sure, however, they will turn into older practices. For instance, bumping, fake reviews, and spamming links services.
If only signature campaigns are removed, but users still can bear a private signature, some will still post to promote their own sites.
That said, removing signature capabilities altogether will demolish any incentive to post -> less traffic -> less valuable domain name.

Signature space is a good way to monetize our own content, i.e., posts and threads. Removing it will make us generate content for free, and I believe many people here don't want to spend enough effort for free, so the spam count will be higher/post quality will be reduced IMO.

[Doan9269]

Would it be more sanitized?
Would it be less filled with spams?
Would there be fewer alternate accounts?

Yes, alts and spamming will reduced especially from the bounty hunters.

I believe those that have tasted being on a signature campaign before will not want to leave except in some unavoidable circumstances whereby the just have to go due to personal reasons or challenges with campaign, yet we have a number of members being active on the forum and care not about signature campaign, some come onboard to enquire about bitcoin and left immediately after they got what they want, but we beed to know that this forum is not created for signature campaign but rather for bitcoin discussions, but a signature campaign comes in as an advantage in which we may choose to participate or not, though it will affect the activeness of many on the forum if signature campaign is taken away but the forum will still maintain being existing abd functional,

[Coin_trader]

Would it be more sanitized?
Would it be less filled with spams?

No, It will be worst. User is now thriving to post a quality content to create a good account background for a higher chance to join in signature campaign. Bitcointalk forum has a lot of spam way back the time when there’s only few signature campaign available here.

Would there be fewer alternate accounts?

Yes on this. Signature campaign is the only reason why user create a secondary except those who want an extra account on unsafe places.


In conclusion, Forum will be more organic if there’s no signature campaign that exists since user will just post freely without any quota or judgement on their post quality. It’s a pros and cons but signature campaign pros is greater than cons since it gives opportunity to forum member that has a financial problem to have an extra income by just sharing knowledge here.

Additionally, if signature campaign doesn’t exist, I think all post here will receive a straightforward answer like this thread with no, no, yes without an explanation to prolong the content.  

[dzungmobile]

It would have less spams and if you are curious how less spam is, you can surf some boards in which signature is disabled.

• Two new no-signature boards
• Rules for Serious Discussion and Ivory Tower

I created two boards:

 - Serious discussion. No limit on topic, but moderation of on-topicness and general sanity will be extra harsh. No advertising of any kind. Signatures are not displayed.
 - Ivory Tower. As above, but you must be at least a Member in order to post there.

In the past, no signature and because of spamming, trolling, there were newbie jails but theymos decided to lift those jails.

[Daniel91]

Interesting question, but maybe you should move this thread to meta?
If you follow the local forum statistics that are regularly monitored, analyzed and published by rikafip and some other members in meta, you will see that there has been a trend of decreasing activity and active members on this forum for a long time.
This is completely natural because Internet forums have not been a popular way of Internet communication for a long time and younger members are increasingly using social networks and Telegram groups.
Signature campaigns actually helped this forum and stopped its trend of declining activity, but the question is for how long.
There is spam on every forum and there is not much help there.

[BIT-BENDER]

Well we have to look at this situation critically, and not just from a single aspect we have to be open in our perspective before we decide.

First let’s start with those that are allowed to wear a signature in the first place.

Perhaps the allowed signature styling should change with activity score / membergroup. Like:
- Newbie: No styling (including links) allowed. Max 40 characters.
- Jr. Member: Links allowed. Max 100 characters.
- Member: Unlimited length.
- Full: Color allowed.
- Sr. Member: Size allowed
- Hero: Background color allowed

Then newbies will be less effective advertisers, which would hopefully significantly reduce the incentive for low-content posts. And when people become capable of effectively advertising through their signatures, they'll have invested a lot of time into their accounts, and they won't risk being banned by spamming.

From the above post you would see according to rules made by theymos the only people allowed to wear a signature are those ranks above Newbie and to get that you have to have more than one merit and 30 activities.

But in reality and from the many campaigns available now the least rank membership is the Full member, and some are even cutting the full members off that’s how competitive it has been.

So to be eligible for a campaign you have to have reached full member with is 100 and over merit with 120 activities this is not an easy fit to achieve legally excluding bought account and other illegal means.

I would say the availability of signature campaign can be a motivation to ready to many who are learn and improve to even work harder to be eligible for a signature campaign.

But the down side is relaxing after getting a signature I would be very honest I was guilty of that before I now rediscovered myself, and with the high competition now the downside of relaxing is fast being eliminated because If you relax you get kicked out.

In a broader picture signature campaign has lots of positive sides.

One of the things I believe would help the forum is when the option of buying an account is removed this would encourage hard work.

[Darker45]

Yes to all of the above, of course. And that's normal. That's understandable.

On the other side, however, it is also possible that there would also be significantly fewer interesting discussions and posts. The incentive to post brings forth a fair amount of constructive responses, interesting ideas, informative replies, and even curious questions.

Also, because of the spam and lower quality posts indirectly caused by signature campaigns, the standard is pushed a lot higher. I was fond of reading old threads and there were many one-liner responses before which, I guess, could easily be deleted in today's standard.

[Pandu Geddon]

Would it be more sanitized?
Would it be less filled with spams?
Would there be fewer alternate accounts?

everything is not necessarily also the case. but what is very likely to happen is the reduced activity of many accounts on the forum. not all of them are in the forums and creating posts to achieve the weekly targets of the campaigns they participate in.
even without a signature campaign, there will still be accounts of many members who will still be actively discussing on the forums. but as I said, the activity will probably decrease.

[jcojci]

Bitcointalk wouldn't be as big as it is now and bitcoin wouldn't be as big now.
Signature campaigns have helped bitcointalk and bitcoin get bigger and reach more users to learn from.

Having a signature campaign has both positive and negative sides. And there may be a lot of controversy around what you say.

The bitcointalk forum will also be unknown to many people because it will be like a private forum and people will not want to join.

People join because of the opportunity to earn free money. Anyone would want to get it.

[Peanutswar]

If theres no signature campaigns right here for sure there's no spam coming from the people who just want to catch their weekly quotas and just make a comment not related to the contents to get counted, back on the good side of the forum is yes seems like the forum will stay on it because whats the purpose of it? getting connected into the cryptocurrency space so still even there's no signature its like the same with the other forum like the StackOverflow that every members contributes their knowledge and skills for the sake of the community.

[Z390]

Bitcointalk wouldn't be as big as it is now and bitcoin wouldn't be as big now.
Signature campaigns have helped bitcointalk and bitcoin get bigger and reach more users to learn from.

Having a signature campaign has both positive and negative sides. And there may be a lot of controversy around what you say.

The bitcointalk forum will also be unknown to many people because it will be like a private forum and people will not want to join.

People join because of the opportunity to earn free money. Anyone would want to get it.

You don't know what you're saying, who told you that Bitcointalk is the reason Bitcoin is successful? There are many Bitcoin investors that didn't have an account on this forum, you want to hear something? I bought Bitcoin before coming to this forum, I knew Bitcoin long enough before knowing that a Crypto forum called Bitcointalk existed, so stop saying what you aren't so sure about.

Bitcointalk forum is what keeps helping people, not signature campaigns, do you know how many information about digital currencies that's available on this forum? Do you know how many problems I've been able to fixed because of this forum? there are still some members on this forum that doesn't care about signature campaigns, and how many signatures have you seen advertising Bitcoin? It's always other crypto projects.

Bitcointalk is not the only forum that allows advertising, there are many more and they aren't successful because of a coin, it's general something from a good forum.

[m2017]

Have you ever wondered what the bitcointalk forum would be like without signature campaigns? I have thought long and hard about this question. There have been numerous controversies regarding post bursting and spamming just to meet the weekly post count and other vices on the forum, all in the name of joining signature campaigns. As a result, many users have faced punitive measures such as temporary or permanent bans, registration tags, and more. The reputation board, which is the court house of the forum, is brimming with disciplinary cases, most of which are related to users in signature campaigns.

Therefore, I ask, what would the forum be like without signature campaigns?

Would it be more sanitized?
Would it be less filled with spams?
Would there be fewer alternate accounts?

What only fantastic questions will not hear at a forum.

Why should I think about what the forum will be like without signature campaigns, if at the moment campaigns are an integral part of the forum. And, for quite some time now. Will these fantasies somehow affect the current situation? No. Then why fill head with all sorts of trash?

If someday signature campaigns are no longer used on the bitcointalk, that's when we can see the consequences and impact of this.

What exactly do you mean by sanitized?

How do signature campaigns affect spam? In my opinion, people can spam without it. If you mean improving the quality of posts, then it is unlikely to happen without signature campaigns.

[Cantsay]

Would it be more sanitized?
Would it be less filled with spams?
Would there be fewer alternate accounts?

• The alternate accounts are sure to stop if there are no more signatures.
• Buying of bitcointalk accounts will cease to exist as the buyer has nothing to gain from it.
• We'll have less number of post and also traffic, because most people tend to make many post only because of their signature campaign but we still have a few who are not in a signature campaign and yet are actively participating in discussions here.
• As for the spam and sanitization, I don't think removing signature will completely eradicate all because even without having signature you can still find some trolls here in the forum but it's sure going to reduce it drastically.

For the first few months of the signatures removal we'll still notice high participation from users but with time it's slowly going to reduce and only those that are truly interested in the development of Bitcoin will be left here in the forum.

[Ndabagi01]

Therefore, I ask, what would the forum be like without signature campaigns?

Would it be more sanitized?
Would it be less filled with spams?
Would there be fewer alternate accounts?

First and foremost, because some people love to be compensated for their contributions in the forum, the interaction and desire to learn more will be dramatically reduced.

Spamming would be somewhat reduced if there was merely a merit system to display user ranks in this forum without requiring participation in signature campaigns.

If that's the case, we'll see fewer accounts interacting in the forum because the rate of alternate accounts will decline as their purpose for creation is eliminated.

There are benefits to the adoption of signature campaigns, but there are also drawbacks.

[decodx]

If we were to say sayonara to signature campaigns on bitcointalk forum, we'd likely see less spam and more actual discussions. But at what cost? Will we see a decrease in new accounts? Will the forum be less active? Very likely. So, while we'd have less spam to deal with, we'd also have fewer reasons to keep coming back.

Overall, I think that signature campaigns aren't inherently bad for the forum. Rather, it's the members who create low-quality posts just to fulfill their weekly quota that are problematic.

[Stable090]

Therefore, I ask, what would the forum be like without signature campaigns?

Would it be more sanitized?
Would it be less filled with spams?
Would there be fewer alternate accounts?

If their is no signature campaign on the forum here, then the forum will have been very boring, their won’t be much activities on the forum here, the rates at which threads are created will reduce drastically, their won’t be  much alts accounts, no spamming because anyone that will be creating thread or replying to any thread will be doing it willingly and not for the purpose of signature, so people won’t really be spamming. But we have to be honest, the forum will be kind of boring and less people will be visiting the forum, much information won’t be shared on the forum here, because most people won’t really care posting here.

[Zaguru12]

no spamming because anyone that will be creating thread or replying to any thread will be doing it willingly and not for the purpose of signature, so people won’t really be spamming. But we have to be honest, the forum will be kind of boring and less people will be visiting the forum, much information won’t be shared on the forum here, because most people won’t really care posting here.

I don’t agree that there will be no spamming because ones there’s isn’t a signature the idea of having merit and activity for ranking up won’t be important and as such many people will not be interested in creating quality posts but that will be merit worth again. Rather people will be posting just about anything which seems like spam. Even the reputation many members earn by exposing scammers or spammers will reduce. The forum will certainly be full of important topics. Newbies will hardly find an answer fast to some of there technical problems fast as it is the case today because of the engagement that will reduce.

The only place I feel spamming will reduce drastically is the gambling board because there won’t be need to fill up weekly gambling quota again and only members that are actually involved in gambling and sports will only post there