Paid Signatures Increases Likelihood of Getting Banned

[beetcoin]

the bigger something gets, the more the degradation in quality.. or at least the perception of it. it's probably because out of 100 people, there are a few bad apples.. and if you grow to 100,000 people, for instance, then you'll get more bad apples. and people tend to place more scrutiny when bad shit happens. it's no different from reddit.

[Malin Keshar]

I don't think mods have something against paid signature users, and are more rigorous to them, only that people with paid signatures tends to make more spam sometimes, then are baned more often, sometimes. Or maybe because baned signature paid users complains more when baned.


I think would not be fair use other rules to people that rents his signatures

[mprep]

I don't think mods have something against paid signature users, and are more rigorous to them, only that people with paid signatures tends to make more spam sometimes, then are baned more often, sometimes. Or maybe because baned signature paid users complains more when baned.


I think would not be fair use other rules to people that rents his signatures

The opinions really differ amongst the mods so there's different actions taken regarding paid sigs.

[Possum577]

I wish banning policy is so clear cut. I have seen members, with a paid sig, spamming over 50 posts A DAY and still not banned, while another person made a few one liners and got the ban.

I think bans happen when someone reports the member to the mods. The mods do not have time to hunt for spammers.

Spamming or writing over 50 posts a day?

There's nothing wrong with writing that much in a day as long as the comments are adding value to the discussion.

Hunting for spammers helps us all! No one wants to read through a bunch of meaningless posts to follow a discussion.

I think that once you choose to go for a paid signature, you instantly lose a lot of credibility.

With a lot of posts people are going to think: Is he just saying that to get his post count up?

This is a great point! I never considered that people would discount my comments because I have a commercial signature. I guess it should put more impetus on me to be constructive with my comments.

And to the people that ARE just posting to get their comments high I think you'll find their comments to be less meaningful because they're focused first on getting the post in and second about what they are actually saying.

[SilenceDogreat]

I have to ask... How much are people making from signature ads?
1 BTC a month?  per year?  ever?  Some honest ball-park estimate would be appreciated.
The idea itself is neat, and if you make what you consider a lot then good for you!

But frankly I wouldn't recommend this site - as it functions now - to someone new to Bitcoin.
"Thirsty" is the word that comes to mind when browsing a lot of other users posts here.
A thread is created... then maybe a few terribly basic, but innocent replies...
Then a storm of mindless responses rewording information to move post counts.
If there's any kernel of good insight or debate, it's usually lost and overlooked in that process.

Just my 2 cents. 

...everyone jump in and try to grab it

[Yakamoto]

I wouldn't say the paid signatures increase the likelihood. It makes it so that you degrade the quality of your posts as to farm the signature campaign's money, as opposed to writing larger posts. A lot of people think it's quantity over quality, and most times they can get away with it.

I'm not trying to insult the mods; they do a good job with what they do.

I personally believe, however, that as long as your post isn't a single line, and it contributes substance to the discussion, instead of being a neutral post, such as

"Oh that's nice. I think that would be a pretty good idea for the community to add"

Short posts aren't always bad. They need substance, however, to justify them being short.

If you can write at least 3-4 sentences, that have some kind of quality to them, they should be acceptable.

I have to ask... How much are people making from signature ads?
1 BTC a month?  per year?  ever?  Some honest ball-park estimate would be appreciated.

Depends on your rank. People can hypothetically make anywhere from 0.16 (Which I could do, but I choose not to) to 0.64, which is what the highest-paid member posting the max amount of posts in a month could make. So you could be making 5 BTC/year if you constant max our your post count.

People could be maxing counts for that very reason. And that could be why you see signature post spam...

[virtualx]

I have to ask... How much are people making from signature ads?
1 BTC a month?  per year?  ever?  Some honest ball-park estimate would be appreciated.
The idea itself is neat, and if you make what you consider a lot then good for you!

I've seen that the rates depend on the signature campaign. Some pay 0.1 btc per month, others pay more.

[PeanutCoins]

i think i seen a few people make like 2 btc  a month, not sure now, as spamming is not accepted anymore

[EvilPanda]

i think i seen a few people make like 2 btc  a month, not sure now, as spamming is not accepted anymore

A lot of them got banned later, they just managed to slip through for a month or 2.
It's really not worth it to spam, earn 1 btc and lose the account, you can get much more playing it safe.

[GrandmaJean]

i think i seen a few people make like 2 btc  a month, not sure now, as spamming is not accepted anymore

This is really not possible anymore now that stunna has capped the number of paid posts on the PD campaign to 400 per month.

It used to be capped at I think 4 BTC, but I may be mistaken.

[thriftshopping]

i think i seen a few people make like 2 btc  a month, not sure now, as spamming is not accepted anymore

A lot of them got banned later, they just managed to slip through for a month or 2.
It's really not worth it to spam, earn 1 btc and lose the account, you can get much more playing it safe.

If they made .001 BTC per post and made 2 BTC per month, over two months they would have made 4,000 posts. That is a lot to make to "slip through the cracks"

[SilenceDogreat]

That's honestly better than I expected...
I can see how it's an attractive option, especially for members that post frequently anyway.

I wouldn't say the paid signatures increase the likelihood. It makes it so that you degrade the quality of your posts as to farm the signature campaign's money, as opposed to writing larger posts. A lot of people think it's quantity over quality, and most times they can get away with it.

I'm not trying to insult the mods; they do a good job with what they do.

Agreed, no disrespect to management here.  I still see a lot of good posts as well (my own was slightly exaggerated).
Just making the case for more of a focus on quality - otherwise the relationship is parasitic rather than mutualistic.

[sed]

This makes sense entirely.  I have a paid sig and as far as I know I'm not risking any ban by keeping it.  However, if I was looking at a dude who might be spamming and he doesn't have a paid sig, I'd say I'm less likely to ban him than another dude who did have one.  I mean, for the former guy, what's his motivation?  For the latter guy, there's an obvious monetary motivation so he's more suspicious.  I'd say though, rather than "ditch the sig" just "don't drop generic replies".  Take a moment to write something a spambot can't write and you're fine, yes?

[galbros]

You have to keep in mind that the forum gets paid for advertisements and us paid sig members are competing with them. I've only recently started renting out my sig space, but hey, if it's allowed as per the forum rules, then why not? I'd be making these posts anyhow, and getting a little btc for them is a nice bonus. EvilPanda actually withheld signature payment from a member who had low-quality posts last month, and I think the bans given out by the mods will deter spammers.

I agree with this.  The key thing is that you should not be posting just for the signature reward, but posting like you would normally.  Most of the major campaigns have instituted a post cap, though while it is still pretty high, 400 per month, may help curtail the most abusive practices.

The answers to the already answered questions are the only ones that bother me, but if I was a signature sponsor I'd be worried a lot about all the posts people make in off topic.

However, while I can see why having a signature ad would bring scrutiny to your posts, I don't see why it automatically makes you more likely to be banned.  Spamming the boards should be spamming the boards.

I also agree that the forum is essentially allowing competition with itself.  I am grateful to bitcointalk for allowing me the chance to earn this extra coin.

[bigasic]

Im sure its probably been said in this thread but the campaigns won't pay for one liners or crappy posts, the posts have to be on topic and worth while. Now, if you see them just saying +1 and copy and pasting pictures, then they should at least be warned, but they wont get paid for those anyways...

Just because I have sig campaign, i dont post any more than i normally do. But i have seen others abuse the system and before they get banned from the forum I would hope that the signature campaign would nix them first..

[Mayuyu48]

yes, i agree with this thread
i saw many users have been banned by mods last month after abusing signature campaign
they post too many spammy post to increase their post counts.
and will it ever end?
I don't think so, there are many users still try to abuse it and hope everyone (and especially signature campaign owner) didn't notice it
worst thing is some users who do spam post in local language, we can't analyze their post because we don't understand it
I think signature campaign is an opportunity to get some coins from our activity in forum
but because we have paid signature, we must really care about our post

[Mt. Gox]

The problem is that with bans they aren't really that defined here. What about the threads in the off-topic section? You can't really be constructive in threads where you're only supposed to post an image, on the thread with a word game, the thread with questions and such. If I have a signature I have to avoid those threads so that I don't get banned? That doesn't make much sense.

I think PrimeDice (which is the one you're on) lets you remove non-constructive posts from the total post count when requesting a payment. I'm not 100 percent sure whether posts like the ones you mentioned would be counted as being constructive or not but personally, I would probably remove them from my count just to be on the safe side. I do know that posts in the off-topic section can be counted as long as they are constructive. For example, I would definitely count this post if it were mine (it isn't). You would probably have to ask Stunna in his thread if you want a real answer though.

This makes sense entirely.  I have a paid sig and as far as I know I'm not risking any ban by keeping it.  However, if I was looking at a dude who might be spamming and he doesn't have a paid sig, I'd say I'm less likely to ban him than another dude who did have one.  I mean, for the former guy, what's his motivation?  For the latter guy, there's an obvious monetary motivation so he's more suspicious.  I'd say though, rather than "ditch the sig" just "don't drop generic replies".  Take a moment to write something a spambot can't write and you're fine, yes?

One possibility is that they might want to sell the account later on, but that's the only other reason I could think of.

[hilariousandco]

The problem is that with bans they aren't really that defined here. What about the threads in the off-topic section? You can't really be constructive in threads where you're only supposed to post an image, on the thread with a word game, the thread with questions and such. If I have a signature I have to avoid those threads so that I don't get banned? That doesn't make much sense.

I think PrimeDice (which is the one you're on) lets you remove non-constructive posts from the total post count when requesting a payment. I'm not 100 percent sure whether posts like the ones you mentioned would be counted as being constructive or not but personally, I would probably remove them from my count just to be on the safe side. I do know that posts in the off-topic section can be counted as long as they are constructive. For example, I would definitely count this post if it were mine (it isn't). You would probably have to ask Stunna in his thread if you want a real answer though.

You can and should remove non-constructive posts but most people won't, but making or removing them from your claim is irrelevant as if Badbear sees lots of them you're likely to get banned. It's fine to post in off topic if you're being constructive and probably even posting a few times a month in those typical spam threads there would be ok, but post almost exclusively in that sub with little to no effort going in and you can expect to be banned eventually.

[sed]

I admit that a lot of 'off-topic' is pretty nonsensical.  However, from the point of view of an advertizer, if there are people there posting, then there are probably people there reading and seeing the ads.  Some campaigns have said they don't pay for posts in 'off-topic' (PRC doesn't, for example), but I personally find this a bit close-minded because that just means that folks in off-topic won't be seeing the PRC advert in any signatures.

[galbros]

I admit that a lot of 'off-topic' is pretty nonsensical.  However, from the point of view of an advertizer, if there are people there posting, then there are probably people there reading and seeing the ads.  Some campaigns have said they don't pay for posts in 'off-topic' (PRC doesn't, for example), but I personally find this a bit close-minded because that just means that folks in off-topic won't be seeing the PRC advert in any signatures.

A signature sponsor obviously wants to advertise in an effort to attract new users.  If I was a sponsor I would not pay for posts in the thread about the signature campaign (everyone there obviously knows about the site already) or off topic.  While I agree users are in off topic, I seriously doubt a lot of posts there get read.  Do you really need to read through everyone else's answers on if some woman is hot or not, or 10,000 images?  No, many just read the OP and post something.  So the marginal value per post is really low.

If Stunna really goes to a full partnership model where you only get paid based on what your referrals play on PD then I think a lot of the posts in these areas will go away since the payback will be too low, but that is just conjecture.

While I agree the signature sponsors can withhold payment, it is time consuming to check all the posts.  Especially for something like the primedice campaign that has so many users in it.  In addition, often times the people who don't get fully paid open up scammer threads.  They never get much traction, but it is another annoyance.

The max on primedice used to be 2.4 bitcoins, which at the time was like 2400 posts per month. To answer Silencedogreat, I make about .05 (the minimum) to .09 per month from Stunna.  This is my main source of "fun" btc.  However, I imagine others make a lot more.