BurtW, honestly - How much have you earned through them previously? {You never benefited from signature campaigns?}
I did try one once. IIRC I made a very small amount for one month. I quit because my current signature and the long term viability of the entire Bitcoin system/concept is much more important to me than a few microbitcoins for advertising some "me too" gambling site.
Where would the forum be, without activity like this? {You ask a question, and you get several views, within seconds sometimes}
Cleaner, much easier to read with important stuff in the signatures - like it was before. Because of all the "signature spam" I pretty much ignore them all now. Before paid signatures people put interesting quotes, jokes, or what they thought was most important in their signatures. Now it is just who will pay the most - which is not that interesting.
I am part of a forum now, where we trying to build a community 1000th of the size of this, and I can tell you, it's very hard to get people, to participate willingly. Money is a motivator.
I think paid signatures in your small forum might be a good idea, however since the signatures do not reach that many people they probably do not pay that much. So that is a catch-22 for you.
But you have a right to your opinion and I respect that, and I also do not condone "Spam" {As a moderator there, I hate to clean it daily}
But it has a place, and it works.
Thank you for your work on the spam issue. It is greatly appreciated.