Just remove signatures already. As in delete, disable, gone.

[CoinCidental]

The forum is nearing the lowest point content-wise I have seen. Click on just about any thread and it is mindless replies and bumps from people with big signature ads pushing something. There is nothing here, no content, no dialog. It is certainly not the place for cryptographers and programmers and entrepreneurs to exchange information about Bitcoin. If you are lucky, you will find someone completely out of their depth asking a stupid question answered a hundred times, someone that then cannot understand the answer.

There is no reason or need for a signature. Limiting the BBcode to higher-activity members helped the look of the forum, but just creates a market for old accounts to do the spamming.

What is needed is to deincentivize this crap posting by completely removing the signature. End the signature campaigns and the pay for obnoxious scam sites. People are profiting from posting nonsense and making this forum useless, and this is seemingly the only way to make it stop.

Then we have the activity/post count chasers, which you can see from dozens of "why isn't my activity going up" posts. There's another number that can just be removed from posts. Take away that incentive to post junk also.

i just scan over threads ,i ignore posts from members pimping the signatures because your right ,it is usually low quality garbage

[1714078618]

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[1714078618]

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[R2D221]

I guess there's nothing to debate about. They ask for accounts, you sell accounts. Supply and demand.

It's just that I think this whole system is immoral.

Most people that use bitcoin believe in a free market, I find it very interesting to see that you are not a believer in this

I believe in a free market. I'm not asking anybody to ban account selling. It's just that I'm not OK with this, as well as there are people that are not OK with drug selling, but not actively try to ban it.

[onemorebtc]

I guess there's nothing to debate about. They ask for accounts, you sell accounts. Supply and demand.

It's just that I think this whole system is immoral.

Most people that use bitcoin believe in a free market, I find it very interesting to see that you are not a believer in this

I believe in a free market. I'm not asking anybody to ban account selling. It's just that I'm not OK with this, as well as there are people that are not OK with drug selling, but not actively try to ban it.

+1

and i dont think sig-campaigns bring many new users, especially not if you have to buy an account first.

[R2D221]

They are in the same negative limelight to me. But that's my opinion.

[Muhammed Zakir]

+1

and i dont think sig-campaigns bring many new users, especially not if you have to buy an account first.

You don't want to buy new ones, you can still join as a newbie. But if you want to earn more, you can invest the BTC you got from the campaign in buying and then you can hit ROI in a few weeks.

They are in the same negative limelight to me. But that's my opinion.

Drugs = Harmful to society, person who use and person who sell.
Accounts = Harmful/Helpful to forum and person who use.

   -MZ

[R2D221]

Drugs = Harmful to society, person who use and person who sell.
Accounts = Harmful/Helpful to forum and person who use.

   -MZ

Drugs are not harmful to society if used responsibly. Look at the Netherlands, for instance.

[onemorebtc]

+1

and i dont think sig-campaigns bring many new users, especially not if you have to buy an account first.

You don't want to buy new ones, you can still join as a newbie. But if you want to earn more, you can invest the BTC you got from the campaign in buying and then you can hit ROI in a few weeks.

if i want to buy an acount i need btc first, so i am not a new user.
a real new user would just buy some and try them (or just speculates)

[Muhammed Zakir]

Drugs are not harmful to society if used responsibly. Look at the Netherlands, for instance.

AFAIK it is! When some people eats drugs, the people living near are in danger especially women in one way or another.

if i want to buy an acount i need btc first, so i am not a new user.

If you joined a school and bought the books, you are still a new student for a few days.

a real new user would just buy some and try them (or just speculates)

If you want to buy accounts here, you will have to pay them in BTC or in other cryptocurrencies, if you are sticking with first line, then you should change this line because there is no such thing as 'real new user'. Otherwise, correct the mistake - change first line.

   -MZ

[onemorebtc]

Drugs are not harmful to society if used responsibly. Look at the Netherlands, for instance.

AFAIK it is! When some people eats drugs, the people living near are in danger especially women in one way or another.

if i want to buy an acount i need btc first, so i am not a new user.

If you joined a school and bought the books, you are still a new student for a few days.

a real new user would just buy some and try them (or just speculates)

If you want to buy accounts here, you will have to pay them in BTC or in other cryptocurrencies, if you are sticking with first line, then you should change this line because there is no such thing as 'real new user'. Otherwise, correct the mistake - change first line.

   -MZ

we are talking about if sig-ads are an incentive for new users (btc users - not btct users).
and i still think thats not the case...

btw the sentences are not contradicting each other.  i need btc to buy an account. if someone has btc i dont consider him new.

i expect anybody to be informed before spending money to buy btc - and after they have informed themselves they arent really new (informed means from a technical POV, an econmic POV or speculative POV - seems to depend on personal mindset)

[R2D221]

Drugs are not harmful to society if used responsibly. Look at the Netherlands, for instance.

AFAIK it is! When some people eats drugs, the people living near are in danger especially women in one way or another.

That's why I said “if used responsibly”.

[Muhammed Zakir]

we are talking about if sig-ads are an incentive for new users (btc users - not btct users).
and i still think thats not the case...

As faucets aren't really worth now, sig-ads will help them to earn some BTC by contributing to the forum and they will learn some new things from it.

btw the sentences are not contradicting each other.  i need btc to buy an account. if someone has btc i dont consider him new.

I thought you said in general but now I understood you said how 'you see'. This is how 'I see':

If you joined a school and bought the books, you are still a new student for a few days.

Edit:

That's why I said “if used responsibly”.

In general, drugs are very hard(near to impossible) to be used responsibly.

   -MZ

[onemorebtc]

If you joined a school and bought the books, you are still a new student for a few days.

i'd say most people join this school (btct) without any books (btc) and if they like it they'l go buy some.

so your examples does not fit: no one is forced to own bitcoin to be here

[DannyHamilton]

Many months ago I adopted a shoot first policy on members with ads in their sig.  I began reflexively clicking "ignore" on any poster that had an ad in their sig.  I only un-ignore when I encounter quotes of things a poster has said that indicate that they actually contribute useful, helpful, or interesting things.

This has made bitcointalk a much more useful and much more pleasant place to participate in.

[Possum577]

The forum is nearing the lowest point content-wise I have seen. Click on just about any thread and it is mindless replies and bumps from people with big signature ads pushing something. There is nothing here, no content, no dialog. It is certainly not the place for cryptographers and programmers and entrepreneurs to exchange information about Bitcoin. If you are lucky, you will find someone completely out of their depth asking a stupid question answered a hundred times, someone that then cannot understand the answer.

There is no reason or need for a signature. Limiting the BBcode to higher-activity members helped the look of the forum, but just creates a market for old accounts to do the spamming.

What is needed is to deincentivize this crap posting by completely removing the signature. End the signature campaigns and the pay for obnoxious scam sites. People are profiting from posting nonsense and making this forum useless, and this is seemingly the only way to make it stop.

Then we have the activity/post count chasers, which you can see from dozens of "why isn't my activity going up" posts. There's another number that can just be removed from posts. Take away that incentive to post junk also.

Ha, you have an ad in your signature!

Don't bitch about people having signature ads, bitch about people making bullshit comments.

Clean up would be great, applying a higher standard would be great, perhaps Moderators need to police the advertisers with signature campaigns, which would get each campaign owner to ensure that their advertisers aren't becoming a burden in the forum.

A lot of us follow the rules, it would be unfair to declare signature advertising "illegal" because of a few abusers that could have been easily banned. And if signature ads are banned yours would have to go too! I don't want that for you, do you?

[Possum577]

Many months ago I adopted a shoot first policy on members with ads in their sig.  I began reflexively clicking "ignore" on any poster that had an ad in their sig.  I only un-ignore when I encounter quotes of things a poster has said that indicate that they actually contribute useful, helpful, or interesting things.

This has made bitcointalk a much more useful and much more pleasant place to participate in.

Danny,

You can elect to not see users signatures in your profile settings. You should use this option, so you can still benefit from the productive discussion and not be burdened by the flashy advertising.

[hilariousandco]

It's not the signatures that irk him but the lower quality of content posts he believes a paid signature causes.

[Snorek]

Op, if you think that removing signatures will remove all idiots, dumb people, newbies trolls and other individuals who are not really on point with their posts from this forum - you are deeply mistaken.

[inBitweTrust]

Op, if you think that removing signatures will remove all idiots, dumb people, newbies trolls and other individuals who are not really on point with their posts from this forum - you are deeply mistaken.

I don't see anyone insinuating such. One would expect removing the financial incentive of posting drivel to cut down on amount of poor posts.

There will always be trolls with an agenda or too much time. There will always be newbies that ask common questions. When people are no longer being paid to post than there will be a large proportion of copypasta and shot mindless drivel removed because no such incentive exists.

Because it is likely that the future forum will include sigs as the forum operators are incentivised by a high traffic site all these shill accounts create regardless of the quality of posts. Thus we may need to create our own solution. Some people are already taking matters into their own hands and creating self moderated threads to combat this problem --

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=957789.0

[ABitNut]

It's not the signatures that irk him but the lower quality of content posts he believes a paid signature causes.

Yes, it is becoming very annoying. It is also pretty obvious.

Take https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985198.20

20 out of the first 25 posts in this thread have an ad in their signature....

That specific topic has been beaten to death. A thousand times. But it's still making them money.


I was about to raise the "Disallow ads in signatures" thread, but honestly... Just make it disappear.

[Quickseller]

It's not the signatures that irk him but the lower quality of content posts he believes a paid signature causes.

Yes, it is becoming very annoying. It is also pretty obvious.

Take https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=985198.20

20 out of the first 25 posts in this thread have an ad in their signature....

That specific topic has been beaten to death. A thousand times. But it's still making them money.


I was about to raise the "Disallow ads in signatures" thread, but honestly... Just make it disappear.

That one is nothing. I remember seeing multiple threads over the summer of last year where there were literally pages of posts  that were all something along the lines of 'this is great news' (I stopped reading after 3-4 pages of this) in a threads saying that some new merchant is now accepting bitcoin.

Sadly, the way things are going I do see signatures either getting removed, or they will be changed in a way so that paid signature advertising is much less effective.