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

[sdp]

I'm using the signature blocking script, and that at least blocks or lessens the eyesore - unfortunately this doesn't help against the collateral damage.  Ignoring users altogether is another approach, but there are sadly good people making good posts also filling out their signature campaign requirements that would be caught in that net.

Well, are my posts such a poor quality that I have to sign up for a signature campaign?  Have you, TheRealSteve, ever tipped anybody for a great post?  I don't tip and I have never been tipped on bitcoin talk.  However, I have been tipped on zapchain and I have also tipped another on zapchain.  I feel less generous around Satoshi pinching people. 

FOSS projects are often thankless jobs.  On the other hand, we can post and add to the forum instead of adding to software projects that people never give a dime for.  I just need to post another 7990 times this month and I will have a decent income.


sdp

[TheRealSteve]

Have you, TheRealSteve, ever tipped anybody for a great post?

Several times - both here and on reddit - but I generally don't go out of my way to mention it.  I don't think the source of a tip should really matter when you're just trying to support a person's project or are thankful for the information they provided.  GekkoScience's project, for example, has received several tips (from myself and others), and certainly not all were claimed - and I think that's grand.

I have never been tipped on bitcoin talk.

Neither have I (BTC0.025 today is a partial refund, for the curious) - but then, I don't expect people to do so either.  I post here because I want to post, not because I'm hoping to get some sort of monetary reward for doing so.  I put addresses in some of my more involved posts because I do know that sometimes people will ask "where can I send you some BTC in thanks?" and it's good to have that information there and in the account profile information - but if there's no tips, that's not going to stop me from posting.

Let me go off on a slight tangent with this; 'tipping' on BitcoinTalk isn't really made easy.  There's no tipping bot, there's no on-screen QR code bits and pieces for those with mobile wallets; at best you can put up a linked address and hope the user's browser will handle things from there, or rely on users manually copy/pasting.  If a more convenient 'tipping' mechanism were to be introduced, I think it would be used more often.  But that's for other Meta threads.

I also don't think it would displace signature campaigns.  After all, I would continue to only tip for good/great posts... while a signature campaign pays out effectively no matter what the content is (at the campaign manager's discretion).

FOSS projects are often thankless jobs.  On the other hand, we can post and add to the forum instead of adding to software projects that people never give a dime for.

Which I think is absolutely fine.  I don't mind signature campaigns at all when they're just used by people as a source of a little extra income as essentially a side effect of their existing posting habits.  What I dislike is how signature campaigns actively drive posting habits - and generally not in a good way - and moreover the side effects that is having on threads, others' signatures, and other users' inclination to participate depending on whether or not they have a shot at a signature campaign in the first place.

I just need to post another 7990 times this month and I will have a decent income.

Tongue-in-cheek aside, I don't think anybody is really seeing this as sort of a day job level of income.  But when you have people like philip announcing that they made BTC5 in about a year just for posting, I can certainly see greedy little eyes thinking that they wouldn't mind a slice of that pie.  The main difference being that philip doesn't post for sig campaign sake, while the ones with greedy little eyes.. well, they're one of the reasons this thread exists

[RealBitcoin]

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.

That would be a very foolish idea.

Signature campaigns are now the easiest and quickest way to earn bitcoin, and that will incentivize the new users to keep using bitcoin.

If you want a dedicated forum for expert talk, then create a new forum, but this is not one for it. This forum is for new members to learn about bitcoin, and existing members to do business with bitcoin.

If you dont like making money with bitcoin, then you should be the one to leave. Otherwise, just create a dedicated forum for cryptographers, programmers and such.

This is not a specialist/dedicated forum for expert, this is for average persons

[R2D221]

Signature campaigns are now the easiest and quickest way to earn bitcoin

But also one of the most annoying for people who don't think of everything as a monetization opportunity.

If you want a dedicated forum for expert talk, then create a new forum, but this is not one for it. This forum is for new members to learn about bitcoin, and existing members to do business with bitcoin.

How can people learn about Bitcoin if there a thousands of useless posts made only to fulfill a quota?

If you dont like making money with bitcoin, then you should be the one to leave.

There are better and more ethical ways to make money than spamming.

This is not a specialist/dedicated forum for expert, this is for average persons

Average persons shouldn't have to deal with this spamming shit.

[RealBitcoin]

But also one of the most annoying for people who don't think of everything as a monetization opportunity.

Well we have to make sacrifices for the sake of attracting greedy people

I`m sure it's not that horrible, we need to find a balance between content & money.

So far we dont have posts like :  "asdsdgewoiesf" , so it's still tolerable.

How can people learn about Bitcoin if there a thousands of useless posts made only to fulfill a quota?

If they want to learn there are thousands of more summed up videos and tutorial websites on the internet.

This forum is mainly for discussions about already learned stuff. Sure everyone can open up a thread if he got a question but there isnt a full training course on this forum, you learn bit by bit.

There are better and more ethical ways to make money than spamming.

Maybe later on there are, but some people are just gifted with quick fingers and good vocabulary, why dont you think that can be monetized too?

As for ethics,well that is subjective, some people do like it, some dont.

Average persons shouldn't have to deal with this spamming shit.

The average people dont care, neither do i, but for some reason there are a few control-freaks here that want to set policy for everyone without asking them first. The OP is an example of it.

[R2D221]

But also one of the most annoying for people who don't think of everything as a monetization opportunity.

Well we have to make sacrifices for the sake of attracting greedy people

I`m sure it's not that horrible, we need to find a balance between content & money.

So far we dont have posts like :  "asdsdgewoiesf" , so it's still tolerable.

Sacrifices, like lowering the quality of the forum overall? That seems counterproductive to me.

How can people learn about Bitcoin if there a thousands of useless posts made only to fulfill a quota?

If they want to learn there are thousands of more summed up videos and tutorial websites on the internet.

This forum is mainly for discussions about already learned stuff. Sure everyone can open up a thread if he got a question but there isnt a full training course on this forum, you learn bit by bit.

You're contradicting yourself:

This forum is for new members to learn about bitcoin [...]

There are better and more ethical ways to make money than spamming.

Maybe later on there are, but some people are just gifted with quick fingers and good vocabulary, why dont you think that can be monetized too?

As for ethics,well that is subjective, some people do like it, some dont.

Good vocabulary? Have you seriously seen the quality of signature campaign posts?

Average persons shouldn't have to deal with this spamming shit.

The average people dont care, neither do i, but for some reason there are a few control-freaks here that want to set policy for everyone without asking them first. The OP is an example of it.

The average people don't care about issues that affect them every day, but that doesn't mean we should just let them stay in miserable conditions just because they “don't care”.

For example, people don't care about environmental issues. Does that mean the few people that care should continue polluting as it there was no tomorrow?

[Syke]

Check this out. It has made all the difference, and I actually enjoy this forum and find it useful again.  It has nearly eliminated the garbage.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=973843.0

+1

After adding a few people to my ignore list, and disabling all sigs, the forum is so much better!

Sigs are pointless. Just turn them off in your account settings. In fact, sigs should be off by default. If someone wants to turn them back on, that's fine by me.

[thebenjamincode]

well i hope they don't remove this one because this is the only one i got to earn money online
i have tried many things like captcha typing, humanatic, referral, PTC and PPT

but i haven't earned any dollars but instead i just wasted time

the signature campaign is really a big opportunity and a very good sideline
because the benefit of it is really helpful to people like me who only earn $8 a day by working as government employee in my country

so please don't request the moderators to ban it

[TheRealSteve]

Hey, I don't mind the money-earning aspect of it.  If somebody feels that the best way for them to get a few Satoshis on the side, more power to them.  While I think it's a bit of a selfish argument - "don't ban signature campaigns because me me me" - the flip side can be argued to be just as selfish - "ban them because *I* don't like seeing them".  That's why I just use that script to get 'm off my screen.

But aside from seeing them directly, the impact should be clear on posting habits:

( If anybody wants to raise a hand about quantity being irrelevant if the quality is there: you're right - go ahead, read the posts, make up your own mind on that, as that's highly subjective. )

And potential other side effects:

What do I mean is, buy a Sr+ Member account and enroll in Signature campaigns.
That way you are sure that your investment will pay back and make you profit.

how much does a sr. account cost and where can i buy it?

I very much wish that this wasn't completely endemic among signature campaigns, that signature campaigns would be used by people as a reward for quality content that they were already posting anyway or even provided incentive to provide better content - i.e. the payment being the means to an end.  Instead the accumulation of the rewards is largely seen as the end, and posting, account buying, etc. is the means to that end.  That, unfortunately, is something a script can't fix.

[tspacepilot]

One recent development from the dadice people is a chance to earn a reward for reporting spam/low quality posts from their participants.  They've got a form set up here

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12aDTSEdbxwoVSofxj8RdmwPyr8Mf-h6rO2I_VNURkzc/viewform?c=0&w=1

and if someone is causing a problem in a thread by spamming/posting insignificant stuff/disrupting then they want to know and they suggest that they may pay rewards for the report.  I know I wish that other campaigns had this, the coinomat one seems especially pernicious these days---I see lots of low-quality stuff posted with coinomat sponsorship.

Anyway, I think it's related here because it turns the incentive back the other way, allowing people to make money by reporting and cleaning up excessive/useless posting.  If more advertizing campaigns were doing this kind of thing, I think we wouldn't have this many pages on the "delete signatures already" thread.

[CoinCidental]

I personally go out of my way to avoid any company or site that advertises by spamming the forum's as well as ignoring anyone with a paid  signature
If everyone did the same it would be up to the advertiser to police their own spamming campaign
And the forum may be rid of the blight that weighs it down currently....

[RealBitcoin]

Are you guys blind or what? It's just this easy. If you are disturbed by signatures do this, if not then why complain? Let others be free to earn some money

[TheRealSteve]

Are you guys blind or what? It's just this easy. If you are disturbed by signatures do this, if not then why complain? Let others be free to earn some money

You might be; or at the very least you didn't bother to read this thread.  That checkbox has been pointed out several times, the reasons why people may not want to use that checkbox have also been discussed, and hiding (campaign) signatures alone does nothing with regard to the other side effects also discussed before, as recent as 3 posts above yours.

[DannyHamilton]

Are you guys blind or what? It's just this easy. If you are disturbed by signatures do this, if not then why complain? Let others be free to earn some money

No, we aren't blind.  But doing what you suggest would be a HORRIBLE idea.  Right now, the only way I know who is likely to be wasting my time with useless drivel and terrible advice is by looking at their signature.  If they have an ad, then I know to immediately ignore anything they say.  If they don't have an ad, then I know that they aren't being paid for posting nonsense so there's a reasonable chance that they have something worthwhile to say.

If I mark the checkbox that you are suggesting, then how am I going to know who to ignore?

In case you haven't figured it out yet, the problem isn't "seeing the ads".  The problem is that sig ad campaigns create a financial incentive to create multiple accounts and spam the forum with as much useless nonsense as possible in order in increase the revenue of the participant.  This makes it very difficult to find any intelligent conversation in the forum since the noise of the spam drowns out the signal of the intelligent conversation.

[DooMAD]

Right now, the only way I know who is likely to be wasting my time with useless drivel and terrible advice is by looking at their signature.  If they have an ad, then I know to immediately ignore anything they say.  If they don't have an ad, then I know that they aren't being paid for posting nonsense so there's a reasonable chance that they have something worthwhile to say.

In that case, thank you for dismissing everything I've ever said as nonsense without taking the time to read it and decide on merit.   

Perhaps if you think in such absolute terms, it's your opinion that's not worth paying any attention to?  That would be a shame since I normally find your posts quite reasonable.  Good thing I'm not as quick to jump to snap judgements.   

Just because some people spam the boards to get paid, doesn't mean we all do.  I'd be making all the posts I've made, regardless of whether they were paid or not.  If I have nothing worthwhile to contribute, I'll keep it shut.  If you're incapable of seeing that not everything is black and white, while posting about what should be dismissed without consideration based on nothing more than a signature, I'd say that's going to damage your credibility more in the long run than any advertisement would. 

[redsn0w]

Finally I have removed the signature ad, and I think I have done a good thing... now I challenge the other users to do the same .

[tspacepilot]

Right now, the only way I know who is likely to be wasting my time with useless drivel and terrible advice is by looking at their signature.  If they have an ad, then I know to immediately ignore anything they say.  If they don't have an ad, then I know that they aren't being paid for posting nonsense so there's a reasonable chance that they have something worthwhile to say.

In that case, thank you for dismissing everything I've ever said as nonsense without taking the time to read it and decide on merit.   

Perhaps if you think in such absolute terms, it's your opinion that's not worth paying any attention to?  That would be a shame since I normally find your posts quite reasonable.  Good thing I'm not as quick to jump to snap judgements.   

Just because some people spam the boards to get paid, doesn't mean we all do.  I'd be making all the posts I've made, regardless of whether they were paid or not.  If I have nothing worthwhile to contribute, I'll keep it shut.  If you're incapable of seeing that not everything is black and white, while posting about what should be dismissed without consideration based on nothing more than a signature, I'd say that's going to damage your credibility more in the long run than any advertisement would. 

If you're dealing in large quantities you have to start making decisions on mass quantities.  When hundreds of posts with signature ads contain useless drivel and repitions of what was just posted above then I can see how Danny Hamilton and many others decide to look past the sig ads when trying to figure out what to read.  Making pragmatic decisions on strategies about how to get to the interesting part of a thread when someman times up to 90% of it is nonsense is crucial if you are one of the normal human beings living under a finite lifespan constraint.

You can shout at him for it, but for the record, DH continues to provide amazingly detailed and helpful answers to questions in the the technical assistance/discussion boards with regularity.  And he even seems to talk to me despite the fact that (most of the time, recently) I have a sig ad on my posts.

So, I guess you felt it was helpful to shout some kind of "every case is unique" principles at one of the more knowledgeable people on this forum who spends a signficant amount of time answering technical questions, but I'm of the camp that says that not every special snowflake out there has a right to my time and if they make themself ignorable (by posting nonsense, or by blending in with the folks who post nonsense) that's on them.

[DannyHamilton]

- snip -
he even seems to talk to me despite the fact that (most of the time, recently) I have a sig ad on my posts.
- snip -

- snip -
I decided a few months ago to just reflexively click "ignore" on any user that has an advertisement in their signature.  Then, if I happen to see that some other user quotes something an ignored user says AND the quote indicates that the ignored user is creating thoughtful and useful posts, I click "unignore".  As such, my browsing experience here at bitcointalk.org has been DRASTICALLY improved.
- snip -

I've seen enough quality posts from you quoted by others to make the decision to click unignore.  That doesn't mean that I won't re-ignore in the future.  Occasionally I forget who I intentionally unignored, and who I'm seeing for the first time and haven't ignored yet, so users that I choose to un-ignore can at times end up on the ignore list again for a while.  Additionally, if I start seeing a significant increase in senseless posts from someone that I chose to unignore, I'll simply re-ignore them.

- snip -
not every special snowflake out there has a right to my time and if they make themself ignorable (by posting nonsense, or by blending in with the folks who post nonsense) that's on them.

Exactly.

If you want some of the more knowledgeable and experienced users of this forum to pay attention to the things you say, and to provide quality feedback to questions that you have, then you'll want to avoid participating in an activity that rewards people for posting crap.  If you choose to disguise yourself as an annoying spammer, then I'm not going to care when you complain that you are being treated as an annoying spammer.  By choosing to advertise for the sig ad campaign, you are effectively associating yourself with and endorsing their behavior.  Since you've chosen to participate in an activity that provides a financial incentive for you to post excessively, I need to see evidence that you aren't posing excessively before I bother wasting my time on anything you say.

For more details on how I handle this process (and to make use of the ignore list I've already built, so you don't need to waste time building your own), you can click the link in my sig.

[justusranvier]

In case you haven't figured it out yet, the problem isn't "seeing the ads".  The problem is that sig ad campaigns create a financial incentive to create multiple accounts and spam the forum with as much useless nonsense as possible in order in increase the revenue of the participant.  This makes it very difficult to find any intelligent conversation in the forum since the noise of the spam drowns out the signal of the intelligent conversation.

I don't believe any who claims or implies that they do not fully understand this point.

Everybody knows what the real problem is, they just pretend that it's about the signatures instead about the spam posts because that's the only way to pretend they are doing is vaguely defensible.

[TheRealSteve]

Nice additional example of the real problem (with bonus mic drop by Mikestang):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1111823