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

[n2004al]

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.

You are right on some things. For example when you write: "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 are to many threads when you can meet such things.

But you are wrong in having fear from these people. Their never, according to me, enter in threads when the discussion is about questions regarding "cryptographers and programmers and entrepreneurs" which want to "exchange information about Bitcoin".

So it was enough for you to eliminate the "easy" threads which are the preferred ones for that kind of people and you are safe.

Fortunately the forum has to many boards, child boards, and threads. Everyone of those has its content well defined and its name write clearly on it. You choose those which interest to you and if your interest are particular I can assure you that you not find any post with signature campaign there.

The signature campaigns are not the fault and the cause of your problem. Their target are never such boards or child boards for which you talk in your post. Or even if there are people with signature campaign who write in such places I am sure that those understand well those and want to tell their thoughts in those. Which, I think, cannot be crap. If someone dares to write in those, that meaning that he cannot be an crap author. It is another thing if someone spam there. But their posts can be reported and he will banned from the forum.

I think that who have something with the signature campaigns are you. And what is the reason of this ire that it is known only by you.  

[subSTRATA]

Temp banning them is exactly what I've suggested. More temp bans need to be handed out to the users on their campaigns too until they get the message. And being a lazy campaign manager might not be against the rules but but spamming poor quality posts which they encourage is and do nothing to stop. A rule can always be added that if people can't run a campaign effectively then there will be punishments. Regardless, these campaigns are still being a nuicance and nuicance users are usually banned. If a user signed up to this forum and created a thread that said they were going to pay users to post crap all over do you think they wouldn't receive negative feedback or be banned? No difference here really. The signature campaigns like yobit and secondstrade are causing a significant mess and it's unfair on everyone. Signature campaigns could actually improve the post quality of the forum if campaign managers only accepted and paid users who made decent posts and there are some campaigns that do that but it's futile ultimately when the users that don't get accepted or paid for their posts just go to a campaign like yobit and secondstrade that will pay them for any crap they post.

its spelled "nuisance" btw, and that aside, banning the campaign managers, i feel, might be ineffective to some extent; they could use alt accounts to manage campaigns, and they dont even have to be able to post to 'manage' the campaign if they get banned; all they have to do is be able to count posts and punch in numbers to send payouts. i think simply being more stringent on what qualifies as a constructive post might do better; hand out more bans and raise the bar a little bit.

of course, there is also the option of going as far as to ban the campaign entirely by banning any user that wears 'x' campaign's signature, but it would never come to that given the current "rules."

[onemorexmr]

Temp banning them is exactly what I've suggested. More temp bans need to be handed out to the users on their campaigns too until they get the message. And being a lazy campaign manager might not be against the rules but but spamming poor quality posts which they encourage is and do nothing to stop. A rule can always be added that if people can't run a campaign effectively then there will be punishments. Regardless, these campaigns are still being a nuicance and nuicance users are usually banned. If a user signed up to this forum and created a thread that said they were going to pay users to post crap all over do you think they wouldn't receive negative feedback or be banned? No difference here really. The signature campaigns like yobit and secondstrade are causing a significant mess and it's unfair on everyone. Signature campaigns could actually improve the post quality of the forum if campaign managers only accepted and paid users who made decent posts and there are some campaigns that do that but it's futile ultimately when the users that don't get accepted or paid for their posts just go to a campaign like yobit and secondstrade that will pay them for any crap they post.

its spelled "nuisance" btw, and that aside, banning the campaign managers, i feel, might be ineffective to some extent; they could use alt accounts to manage campaigns, and they dont even have to be able to post to 'manage' the campaign if they get banned; all they have to do is be able to count posts and punch in numbers to send payouts. i think simply being more stringent on what qualifies as a constructive post might do better; hand out more bans and raise the bar a little bit.

of course, there is also the option of going as far as to ban the campaign entirely by banning any user that wears 'x' campaign's signature, but it would never come to that given the current "rules."

they cant use alt-account: that would be ban-evading.
but you are right, that they dont need a forum account et al to create and manage a campaign. but IMHO they wont get that much users without forum visibility which might help a bit

[subSTRATA]

Temp banning them is exactly what I've suggested. More temp bans need to be handed out to the users on their campaigns too until they get the message. And being a lazy campaign manager might not be against the rules but but spamming poor quality posts which they encourage is and do nothing to stop. A rule can always be added that if people can't run a campaign effectively then there will be punishments. Regardless, these campaigns are still being a nuicance and nuicance users are usually banned. If a user signed up to this forum and created a thread that said they were going to pay users to post crap all over do you think they wouldn't receive negative feedback or be banned? No difference here really. The signature campaigns like yobit and secondstrade are causing a significant mess and it's unfair on everyone. Signature campaigns could actually improve the post quality of the forum if campaign managers only accepted and paid users who made decent posts and there are some campaigns that do that but it's futile ultimately when the users that don't get accepted or paid for their posts just go to a campaign like yobit and secondstrade that will pay them for any crap they post.

its spelled "nuisance" btw, and that aside, banning the campaign managers, i feel, might be ineffective to some extent; they could use alt accounts to manage campaigns, and they dont even have to be able to post to 'manage' the campaign if they get banned; all they have to do is be able to count posts and punch in numbers to send payouts. i think simply being more stringent on what qualifies as a constructive post might do better; hand out more bans and raise the bar a little bit.

of course, there is also the option of going as far as to ban the campaign entirely by banning any user that wears 'x' campaign's signature, but it would never come to that given the current "rules."

they cant use alt-account: that would be ban-evading.
but you are right, that they dont need a forum account et al to create and manage a campaign. but IMHO they wont get that much users without forum visibility which might help a bit

i meant they could get approval from 'x' service provider to run the campaign, and with the intent to be lazy as fuck, create an alt account or buy a cheap one to manage the campaign, and if they decide to do so, they can use a vpn, whatever to hide the link between the alt and main account. that way, if the campaign was deemed to be poorly managed, the alt account would suffer the ban instead of the manager's main one.

[onemorexmr]

they cant use alt-account: that would be ban-evading.
but you are right, that they dont need a forum account et al to create and manage a campaign. but IMHO they wont get that much users without forum visibility which might help a bit

i meant they could get approval from 'x' service provider to run the campaign, and with the intent to be lazy as fuck, create an alt account or buy a cheap one to manage the campaign, and if they decide to do so, they can use a vpn, whatever to hide the link between the alt and main account. that way, if the campaign was deemed to be poorly managed, the alt account would suffer the ban instead of the manager's main one.

i dont think its that easy for them...
imagine primedice gets banned: i would ban their primary primedice account as well: this would serious affect their business as well.

i know this would be a paradigm shift (treat businesses as a person): but law outside of the forum usually works that way

[subSTRATA]

they cant use alt-account: that would be ban-evading.
but you are right, that they dont need a forum account et al to create and manage a campaign. but IMHO they wont get that much users without forum visibility which might help a bit

i meant they could get approval from 'x' service provider to run the campaign, and with the intent to be lazy as fuck, create an alt account or buy a cheap one to manage the campaign, and if they decide to do so, they can use a vpn, whatever to hide the link between the alt and main account. that way, if the campaign was deemed to be poorly managed, the alt account would suffer the ban instead of the manager's main one.

i dont think its that easy for them...
imagine primedice gets banned: i would ban their primary primedice account as well: this would serious affect their business as well.

i know this would be a paradigm shift (treat businesses as a person): but law outside of the forum usually works that way

i feel that would be quite unfair, to pin the manager's shortcomings on the one running the actual site/service. however, i can also see how that would be incredibly effective, making it the responsibility of service/casino owners to pick effective campaign managers and monitor the post quality of participants from time to time.

[Xialla]

An user of the italian section (Anon39) suggested to prohibit campaign that pay for post, and allowing only campaigns that pay a fixed value every month.
I'm not sure if this is the solution, but it can be a good improvement.
It must be also forbidden to compel the user to write a minimum of posts.

great points. time to time is clearly visible, that some members here are hunting posts "hours before deadline" and this brings negative experience to all members online at this time.

anyway is tricky to set fixed value without minimal post counts..

[botany]

It might be time to bump up the signature restrictions
i.e. New Legendary Signature Restriction = Current Hero Signature Restriction
New Hero Signature Restriction = Current Senior Signature Restriction

I notice a lot of spam from full member accounts.
People might think twice about destroying senior accounts by spamming.
Moreover, it has been quite some time that Legendary position has been introduced, but nothing has changed on the signature restriction front.

[redsn0w]

An user of the italian section (Anon39) suggested to prohibit campaign that pay for post, and allowing only campaigns that pay a fixed value every month.
I'm not sure if this is the solution, but it can be a good improvement.
It must be also forbidden to compel the user to write a minimum of posts.

I really like this idea, why not try it for a month or two ? It won't stop the spam but I am sure it will decrease it.

[hilariousandco]

It might be time to bump up the signature restrictions
i.e. New Legendary Signature Restriction = Current Hero Signature Restriction
New Hero Signature Restriction = Current Senior Signature Restriction

I notice a lot of spam from full member accounts.
People might think twice about destroying senior accounts by spamming.
Moreover, it has been quite some time that Legendary position has been introduced, but nothing has changed on the signature restriction front.

Restrictions in terms of size of signature don't really do much though. Nothing changed when the sig restrictions got put in place other than the amount someone could earn but most of the spam comes from Newbs-Members and they're clearly willing to post shit for dust so they'd do it no matter what. I've suggested removing signatures for lower ranks as a possibility. Maybe remove them for everyone up to Full Members like we do for avatars and I think that would cut down the vast majority of spam but I would rather signature campaign managers just do their job and employ some sort of quality control instead. If campaign managers actually did what they're supposed to and refuse to pay shitposters we wouldnt have this problem.

[jaberwock]

Temp banning them is exactly what I've suggested. More temp bans need to be handed out to the users on their campaigns too until they get the message. And being a lazy campaign manager might not be against the rules but but spamming poor quality posts which they encourage is and do nothing to stop. A rule can always be added that if people can't run a campaign effectively then there will be punishments. Regardless, these campaigns are still being a nuicance and nuicance users are usually banned. If a user signed up to this forum and created a thread that said they were going to pay users to post crap all over do you think they wouldn't receive negative feedback or be banned? No difference here really. The signature campaigns like yobit and secondstrade are causing a significant mess and it's unfair on everyone. Signature campaigns could actually improve the post quality of the forum if campaign managers only accepted and paid users who made decent posts and there are some campaigns that do that but it's futile ultimately when the users that don't get accepted or paid for their posts just go to a campaign like yobit and secondstrade that will pay them for any crap they post.

its spelled "nuisance" btw, and that aside, banning the campaign managers, i feel, might be ineffective to some extent; they could use alt accounts to manage campaigns, and they dont even have to be able to post to 'manage' the campaign if they get banned; all they have to do is be able to count posts and punch in numbers to send payouts. i think simply being more stringent on what qualifies as a constructive post might do better; hand out more bans and raise the bar a little bit.

of course, there is also the option of going as far as to ban the campaign entirely by banning any user that wears 'x' campaign's signature, but it would never come to that given the current "rules."

they cant use alt-account: that would be ban-evading.
but you are right, that they dont need a forum account et al to create and manage a campaign. but IMHO they wont get that much users without forum visibility which might help a bit

i meant they could get approval from 'x' service provider to run the campaign, and with the intent to be lazy as fuck, create an alt account or buy a cheap one to manage the campaign, and if they decide to do so, they can use a vpn, whatever to hide the link between the alt and main account. that way, if the campaign was deemed to be poorly managed, the alt account would suffer the ban instead of the manager's main one.

They would have to reveal the name of the company that the members will have to advertise, so will be easy to find the people behind the the business.

And ban them probably would be bad for BTC economy, just close the campaign and don't let them create another one

[botany]

It might be time to bump up the signature restrictions
i.e. New Legendary Signature Restriction = Current Hero Signature Restriction
New Hero Signature Restriction = Current Senior Signature Restriction

I notice a lot of spam from full member accounts.
People might think twice about destroying senior accounts by spamming.
Moreover, it has been quite some time that Legendary position has been introduced, but nothing has changed on the signature restriction front.

Restrictions in terms of size of signature don't really do much though. Nothing changed when the sig restrictions got put in place other than the amount someone could earn but most of the spam comes from Newbs-Members and they're clearly willing to post shit for dust so they'd do it no matter what. I've suggested removing signatures for lower ranks as a possibility. Maybe remove them for everyone up to Full Members like we do for avatars and I think that would cut down the vast majority of spam but I would rather signature campaign managers just do their job and employ some sort of quality control instead. If campaign managers actually did what they're supposed to and refuse to pay shitposters we wouldnt have this problem.

That is true, but even one or two bad campaign managers can spoil the situation.
I like the idea of removing signatures for lower ranks. It wouldn't be too hard to implement and can be rolled back if unsuccessful.

[Blazed]

This forum needs the signature campaigns to remain so active. I do not think things will change anytime soon due to this. I agree that the managers should do a better job with the useless posters though. I wish all of the campaigns were just flat rate as that would help a lot with the useless posts. I get a flat .5 per month regardless of how much I post (not that I would post more for extra pay though). It is a shame these campaigns do not just work how they should and cause all of this drama. No matter what system is put in place people will abuse it do to the incentives. You have people here that can live off of these campaigns in their part of the world.

[hilariousandco]

It might be time to bump up the signature restrictions
i.e. New Legendary Signature Restriction = Current Hero Signature Restriction
New Hero Signature Restriction = Current Senior Signature Restriction

I notice a lot of spam from full member accounts.
People might think twice about destroying senior accounts by spamming.
Moreover, it has been quite some time that Legendary position has been introduced, but nothing has changed on the signature restriction front.

Restrictions in terms of size of signature don't really do much though. Nothing changed when the sig restrictions got put in place other than the amount someone could earn but most of the spam comes from Newbs-Members and they're clearly willing to post shit for dust so they'd do it no matter what. I've suggested removing signatures for lower ranks as a possibility. Maybe remove them for everyone up to Full Members like we do for avatars and I think that would cut down the vast majority of spam but I would rather signature campaign managers just do their job and employ some sort of quality control instead. If campaign managers actually did what they're supposed to and refuse to pay shitposters we wouldnt have this problem.

That is true, but even one or two bad campaign managers can spoil the situation.

Exactly and this is what's so frustrating. It's a small number of campaigns who are being lazy and are not willing to actually manage their users that are causing the most damage and spoiling it for everyone and that's why something needs to be done about them because they clearly have no interest in managing their campaigns and will continue to pay users to shitpost for dust no matter what. It's ultimately futile even with the good campaigns that are well managed and do what they're supposed to and kick people off because those users just immediately join one of the campaigns that will have them and their posts get worse day after day when they realise they can post anything any get paid for it.

[jaberwock]

This forum needs the signature campaigns to remain so active. I do not think things will change anytime soon due to this. I agree that the managers should do a better job with the useless posters though. I wish all of the campaigns were just flat rate as that would help a lot with the useless posts. I get a flat .5 per month regardless of how much I post (not that I would post more for extra pay though). It is a shame these campaigns do not just work how they should and cause all of this drama. No matter what system is put in place people will abuse it do to the incentives. You have people here that can live off of these campaigns in their part of the world.

Then people with alts will just use them in several campaigns, or people will just buy accounts to be able to post as much as before.

I think the best is ban the signature campaign if it generates too much spam, and only allow them to return if they prove they would not allow spammers

[Athertle]

I think the best is ban the signature campaign if it generates too much spam, and only allow them to return if they prove they would not allow spammers

I'm pretty sure that, just like the forum doesn't ban obvious scammers, they wouldn't ban signature campaigns. They can operate their business here as they would like to and we can't really enforce how they do it.

[hilariousandco]

This forum needs the signature campaigns to remain so active. I do not think things will change anytime soon due to this. I agree that the managers should do a better job with the useless posters though. I wish all of the campaigns were just flat rate as that would help a lot with the useless posts. I get a flat .5 per month regardless of how much I post (not that I would post more for extra pay though). It is a shame these campaigns do not just work how they should and cause all of this drama. No matter what system is put in place people will abuse it do to the incentives. You have people here that can live off of these campaigns in their part of the world.

Then people with alts will just use them in several campaigns, or people will just buy accounts to be able to post as much as before.

I think the best is ban the signature campaign if it generates too much spam, and only allow them to return if they prove they would not allow spammers

It doesn't matter how many alts someone may or may not have but the quality of posts that comes from them. I'd rather have one person with ten alts making excellent posts than one user making ten shitposts.

I think the best is ban the signature campaign if it generates too much spam, and only allow them to return if they prove they would not allow spammers

I'm pretty sure that, just like the forum doesn't ban obvious scammers, they wouldn't ban signature campaigns. They can operate their business here as they would like to and we can't really enforce how they do it.

We might not ban scammers but we ban spammers and lazy signature campaign managers should be treated the same in my opinion as they're the ones essentially causing it. Some punishment needs to be handed to them otherwise nothing is going to change.

[mashcom]

Remove the signature users.

[Sir_lagsalot]

I'm kinda sad that people have these opinions. There are quite a few sig ignoring extensions that you can use. Dont be selfish, this is a small source of income for alot of people.

[subSTRATA]

I think the best is ban the signature campaign if it generates too much spam, and only allow them to return if they prove they would not allow spammers

I'm pretty sure that, just like the forum doesn't ban obvious scammers, they wouldn't ban signature campaigns. They can operate their business here as they would like to and we can't really enforce how they do it.

not to mention that sig campaigns more or less drive the forum forward in terms of posts; if they were to be disallowed i think we could all agree that the number of posts would shrink substantially.

We might not ban scammers but we ban spammers and lazy signature campaign managers should be treated the same in my opinion as they're the ones essentially causing it. Some punishment needs to be handed to them otherwise nothing is going to change.

id say theyre more or less enablng the spammers, but the distinction aside, theyre part of the problem regardless.