Signature changes

[innocent93]

In person, I support BadBear. But I do think signature is really a wonderful thing which is allow users to degsin their own signature and show it to everyone, Cutting signature might be a good idea but I will be happy if you save the color and the font.

Also, how about a rule for all signature campaigns? Limited posts count? Lower rate? etc....

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[redsn0w]

I (also) agree with the BadBear's idea, it will be useful to disable the view of an ad (with the use of some specific words). In these days a lot of users have been banned so I think this feature should be implemented as soon as possible (will it be difficult to add in this forum software?).

[abyrnes81]

Cut from this post  : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=291387.msg10740213#msg10740213

I think that conditions and rates will continue to change in response to a number of variables but I don't think that signature ad campaigns are going away anytime soon---they've just been proven to be too useful for advertizers.

You are right, the signature campaigns are valid only for the site itself but not for the forum due the enormous quantity of spammers and "insubstantial" users.

I want to ask you. Have you seen some other 'big' internet forums? Like really big ones? I am not counting reddit because of its structure but it is a good example as well. Every time I checked every other forum than bitcointalk in the past there was a spam, and plenty of it everywhere. You think that signature campaign are creating more spam? I do not think so. People are willing to post idiotic and useless posts on other forums without being paid for it.
It is just human nature and you can't win against spam no matter what.

A lot of people are thinking that the signature campaigns generate more spam, I understand it is not a 100% fault of the sig. campaign itself but Have you seen how much users were banned in these days?

[theymos]

Yeah, there should probably be an "ignore signature" button near each signature. I've thought about doing this with SMF, but I don't know how I would structure the HTML so that the ignore button is non-intrusive and doesn't mess up everyone's signature.

The ignore data could be used to auto-ignore signatures that are commonly ignored (as an option). Maybe using Bayesian filtering.

[hilariousandco]

Yeah, there should probably be an "ignore signature" button near each signature. I've thought about doing this with SMF, but I don't know how I would structure the HTML so that the ignore button is non-intrusive and doesn't mess up everyone's signature.

The ignore data could be used to auto-ignore signatures that are commonly ignored (as an option). Maybe using Bayesian filtering.

Could you not put it on the left directly opposite the report to mod button? I'm not sure how or how well the auto-ignore will work though as certain peeps will just choose to ignore any signatures regardless of how annoying the individual ones may or may not be. Glad to see options and solutions being proposed though.

[onemorexmr]

i'd love to see sigads removed.
but how would you detect them?

e.g. mine is an ad for xmr
cyiam has an ad for himself

^ do you consider this as advertising also?

[hilariousandco]

That's why we're proposing users being able to individually ignore what signatures they want.

[girlbtc.com]

signature  advs  are everywhere,  which make  the  users tired.

I think we should make the signature simple ,such as at most two lines ,with only one colur,bla bla bla

if we let users be able to ignore signature themself, it is not fair for the signature provider.at least they need a show chance.

[girlbtc.com]

I am newer here ,and I found a lot of signature campaign run like this " you must post at least xxxxposts"

I think it is the main reason of spam.

Can we limite it ?

[dserrano5]

FWIW I support this idea and would be very comfortable with a simple filter that stripped font sizes/bold/colours. It's the big fonts and aggresive colouring what distracts me most, not the actual contents of the ad. Some ads are even cleverly designed so the simple fact of reading the post above makes the signature stand out, taking advantage of some known tricks regarding optical illusions and the like. They are usually black patterns over the whitish background.

Re: the placement of an hypothetic "Ignore signature" link, I'm thinking just besides the report one, ie "Report to moderator | Ignore signature".

[tspacepilot]

I'm not terribly opposed to this idea (and I know my opinion isn't really worth much anyway).  But the part that I don't understand is expressed here:

But then: The big annoyance are meaningless posts, not the ad below it (in my opinion). So I don't think this would
bring a great relief..

Don't you just want to ignore completely the posts of the spammer or useless poster?  Why not just use the ignore button that already exists?

If the idea is that you might simply dislike the look/feel of a particular sig-ad then I guess this is the right solution.  If the idea is to fight meaningless posts then I think that this doesn't really address the problem.

[Grand_Voyageur]

I'm not terribly opposed to this idea (and I know my opinion isn't really worth much anyway).  But the part that I don't understand is expressed here:

But then: The big annoyance are meaningless posts, not the ad below it (in my opinion). So I don't think this would
bring a great relief..

Don't you just want to ignore completely the posts of the spammer or useless poster?  Why not just use the ignore button that already exists?

If the idea is that you might simply dislike the look/feel of a particular sig-ad then I guess this is the right solution.  If the idea is to fight meaningless posts then I think that this doesn't really address the problem.

+1. I really agree with you. I already make use of the Ignore user link when having to deal to shit/spam posters, so I don't feel such an urge of a new tool to disable signature. I think Quickseller may have a point in asking for a having banned people signature removed to avoid sig campaigns payment to spammers; however, i also hope campaign managers to donate banned spammers earnings to initiatives like the one from MZ aimed at reporting spam posts & educating people about forum rules.  

[BitcoinFr34k]

I do see what you're getting at in that less pay=more spam as people try to make up for it, but more spam would just make them easier to catch. As it is, the signature campaigns just get the most garish ads they can find, throw money at it, and ignore spammers because they know people don't really have a choice. If people have the ability to turn off the ads, then they would have to work smarter. Have ads that are pleasing and not too distracting, have good posters in their campaign, and to not go overboard with how many users you have with it, and have a good rapport with the users of the forum (if you see the same ad 20x in a row on the same page you are much more likely to block it, especially if it's loud and annoying).
 

Have you thought about signature advert designs having to be approved by the admin's first? Maybe too colourful/garish ones are not allowed? Personally I don't mind most of them and think they look ok except maybe the multicoloured rainbow ones that are obviously designed to just be eye-catching but I think a well-designed/professional-looking one is actually more effective than those.

I am pretty sure this would essentially amount to censorship. Anytime you are going to require that someone get what they want to say 'pre-approved' by some third party, there is going to be the possibility (some may argue probability) of abuse.

And what if someone wanted to put something on their signature that was damaging/embarrassing to one specific admin, and that particular admin happened to be the one who had to approve/deny the use of such signature. There is no appropriate response the admin could give to the requestor - remember it is possible that the ad could otherwise break the rules (granted the admin could decline to make a decision and pass the decision to someone else who would not be affected by the signature message)

[HostFat]

Another option among the others can be: "show signature just one time for page"

[mishax1]

Another option among the others can be: "show signature just one time for page"

Check out this page, we have 4 signatures, 6 if counting the changed format.   Which one should be shown ?

[BadBear]

i'd love to see sigads removed.
but how would you detect them?

e.g. mine is an ad for xmr
cyiam has an ad for himself

^ do you consider this as advertising also?

There are lots of ways to filter signatures. While it would be possible to alter just to get around it, just make it a bannable offense, same as bypassing certain url filters. There's a difference in having an ad, and intentionally bypassing forum enforced filtering to avoid it.

And like was said, the proposals would allow the user to make that choice.

I do see what you're getting at in that less pay=more spam as people try to make up for it, but more spam would just make them easier to catch. As it is, the signature campaigns just get the most garish ads they can find, throw money at it, and ignore spammers because they know people don't really have a choice. If people have the ability to turn off the ads, then they would have to work smarter. Have ads that are pleasing and not too distracting, have good posters in their campaign, and to not go overboard with how many users you have with it, and have a good rapport with the users of the forum (if you see the same ad 20x in a row on the same page you are much more likely to block it, especially if it's loud and annoying).
 

Have you thought about signature advert designs having to be approved by the admin's first? Maybe too colourful/garish ones are not allowed? Personally I don't mind most of them and think they look ok except maybe the multicoloured rainbow ones that are obviously designed to just be eye-catching but I think a well-designed/professional-looking one is actually more effective than those.

I'd rather this be implemented than us trying to control it.

Yeah, there should probably be an "ignore signature" button near each signature. I've thought about doing this with SMF, but I don't know how I would structure the HTML so that the ignore button is non-intrusive and doesn't mess up everyone's signature.

The ignore data could be used to auto-ignore signatures that are commonly ignored (as an option). Maybe using Bayesian filtering.

Could you not put it on the left directly opposite the report to mod button? I'm not sure how or how well the auto-ignore will work though as certain peeps will just choose to ignore any signatures regardless of how annoying the individual ones may or may not be. Glad to see options and solutions being proposed though.

It's new ground so it will take some tweaking but I'm sure it will work out in the end. Auto ignore is a good idea. However it's implemented, a lot won't realize how it works or how they can use it, much like the trust system.

[EternalWingsofGod]

Posted this elsewhere, figured I should post it here.


I'm pushing for a way to easily disable signature advertising on a per user basis, it would be a setting in your profile you could set yourself. Either filter them by keywords or regex, disable special characters and formatting to make signatures less obnoxious, or something similar.

If one can disable forum ads, one should be able to disable sig ads as well. Since signature ads are so much more prolific it only makes sense. Shouldn't have to disable signatures entirely just because because of ads, users should have the choice. Signature advertising would still be possible, just less effective, and would cut down on the spam without so many users needing to be moderated/banned.

It would also mean sig campaigns would need to be much more responsible. If your campaign has lots of spammers in it that you are not controlling, then people are going to block your ads. If your ad is obnoxious, people will block it.

Interesting proposal, well considering that forum ads are blockable by Hero Members the same extension could be applied to the signature slots in the bottom of our posts.

That said the question remains is it worth implementing this feature this late into the forums shelflife, in theory we are due to migrate to the new forum sometime in the year so who would put in the time and effort to code this into the current SMF software.
(Edit, I presumed it was for the SMF forum not new forum software presumptions below were based on SMF)
 
I think it would be a neat idea to customize it but not sure if it would create to much bloat, if I recall correctly Theymos never got around to fixing the IGNORE button on each persons user list, the signature campaign block would likely use the same type of code in order to create customized listings of blocked advertisments for each user.

In summary it seems a bit difficult to implement as the forum is presently, but may work in the new forum software, any rough estimates at how much time it would take to code the function (Wangbus)

[Amph]

i'm actually not against this, sometime those sign occupy too much space and make the reading too confusing

[HostFat]

Check out this page, we have 4 signatures, 6 if counting the changed format.   Which one should be shown ?

Everyone, but just one time.
So if you post two messages on the same page, your signature will be visible only one time, at your first message.
As I said, it should be just "Another option among the others".

[hilariousandco]

Have you thought about signature advert designs having to be approved by the admin's first? Maybe too colourful/garish ones are not allowed? Personally I don't mind most of them and think they look ok except maybe the multicoloured rainbow ones that are obviously designed to just be eye-catching but I think a well-designed/professional-looking one is actually more effective than those.

I am pretty sure this would essentially amount to censorship. Anytime you are going to require that someone get what they want to say 'pre-approved' by some third party, there is going to be the possibility (some may argue probability) of abuse.

It wouldn't. They're not 'saying' anything so there's nothing to censor. I'd rather the designs not be pre-approved and users given the choice of what to ignore but I'm just proposing the option to get the design pre-approved beforehand if the signatures become too much of an eyesore with flashy designs.

And what if someone wanted to put something on their signature that was damaging/embarrassing to one specific admin, and that particular admin happened to be the one who had to approve/deny the use of such signature. There is no appropriate response the admin could give to the requestor - remember it is possible that the ad could otherwise break the rules (granted the admin could decline to make a decision and pass the decision to someone else who would not be affected by the signature message)

People could/can put whatever they wanted in their signature without interference from staff. You could/can put hilariousandco/BadBear/theymos is a cunt if you wanted and I doubt anyone would care nor would it be removed. Admins can already ban people anyway so merely having signature designs pre-approved first isn't a big deal and there are rules here that users have to follow anyway and if this was implemented it would just be another rule. I'm also sure the bigger 'censorship' issue (though not really) would be to remove signatures altogether which will probably happen if there's no other workable compromise found.