For one there are still a lot of members eligible for campaigns. I'm not sure on the numbers but this cleaning house might be beneficial to all those who didn't break the rules. There are now more spots available for campaigns, maybe now instead of the "quickest to apply for a job" there will be a longer application period and higher quality - I'd love to have no Sig spam to report but doubt it will get there.
I have no idea how managers earn their wage, but if it has anything to do with just making sure you've filled the spots then that was the issue; not users being banned. So it just means put in some effort and find quality participants. If you think there aren't enough raise the payment to attract members... you now like competition in the market.
ChipMixer campaign even has not opened up a single new slot with ban of cellard. If campaigns expand original ranks from Legendary to Senior member ranks (for example) to lower ranks, like Full member or even Member ranks, there might occur another new trend.
Character assasination aims at higher ranks to dig deeply in the past in order to find their mistakes and report them. Everyone can make mistakes when we are newbies, so if they dig deeply, they might find some. To be honest with you all, I don't think it should be a trend at any odds.
The CM campaign is already over capacity, and has been for a while as they expanded the list to allow for some special applications overtime. They are also a bad example to compare other campaigns with, they are the longest running I believe and most weeks out of the year the highest paying, hence the rank requirements - which earn a flat rate regardless of actual rank.
Most other campaigns do accept as low as member, it's been a while since I've checked. A lot of those campaigns though being poorly managed were bringing these plagiarists and spammers here to earn. Not saying we shouldn't allow lower ranks in but managers need to be more diligent. Like "hilarious" mentions theymos has mentioned "Sigs" could disappear one day, theymos has stated he finds them distasteful. So it's a case of people need to be doing their part to not abuse a system, and ensure we try and ensure the quality of the forum, without forcing Admins to step in with sweeping policy changes.
Sorry, which campaign manager are you again? If you feel like certain people are worthy of hiring then hire them for something else. Plenty of job opportunities here other than merely posting. Honestly, I'm not sure what we can do here because we're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't. We changed the rule to give people a second chance and people are still complaining. Maybe if the people who have sig bans stick around and contribute actively and continue to receive merit then we can consider reducing the sig ban, but the fact that we've even started giving people second chances should be applauded because prior to this it was a death sentence for life. We accepted that was harsh in certain cases and have relaxed the rule. I really wish people just weren't so lazy and entitled that they decided to copy and paste in the first place and then none of this would need to have happened in the first place. People should see signature campaigns as the blessing that they are because there's going to be a whole lot of people who miss them if we ever ban signature campaigns outright and that's certainly always an option and one theymos has considered.
I don't think most people have an issue with this. I'd argue most of the members who receive the reduced punishment, will happily accept this. I'm interested to see how many people do continue to post and remain active, even if it's at a reduced rate, these are the people I want to see stick around. Like you said this was a huge step forward in having a sliding scale of appropriate punishment, what are the odds any of these members would be here at all if they hadn't flown under the radar a few years back.