Topic: I wonder if the forum would be much better without signatue campaigns (Read 1003 times)

It is very easy to assume that signature campaign is the the only motivation that makes members stay committed In the forum, but I personally do not think so. The only thing which has made members committed here is simply 'passion'. It is the love people have for cryptocurrency that has made many remain here giving and receiving information that relates to crypto, especially Bitcoin.  Those who do not have this love for crypto cannot last long here. All those who joined the forum just to earn from signature campaigns and lacked this passion for the forum activities all left the forum because they were struggling so hard to meet up.

Signature campaigns is very necessary to compensate all those who have been committed in the forum. The merit system and forum penalties for offenses is already enough to fish out all those who are not contributing to the forum because its either they never get promoted to the next rank or they are banned from the forum.

I can say a lot on that subject both on what I think about Wasabi and especially their forum representative who is active here on Bitcointalk, but this isn't the place to do that, so I am not going to. Check out his reputation to see the tip of the iceberg. Wasabi should be discussed in the Wallet section and the reputation section if it's a topic fitting for that, but not here. Let's keep it on topic.   

Absolutely not. I just have my own opinion. I am not better then anyone else and nobody is better then me, we are just different.
You have right to use the forum how you want, do what you want and promote what you want and I don't care, if you earn some money and that helps you in life. I am cheering for you!
I just have experience in the gambling section and trading section that users post's without or very little knowledge and I stand up for that opinion.
But we discuss and that's good and what a forum is for.   But please don't say what I do or not, but please be free to share your opinion.

Have a great 2024. and it's OK you can think whatever you want about me. I will stand up for your right to have your opinion even if it is that I am little hypocritical, I will wake up tomorrow anyway, in the end all for for freedom!

Wasabi wallet, Is that a good and safe wallet and the team behind are them good people with the right on the heart place? And is it something you feel proud to promote or is it just for the cash? (Serious asking)
I wonder who is a little hypocritical, you cant even stand up for what you promoting. But I hope it's worth the money!

You look down on those who have no understanding of a different opinion, and you are the first to put yourself and your opinion before everyone else. Seems a little hypocritical.

About signature advertising. I remember some earlier days when some (later turned into serious ones) brands started from here, and one of the first steps was to start advertising through a signature campaign. Don't look only from the point of view of those who will spam the forum for a few dollars, try to see the wider picture.

There is no guarantee that the forum would be of better quality without a signature, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be. Some of the quality posters would reduce their activity or leave the forum because there is no possibility of earning, by reducing the activity, a good part of the quality posters would also go to other places where the discussion is more active, and you can guess where it leads. As for spam, it will not necessarily be significantly less, because spammers will still want to leave referral links or backlinks or whatever to improve SEO for their site.
Quality moderators will leave with a decline in activity, which will enable SEO spam to survive. The most common scenario of many once-large forums that are now on the edge of the margin

Otherwise, you have the option to turn off the visibility of the signature, if it annoys you so much.

After a while of watching, this forum would be 100 times better without this shitty sign campaigns, the most users just reply shit to get a buck or two and nothing wrong in that since 99% here don't have a income outside this forum so they should go on meanwhile they can because soon this will come to and end I am pretty sure of, and all this gambling shit and people promote and at the same time they pretend to be pro's on gambling because they promote it please just stop, your fooling others with your lack of knowledge. The replies I seen is scary and nothing else then scams to the OP even if the intentions is good. "Speech is silver silence is gold"

IMO rather 90% less traffic and with epic quality then useless quantity. But I guess money speaks stronger then everything else.
With it said, you can find very good things here and  get help with things you wish to, but I think many people agree but are to afraid to speak up about it.
Anyway now it it was it is and just lets make the best of it, lucky for some of us the life is outside this dark web.  

Keep strong, Keep grinding. Believe in yourself & Don't take other words for granted. You can more then you think!

---

Lucky I don't need to choose anything and I got a life outside internet so this one works well for me but to ask the question is not wrong opposite since it started a discussion what a forum should do.
Sadly many people have hard to discuss with people that have different opinions here. 
But thank you for the advice's and freedom exist wherever you go if you choose to see it!   


And the world would be better without war and unfairness.

The forum would be a nice place without signature campaigns but it's not going to be more because the traffic would reduce drastically. Many people keep coming here because they have a signature to attend to here and make complete their weekly posts. Earning money here had been quite helping every individuals here to earn at the same time leaning. This forum had been a great one for each and everyone of us that is why the forum will keep having more participants as time goes on. It is true that there are people leaving but more are still going ranking up gradually.

In fact, you are right that if there is no signature campaign on the forum, the current traffic of the forum will decrease a large percentages from this traffic. Because no matter how much people or all of us say money is not everything, but money is everything in the world. If you see, all the activities of the world are for this money. It is true that those who are legit members will remain active but their activity will also be reduced to a large extent.
And if you want to see the real proof of this, then check the traffic of altcointalk forum a few days ago and now check the traffic after the mixer's campaign has been transferred there, you will understand by yourself.
However, from my personal view, it depends on the campaign manager whether the signature campaign will generate spam posts on the forum or reduce the spam posts on the forum. If the campaign manager strictly fulfills his duties and is anti-spammer then the signature campaign will reduce the spam on the forum. Because then for staying on the campaign the campaign participants will drop spam posts in the campaign.

Lemme give it to you the way it is -- The forum won't be better without signature campaigns, unless you're tryna assume that signature campaigns weren't even in existence before now... But then, the awareness of placing a casino on advert in here was already created and there's no way that would be erased so easily...

---

signatures have created an awareness that would nearly be impossible for another form of promotion to create... I got in here already just to realize that we've got a YouTube channel, that hasn't referred up to atleast 30% of newly registered accounts, IMHO.

Sandra 🧑‍🦰

Subscription campaigns are, of course, good - additional income, etc. However, on the other hand, some people write purely for the subscription, making it difficult to find genuinely valuable information. Most write their 10-15 comments a week and forget. For example, when I search for information, I sometimes come across comments that are unrelated to the topic. I'm not blaming anyone because I'm guilty of it myself, but it can be challenging to find the necessary information among low-quality posts.

I think the opposite actually. No doubt, the signature campaigns spam amount to 90%+ spam on the forum. But there is no denying that if the signature campaigns are not in place, there would be no incentive for people to post valuable stuff since they dont get rewarded for their efforts directly or indirectly.

I remember TBN in past and how people would post leaks, tricks, etc because they would get badges that would then get them access into deeper sections of the forum where more such stuff is shared.

Similarly, if you post good content on here, you get placement into higher paying signature campaigns and subsequently rewarding you for the efforts. I have seen how forums die and only reason BTCT isn't dead is because of the insane amount of money earned/spent on the signature campaigns.

This is an odd way to quote someone and without context, no one would have an idea what I was talking about. Best to link the reply, or part of the reply you're referring to.

Removing signatures would not results in more quality topics and replies, it would be an overall drop you in almost every metric, a lot of that would be spam posts, but we would also lose a lot of quality posts and quality posters. This doesn't mean that they are here simply for the reward, but it most likely keeps most of the members more active, and sharing quality content.

I had joined other forums too, and not for the money, and I still visit them from time to time, but I'm not as active as in this one, obviously.

Maybe I'm a little biased by what I saw happen on the poker forums. As soon as the profitability started to go down the traffic went down, and in the biggests ones like 2+2 there is still some traffic but there are others that are a pity.

Let me put it this way: if there's a forum that I like and where I can earn money, I may actually join. But I may join a forum I like without the money anyway (and I've done that many times).

In case the signature campaigns are banned, then it will reduce a lot of traffic on the forum and only those people who are interested to know or write about something, will post. Many a times, someone has good knowledge or information to post, but he won't do it or be lazy about it when he think he's not getting paid or anything. You can check the people's profile and see how much they post when they are in the signature campaign and their number of posts when they are not in any campaigns, and you will know the difference quite clearly.



If we want to eliminate the market of account buying and selling, why not address the problem and not ban everything so that account buy sell is prohibited. Also i think the accounts which are known to be bought are already being tagged and merit system has also limited the account farming activity. this is how you address problems and not close down something that is useful. Yes, Signature campaigns are useful for the forum, for those projects too who are marketing and also useful for those who are engaged in the signature campaigns.

Definitely this forum would be better without signature campaigns, I do think so too even if I'm wearing one right now because it is kind of problematic even if @Upgrade00's saying is that we're doing good and it's all a balance, I'd really want more quality topics and replies being posted here rather than a balance. With signature campaigns gone, it would also eliminate the market of account sellers and buyers that are good for nothing lowlifes that wants to cheat the system, that's the power that will be granted when that happens and the only downside is that there's probably about 50 to 60 percent decrease in activity in the forum since it's just a normal forum now but I can be wrong as there's a lot of people here that have bonded over in threads and discussions that would probably still continue talking.

Well, in this case I think you are the exception that proves the rule. And in any case, I think that those who like you did not know that you could earn money here when you register, once they are monetizing the account, yes they would change forum if what they earn writing makes a difference in their life (gives them to live in poor countries or is a significant extra income in countries not so poor).

Besides, this is not just any forum, it is a money forum, an e-money forum, so don't be surprised if people give importance to earning money and leave to another one if circumstances change. It is not a forum about gardening.

You've just pointed out the bad things about a few forum posters without looking at the good side by having to look at the contribution of some of the best posters wearing signatures, if you think that the posts of the members wearing signatures are spam you can hit the report button.
I would like to ask you if you are good at something, which would you prefer getting incentivized for doing it or getting nothing for doing it?

The forum has thrived for years without signature campaigns, and it will continue to thrive; the use of the word "die" is an exaggeration.

That being said, forum activity will indeed be affected. Think of the forum as the final blend of several ingredients, including:

-Content
-Signature Campaigns
-Marketplace
-Bored individuals
-People eager to learn
-Individuals showcasing their knowledge
-Boosting self-esteem through ranking up or earning merit

These ingredients contribute to the overall forum experience. When you add, reduce, or remove any ingredient, the forum's overall dynamics are certain to change. The perception of whether the forum has changed for the better or worse depends on individual views.

Personally, I believe signature campaigns are a vital component of the forum's overall performance, especially for high-quality members. If someone excels in a particular area, they may prefer not to contribute for free. Instead of starting their own blog or YouTube channel, they might choose to share their expertise here. Without the incentive of earning something for their valuable contributions, the forum risks losing not only traffic but also valuable content.

We almost all have conflict of interest in this one, but I'll try to express my opinion as much objectively as possible.

Would there be less spam without sig. campaigns? Yes. No doubt. The reason there are over 5000 posts everyday is because of money. But, in my opinion, it has incentivized dozens of reputable members to see this similar as to a StackExchange freelancing job. If a newbie makes a question in the technical boards, there will be discussion; substantial discussion.

The answer to this question is determined by which of the above you give priority. If you believe that a more active StackExchange inside the forum is not worth the spam, then you can check how the forum was prior 2014, and see if it was better. In my opinion, it wasn't, and the overall post quality was poor.

I just made a glance through the thread and read diverse conflicting statements, but the bitter truth of the fact is that this forum got the prestige, reputation and traffic it has today from its ability to give user the privilege to earn a few dollar while contributing to forum discussion, which grew as time went on, and today its sure of steady over 1million+ monthly website visits. Hence, in essence what I'm trying to say is that the signature campaign organized here gave users the ability to be able to make lots of researches, created contents and spent more time on the forum than physical, which if that is taken away, it will drastically affect the growth dynamics of bitcointalk as a forum.

So, in conclusion, I agree with what "Poker Player" said as "Traffic goes where the money goes", as traffic is indeed the online money

More commonly - Money goes where the traffic is.

If the money is what brings the traffic in it is more difficult to sustain and purely incentivized contents has its cons. This is not highlighting altcointalks or any other forum out there, Bitcointalk has been successful cause it built organic traffic which was then monetized at a sustainable rate leading to what we have today, flip the cycle and it attracts more spam than actual content.

- Jay -

A ban of signature campaigns would drastically bring down the activity numbers. Bitcoin enthusiasts would still be around to discuss what's on their mind, but it would be in much smaller quantities than we have now. Get rid of the bounty section as well and Bitcointalk would look like an abandoned forum with perhaps 50-100 regular users. It would be great to battle spam, but bad for every other metric used to determine the value of a discussion forum.

I know I'm not the average forum user But I also know I wouldn't join a forum just to earn money. When I joined Bitcointalk I didn't even know signature campaigns exist.

In this scenario there's a bigger problem: Bitcointalk's mission is "to be as free as possible". If the forum loses more and more of it's freedom, it may be time to move on to a place that's closer to this mission again.

It sounds funny to my hearing well most time just like what OP said people say a lot on this forum to have the full audience attention, I think this is what OP wants for him self to be notice, I bet you guys after OP have hit full membership with rush he will go find him self a better signature campaign to join in no time.
So back to topic freedom to advertise in signature campaign should be the most important thing on the forum for example I was once a altcoin forum members in the forum one do not have the rights and freedom of signature campaign post some time when I see people posting shit post I just smile because this forum have better advantages to learn and to earn
For me l happily live here on this forum to enjoy my self

You are on point and it's really cool to call a spade a spade. No need to beat a out the bush. Signature campaigns add a certain flavor to the forum and gives one the push to even visit the forum. Granted, you could get a lot of knowledge about Bitcoin from here but when you're in a campaign, honestly it becomes more interesting to pay attention to what information is being passed and it would cause you to make your own research so you could contribute meaningfully.( Not like you don't contribute meaningfully when you aren't in a campaign tho). I dunno if it's just me tho, but there's this feeling I get when wearing an avatar. It's like I'm part of something big.
 For me, the sig campaigns are like incentive for individuals to come here and although there'd still be traffic if sig campaigns gets scrapped, it won't be compared to when there is.

Yes, but what is also realistic is that for people who gets paid more moderate amounts, to go to another forum.

The thing can start like this: someone gets paid $100 a week here for 25 posts and they get an opportunity to get paid $50 on another forum for writing another 25 posts. Suddenly, the campaign here ends or is put on hold. Traffic on that forum increases, more advertisers come and pay more for the campaigns, now paying $70 a week. After a while, and following the hypothesis of this thread, a total restriction on paid clickable signatures on this forum is announced.

What would happen?

It is clear to most of us. Traffic goes where the money goes.

Being probably the highest paid on this forum and having a lot of threads that you update once a week I think you are so invested in this forum that you have a blind spot on this subject (as a psychological term). With all due respect I say this to you.

Initially, I heard it was a pure learning culture here and sharing what you know about Bitcoin. It was raw and selfless with no financial benefits for the users and I believe there would be ads on the forum by them which would only earn the forum money.

But later, I guess, the admin in his/their wisdom tried to make the users that keep the forum active also earn and get more encouraged, and this must have birthed the signature campaign which this forum is probably the first to do such a thing. However, the success of this caused more people to join the forum, and it can't be a lie if one says that it is mostly because of the money involved that made most people join.

Regardless, it added traffic, which is the main thing. But if the signature campaign is removed, well, I envisage almost every user would down tools. You can start judging by the removal of m!xers campaign from here. You see people getting angry and looking for any alternative they can find.

I think campaign managers, especially those who have been doing this shit for years now like Hhampuz and Yahoo's got all their ducks in a row when it comes to campaign management. I see campaign managers here being very diligent about keeping the quality of their members' posts in tippy-top shape, so I don't even get why the need to reiterate this even exists, and don't get me wrong, I know they need to hear this, but it's not like they don't do it or are not planning to do it anyway.

What we should really look into are the posts of newbies here, prime example being that one clown who literally created an account to post a single message in this thread. Most of the newbies that I see here either create subpar posts that don't contribute anything to the discussion nor to the overall health of the forum, and even if they do, we run the chances of them getting it from good old ChatGPT or from an article they plagiarized somewhere in the internet.

If we wanna bust the shitposters here, I think you'd find little luck looking for them in established campaigns like those handled by the aforementioned Hhampuz and Yahoo, look for the posts made by newbies here and you'd realize just how doo-doo their post qualities are lol and I'd promise you that the perception about signature campaigns being the main source of shitpost here in the forum's gonna be dispelled rather quickly.

Yes - signature campaigns should must stay, but signature campaign operators may need to increase their awareness of enforcing these guidelines: Signature Campaign Guidelines

I know that LoyceV has said this before me on the first page - but campaign managers also have a responsibility to reduce spam from participants. The above guidance explain many of the responsibilities of a campaign manager or operator in running a signature campaign - so therefore may require improvements in implementation.

Would the forum be a better place?

In terms of post quality... maybe... and that's still a big maybe because people won't be so eager to post if they don't get paid. They will find some other activity which pays them. It could be freelancing, trading, getting an actual job... Since most people make posts to get paid, they won't make posts when they don't get paid.

We can see this behavior on the users who teleported their accounts to shitcointalk.com

---

Research:

When people stop posting, spam or not, 90% of the activity will be gone. And the remaining 10% won't be 100% good quality posts.

Let's say the forum currently has 100 activity now but only 40% of that 100 is good. That's 40 good quality posts.

When the activity drops to 10, and the quality percentage raises to 80%, That's 8 good quality posts.

---

Conclusion:

Sig camps must stay.

-

mindrust, math PhD  

That's true mate, the forum is very much field with reliable knowledge and most of it is fuel by the purpose of having signature campaigns especially when it comes to signature campaigns about CEX , DEX, and so many Bitcoin related software campaigns, I mean people tend to learn really educative stuffs from about these services and also their are some good boards and good people that still hold and contributive proactively here in the community and most of them are signature campaign promoted so signature campaigns is a plus to the community here.

Let's be realistic: that's not going to happen.

And even for much smaller amounts: if it would be possible for any random forum on the planet to get more users by having them advertise on their own, thousands of forums would have done it by now.

I think you are self-deluding here.

For starters you don't know the intention with which he has registered, but I doubt very much that it is just to say that. He may have registered to build up that account and monetize it, it may even be an alt account of someone who already has a monetized account here.

On the other hand, I would like to see if you would still say the same if you were banned to wear a signature here, but especially if avatars were banned, so your income in this forum would be 0, and you would have the possibility to get paid 0.015 Bitcoins a week in another forum just for the avatar plus another amount for the signature, plus another amount for an alt account used from the mobile.

It's not that I don't believe that you would stay in this forum because of how cool it is and because it's the one created by Satoshi without leaving, I don't think anyone on the forum who stops for a moment to analyze the situation rationally believes it either.

It reminds me a lot of the situation on Martha's Vineyard, an island of billionaires and supposed sanctuary for immigrants, that when they were sent 50 immigrants from Florida, they didn't even keep them there for 24 hours.

Bitcointalk is different from other discussion forum, so don't expect Bitcointalk to die just because the signature campaign is stopped. The bitcointalk forum will stay alive and have quality posters and most of them are users who don't care about signature campaign. After all, without a signature campaign, the average user's posting activity will decrease drastically and they will only be active to discuss something they consider important.

I'm just sure if in the end signature campaign's stopped in this forum, that anyone whose only goal is to make money from posting on the bitcointalk forum especially from signature campaign will leave and become inactive. Signature campaigns are a way for forum to incentivize their contributors, so admins probably won't stopped them.

My views are quite different from yours. Without signature campaigns, I guess the whole forum members might not be this eager and well interested to post, simply because members are not paid anymore from their hard works and sleepless nights just to have quality posts. And for obvious reason, we will only see less quality posts but more likely spams and low content posts.

However, this is just from my own point of view. I would be lying if I’ll say I’m posting for no reason at all, but honestly, being paid with all these posts greatly matters.

The fact that you registered just to post this proves otherwise

This forum will die if there is no signature campaign. Look at other forums related to crypto without signature campaign. They got finished within one year of launch.

Here's the thing. I think the forum's gonna be whack if we don't take the chance for advertisers to get in here and make profit.

Bitcointalk's not running on hopes and dreams, pretty sure the moderators here pay a fee to keep the site going and traffic alone's not gonna cut it which I guess they get the funding from advertisers who request to be accepted into this forum. Besides, it's also worth noting that for some people in the bitcointalk campaign management team this is pretty much their major side-hustle or full-time job. A job that only exists because advertisers see this forum as a hospitable place to set up shop. You take that away and you're ridding people of their means to earn money, and with the current financial and economical landscape I doubt that some of them would even get accepted into McDonald's (not to misinterpret, I know a lot of our campaign managers are smart fellas).

The thing is, there's a whole economy in this forum that is only possible because signature campaigns exist, and in the argument about signature campaign members posting shit content, I'd argue that you look into those who doesn't have signatures. Cause campaign managers here like Hhampuz are quick to kick people who they deem as members who bring nothing to the topic and the forum, keeping the whole integrity of the campaign intact and in turn, bringing in fresh and relevant comments/posts within the forum.

So yeah, signature campaigns are a must-have if you want this forum to continue running. It's cool on paper to see people who are doing god's work for the sake of passion but that's not gonna pay the bills my friend.

I don't know that either. But, you are probably right, banner specifically mentions about Bitcointalk so it must have happened after mixer ban here.

This is a perfect reply to his curiosity or whatever. There are many forums where users are not paid, he could visit most of them and definitely meet a grave yard and then compare it with here. I don't know why people see signature campaign as a benefit to only the participants while the project owners benefit the most.

• The forum benefits from signature campaigns because it guarantees high level participation and dominance of the forum domain 
• The project owners benefit from the signature campaign because it gives their projects the exposure they want
• The campaign participants benefit by getting weekly bucks 

This is a win-win situation for all and shouldn't pose any problems.

When I joined here newly, I considered stake as a spam campaign. But today, their participants post long wall of text(almost all), if quality is a measure of post length, which is how it is generally regarded here, it could be said that Stake participants no longer spam

Yes, but I understand they made it easier now, right? Or is that link at the top of the page, of all the forum pages, actually, that says:


has been there since 2020? I ask because I don't know but I would be surprised, because also the possibility of teleporting was there since then but it was not exclusive to Bitcointalk, also to other forums.

Thank you! This is exactly what I was trying to type but the words weren’t coming out well enough. I personally think that people are posting a reflection of who they are, because if you think about it, signature bounties don’t ask you to be rude or disrespectful to anyone. I participate in signature bounties but I do not disrespect anyone and would ever want to. If I see a topic I can contribute to, I would simply do that. If someone is saying “Get the fuck out of her”, they’ll likely tell you in person.

I also think that signature campaigns have done more publicity for Bitcoin than known.
Check out the throve of newbies and ranking up members joining and participating in not just only posting comments or replies, but also learning and using Bitcoin for investments like HODLing or trading or for making simple payment transactions.

I am of the notion that more signature campaigns be brought here, because it would have done more publicity for Bitcoin than a regular commercials, online or word of mouth advert would do.

Even if members are wearing signatures, their comments tend to be making sense, so I'm not against signatures. It's not a sheer spam that you'd think that's detrimental to the forum. I have been to several others forums prior to Bitcointalk, I don't see much difference, signature campaigns are only plus point here, it's like reward for doing what you do anyway.


I'd just like to add that teleporting thing was added long back in 2020, it's not a new thing.

Wow, amazing stats! I never knew about this stats page... thank you, LoyceV. It looks like "Legendary" members are leading the way, and it makes sense too since Legendary is the final destination for most users, and it stays that way.

But one thing I noticed is "Copper Member: 805 posts (117 users)." Technically speaking, the Copper Member is not a separate position but just an additional title to your existing position. For example, my member rank is "Legendary." However, since I'm wearing a Copper Membership, my posts are included in the Copper Members category, not Legendary.

I agree with you in a way that the forum discussion would be better but it would remove all the traffic from the forum. Just look at the replies of this thread and most of them have a signature campaign and of course that all of them are against this. My advice is, just use this forum occasionally, try to go around through different forums and sites and not just focus on one, it's good to go through different opinions and different types of communities. This is something I've noticed for a long time but never bothered to post, that's why I never used this forum that much, but my concern with signature campaigns is not just the posts from newbies or trolls, but mostly because of the forced discussion it creates, where you realize that the same type of topics get repeated to death, and most of the replies are repeated and don't add much from one another, but everyone posts because everyone wants to fill their quota to meet the requirements to get paid from their sponsors.

It created a kind of robotic conversation, it almost seems like most of the replies are bot made or copied from a repository with different deviations. But this is a general problem with cryptocurrency, most of the forums or communities are similar, with different ways of forcing discussion and getting popularity (like reddit with karma, etc) that there isn't a better place to go.

Yobit tried to start a forum, where everyone was paid for every post. (At least as far as I know). However, it was not sustainable in the long term. I think that this is because only one entity paid for the activity on the forum, unlike Bitcointalk, where each campaign has a different owner, so the "cost" of paying for writing posts is shared. A much more sustainable solution.
This only confirms that without paid posts, the forum would hardly survive, at least not in this strength.

As for whether paid campaigns are needed or not, the answer is more than obvious, yes. Certainly, without campaigns, there would be much less spam, but over time there would also be significantly fewer active members. For the high authority of this forum, the most important and only resource is the members. Without activity, many things would begin to slowly disappear from here.
Starting with campaign managers, designers, escrow services... I believe that even LoyceV at one moment would not do his statistics for the 50 most active users out of all 100.

If nothing else can be improved, I would not touch the current system on this forum with further restrictions. Many have brought here some of their knowledge, skills or services and contributed to the "good" statistics of bitcointalk.org, and it's perfectly fine to return some of that to them through earnings.



I would agree with Loyce here, Stake is probably the worst campaign, because as far as I know, they have the biggest weekly budget, considering the number of acceptable posts and participants, but still they decided on the lowest quality and spam. What is even more absurd, I have seen over time at least 4 or 5 users who present themselves as managers of this campaign.

That's the thing: I don't expect the traffic to work that way. If users only join to earn money, you'll miss the basis that made Bitcointalk a valuable place to advertise in the first place.

Of course it works that way. If you create a forum today and get the traffic and advertisers there, the advertising will have the same effect as here, but it will be a slow process of change, it will not happen overnight.

I don't have data to know the effect that advertising is having there but if the campaigns are paying about 1/3 of what they were paying here it is because they have made a calculation based on the traffic there and other factors.

Now, once you open the pandora's box you don't know how this can end. If as a result of the increase in traffic and there start to advertise more campaigns and increase rates, then we will see a transfer of traffic from this forum to that, which so far has not happened because most of those who have been teleported are writing campaigns in the two forums and giving priority to this forum because in these campaigns they get paid more.

If in the end the campaigns there, mixers or whatever, in a hypothetical future, will pay as the mixers paid here before, with up to $250 per week and here the ones that are left pay no more than $100 then we will see a real migration of traffic.

This is something theymos should take into account for future restrictions on campaigns, and I think it deserves its own thread. He said he did not expect more restrictions in the near future, as it could be on casino campaigns for example, but he has to be aware that more restrictions in this sense would simply mean that traffic would migrate elsewhere, surely the shitcoinstalk forum, which has seen a business opportunity in this and makes it easier for people to go there "teleporting" which is to keep the rank they have here by simply creating an account with the same name.

If you go to that forum the first thing you see is a link at the top saying:

OP don't wonder anymore, just join any other forum without signature campaigns and experience how you like it.
Plenty of bitcoin forums available out there but most of them are dead or or life support.

Yes, or he can call your local authority to report and lie about you, he is know for doing that and other slimy things.
He can also try contacting manager of campaigns, in your case Foxpup or Icopress (again), asking to remove you from campaign because you disrespected him.
And if you don't worship and love his god idol Elon Musk, you can also get in deep trouble  

Who is to blame for that? The campaign managers who allow such users on their campaigns? Or to the posters who enjoy generating shit because they can make money for their spam? I would say it's the campaign manager. Stake generates massive spam in this forum allowing negative tagged users to their campaign. They ignore the neutral tag that was left for shit posting (actmyname feedback). Recently another manager started allowing such posters in their campaign.

Either the manager have to be forum friendly, or the forum have to be more strict. Stake recently launched another signature campaign for Sr members only which means more money for spammers. Some campaigns does not have earned merit requirements. Stake encourage account buy/sells by doing that.

That's one of the campaigns "with very low rates" that I mentioned. They could just as well pay altcoins or made-up tokens at that rate.

I wonder if advertising there has any result. If it has, any forum could do the same, and I really doubt it works that way.

I'm sorry, I had to chuckle at the above observation--it's spot-on, and that's exactly what the Lending section has been like ever since I registered and Vod was seemingly policing it on his own.  I haven't visited that section in a long time, but obviously things haven't changed.

As far as sig campaigns go, I think the quality of discussion would increase if they went away, but I have no doubt that the entire forum would seem like a ghost town compared to when it did have them.  I'm pretty sure bitcointalk wouldn't become a dead website, but just look at how many members are advertising something in their signature space--and then imagine looking through a thread and ignoring all the posts made by those members.  It'd be crazy, right?

In any case, this topic has been discussed over and over throughout the years, and it's always remained very much a hypothetical situation.  It should probably be shelved until it's close to becoming a reality.

Actually, I don't see where you hope to go with this because deep down, you know that if there are no signature campaigns, there'd be less traffic. Let's be realistic and truthful, many people here are more for the campaigns than making posts just for fun that's why you see influx of new users trying to make posts and fishing for merits anyhow necessary to possibly rank up and join so except you are saying the forum will be less crowded and you'd be able to know those who are really here just for the knowledge of Bitcoin and how to apply it in life, then I'd agree but if you are saying what I feel you are saying there, then you and I know that's bullcrap.
 

What I had yet to see. I mean, you're a Republican and you say that the liberals in the USA have lost their minds and you have to come up with a socialist proposal for this?

I don't know why I'm not surprised.


Again, and I'm not surprised either, you're jealous. Because we keep getting hired and you don't get hired.

Good point and thank you for answer from your point of view and didn't take the OP personal like the most others. and you answer what you think. Not what others want you to think! I respect that.



Agree.



You are probably right here, so it's more forums out there also? I didn't know about that but that's perfect for those who want to earn money with "shit"-campaigns. Thanks for sharing it.

---

And thanks everyone that take time and reply, it seems that the most topics I create start a lot of discussion and I love it.   No matter if where like green, red or blue we are discussing and that's amazing an healthy. Isn't it? We don't always need to agree, but having a open discussion is always fresh and healthy. So thanks people.
And don't take things to personal on internet. We only discussing not hating on each other. Also a tip read the whole OP before replying.


Love to you all! ❤️

After giving it a few minutes, I realized, for real if there were no signature campaigns, what would people like JG do around here? Because I can't think of anything really. You have to consider, what made this forum good enough for businesses to think about advertising here? I'm certain it wasn't the presence of people like PP and JG.

The forum would be 100% better without signature campaigns.  If signature campaigns were to continue, the right way to do it would be for the forum to allow everyone to advertise and receive equal pay through the forum.

Without signature campaigns, we'd see the useless members here that go around starting drama because they need to post something, disappear.  Builders could build without being harassed just so some useless member can start drama to make a couple bucks posting.  Those who are here only for money would go broke and disappear...  Scammers would get tired of hanging around here and not getting paid to post on alts causing them to disappear...  Obsessing over control of the trust network would also disappear, as these people would have no payback for their time spent trying to get control.  We might even see actual productive members return, and professional forum users find another place to post nonsense. 

It's called Reddit.

I believe it would be 99%+.

Just look at the increase in traffic to the shitcoinstalk forum with the mixer ban here. What has happened is that the mixers have gone to advertise elsewhere and with it many forum members who mostly now write on both forums, but if paid campaigns were banned here what would happen is that virtually everyone who writes here would go to write about the same topics to shitcoinstalk, which also has a Bitcoin section, increasingly active.

Remove the signature campaigns and you will remove 90%+ of the forum traffic. Sure, overall post quality in that case would be better as people would only post when they actually have to add something meaningful, but at the same time forum would become completely irrelevant so in the end signature campaigns are necessary to keep this forum alive.


Not really. You can be a mindless shitposter and still make a decent income thanks to the fact that there are more spots in signature campaigns than there are quality members.

I think there are worse spam campaigns here, for example Bitvest, but are you trying to create new/old enemy?
Don't you know who is wearing that stake signature all the time, and you are telling us that ego-nasty is biggest oldest spammer in forum now
Don't throw away ''your reputation so recklessly''...

Don't talk like you know me or what I gonna do or not. I understand that this was something you did, but it's nothing I gonna do and I got something you don't and it's called self-respect and I would never promote a shitty casino.


A good point of view and thanks for sharing it!




Yeah, it's good and bad everywhere in the world also on the internet. I never said signature campaigns is a bad thing, I only wonder if the forum would be better without them, but as you see many users took it personal.  
Have a nice weekend mate.

Exactly where then is the internet freedom?
Funny how after op makes this post he would rush into applying for a signature campaign before or immediately he is able to hit the full member rank.
People here say a whole lot of things they don't really mean just to please others.

That's true; 14 out of 20 posters are from Stake. I've noticed that participants in some specific signature campaigns, which I'm not going to name, are generating spam content; generally, it's those that have a high maximum post count. They're often paired with a large number of participants with low payment rates or feature scammy services that attract users other campaigns wouldn't hire, such as 1xbit approximately a year ago.

I'm personally against offering such a high post count, I'd rather make 20 or 30 constructive posts at most, than make 50 or 60 just to earn a few more dollars per week, it isn't worth it, at least for myself.
That's what I'm referring to, some managed to rank-up to Legendary just by posting on bounties, the introduction of the merit system was extremely justified.

Spammer is a spammer, whether you pay them or not. You'll see endless number of people who wear paid signatures and post very high quality posts and you'll also see people who don't wear signature but post lots of spam posts.
I think that high-paying signature campaigns motivate some people to share their knowledge on this forum and also it helps the forum to retain good members and maintain an active community.

People who were in mixer signature campaigns, were sending received payment on Binance address and are you really sure that most of them avoid being KYCed in order to participate in campaign? This will only drop the quality but not the quantity.

I agree with that. Bitcointalk allows you to make money while you are engaging in a genuine conversation. If someone generates spam and the campaign pays for that, it is the failure of that specific project. But, the the Signature campaign also has a good effect on the forum postings. People want to generate better content to earn merits, which helps them to reach ranks.


I guess the other one is bitvest. Stake has been doing it for ages now. I have seen an old thread where it was discussed before. The thing is, they do not have any merit requirements and they do not care if those members adding any value or not.

The forum won't be any better without signature campaigns. Most of the users who are in the signature campaigns try their best to make good and useful posts. The signature campaigns are one of the ways to improve someone's performance and at the same time earn him some money. Let's say if the forum disable all signature campaigns together, then only a few people will be interested to write useful content.

Thanks for informing me about this but I am in no rush to join a signature campaign, and if I gonna apply it should be something I can back up proudly and of course the campaign also need to want me to using them.
But for now I am happy at it is. 

Best regards
/ BabyBandit

The forum won't be better if signature campaign get banned, why?

No one cares with reputation, most of users scared of getting negative feedback, it will make them not qualified to join a campaign. So I won't be surprised to see every users will have negative feedback due to disagreement or not being nice.

You will see merit abuse, trust list abuse, trolling etc in everywhere.

you didn't even apply a campaign.

There are two campaigns that accept Member rank and still open for new participants.

sooner or later, gambling campaigns will disappear due to more regulatory restrictions, which will force them to participate in signature the campaign to be KYCed members, which is something that will not happen here. If we remove gambling signature campaigns the signature campaigns in the forum will be limited, and perhaps there are only 4-5 campaigns that can continue.
Therefore, the future of paid posting here is not prosperous, as in the past there were altcoin, ICO, IEO, mixers, and most of these campaigns have disappeared now, and you will notice that in the number of posts (spam) for the coming months.

Finally, the problem of spam is not the paid signature campaigns, but rather the failure to inform us about these posts and the laziness of some campaign managers.

If you want a forum without the freedom to advertise in your signature, you can literally choose from thousands of other forums. Go there, and see if it's better than Bitcointalk. If it is, you've found your new place to discuss online. If it isn't, you'll be back.

All we need here is enforcing the Signature Campaign Guidelines. I expect that would end all campaigns that pay useless tokens, some campaigns that pay in Bitcoin but at very low rates (I can think of 2 old online casinos) and it would end the biggest Bitcoin paying spam campaign Stake (check the top 20 posters and see who pays most of them).

I'm also here when there are a few signature campaigns and so much spam, people are very more interested in airdrops and bounty campaigns you'll see members with legendary accounts where all their posts are bounty reports, the merit system stops this ranking abuse, you have to be a good contributor if you want to be in a signature campaign, those who get in the signature campaign are privileged because they earned it.
They make the forum rich in content, other forum members contributed without a signature but it's their choice not to be part of a signature campaign.

I agree; although I understand the OP's concern, regulating spam and removing users that repeatedly ignore the rules is what's best here. I was here before the merit system was introduced; you should have seen how much spam there was. Everyone could simply rank up with the only requirement of being active and posting; it didn't matter what; just post whatever comes to mind. You could even become a Hero member in 1.5 to 2 years by posting in the off-topic section. A large number of those users have now quit because they weren't able to participate in signature campaigns, while the merit system discourages spamming newbies who're simply after signature campaigns because they have no chances of ever ranking up.

As it stands, we are at a fine balance on allowing signature campaigns and controlling spam on the forum.
If we're to swing ay way, I'll suggest we go towards more regulation for spam and this is a community exercise, meaning if you report posts that are off topic or redundant, it will help the mods to find and delete them.

I personally think the forum is better off with signatures, sure it is an incentive to post and some of those posts might be forced or repetitive, but a huge chunk of them are educative and helpful. Most of what I have learnt from the forum were from users who were wearing signatures. Removing signatures will also cut down on educative posts as well as spam replies.

I think without the possibility to earning money from posting, this forum would be at least a little bit better but also much less traffic, but maybe the traffic would be much better!?
Money is not everything in life and this way of earning money can make you easily blind even tho it's such small amounts we talking about and I understand and respect that maybe not for some people is this the case so in that cases I am happy the sign campaign exists so people get a chance to get a income and can live a normal life.🙏 So maybe I am a bit hypocrite here? But that's fine I can take that for putting this on the table.

An example: The "Lending board" section when all "newbies" posting for a loan, it's like 10-15 people posting nonsense shit every time "No collateral" "You wont get a loan" "Get the fuck out of here".
And I am sure if everyone just ignored those threads instead they would stop exist because the fun would disappear for the trolls/newbies. That's was like the first thing we learned us as kids, ignorance is gold.
And many people that are in a Signature campaign seems to be so desperate to post so they answer to absolutely everything, even things that is so clearly better ignore then answer and also things they don't have a clue about I have seen that in the "Trading section" when many people giving advice's about trading but the post they make says more about how much of a "newbie" themself are then the OP.
So I see it as the only reason they respond is to earn a buck or two, not to help the OP or the forum and yes maybe I am totally wrong and you think I am a dickhead and that totally fine by me.
But what do you guys and girls think? Of course it's hard to be neutral here since it's money involved, but at least give it a try. What would be best for the forum no signature campaigns or signature campaigns?
And I hope nobody take this personal because it's not directed to anyone specific!

And I don't mean to step on anyone's toes or saying being in a signature campaign is bad because I don't think so! But clearly many people taking advance of it in a way that only making the forum look worse IMO.

Now with this said, I don't want signature campaigns to be banned or removed whatsoever, I just want to hear other opinions about this subject.
And I will probably join one myself if I get a chance one day and I find something I can back up and ofc if they want me, but it would not make me start to post nonsense for just reach that goal to earn as much money as possible, it like destroying the charm of a forum in a way.

For last I hope everyone here will have their best year so far in life this 2024 now with Bitcoin Halving around the corner we all can make good success. I believe in you all!

Best regards / BabyBandit ❤️