Topic: Proposal: Disallow Ads in Signatures - page 14. (Read 19034 times)

I think it is already

This actually makes sense. I would love to see this implemented.

Looks like Sir Theymos is tweaking it as we speak. Great Move Sir   

My oppinion is that sig adds is a great way for people to get their hands on some bitcoins.

Since it's not the very early days and people don't give bitcoins away for free, signatures is one of the few ways for
people to get involved with a substantial amount of bitcoin in hand.

Not everyone can work for bitcoins, and not everyone can afford to buy bitcoins but everyone that has a wallet with a few bitcoins in it,
adds value to the currency and the community.

Spamming a forum (even if it is an important one like this) is trivial compared to the big picture.

Thank you. A good idea. Users should be more involved but not become spam reporting spammers.

I think that could work.  Though, there is the possibility that someone may still pay on a per post basis... but it's unlikely to be worth it with the changes.

That actually seems like a very reasonable solution.

Perhaps the allowed signature styling should change with activity score / membergroup. Like:
- Newbie: No styling (including links) allowed. Max 40 characters.
- Jr. Member: Links allowed. Max 100 characters.
- Member: Unlimited length.
- Full: Color allowed.
- Sr. Member: Size allowed
- Hero: Background color allowed

Then newbies will be less effective advertisers, which would hopefully significantly reduce the incentive for low-content posts. And when people become capable of effectively advertising through their signatures, they'll have invested a lot of time into their accounts, and they won't risk being banned by spamming.

Yes, I think the problem is here and could get worse with time.
The invasive signatures aren't a real problem, as well explained by Salty in the post above, but the spam is.
And I am afraid that the only viable way to prevent "mimetic" spam is to forbid pay-per-post advertising.


I like very, very much this proposal from you:


A +1 activity for every 1 (or more) valid reported post would be an HUGE incentive for many users.
Of course there must be also a penalty for wrong submission; can you imagine the SPAM of SPAM reporting(*)?
What do you mods, staff and admins think about this proposal?


(*)  ->  SPAM! 

Because, in a pay per post world, you're paid for quality posts. The post you listed doesn't meet the criteria I would apply to a 'quality' post. It would not count towards post count or spam count - but it would also not count towards brand placement.

Think of it like this...

Adidas wants to pay you to place their brand, but they're only going to pay you for placement that reaches a lot of people. In the advertising and marketing world, this means that your 'quality' placement payments factor in all of the lower quality brand placement work you'll do part time.

For example, when you walk out to check your mail in an Adidas sports suit, you aren't going to get paid for brand advertising, but when you run a few k, go to the shopping mall, or give a speech, you will get paid for brand advertisement. Those are 'quality' brand engagements.

The guy who sits at home on his couch and plays Nintendo all day in an Adidas suit, just ducking out to check the mail or order a pizza isn't making any quality contributions - so the easiest way to level the field is to simply eliminate such actions - or in this case - posts.

That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with short posts - just - they don't contribute to the brand in a meaningful way.

Put another way, you pay your promoter to give speeches. When he is just chatting with the guys backstage or in transit, he's not getting paid - but he's still supporting your brand.

The changes I've put forward would result in increased payouts to those who are making good posts, and eliminate those who are promoting crap content. It would also be much easier to nuke spammers, because there would be less 50 word posts (they take longer to write), making them easier to target and eliminate.

Edit: Also, I have no idea what FTFY means - so I completely skipped it and your signature in my initial read through. That makes it less than effective advertising, as I just asked myself, "Do I have the time to look this up, and if I do, is it meaningful enough to do so, or do I care?"

No offense intended at all, but the answer was a resounding no. It just does not matter to me what FTFY means. I have never heard it before, or seen it that I remember. My assumption is 'Fixed That For You' - but then I still don't see that post as being a 'meaningful contribution' in terms of brand placement.

It's still a valid opinion, and a valid post - but it is not something anyone who isn't an A List celebrity would get paid for writing. Throw in a tweet from Rhiannon or KK, and then you could call that good brand placement. Otherwise, we're not turning heads with out signatures - period. Not at all to dismiss your posts - but I have made some posts today that absolutely should not count towards brand placement / payment.

This is my opinion - no more and no less. It is just as valid as your FTFY post - but still below the 50 word limit (50 is just a random number - could be 25 - but only the Mods have those statistics and can comment on them), and further, just not an example of good brand placement: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.5389420

Anyway, just tossing in my $0.02. Several good suggestions out there. I just happen to work with a lot of writers - some of whom pay pennies for content, and know for a fact that higher word counts per payment would eliminate a huge number of the spammers, because they would make more money writing crap content for Google (the king of crap content).

That was an option we thought of as well. I personally dont care about paid advertising, however I understand others do and some people aren't abusing it, so I'd rather we not ruin it for everyone. I am quite against removing signatures all together however, as I like having a link in my sig to advertise my own goods/services. I dont even need to spam to get my own advertisements out there, just post responsibly and people that read/reply will see my sig.

If it was an issue of just the actual signatures being annoying with their big bright letters, it wouldn't be a problem, because individuals can turn off signatures so that they cant see them. They can't however turn off the tens of thousands of posts that people are slapping all over the place at an attempt to make some extra coin.

The problem is (are) not of course your concise and clear message(s) but the overproductive spammers posts. What do you propose to get rid of those and validate yours? How do you propose to solve the problems bellow? Could (realistically) mods, advertisers, users have a role? But the first question is: Do you think there is a problem?

As some mods have said, I also think that pay-per-post method in signature advertising will end in spam proliferation. If not spam, surely there will be a lower average of quality posts.
On the other side, some other methods of revenue seem viable to me, like pay-per-activity for example.

I agree with you. The other one adv I am using, pays weekly a small amount multiplied with your activity number.
Without minimum posts requirement, it seems quite fair to me and, most important, sustainable for the forum.



In the case that pay-per-post will remain allowed, I think your idea is simply wrong.
Please let me quote myself, just as one of many and better examples (edit: from other users), with a post I wrote some minutes ago:


I wrote one single word (5 characters, full stop included).
Why shouldn't it be counted as valid post? Should it be cosidered spam or valueless?
I don't think so, and with only one word it carried my message, what i want to make explicit, quite well.

A little less radical solution: disallow hyperlinks (maybe allow bitcointalk-internal ones), color, bolding etc. in sigs. And just a single line of text.

So the main problems created by ads in signatures are:

- a difficulty of properly following threads because of a great number of posts (short and/or not connected with the thread itself) submitted  with the sole purpose of making an easy coin

- a negative impression because of ads written in BIG, bold, coloured fonts

Those can be solved with partial automated, partial manually methods:

1. Regulating the size, bolding and colours allowed in a signature (maybe  even in the post itself) in order to be visible but more discreet.

2. Initiating a cooperation between advertisers and mods (moderators should be paid by advertisers for their activity - for example 10% of the coins that are totally paid should be received by mods). In this way will be possible to easier ban spammers so everybody wins excluding "professional spammers". It is very probable that even users (with adds in their signature) postings will be paid more/post even if theoretically they loose the 10%.

3. Requiring a minimum number (40) of words / post.

4. Involving users in reporting spam. The incentive for them could be
- an improved activity formula (for example adding a number proportional with valid spam posts reported). I know it's not pleasant tu use the reporting system (that's why i usually avoid it) but the trash has to be dealt with otherwise the place becomes to smelly
- a better trust level, etc.

Note: some users will still want to make a short (justifiable) post and this can be achieved by
- allowing a quick removal of their signature
- or even better an alias user with no signature in it / an alternative (non add) signature
- displaying a warning message for short posts if an corresponding option is checked in users profile

I was assuming that in this modern day and age, these things could be automated. 

Also, the (19 words) in my post was just to give those who aren't writers an idea of how long 50 words is. Each section of my post lists the word counts, so people get an idea of what the word counts are.

Many forum systems have the ability to prevent posts less than 10 characters. One assumes it should be relatively easy to implement. If not, then as suggested, penalize the advertisers. When advertisers request posts of 50 words or more quality content to qualify, then the spammers have no reason to post. The community is served, and also polices itself.

Of course, Theymos is making the Dr. Evil of all forum rebuilds, so maybe he could provide a solution to it for, say, $100,000 perhaps? It can't be that hard for Wangbus to code. He could probably do it between stops.

This would require more staff to moderate this though or the signature advetiser to moderate this because it would take a very long time each day to find out who is posting less than 19 words and who isn't.

The most obvious solution to this is not to count posts of less than 50 words towards post count. (19 words)

Problem solved. People can still make short, one word posts - they just won't contribute to post count. More importantly, the required '50 posts' that people need to make won't happen nearly as quickly, as short posts won't bump the number. (40 words)

Barring that, penalize the advertisers. If an advertiser is generating enough income from posts here, then they can do a better job of checking people using their signatures. (28 words)

(87 words in total)

I think Salty is on to something basing it on activity would probably solve a lot of the issues because I know that the signature advertising has been helping a lot of people earn a little extra money even though I probably wouldn't post as much as I do now if I wasn't advertising so I think it's a good idea to do it based on activity.

I highly doubt that would work.
To everyone before me, as I said before, it is not a matter of getting rid of signatures, it is a matter of being stricter against spammers. If you feel like someone posted just to increase their post count and not to add to the thread, just delete it. Seems like the best solution to me. Enforcing other rules wouldn't work as BadBear said, since they could just do it on their own websites.