Topic: Remove signatures (Read 387 times)

Well, this is an understandable point of view if we think about the possible investors who want some advertisement on the forum. My problem is that they care about the forum to be decentralized but don't care about the quality of the posts they advertise with...

Seems a lot of work to add manual signature campaign managers when there are better options out there as suggested by hilariousandco. Plus, without a doubt if theymos was in charge of setting who can be campaign managers then people would claim that the system is centralized and being abused. It may sound stupid, but people will claim that. The paid signature gets rid of that. It means everyone can aspire to be a campaign manager if they wanted, and anyone could make money from a signature if they are willing to invest in it.

how much would you pay to be able to have a signature?
would you pay for it if there where no signature bounty campaigns?
would you pay to be able to wear an avatar too?

I have another idea for the signatures, it requires less mods but a bit of programming.
Let's make a central platform for the signature campaigns and let's make the signatures prevalidated in the forum.
I mean, if someone wants to run a signature / bounty campaign, then:
1. hires a trusted campaign manager
2. validates the signatures (can be different from junior to legendary)
3. the campaign manager enrolls the users, who will automatically get the signature of the campaign
4. the mods have to focus only on the dedicated users of the problematic bounty /signature campaigns
5. If someone is spamming the forum, mods can remove the signature easily

I don't know if it's good or bad for the campaign managers, but it's just an idea.
It would prevent to let everyone to become a campaign manager and start to manage shady bounty campaigns. (I can imagine that today some newbie becomes a campaign manager and if he has e.g. 25 alts, then he can spam the forum with copypaste posts and take all the bounties for himself...)

So to sum up, starting campaigns would be a case of prior permission, so those campaign managers who allowed to the members to spam the whole forum would not get the permission -> less spam (ideal case).

If someone wants to have an unique signature, then it can be also done but in that case he has not to belong to any of the signature campaigns in the system.

I think theymos cares more about the quality of the forum than the money that the forum is earning. You could argue that the less traffic, less adverts bought and that means the forum staff get paid less, but I'm sure they don't care either. If we got rid of the spamming maybe we woouldn't even need that many moderators. Paid signatures are the way to go I think personally.

Broadly speaking I agree with you, but I think your comment needs some qualifications.

It isn't the number of users that is relevant, but the number of unique users. A spammer with 50 alts is only one unique user, so if he leaves, then you lose one unique, but the quality of the forum improves, so you are likely to replace him with at least two new genuine members.

Income from traffic is based ona  number of factors, and not just volume. It is used to generate qualified leads, and the profit for the advertiser come from qualified leads that convert into sales. Bot traffic won't convert, and it can damage the quality of a campaign's advertising in some circumstances.

Does the forum have an incentive to stop the spamming - I believe it does. There are some unsold advertising slots, and that may be as a result of reduced demand, and the reduction of competition for these slots reduces the offer prices. An active forum with genuine members who have disposable incomes provides a great selling platform for advertisers. How many of those low end posters who admit they don't have enough money for an old an out of date computer are going to spend money with advertisers?

There are some other factors to consider such as search engine ranking, but that could be the subject of another post.

an other input:

1. what do you think? would the amount of users decline after signatures would be disabled?
i think yes.

2. if the number of active users would go down. there would be less traffic. would this change the income that the owner of this forum would receive?
i think yey.

=> does the owner really have an incentive to stop the spamming?

Thanks for the support, but I probably shouldn't have posted the exploding melons pic. Actually I expected it to be deleted, but this seemed to be more of a fun thread, than a serious one - Although it does seem to have produced some good ideas. I know I leave myself open to comment because of some of my opinions, especially the posted images one. I think that was a bit of fun, but the blockchain/walking stick one is more relevant to your comment. I was probably working on blockchains before he was born - we used them on IBM mainframes back in the late 1960s, and, although I'm 76 in June, I'm not ready for the walking stick yet.

I think a bit of light banter is good for a forum, and it helps to build a community. That isn't really the problem, it's the low value unreadable spam posts that cause the difficulties.

Even if signature campaign has payment spamming will not stop as long as you are here. Critizising others post to make yourself look better than them. Lol 

Can't cover all the bases buddy, but this along with merit and a community against spam shitposts I believe is a good start

I also think this idea has merit, but I want to play devil's advocate for a minute here. With this system, what is to stop someone organising a bounty/signature campaign offsite and bypassing all of these rules?

It definitely is not allowed. There are very rare exceptions (like the overview of Bitcoin signature campaigns thread), but as a rule they are not allowed. Please report them to the moderator if you find such instances.

That isn't a bad idea, To take it further if you want to start a bounty you need to employ a mod before posting the ANN, there needs to be a signed message from the mod in the ANN agreeing to the work otherwise we can all report the thread for deletion. I am sure a few of the mods want extra BTC for a few hours work each week.

Actually I really like this idea, it wouldn't take long for all the shit managers not sticking to the rules to get red painted

Actually, that was also in my mind. Checking in every grading when a week has ended may help and control spammy post.
If that happens may be removed sigs not only CM's are suffering without profit also participants will back out to this forum.

The best way to eliminate spammers and help moderators are we, by clicking "Report to Moderator" in each member here maybe a moderator can easily take an action regarding that problem not by removing sigs.

Why not blaming the campaign managers firstly and why not to send a warning to them? I know it's, not the first time I talk about it but doesn't make it sense to you to blame the bounties managers as well? It could be more effective to do it so.

Amazing how somebody who doesn't know the difference between a walking stick and blockchain, is talking about segwit. and also has a huge ignore list. lol.

A variation on that would be for the campaign managers to pay a fee, and those fees could be used to pay for a couple of mods who would check on the campaign posters. The managers would supply a list of those they had enrolled. As it is the bounty campaigns that are causing the problems, shouldn't they pay to clean up the mess?

I really don't think that disabling signatures could technically stop spammers.
I'm not sure (and I don't want to give hints to spammers) but if signatures are disabled, why won't the spammers include the signature's banner, image or text with hyperlink in the last few lines of the post like this:
 
blah blah
spam spam
copypaste copypaste
end of the post

Disable sigs maybe that's possible happen, how could be spam if have a limit in characters in every post by wearing sigs you be able to post a good quality post in order to complete your weekly task. I think those newbies to Jr. members rank who's spammy just to have a count of post whatever it is spam they don't care.
I agreed on this.

I know there's a SMAS group, but as far as I know, they are volunteers.
What happens if the forum introduce a new kind of membership, a campaign manager?
In order to achieve this rank, you should have a good reference from the past with several successfull signature campaigns, or you can apply for a temporary campaign manager position, and you'll have a check after each payday in the first month, in order to check if the posts in the campaign are spam or not.
This would instantly stop a huge amount of the spam, not the 100% of it, but anyway, it could be the second step after the merit system. The same would apply for running the bounty campaigns.