Topic: Signature advertisers: suggestions? (Read 2163 times)

I realized that immediately after clicking your name after posting, and deleted the post, haha. You were both too smart for me and too fast with your reply! But yeah, the "u=xxxxxxx" is unnecessary.

It was a link to kenzawak's profile actually. So it would have worked perfectly for him since he was the one asking. But your way is obviously better

You already can

https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/kenzawak-1082600

The issue here is the shitposting they generate.

I haven't read the whole thread so I'm not sure it's been suggested yet.
If signatures really bother some people, why not give them the option to disable them by paying a small fee like you do when you buy a copper membership ? Or you could make that option free for some of the most recognized users here (hero / legendaries or those who have earned the most merits).

I do not understand how this will help in the case where users have created "Offices" for abusing bounties. They will do work from their home, clicking each other link ,skewing the whole metrics.

Secondly, theymos is not concerned about how much view a signature created, he is concerned about the shit posting happening due to signatures.

Maybe it isn't - I don't know what others think of these kinds of posts. Certainly it's not on the same "level" of spam/shitposting as most of the altcoin/bounty spam, but when you get to page 16 of a thread like that there is pretty much a 0% chance that any idea is original and hasn't been posted in that thread before. You just get the same ideas on repeat, just phrased differently - in this case "be patient", "keep holding", "no one can predict", "market is moving sideways", "bull market soon", etc.


Yeah, exactly. Short of reading the last page of replies for every post, which I can bet 99.99% of bounty managers wouldn't do consider the utter trash they are willing to pay out for. I think the simplest solution would be to just refuse to count posts in any spam threads, which many BTC signature managers already do, but again, good luck getting them on board with that without some top-down rule enforcement.

Oof. I can't say I haven't seen those kind of recycled arguments around, I just didn't think it was considered spam by the majority. I wholeheartedly agree. Cheers.

To address such spam is also not the easiest, because even manually campaign managers would have a hard time figuring it out, since a recycled comment looks legit on its own, but in the context of 10 other comments, it's most definitely spam.

If I can come up with something I'll comment here, otherwise thank you oeleo.

Those are strange criteria. As pointed out in previous posts, the vast majority of spam is coming from users using altcoin/bounty signatures. As asche has said, I also disagree with your "real" versus "not real" campaigns/signatures. Yes, bounty campaigns/signatures pay in complete trash, but they still contribute massively to spam, and that is what we need to address here.

Still, you can easily find examples of your criteria, for example: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.49447865

Click for full size image. 4 useless posts back to back, all from senior+ members, all with earned merits, all with a bitcoin-paying signature.

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If that were true, it wouldn't be an issue. I just went to Bitcoin Discussion, clicked on the first thread with >100 replies, and went to the last page. Here it is: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5067162.160. There are 16 posts on that page, 14 of them with an altcoin signature, and all 14 of them completely worthless. I didn't have to search for that example, literally the first thread I clicked on. As someone who spends hours reporting this nonsense, I can assure you this spam is everywhere.

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Agreed. It would be difficult/impossible to implement any kind of system like this without simultaneously creating more of a "black market" for merit. It would certainly require a lot of vigilance over the merit sources to ensure no foul play was going on.

But all those bounty managers are just newbies and brand new accounts... I don't understand why they'd be considered as real users if their raison d'être is to spam. They never even comment outside of their own bounty section, let alone make rational, meritable comments. If the bounty section were to close overnight half the forum wouldn't notice.

If we're suggesting sig campaign improvements, I'm sure those would be the last people to benefit from it. Everyone here knows that the altcoin bounty section is a spamfest, you can't just quote me on that and send me examples of spam from there, because it's ALL spam.



What is it with people quoting half messages around this forum? Even so, improving quality of life for signature users ==> Direct implication to improving the signature experience for the advertising business.  

That is an interesting approach. Reading your take gave me an idea. What if features like signatures or PM limit removals were able to be purchased on a monthly basis using merit. That would cause a merit burn scenario and would remove the “buy 1 merit, shitpost for life” issue.

However, moving merit towards the direction of being a currency would likely result in crooked merit sources trying to profit from their position, which should be strongly discouraged.

Read OP again. Bounty campaign = signature, this is exactly what this topic is about

There is no REAL or NOT REAL sig. Altcoin shitcampaign are the culprits, and I could find 100 accounts matching 1-3 caracteristics.


You interpreted that as "to suggest improvements to signature users". It's not what theymos wrote.

It's the point I mentioned above, when a new generation of self-made higher rank users come (Senior Members and above), especially some of them has good trust points.
At that time, when it really happens, the past generation of shitty higher rank users will be rejected from campaigns, definitely.

From all the comments where everyone complains about shitposting and spam, I want to know who are these people everyone is arguing about?

Can you guys post link to posts that are made from users that are :

1. At least Members (This is the minimum rank needed for a signature campaign -1, right?)
2. Have at least 2 Merit points (Almost all sig campaigns ask you to have 10 merits though, right?)
3. Make shitposts or spam.
4. Has a signature under him. (No bounty campaigns, I don't consider those signatures. This post was made to suggest improvements to signature users, and signature campaign managers. A bounty campaign manager USES spam to bump his own thread. Let alone give a shit about users spamming other people's threads. Those altcoins usually end up dead with 0 value and nothing but a promoted scam. I don't understand how people keep wasting time and effort to promote them, but hey, when you think about it, it's probably because they just can't get into any REAL sig campaigns.)

Please, if you have too many of the people that fit this criteria, I genuinely want to see you spam my PMs with them.

Is spam really an issue on the forums BECAUSE of signature campaigns? Sig campaigns have been harder and harder to get into. As more people get higher ranks, and the more people get higher merits, the managers themselves will add criteria to filter out the bad. This is a perfect example :


But hey, maybe I'm wrong and completely oblivious to the massive flood of "spam", so please show me where it all is. Thanks.

It is the fact, but there are other two facts:
1) Shitposters, and higher-ranked users who ranked up to high positions due to the old ranking system before merit system launched  will hardly to be accepted by strict campaign's managers. Especially shitty higher rank users that could not earn even one merits, or could not satisfy the minimum required merits (I usually see strict campaigns require ten self-earn merits over last 120 days to join).

Yeap, and they tend to publish shitty posts.

Agreed with you. So, why not make demotions aim at higher rank  users like the wave of demotion on Junior Member.
The forum will turn into chaotic situation, when that massive higher rank users complained about this.  

I don't think that the idea is realistic.
If a new system, for example Spam Control System, implemented, it will lead to massively debate in the forum, and it might be abused.

What I have come to realize is that both my suggestion, this suggestion and others above can't totally solve the signature ads Issue. People will always look for away to cheat the system especially those trying to make a living (in forum) from 3rd world countries. If theymos can't find a solution anytime soon, the signature privilege should be removed totally so we can see those truly here to learn

Completely agree with "proposition 1" - we should make it an ongoing task to earn your signature, and not "buy 1 merit, shitpost for life" as it is now.

In terms of "tagging" accounts for shitposting as you outline in "proposition 2" - this is essentially the same as reporting, and so I don't think we need to introduce yet another new system to achieve this. I think what we do need is to be more liberal in the banning of shitposters, or introduce signature bans/removals/blacklist for repeat offenders. I keep on seeing the same names popping up in my report history, users who I alone have got 10, 20, 30+ of their posts deleted in the space a few days, but it is very rare (in my experience) for these users to actually get banned. It's pretty frustrating to have to keep on reporting the same user over and over when they are simply churning out a post a minute of garbled nonsense.

As I read in multiple posts in this thread I don't think it would have any added value to implement the functionality mentioned in OP.

A few facts I am considering in my reasoning:

• 1- Most sold account are bought to participate in signature campaigns
• 2- Most users buying high ranking account tend to be shitposting the hell out of it
• 3- Most bought accounts don't earny any merit, or just a few
• 4- When it comes to old accounts from before the merit system was created 2 & 3 remain true
• 5- It is still fairly easy to get 10 merit to be able to wear a signature, even without adding much value to the forum

Proposition 1
It would be very nice to tie the signature function to the condition to have received 1 or several merit over the last 30 days for instance.
This would prevent bought accounts from wearing any, and should decrease the value of any account on the secondary market.

It would also make the merit begging not worth the time since it would have to be performed all the time.

Proposition 2
Be able to flag or "tag" any account for shitposting. This could be done through the Trust system or by a separate function.
This would need to be tied either with a system deactivation of the signature space itself, or to new signature guidelines that would prohibit any user wearing red trust or such flag to join any signature campaign.
This would again decrease the value of sold accounts since (I hope) most of them get tagged.

My own experience

Few informations about my relationship to signatures:

I used to wear altcoin signatures for several bounties. I chose to stop doing this.

I started with bitcoin paid signatures with everybet, which terminated too soon, their site having issues.
I am know (obviously) wearing a BetItAll sign, also BTC paid.

2 advantages to this signature model:

• They are not stake based, so you are paid for what you are posting. But if you don't post, your share won't decrease like it would in a stake system. You simply get paid less for said period.
• The pay is fairly low. For northern countries standards anyway. I can hardly imagine people getting out of their way to earn a few cents/post. There are of course exception for the highest paying campaigns like  Chipmixer, but this is counterbalanced by the high difficulty to join.

However there is also an issue:

Most of them are paid on a per post basis. While this makes perfect sense from an advertising point of view, it is still an incentive to post more, or outside your usual posting pattern, which can again lead to shitposting. This is of course down to the Bounty Manager's discretion. I believe most managers of BTC paid campaigns will carefully look at the posts and not pay for such "forced" postings that have little to no value.

Long story short, the manager holds all the power, but clear enforceable guidelines would help generalize the good behavior you can see from some well known managers.

I totally agree with this suggestion. The signature campaign is a significate marketing strategy of the forum so removing it will remove the vibrant color of the forum engendered by the various signatures. But keying to this suggestion will mean that any signature campaign will be a serious one. it will also reduce the spate of scam campaigns since it will be easy to identify campaigns that are serious from unserious ones.

It is not the signature that became the problem in this forum but the manager bringing the project. We could not blame bounty hunters not to do their job the right manner of promoting the project because the project itself is not a 100 Percent paying project. If only a project will pay well the bounty hunters then promoting a project will be easier. As studies conducted by some who are ICO enthusiasts that almost 90% of the ICO projects are scam, fail and etc. This should be  minimize and not the promotion of the signature ads.

Years ago, I participated on a forum where spam posting due to signature rewards was an issue, too.  Actually it was a pretty similar situation as it is on bitcointalk today.

After the introduction of a signature views measurement service, the campaign owners started to accept only members which had a high rate of views, mostly thread creators and creators of posts on popular and useful discussions with an interesting history. Or they paid rewards per view. Creating post number 1849 on page 190 on a pointless discussion thread, brought only a couple of views which finally became unattractive what caused an significant decrease of needless posts.

As far as I remember, it was not a native forum solution, rather a external service where a 1px image was added to the sig besides the text. Each time the pixel was loaded it counted the view. To prevent using visitor exchanges or other viewing tools, it locked the IP for a couple of hours to be counted for the same user.