Topic: Signature changes (Read 6770 times)

You brought the section specific rules for a signature up several times now (I think). It made me wonder if it wouldnt be possible to have different signatures for posts in different sections as well. Let users define a global signature that is valid unless a "local" (as in for a specific board or subsection) setting overrules it. This would allow e.g. those active in local language sections to use a translated signature. It would also allow for more complex signature campaigns which may or may not be desirable.

Maybe both things can be good, mods will be able to disable signature on their local sections, global-mods instead should be able to disable the signature everywhere.

I would personally rather see this on a global basis; eg. moderators would be able to disable signatures (possibly on a time basis) for users throughout the forum.

This would give people incentives to not make low quality posts throughout the forum, verses simply avoiding specific sections of the forum when their signature is disabled by a mod of that section.

I'm not sure if this was already suggested.

I would like as a mod to have a button to disable the signature of the X user in my Y section.

So, I'll be able to disable the signature of the users that I think that they are writing useless text just for their paid-sig.

Their signature will still be visible on the other sections, where the other mods will make their decisions.

This does sound reasonable to me (and easy enough to implement with a little javascript).  However, it's hard to say what will happen.  The forum runners here have allowed this advertising but it has certainly become a divisive topic, from what I can tell.  In the end, we'll just have to see what Theymos and crew decide to do.  It may be, in the end, that they do nothing and things are allowed to continue more or less as they are (which doesn't seem terrible to me).

Maybe I'm too late for a suggestion. I see what you want to do with keywords, regex, etc. I don't know if this is already a priority for the new software. But the way I see it may be overly complicated. As the forum is right now we are already used to seeing signature ads all the time. Campaign managers want their ads to be seen. Perhaps they should be On by default on every pageload but add a link/button somewhere at the top of the thread to collapse and toggle all the signatures on that page. The code would be much easier and solves much of problem (though maybe not all of it). Allows for the clean only-posts view if you want that but defaults to always showing everything as it is right now.

I already have a mod on drupal and also on SMF that does this already or in some way does it like it in a way that your speaking of. Weather it is user specific that admin can change on user basics or not or if it is a global setting I would need to look into it more as it is something I have only started to play around with within advanced mods and tools added within drupel site and smf that can set options within it to limit what is and what is not allowed to be in a signature space also change the way it reacts as in signature space is classed as advertisement position and can be enabled or disabled and then when you have adblocker on it will block it out as it classes it as a banner ad or section.

If I understand this correctly, the best thing would be to match not just a small subpart of the signature for blocking, but to go ahead and match against the entire string of code  (or, as long a string of text as you can find in the case that it's not possible to get the actual code) in the signature you want to block just so that you avoid the false positives you are talking about.  I'm sure the devs realize this.

However, again, I would expect that if this is a tool that's implemented server-side then surely there's no problem to get the actual bbcode markup for any given signature.

Oh I understand now ,so basically if it contains that word or something simillar to it .
Let's say I put "block" , It will block any any signature that contains "blockchain" "blocktrail" "blockexplorer" etc ... I guess I got it
thanks for the clarification (this was better then the first explanation )

~ Madness

I think I got you. I will try to explain in a better way or I ain't good at explaining.


Yes. If you input 'bit-x' to hiding feature, you won't see any signature which contain 'bit-x'.


Here is the part you missed. Firstly, we use words not whole code. Secondly, AFAIK we can fetch signature code using a bot.


I hope you understand now.

Lol Well Muhammed I didn't understand all your explanation , So basically I have to ask this :

Users will be able to block a signature compaign ? or a User signature ? Because those are two different things . If you block "bit-x" you won't see Ads of Bit-x at all , but if you block signature of a User , well .. you won't see signature only of that user .

If it's the first case (blocking the whole signature compaign) It's going to be probably blocking the BBCode on signatures
Let's say I have in my profile something that ask me to type the BBCode on my signature so Block them :


Well the only way user get this BBCode is by checking the thread of the signature compaign , right ?
So ... signature compaign owners can make a BOT that contact users with the BBCode once they register on the signature compaign instead of posting it on the thread . (Means people who advertise only will get the BBCode and that guarante that the others won't block ads)
not sure if you got me right , but that's what I meant , I could be wrong because not sure how the system is going to work .

~ Madness

Read one or two more times. You will understand.


It is somewhat like that but you are blocking signatures which contain text, for example, for me, I don't want to see any betting/gambling sites. So I will input bet, gambl. This will purge all signatures whicb contain bet and/or gambl. Here I use gambl instead of 'gamble' to block signatures which contain gambling. I don't know if this engine(if it is implemented) can look different tenses of a verb.


This is another addition to the above feature I explained. This works exactly like current 'ignore' feature.


I didn't get you exactly but from what I got: It doesn't block BBCode instead we can hide it.


Can you explain this too? Thank you!

and how that would work exactly ? It basically block Signature of a specific compaign (looking at the BBCode) ? or each user have the right to block specific signature for specific user (and not all users who have that signature).
Because if it's blocking the BBCode that a user put... it can be avoided ? some signatures will simply contact users with the BBCode instead of posting on their thread , nah ? Not sure if I got that right tho


~ Madness

You want to compare a newbie account with an higher forum ranks, everyone must have the right to/or not disable some signature and seen other signature. Where is the freedom of choice? The problem here is the "users" that "make" a lot of insubstantial posts and the definitive solution is not only to "disable" some signature (they will continue probable to "make insubstantial posts"). I haven't a final solution but this is my personal opinion.

How? This option is individual basis ignore but the current feature to ignore signature causes severe damage to advertising than user basis. I still don't understand "how?"!


Disagree.


You want forum to risk advertisements of other people but not to risk the same thing on users' signature?! I don't agree with this.

This would kill advertising for companys who use signatures, as it is indeed a very good way of advertising and its been proven to help (primedice the most popular casino probably due to signature campaigns).
Newbies should not be able to disable, and probably even fulls, but maybe seniors or heros should be able to disable this. ADs on the site should definitely since we already have the option right now.

Well said..

It depends of which is (will be) the forum policy, if they want to allow a decentralized ad "system" or limit the possibility of what someone can put in their signature. I think this forum is so full of freedom, and I hope they will not "ban" at all the signature campaign. However the feature (if it will be implemented) should be granted to all the forum ranks and not only to the high ranker ( for example full, senior, etc..).

I know they will do the right thing, for fight & stop the spammers (who make insubstantial posts).

I agree with MZ here.  I don't understand the motivation in restricting these options based on rank.  I think one of the main points of rank is to keep very new users from abusing the forum.  The idea is that the longer you've been around without getting into trouble, the less time you should have to wait between posting, more space you can have in your signature, etc.  I'm just not understanding why newbies shouldn't be able to ignore things they don't want to see.

What is the need for 'rank' in disabling/enabling/filtering? Forum is allowing everyone to enable/disable signatures, avatars and ads and also to ignore. So this is option should also be available for everyone regardless of the rank.

disabling or filtering sig ads can reduce post spammers yes, but it will decrease helpful post too even a little.. but for me, maybe the option to filter sig ads can only be enabled and disable based on the forum rank of the user.. the higher the rank the more option/s they will have

hilariousetc is alt of hilariousandco. He uses it when he is in an unsecure machine AFAIK.


Users are spamming mostly because of PPP signature ads. Ignore sig per user basis and maybe blocking sig would eventually reduce spams.

Ignore funtion is to ignore their posts and it can't reduce spam like ignoring sigature might does. I personally don't like 'ignore' posts because they may also bring good news to us.

In the new forum, surely it would'nt be too much to implement a simple 'box' where the sig would be, blockable by the user, using right click? Then admins dont need to worry about what is what, the user block or not?

There is already an option to disable the signatures but I doubt many are even aware of it. So if this feature is implemented it better be obvious that it is there. Otherwise don't bother.

Long time back I had suggested activity and signature limitation changes to curb account farming. It included making the activity levels in powers of 2 which is more appealing to us.

Hilariousandco, are you "hilariousandco" and "hilariousetc"? In this series of quotes "hilariousandco" says "I'm just proposing the option to get the design pre-approved beforehand..." but it was "hilariousetc" that said it.

As for the topic at hand, the ignore individual's signature is the most direct way to fight the too many advertisements issue. And since the code exists to ignore an individual's posts and code exists to ignore signatures, you can surely revise and blend the two to have code to ignore a specific individual's signature. That said, the greatest offense people are feeling is not the signature/ads, it's the content of the post. If fewer people wrote frivilous posts (i.e., repeating answers already provided, not providing thorough comments, providing off-topic comments) the threads would not be as littered with advertisements (because there wouldn't be as many posts to each thread.) The existing "ignore" user is the most effective way to ignore the spam-heavy posters, and it's already available!

Good point, advertising does ruin the concept of the signature, but like I said above, I personally think that signature campaigns are a good way to get some extra BTC. You can help out, or learn more about the Bitcoin community while getting paid for it. (Of course, there are the spammers, but the subject here is seeing the same ad over and over.) As for the people who don't like seeing the same ad over and over, there is this:

And doesn't advertising ruin the concept of signature?

Oh I see, you have an ad.

I support this. The issue here we are talking about is the not the spam, but seeing the same ad over and over again, so this would be a good fix. This way, signature campaigns will still get effective advertising, without users seeing the same ad over and over.
As for all the people who are requesting stripping the colors, size, etc, I don't think this is a good idea, as it ruins the concept of advertising. Then, it would just be lines of text, which would be quite boring. Some of the signatures here are designed quite nicely!

I personally like the concept of signature campaigns, I think that it's a good way for users to earn some BTC.

Will this be implanted in the new forum or will we start doing this right now?

Got the answer.

I think filtering the sig ads with keywords is good, maybe a site you already know and use, you could filter that.

But maybe add a rank exclusion? Such as newbies or junior members can't do this, just as only hero member and above can block the forum ads.

I think before the end of the year we will migrate to the new forum software, why people don't relax and wait it happen? For the questio about the signature, I like this feature and it will be useful to ignore a sig ad with only some keyword.

So you seem pretty confident that this is actually going to happen.  I guess I began to dismiss all such talk about 6 or 8 months ago when even then it seemed that the speaking of new forum software was already supposed to have happened some time ago.  I recall a lot of drama about people who donated money to see it happen and they were sad/pissed off that we were still on smf.

It's coming and its development is very much alive and apparently nearly ready. Read the last posts of wangbus for more updates: https://bitcointalksearch.org/user/wangbus-207730


Last one indicates a beta is being tested.

I suppose these changes will be applied in the new forum software (because the thread is here). It will "no-sense" to add this feature on this forum (based on smf) because in a couple of months we will migrate to the new epochtalk forum software, so at the end it will be a "waste" of time.

Ok, I just noticed (very belatedly) that this post is in "new forum software".  Does that imply that these changes aren't being suggested for the smf forum that we're currently using but for the proverbial new software that was going to be installed here two years ago?  Similarly, does this mean that the myth of new forum software isn't actually dead?

Sure, people should have an option to ignore sigs, just like they have an option to use addblock on other sites, especially since sigs are sometimes bigger than posts
That said, it's funny that this forum is full of wannabe economists and people screaming about freedom of speech but some of them run to the authorities (admins in this case) asking to ban the campaigns. On one hand you believe in capitalism and free market laws and on the other want the higher power to help you.

Meh, seems like a decent idea, but not to the smaller users. Have the user at least hero or something to have this option for disable. Taking out the possibility of views for signature advertisers would decrease the views for them and hurt their value of the campaign. Or maybe disable certain categories of signatures like ponzi, or big ads for pictures, or text.

I support the idea of ignoring signatures with keywords. I could add the keyword "ponzi" or "cloud mining" to my profile and all signatures containing those keywords will hide. I could do the same for a particular signature which hurt my eyes

IMO, the forum should disable large font size and glow to be used in signatures.

Someone has told that the forum doesn't need "money", so I don't think it will be a good idea. I think we need more control here in the forum and the sig. campaign managers can help the staff to stop the spammers.

I don't think signature ads should be banned.
However I also think that a fee like a few BTC or more must be paid to the forum (as running cost) before making that campaign public. This benefits both users and the forum.

It wouldn't. They're not 'saying' anything so there's nothing to censor. I'd rather the designs not be pre-approved and users given the choice of what to ignore but I'm just proposing the option to get the design pre-approved beforehand if the signatures become too much of an eyesore with flashy designs.


People could/can put whatever they wanted in their signature without interference from staff. You could/can put hilariousandco/BadBear/theymos is a cunt if you wanted and I doubt anyone would care nor would it be removed. Admins can already ban people anyway so merely having signature designs pre-approved first isn't a big deal and there are rules here that users have to follow anyway and if this was implemented it would just be another rule. I'm also sure the bigger 'censorship' issue (though not really) would be to remove signatures altogether which will probably happen if there's no other workable compromise found.

Everyone, but just one time.
So if you post two messages on the same page, your signature will be visible only one time, at your first message.
As I said, it should be just "Another option among the others".

i'm actually not against this, sometime those sign occupy too much space and make the reading too confusing

Interesting proposal, well considering that forum ads are blockable by Hero Members the same extension could be applied to the signature slots in the bottom of our posts.

That said the question remains is it worth implementing this feature this late into the forums shelflife, in theory we are due to migrate to the new forum sometime in the year so who would put in the time and effort to code this into the current SMF software.
(Edit, I presumed it was for the SMF forum not new forum software presumptions below were based on SMF)
 
I think it would be a neat idea to customize it but not sure if it would create to much bloat, if I recall correctly Theymos never got around to fixing the IGNORE button on each persons user list, the signature campaign block would likely use the same type of code in order to create customized listings of blocked advertisments for each user.

In summary it seems a bit difficult to implement as the forum is presently, but may work in the new forum software, any rough estimates at how much time it would take to code the function (Wangbus)

There are lots of ways to filter signatures. While it would be possible to alter just to get around it, just make it a bannable offense, same as bypassing certain url filters. There's a difference in having an ad, and intentionally bypassing forum enforced filtering to avoid it.

And like was said, the proposals would allow the user to make that choice.


I'd rather this be implemented than us trying to control it.


It's new ground so it will take some tweaking but I'm sure it will work out in the end. Auto ignore is a good idea. However it's implemented, a lot won't realize how it works or how they can use it, much like the trust system.

Check out this page, we have 4 signatures, 6 if counting the changed format.   Which one should be shown ?

Another option among the others can be: "show signature just one time for page"

I am pretty sure this would essentially amount to censorship. Anytime you are going to require that someone get what they want to say 'pre-approved' by some third party, there is going to be the possibility (some may argue probability) of abuse.

And what if someone wanted to put something on their signature that was damaging/embarrassing to one specific admin, and that particular admin happened to be the one who had to approve/deny the use of such signature. There is no appropriate response the admin could give to the requestor - remember it is possible that the ad could otherwise break the rules (granted the admin could decline to make a decision and pass the decision to someone else who would not be affected by the signature message)

+1. I really agree with you. I already make use of the Ignore user link when having to deal to shit/spam posters, so I don't feel such an urge of a new tool to disable signature. I think Quickseller may have a point in asking for a having banned people signature removed to avoid sig campaigns payment to spammers; however, i also hope campaign managers to donate banned spammers earnings to initiatives like the one from MZ aimed at reporting spam posts & educating people about forum rules.  

I'm not terribly opposed to this idea (and I know my opinion isn't really worth much anyway).  But the part that I don't understand is expressed here:


Don't you just want to ignore completely the posts of the spammer or useless poster?  Why not just use the ignore button that already exists?

If the idea is that you might simply dislike the look/feel of a particular sig-ad then I guess this is the right solution.  If the idea is to fight meaningless posts then I think that this doesn't really address the problem.

FWIW I support this idea and would be very comfortable with a simple filter that stripped font sizes/bold/colours. It's the big fonts and aggresive colouring what distracts me most, not the actual contents of the ad. Some ads are even cleverly designed so the simple fact of reading the post above makes the signature stand out, taking advantage of some known tricks regarding optical illusions and the like. They are usually black patterns over the whitish background.

Re: the placement of an hypothetic "Ignore signature" link, I'm thinking just besides the report one, ie "Report to moderator | Ignore signature".

I am newer here ,and I found a lot of signature campaign run like this " you must post at least xxxxposts"

I think it is the main reason of spam.

Can we limite it ?

signature  advs  are everywhere,  which make  the  users tired.

I think we should make the signature simple ,such as at most two lines ,with only one colur,bla bla bla

if we let users be able to ignore signature themself, it is not fair for the signature provider.at least they need a show chance.

That's why we're proposing users being able to individually ignore what signatures they want.

i'd love to see sigads removed.
but how would you detect them?

e.g. mine is an ad for xmr
cyiam has an ad for himself

^ do you consider this as advertising also?

Could you not put it on the left directly opposite the report to mod button? I'm not sure how or how well the auto-ignore will work though as certain peeps will just choose to ignore any signatures regardless of how annoying the individual ones may or may not be. Glad to see options and solutions being proposed though.

Yeah, there should probably be an "ignore signature" button near each signature. I've thought about doing this with SMF, but I don't know how I would structure the HTML so that the ignore button is non-intrusive and doesn't mess up everyone's signature.

The ignore data could be used to auto-ignore signatures that are commonly ignored (as an option). Maybe using Bayesian filtering.

Cut from this post  : https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.10740213


A lot of people are thinking that the signature campaigns generate more spam, I understand it is not a 100% fault of the sig. campaign itself but Have you seen how much users were banned in these days?

I (also) agree with the BadBear's idea, it will be useful to disable the view of an ad (with the use of some specific words). In these days a lot of users have been banned so I think this feature should be implemented as soon as possible (will it be difficult to add in this forum software?).

In person, I support BadBear. But I do think signature is really a wonderful thing which is allow users to degsin their own signature and show it to everyone, Cutting signature might be a good idea but I will be happy if you save the color and the font.

Also, how about a rule for all signature campaigns? Limited posts count? Lower rate? etc....

Well, in theory if one ad is displayed multiple times in one page then each additional advertisement displayed will be less effective and companies will want to try to limit this by creating smaller signature campaigns. Although the nature of free markets say that generally speaking once a company is successful it will continue to grow which would allow them to have a bigger budget for advertisements.

The campaign that I am in does a pretty good job in not paying for spam, which is ultimately what needs to happen. Unfortunately it is very time intensive to monitor for spam on a campaign basis with the help of some administrative tools. There was a good amount of spam from the campaign that I am in last week, and will probably be a bit of spam for another week or two until people realize they won't get paid for shit posts. I think the site owner will likely see that that kind of advertising is much more effective as people will be less likely to skip reading posts from people who make nothing but shit posts (and skip over the signature/ad as well).

As it stands now, if someone were to get banned in the middle of a signature campaign, it would only appear as if they stopped posting, and as long as they made the minimum number of posts required they would likely still get paid, so there is really a very small penalty for being banned. If a ban were also to, at the very least result in a signature being removed while they are banned then they would not be paid because almost all signature campaigns require that the signature be kept up the duration of the payment period.

I can say that I often see something that someone is selling themselves (for example their escrow service, physical coins, ect.) that I may be interested in buying, and the amount of business they do would obviously not warrant any kind of paid advertisement.

Have you thought about signature advert designs having to be approved by the admin's first? Maybe too colourful/garish ones are not allowed? Personally I don't mind most of them and think they look ok except maybe the multicoloured rainbow ones that are obviously designed to just be eye-catching but I think a well-designed/professional-looking one is actually more effective than those.

Well the point isn't to reduce spam, it's that I (and other's I'm sure) are sick of seeing the same ads over and over again.  I would love to not have to see them anymore without turning off signatures entirely. Right now it's all or nothing. Should be all, no ads, or nothing.  

I do see what you're getting at in that less pay=more spam as people try to make up for it, but more spam would just make them easier to catch. As it is, the signature campaigns just get the most garish ads they can find, throw money at it, and ignore spammers because they know people don't really have a choice. If people have the ability to turn off the ads, then they would have to work smarter. Have ads that are pleasing and not too distracting, have good posters in their campaign, and to not go overboard with how many users you have with it, and have a good rapport with the users of the forum (if you see the same ad 20x in a row on the same page you are much more likely to block it, especially if it's loud and annoying). Giving people a choice would add consequences, and would be much closer to a true free market than the way it currently is. And eventually maybe a middle ground is found.
 

People spam more because of the signature. People will be careful more when it be disabled than they get ban.

   -MZ

yes.

---

I am not sure this would be effective in reducing spam, it could even make it worse as companies would pay less so the people who are willing to try to earn via signature spamming will either need to work harder (spam more) or would be willing to accept less. I would say that generally people who are willing to accept low payments will probably generally spam more.

I do agree with your point that people should not be forced to view ads although it is currently setup so that only heros+ can disable forum ads.

I think a good solution would be to have a second tier of a ban when someone is banned for insubstantial posts + paid signature (aka signature spam). One could be banned for 14 days from posting/sending PMs and then once that ban expires, for a person to be unable to display their own signature (they can't participate in signature campaigns).

It would probably also not be a bad idea to disable displaying a signature when the ban starts as well so that when a person is banned they will likely be denied payment from their campaign because their signature is removed. This would cause people to be more careful about getting banned because it would mean they won't get paid for their "work" verses they just can't post now and would likely appear as though they just went on vacation.

Ah right, I see..

But then: The big annoyance are meaningless posts, not the ad below it (in my opinion). So I don't think this would
bring a great relief..

I've thought about Signature Campaign Managers/Runners having to pay to a small fee to the forum before they can run one, though finding an appropriate price could be problematic. The forum doesn't gain any monetary value directly, though the number of users/traffic signature campaigns bring in will obviously be quite valuable/significant.


Polls like this can be easily manipulated by multiple alt accounts or account farmers especially when they have money on the line.

Cross posting my post from where BadBear originally posted it:

Since we already have this feature, and sig campaign payouts are not low,  I am okay with being able to block a users signature.

Why don't you (or: whoever feels responsible) start up a poll as the new forum software comes
closer? I guess that a big majority would be in favor of disabling signature advertising alltogether.

Not per user basis or keyword basis. What hilariousandco suggested should also be added IMHO.

   -MZ

Disable advertising specifically, not signatures entirely. There are useful things to be seen in signatures, shouldn't have to turn them off completely.

Didn't know we had that feature. And by the way, I just found a disable signatures button in my profile. Now I can't see your signature! So we already have this feature?

true.

A small decrement maybe there but due to the competition, they will pay an amount which isn't disappointing.


Users can also disable their signature.

   -MZ

Why should users be forced to view ads they don't want to see? We already allow forum ads to be disabled, I don't see you being concerned about that though.

If 50% of users turn off signature viewing, then the signature campaign is getting 50% less exposure. So won't they want to pay less?

Bad idea IMHO. Signatures are used for personal advertising too without much designs.


Only if they don't check and ban people from their campaign correctly. Some users might disable with keywords such as cloud mining but I don't think it would affect much.

   -MZ

Quoting a relevant suggestion:


I think that is what BadBear meant by "it would be a setting in your profile you could set yourself".


+10.

   -MZ

But wouldn't that result in a dramatic reduction of the payout? Because the campaign company would be getting less views.

You can do that already, just cut down the amount of characters allowed in a signature so they attract less attention.

Or, a signature campaign will need an approval before running one, plus, a fee to the forum for running the advertisement. (you don't get anything from the current campaigns, right?)

Posted this elsewhere, figured I should post it here.


I'm pushing for a way to easily disable signature advertising on a per user basis, it would be a setting in your profile you could set yourself. Either filter them by keywords or regex, disable special characters and formatting to make signatures less obnoxious, or something similar.

If one can disable forum ads, one should be able to disable sig ads as well. Since signature ads are so much more prolific it only makes sense. Shouldn't have to disable signatures entirely just because because of ads, users should have the choice. Signature advertising would still be possible, just less effective, and would cut down on the spam without so many users needing to be moderated/banned.

It would also mean sig campaigns would need to be much more responsible. If your campaign has lots of spammers in it that you are not controlling, then people are going to block your ads. If your ad is obnoxious, people will block it.