Topic: Suggestion: To reduce signature spam (Read 300 times)

That wouldn't really help. A lot of people tend to just ignore the sticky threads, especially the signature spammers.

There currently isn't really any incentive to report posts. Either you care about the state of the forum and act upon it, or you don't. I have noticed a few campaign participants that actively report posts.

The situation in that section has improved after useless threads (e.g. 'What would you do if you had 1 BTC") were moved into the Off-topic section. However, there is definitely a lot of room for improvement.

I would suggest adding a sticky to all main boards/sections with elements of that topic that are specifically directed at members of signature campaigns.

It might also be a good idea to add something to that sticky to encourage other users to report posts that break those guidelines. It would be amazing if people who participate in sig-campaigns themselves report users' posts that are unsubstantial/spammy in nature.

I still see a lot of spam in 'Bitcoin Discussion', one of the sections I'm personally most active in and I think it's a good idea to give that warning some more exposure, so other people are more inclined to report posts to combat that behaviour.

Due to the unacceptable level of spam and low-quality posts signature campaigns generate we have decided to offer some guidelines of what is and isn't acceptable and an explanation of the punishments for users who continually make low quality contributions and the campaigns that continue to pay them to do so. Signature campaigns should be a way to reward users for quality contributions and only those that do should be paid, but at the moment it has become a way for many campaign operators to lazily and cheaply advertise their business by paying greedy users to spam whatever unsubstantial rubbish they can be bothered putting the minimal amount of effort in to and this will no longer be tolerated.

Campaign Participants:

Staff do not want to hand out bans for unconstructive posts but if we feel that you as a user are continually making very poor or unsubstantial posts due to your paid signature the following bans will be issued:

First offence: 7 days
Second offence: 14 days
Third offence: 30 days
Fourth: Permanent ban

Your first ban is your first warning. If you have to be banned for a fourth time it is permanent and you will no longer be allowed to participate on the forum under any accounts. Note: If you are banned on one account then you are not allowed to post under any accounts you own for the duration of your ban. The only exception to this rule is Meta where you can discuss the circumstances of your ban if you wish to do so but anywhere outside of that sub will be considered ban evasion and will get your ban doubled, but it is generally best to just patiently wait out your ban and improve your posts on return and hopefully no further bans will be needed.

Warning: Anyone caught copying other users' posts or plagiarising content from elsewhere on the web will be immediately permabanned. You shouldn't need a warning to know that this isn't acceptable under any circumstances.

What counts as an unsubstantial or unconstructive post? There is obviously no set definition to what constitutes unconstructive posting as it is entirely subjective and is ultimately down to Staff opinion on what posts are constructive or not, but generally it is quite easy to spot a spammer posting only for payment. Spam can come in many forms, but a typical spammer's posts will often follow some sort of pattern which will be immediately obvious upon inspection and will usually consist of one or two sentences of rehashed opinion posted as fast as possible with the minimal amount of effort being put in. A quality/constructive poster will generally have no pattern to their posting history and will have posts ranging from one word to one sentence to several paragraphs and everything in between and this is what you should be aiming for. If you find yourself in a position where you are forcing yourself to reply to a thread due to your signature campaign then that's a pretty good indication that you're likely making unsubstantial posts.

Helpful suggestions:

• Firstly, just put some actual thought into your posts. Actually read the thread and the replies already posted. Often-times people will just read the title of the thread and post without fully understanding the topic or issue and make either irrelevant posts or say the same thing that has been said numerous times before.

• If somebody asks a specific question and it gets answered adequately within the first post or two nobody needs to read another ten replies saying the same thing just reworded slightly. If you cannot offer any additional info or clarify/correct something then you probably don't need to post it.

• If you struggle with English it's probably best to try stick to your Local boards. Your English does not need to be anywhere near perfect and you will not be penalised for this but if people generally can't understand what you're saying then it will likely be considered unsubstantial or spam.

• Short replies are not always bad and long ones are not always good. Sometimes all that is required is a simple one word yes or no response, but stretching out an answer just to appear constructive usually has the opposite effect.

Please note that these guidelines are a last ditch attempt to clean the forum up from an issue caused almost entirely by spam from paid to post campaigns and if you want to be able to continue to earn bitcoins in such a way then please do your bit to help. Don't force yourself to make posts and if you see someone making poor posts either report them to the moderators or give them a friendly PM warning and link them to this thread. If things do not change around here pretty quickly then the only solution will be to prohibit signatures from the forum entirely so it's down to you as signature participants to help make that change if you want to continue to earn from them.