Topic: The end of an era for me: Leaving Signature Campaign (Read 1263 times)

Don't sell yourself short. Signature Campaigns and their participants have been a point of contention ever since they began. Many people will take interest in pretty much any relevant development.


I know for me, I've become less active, because of the way the dynamics changed around here (for me personally) after my ban-appeal. There is nothing wrong with an ebb and flow of posting activity, but at least now you don't have any minimum requirement influencing that.


This is one of the biggest problems that signature campaigns bring to our forum.
Although, let's be clear; you didn't "have" to, you chose to for monetary gain.
This sort of steps away from "leaving money on the table".


How much of your posting do you think was to increase your post count or wasn't something you truly meant?
Purely curious, I'm not a crusader, and if I've misunderstood you then I apologize.


If you think that spam will be completely eliminated with the removal of paid signatures, then you haven't been around long enough.
What about the 1-post newbie spam asking for loans? Those have literally nothing to do with signature campaigns.

Well, these newbies posts are also for the promotion of the altcoins and ICO and they are getting paid for it in terms of shit coins. 
I think the better way to collect these reports is that they submit them in excel file as posting the links on thread and then counting them is a tiresome job.

I guess you haven't seen patrol yet: almost all Newbie posts are only spamming links to Facebook and Twitter. Barely any of these posts are worth reading, and they can't even wear a signature yet.

You still think that spam will only be reduced if paid signatures are banned ?
It may introduce many other complications / effects  but for the SPAM, i think it will be completely eliminated.

welcome to the club.
dont sell your soul and dont sell you name.
and dont support the gig economy.

and to reduce spam just ban all paid sigs.

This is the main problem that I have had with regard to signature campaigns.

My philosophy on post-checking has marginal overlap with the desired outcome of the client.

It is obvious that more posts = more clicks (generally) and the service operators would want to maximize their bang for their buck. The problem is in gathering participants with high enough post quality to satisfy my criteria, while keeping costs low. I mentioned my thoughts on the pay/post model and despite having the capability of producing a high number of posts, even with a significant percentage of the total post count encompassing ineligible (and thereby unpaid) posts, the fixed-post model may still seem more appealing to clients.

I had a brief discussion with a current signature manager and they noted that in some cases, the service providers don't want to deal with variable payments. They want to see, "I pay 0.1 a week" not "I pay 0.05 to 0.015 a week" even if the average payment on the latter end could be lower.

I'll send a PM to Baryom and ask him about this, he's the owner of Bitsler. They have their own referral link in every signature, so they should have these stats available.
No idea if he'd be willing to share this, but it's worth a try.

As far as I know, most signature compaign managers don't have access to this data. The few campaigns I've managed ended quickly because they didn't deliver enough new users.

I would not be opposed to managing a campaign, but I wonder how viable it would be as a side-business.
Whenever a new campaign manager starts a thread in the services boards, they're always met with comments that the market is already too saturated and that it's impossible for someone new to become a campaign manager.

Granted, these may be relatively new members, but I still think it's fairly hard to compete with existing managers.

That said, it would be quite interesting to offer campaign management services with some sort of a turnkey solution, where I as the campaign manager would decide how the campaign should be run.
I'd personally employ a particular campaign management style that's equal for every campaign I'd manage.

Basically this:

- Reasonably high merit requirements for every participant
- Bonus Pay rates based on the amount of previous posts
- P/W without a minimum amount of weekly posts to adhere to, reasonably low maximum amount of posts that get paid
- High base-pay per post, but employing a pretty strict requirements for posts to be eligible for payment.

The thing is, if I just posted this in the Services boards, I doubt that anyone would hire me. The best way to actually start managing campaigns like these, would probably be by starting to contact companies outside of Bitcointalk and offering them this solution, backed up with some statistics about the impact of Bitcointalk signature campaigns.

Now that I think about it, I'm kinda tempted to hire some sales people and have them contact some companies, offering a formula like this. Could be a huge waste of money, to be honest, but on the other hand it could also bring some completely new campaigns over here.


Not as niche as I thought then, they may make even more than Bitcoin casinos, without their investment being subject to variance.

I think you underestimate the volume of mixers: Bitmixer for instance processed 65,000 BTC per month. I'm not sure how much they charged, but at just 1% you're looking at 650 BTC revenue per month.

This is something out of this world. I mean i hardly see any person who is in good campaigns since many years and he leave by himself saying that he cannot post forcefully just to meet the campaign requirements.
This is like a great player in the sports like football, who is in good form but retires himself early because he thinks he cannot give full dedication towards his performance.

I highly doubt this, 'good posters' do not need incentives to make quality contributions. True that rules, like 'posts in XXX board is compulsory' could affect their posting shouldn't get take up such campaigns. But with lots of research, that could still give out quality posts in such scenarios.

You are suggesting a cartel mate... It works when the economy is good. Conversely, they will start backstabbing each other when the economy is bad.

Do not underestimate what money can do to people, my friend...

Anyway, this is an exciting topic, but maybe we should move somewhere else. Anyone care to create a thread about this issue? It would be best to give @eternalgloom peace of mind and wish him good luck for his future endeavors.

During my initial days of using the forum, posting around 25 posts per week was literally very difficult for me without spamming. Hence to prevent this, I altogether stopped participating in bitcoin campaigns and didn't participate in much of the campaigns. When I come across any good alts, I would promote them in my signature rarely when I really feel like they were good to promote. But as days passed by, the amount of scams had made me stopped promoting any of these alts in my signature. But this doesn't seem to be the case for many of the signature wearing posters. They would be promoting even if the alt was proven to be malicious and shady.

Poor Bounty Hunters were very popular at the start of 2018, but due to the scams they have felt like these bounties were absolute waste of time and majority of them have left the forum as a result.

Thanks. I have learned some basic BTS of making a signature and if I have find enough time I would like to do that for other coins too.

Also I have read somewhere in the forum that a manager would be paid based on the number of posts he has managed in a week. For instance a manager picks up 5 posters, and those 5 posters have varying posting habits like one posts 10 per week, another 20 per week and suppose if we consider the total posts produced by 5 posters is 100 per week. Hence the manager would be paid a certain percentage for that 100 posts per week. This might be one among the reasons why managers impose a minimum number of posts per week.


This is quite true but the service providers need more posters to promote their product and need to spend less for their promotion. Regarding the fact ChipMixer is seeing insane hype for the openings is because of their trust which they have gained over the years. If Yobit were to pay 0.00075 per post and if they were a long running campaign, how many quality posters would apply for that?

I agree with some of your thoughts, some campaigns pay very little compared to others, although they are looking for very high criteria. If we look pay rates for Legendary members, most campaigns pay up to $100 per week, and that is good amount in some countries. But some lower ranks are getting only dust ($5 for Member rank), which really could be classified as a category of modern slavery.

Some would say that no one is forcing anyone to join the signature campaign, but users just take what is offered. I think campaign mangers can affect owners of promoted services in a way to set higher prices for all ranks and to stop forcing min amount of post per week. But as you may indicate from your own example, there will always be those who agree to all conditions asked by service owners.

This is the current situation with signatures campaigns :



https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=615953.1340

That's really quite a step for you @eternalgloom. It's just now that I have encountered your thread. I read some of your posts in the gambling section. I guess there are some external factors that are being affected towards maybe lifestyle or something to take that huge step to stop being part of a signature campaign.

This topic gets you to think about the current situation that you have now, whether you are in a signature campaign or not, being part of Bitcointalk is definitely something special and is a part of our lives. It's something to be thankful about, that's for sure.

Good luck in your future endeavor, eternalgloom!

Over last few months, there are two rounds of Yobit signature campaign. The first one that triggered temporary bans on participants who made shit posts and reported by users, as well as ban on Yobit signature globally in the forum over months (~3 months, but I am not sure).

The second one has never confirmed payments sent to participants and we all thought Yobit did not send payments for participants in the second round (this year).

Nevertheless, their pay rate is still high as same as other good campaigns nowadays, or even higher (per post). Their extremely high max post cap per day, per week is another reason that caused spam (that I agreed with you).
Their pay rate for Hero Member rank is higher that Wolf.bet's campaign, that both of us participated in.
If companies (such as Yobit).

• Decrease max post cap per day
• Have experienced manager to manage their campaign

I believe there is no complaints about their campaigns.

There's a trick to determine if a campaign is paying high, poor or moderately, you don't call a campaign that was paying participants roughly ~$200 for over 140 posts per week a high paying campaigns that's just a spamming paying campaign and such campaign attracts only spammers or disguise spammers (hiding under the merit earned) as quality posters.

To determine the payrate of a campaign to be high, you have to compare it to the post count required by the project to recieve such payment. With my minimum payrate suggestion above I'll go with a weekly post count of minimum 25 to maximum 40 anything above that is just slavery based on that payrate.

@eternalgloom have you considered taking a role in signature management since we're advice to be the change we want to see. You can bring your philosophy into the management business and hopefully others employ your style of management since from my observation so far, you mean well for both members and the forum and I'm sure your years of been an employee most have given you enough experience to be an employer. What you think?.

Payrate is just one of vital components for successful campaign. I agree with payrate's contribution to quality of participants for each campaign, but it is not enough. You can pay a participant 0.005 BTC per post, but if you (as manager) or others play as managers of campaign don't have strict rules to choose participants, and after that to check their post quality before sending payment, such campaigns will end with failures and spam. Even good posters will decrease their post quality if managers are not strictly manage after choosing them into campaigns. In campaigns I joined, there are sometimes managers have to send warning message after payment sent, because some of participants show signal to turn into burst posting, that is not good for managers, and for companies.

Yobit, months ago, run their campaign with high payrates, but there is no one says that campaign is a successful one. That campaign attracted both spammers and good posters. Spammers banned temporarily if reported by users; good posters did not ban because they made posts that are good enough to not get reports from users. Because of terrible management, the number of spammers overwhelmed the number of good posters among Yobit participants.

Lol sometimes I wonder how you reason, we're brainstorming on possible solution to increase the payrate for campaigns which will also encourage quality contributions just as merit have, as participants tends to put in more efforts into their style of writing when there's a motivator (e.g to retain their spot in campaign, pass on a vital information or get some merits). Currently I feel the signature participants are been treated as salves, the payrate wity requirements associated with most signature campaigns aren't encouraging.

I have regretted the opportunity of managing a campaign just because of the poor payrate the campaign insisted on paying (and now the campaign is been managed by someone else on the forum).  There's no minimum payrate simply because the forum doesn't moderate signature campaign and nothing else. Also i wasn't asking them (the forum) to moderate, just recommending the campaign managers put heads together to workout some strategy to keep the signature industry fair for the participants.

There is no rules on minimum pay rates to avoid spam, in my opinion.
A campaign results in spam or not from their participants, it mainly depends on their management style and rule:

• Minimum characters of posts: Despite of the fact that post length is not the only factor to determine post quality, but it should be used as one of requirements to prevent spam.
• Time gaps between posts: Require time gaps between posts (such as 30 minutes) might prevent spam. By the way, I would like to emphasize that most of experienced managers don't have this rule or at least exactly minimum time gaps, but they have their own rights to judge which posts are burst-posting ones.
• Maximum of post cap per day to avoid both spam and burst-post
• Each companies have their own funds to run their campaigns, so they should have fair chances to run their ones here. As the core vision of theymos is maintaining a place for good newbies (as well as good start-ups, IMO).
• The management style of campaign managers will play important role to prevent spam. Managers will kick out spammers or reject to pay for spammers. So they will be kicked out or will do change their posting style (at least within period they join such strictly-managed ones)
• Campaigns need to be run in a long period to have effects in return for companies, so companies should expand their campaigns to as more weeks as possible with their funds for that purpose

Something like the above with 25 posts per week as the minimum to get paid. Paid weekly.

Better yet something like the above with 25 posts per month as the minimum posts to get paid.

Paid monthly.


I have not done a signature in so long I don’t even know what it pays.

Or simply, the campaign manager should come into an agreement to set a minimum payrate per rank then projects willing to pay participants above the minimum payrate are free to do so but no projects will pay below the minimum. This way project hoping to employ the best posters on the forum will be forced to increase their payrate to attract them. Some signature payrate are just so ridiculous they only attracts spamming.

For the payrate, I recommend minimum;
Member = 0.002BTC
Full member = 0.004BTC
Snr member = 0.006BTC
Hero member  = 0.008BTC
Legendary  = 0.01BTC

Same here as when I joined I mostly joined campaigns that had no minimum post requirement but lately all campaigns started changing rules. I started off making 5 posts when I was in signature campaigns and it was better to get paid for 5 posts and then I completely stopped in 2017-18 even though I used to post a lot in bounty campaigns as my country imposed a bank ban and then preferred private altcoin campaigns as I hadn't to make a single post but was just paid because of my rank per month. But when the altcoin market collapsed, am back to bitcoin-based campaigns but mostly they have a minimum requirement of 10-25 posts per week. I am mostly active in the cricket discussion group so always cross that limit but may rather not qualify later when I'll be less active after I relocate. Will join you then :=)

I think it's not accurate to compare the majority of f/w campaigns to ChipMixer since the pay rate difference is too high (I'd call it an outlier). The problem is like @eternalgloom said, the pay rate is too low for other campaigns. Furthermore, from what I see, service providers didn't differentiate post quality, and they only measure spam-able metric like traffic and perhaps conversion rate up to registration. Thus one hero signature from a quality member is equal to one hero signature from a shitposter (all links equal).

Trivia: even without minimum requirement, the average post for CM, for example, week 122, is 1632/56 = 29.14. It's already higher than the most campaigns that require 20-25 posts. However, the post count varied among members as some of them valued their time more than a mere 0.00075 BTC/post.

Hence, how to drive up pay rates? I only know to cut supply (less shitposters sigcamp participants) or increase demand (more casinos service providers).

@actmyname

Your logic seems sound at first glance and that's kinda how Chipmixer runs their campaign, except that they have a rather high max. posts per week.
If you look at all the other p/w campaigns out there, they pay way too little to be worth it for high-quality members.

I'd really like to see more signature campaigns abandon their current f/w model and switch over to p/w.
The problem with that though, is that it's probably a lot more labour intensive for the campaign managers.

I have no idea what the going rates are for campaign managers, but I reckon that expecting them to actually perform a more in-depth analysis on every post, would cause them to up their rates. If any campaign managers are reading this, I'd love to see your take on this...

On a side note: It is kinda ironic that a non-gambling campaign (Chipmixer) is currently offering the best paying signature campaign, by utilising the most lenient model with regards to post requirements. When I say lenient, I do not mean regarding post quality, but rather post frequency. You wouldn't think that a niche service like a coin mixer could "outbid" mainstream services like casinos, when it comes to signature campaigns.

Here is my thinking, and you can feel free to dig in as deep as you want to reject my logic.

If you are a strict campaign manager that seeks out only high-quality posts, but accepts a range of participants with varying post qualities, then the advertiser will benefit from the posts that are not eligible for payment.

For example: suppose we have a pay/post campaign in which there are 10 users with a cap of 25 posts/week. They post 200 posts in total over the span of the round. Of those 200, roughly 120 are eligible for payment.

What then happens is that you have higher quality posts than a fixed-rate campaign of 10 x 20 posts. Not only that, but you have the ability to reward the high-quality posters if the pay/post totals exceed that of the fixed rate.

The other part is that campaign participants are still rewarded for the 12 eligible posts they created rather than being subject to a loss of the week's funds just because they fell under the target. What you might have with fixed-rate campaigns is "post padding" in which they will forcibly post more than the amount to secure their payment, which is not the kind of behavior that induces (generally) good posts.

I see few drawbacks, except in the case where all the campaign participants that are accepted seldom post, to which the advertiser suffers if they want short-term gains. However, over the long-term, they will actually see more traffic with the same amount of funds. The best model for garnering long-term attention would be a medium-to-high reward pay/post campaign with a relatively low cap on the maximum rewarded posts for each round.

I can't say who's to blame because most (or all) signature campaigns have fixed post requirements, and I agree this is not the best model or maybe better to say most fair for users. If anyone is forced to post xx times per week to get pay, then there is no choice but to do it, even though it results in spam sometimes.

Is service providers ask managers to set up campaigns in that way, or managers suggest how the campaign will be done? I agree that most services want to run quick campaigns, and get as much exposure in as little time as possible, with of course a lower cost - which is not a good combination.

The fact is that there is a huge interest for any spot in ChipMixer signature campaign, but not only because of good pay rates, but also because participants are not limited by the minimum/fixed number of posts.

Those things come later when signature campaigns are your source of income.

When you have other means to make money, you can ignore the money point in sign. campaigns.

I think service providers push campaign managers to get the words out quickly to create hype. This effect cannot be achieved if posters don't do a minimum of x posts per week. So I cannot blame managers for this situation.

Speaking about the minimum weekly post, I think OP only need a little break, since he has been doing this sigcamp from 2014. @OP perhaps you should go on holiday in Bali, Indonesia, to charge your spiritual energy*

*intended advertisement

I don't know, there's nothing preventing me to join another signature campaign if I feel like it, the owner of my last campaign even mentioned to me that he'll let me join again if I ask him. Nothing lost there...

Now, I'd probably want to join Chipmixer actually, since their model looks really neat without those minimum post requirements, but there's close to 100 people gunning for that position once they accept new members.

Anyway, it's not something that's on my mind now, I'm just going to enjoy my time off for now and focus on doing some other stuff on the forum. I'm spending way more time on my Steem blog now, which I really enjoy doing.


Sorry in advance for quoting this entire reply, but you make some really good points.

Yeah that's the thing, I'm not a big fan of the current model of most campaigns. I've already mentioned it, but they should really look more at your existing posts and also give you the option to just post without minimum post requirements. I mean a member who has a couple of really popular, constantly relevant topics is worth a lot more than someone who just posts 25 times per week (or whatever the number is).

I've never understood the appeal of these various altcoin bounty campaigns, I've never even bothered with those. You constantly see posts in the Altcoin boards of how "bounty hunters are getting screwed". Honestly, I kinda laugh at those topics, because it's so easy to avoid getting screwed. Just don't participate... it's as easy as that.

And yeah, requirements to post in specific boards are also very annoying. Luckily I've never joined campaigns that had such requirements, that's something I just won't do.

About that signature you've created, it's a really neat placeholder until I find something different, you've done a really good job with that. Actually, I might just hire you to design a personal signature for me, possibly one for Steem, which I'd just use to promote it for free


Hehe, how long have you been without a signature? Or have you never even had one? I see you're always very active here, so that's a great example of how you can really thrive here without taking advantage of the so called "free money".

On an unrelated note, I might just start promoting my own publishing service here soon. I've been getting paid to write honest reviews on my Steemit blog for close to a year now, so I've built up a pretty decent portfolio with great reviews from customers. I'm a member of an "influencer agency", which gives me gigs from time to time, but I reckon I can just get customers myself through Bitcointalk.

It's always better to add some new business here on Bitcointalk, I think that keeps the in-forum economy going too. Now it's very much reliant on Signature Campaigns, but people tend to forget that there are other thriving businesses here.

If OP does not want to use a signature with simple texts, he can spend a few satoshis to get a professional signature. Here is a signature design service from Zwei, who managed one campaign that I joined months ago. His service costs only $15. I think it is not too much fee for rich guy, like OP. 
[15$]🌠 - 💎 Signature Design service - [updated].

What's a sig campaign?

I think there are far better things that you can do with your signature, other than promoting products that most people don;t understand and don't use. Your sig says something about your personality and your morality, but most siggers don't seem to care about this.

A unique topic on signatures I have read so far in the whole board from 1.5 year of stay. I have been constantly participating in signatures till last year, but recently even during the pump periods I don't find them really interesting as it was last year. Even if they pay me anywhere around $50-$100 I feel like I am being forced to post certain minimum amount of posts to fit the criteria. This was the sole reason, I have distanced myself from bitcoin campaigns till December 2018.

But after the insane line-up of scam coins in the market, I felt like I should never promote any altcoin through my signature. Majority of the altcoin campaigns have a 10 post limit which is really good for somewhat better poster like me. As I have said in many topics before, I don't post like others do (posting in a row, saying the same shit which is present already) and would most probably limit myself within 10 posts from the OP. I may have been more active than the active posters here who joined during my time, but the limit of posting I have set upon has prevented me from gaining any higher posts.

For instance majority of the quality posters who joined during end of 2017 or at the start of 2018 has posted more than 1000+ posts within a year, but I am still lagging at 700. I spend around 5+ hours here daily at varying time frames but would post a maximum of 1-3 posts. To the contrary I have been kicked from many campaigns for not maintaining the post count nor posting in the desired boards. If I were to be like as I was during Jan 2018, I would have spammed 25 one-liners for $1 per week. But the change this forum has brought in me, has made me get rid of money even how high they may be.

There had been many instances when I was at 23 posts with 3 posts in gambling at the last date of the payment week. So to receive the $50 payment the next day I should post 2 more in gambling to finish up the quota, but I didn't do that and informed the manager to kick me out of the campaign since I was not able to finish up the minimum criteria. If we are to post in this forum solely for receiving money, then we can not qualify ourselves as a respected poster even how good your posts are.

P.S :  That being said, thanks for using the signature which I designed. Think it like satoshi is paying you for promoting bitcoin.

Bounty managers will not simply calculate the posts of the week based on the last week post count since many campaigns won't count posts from certain boards and also old posts may get deleted which leads to decrease of the actual post count.

AFAIK,most managers count that week's posts manually.

The real reason why they have fixed requirement is due to the influence from the project they are working under.

It's easier to count posts when there is fixed requirement,  

BM just has to deduct current month's posts from previous month.

It's easier way, albeit with compromisation of quality (there are exceptions, of course).

OP, congratulations with your decision. I perfectly understand you. You just wanted some freedom. Campaigns which requires to make x posts to get paid, "force" users to post, even if they don't have what to say. And sometimes when we have bussy week it can be difficult to make enough posts to get paid. So, sometimes users have to write just for post count and it gives some pressure and can produce spam.
It would be nice if you will share your thoughts after some time without being in signature campaigns, how it changed your experience and posting habbits here.
There was some periods when I didn't had enough time for Bitcointalk and I was struggling to find good topics to reply something and I thought about leaving signature campaign. But it was temporary feelings. As said above, we have great opportunity to earn some money when we do what we like and it would be stupid to miss it.
@actmyname, you have valid points. But obviously advertisers want more visibility and this is why these requirements are needed - probably such campaign structure is the most effective.

Signature campaigns with fixed post requirements make no sense and are detrimental to the manager, to the participants, and to the service that is being advertised.

---

1) it produces spam.
2) in the case where the manager is strict in regards to post quality, the user's payment is at-risk even if they are a few quality posts below the requirement
3) the pay/post model can be adjusted in order to reward higher-quality posts and as such limit the number of accepted spam posts, reducing the overall cost of the campaign
4) a manager will have to read through at least X posts for each N people whereas a pay/post (with cap) is variable and will strike X*N good posts at most

That's actually a very good suggestion, I've changed my signature to the one you suggested in the meantime.


Yeah, the minimum post requirements are a bit strange for me as well.
I mean the thing that should matter most is the total number of posts and topics of a member IMO.

I have one topic that's doing quite well in the Google search results, I know because I get replies from completely new members who've only signed up to reply to that topic.
Stuff like that should be taken into account, because in the end it's all about making your signature visible to as many people as possible.

It would really be a welcome change if the majority of campaigns changed their model.

You have done the right thing!

I think at this point there's no doubt that the whole forum would have a more sincere positive vibe without the incentivized posting.

When people are forced to say something, there are great chances that is gonna be something stupid and without value.

 

Good for you !

While the temptation to earn some extra bucks for posting is hard to resist, you are right that it's really pressuring to post the minimum amount of threshold if weeks and schedules get busy and stuffs.

I hope though that you can manage and balance it out and may join in future again with campaigns having lenient rules All the best to you

I do not like the restriction on things, especially work, signature campaigns that force members to a minimum of posts pay participants more spam and thus reduce the efficiency of posts.
It doesn't matter what you think about signature campaigns but it has a good impact on the continuity of the forum. See the serious discussions section.
With increasing knowledge of cryptocurrencies, decentralized forums are an effective tool for obtaining assessments and avoiding scam.

In my opinion, it is another higher matured hierarchy in the forum:
- Newbies: unknowledgeable in rules, and basics; mostly make funny posts.
- From Member to Full Member ranks: read and learn enough rules, guides, etc. and make better posts. Newbies look at them, how they can know very more details about the forum rules, and say: "I admire them so much and try to reach their levels some day."
- Senior Member rank: dig deeply in the forum rules, understand and interpret rules better and more exactly as well as usually make above-average quality posts. Additionally, more regularly help others. Lower ranked users say: "Wow, I admire those Senior members, who are knowledgeable, kindful, and very actively help others. I want to be like them some day."
- Hero Member and Legendary ranks: become the top, and being valuable assest with good positively net effects for the forum; making high quality posts become their habits, they love high quality posts. Low ranked users says: "Wow, how they can manage their time to make such high quality posts on daily basis, and I want to be like them some day (good asset, well reputation, and chances to earn good extra income)".

• My story: I did struggled with a single merit to become a Hero Member, but then I lifted up my pressure after hitting that rank. Two months later, my total earned merits surpass my activity point. It makes sense as a very classic example of good posting habit. At that point, poster don't care that they will get merits from their posts or not, and when they come. Because they do know merits will find their good posts.

- Finally, the top is what OP just did recent days. There are some others don't wear any signature, they have not yet written about their stories, but yeah I partially can understand why they do that. Maybe some day in next few years, I will have the same approach as of OP.

Anyway, congratulate for your decision and your freedom in posting.

To op thank you for the thread. I ended my signature participation years ago.

I did do a free promo for simplemining and for Avalon a841 but ended that a while ago.

My signature now simply states what I think about all cryptocoins.

As for having to post well not much of a problem I averaged 375 posts a month since 2012 which is more then 30000 posts since I started.

I think 🤔 I was paid for 2014 to 2016 Maybe 3 years

First of all congratulations and welcome to the club. We started our journey on BitcoinTalk almost at the same time, i.e. end of 2013. From ~1200$ to ~200$ to ~20000$ to ~2000$, we have seen a LOT. Like many others, my first taste of Bitcoin was from Signature Campaign as well. But, association with certain projects made me bid them good bye. Trust me, good projects are much more rewarding in the long run. In any case, if you think of wearing a signature for the benefit of Bitcoin, you might try the following...


Source: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/signature-sets-for-some-popular-currencies-3755873

Good Luck.

I would hate that too. I've always thought having minimum required posts was a bad model. It incentivizes people to post when they don't want to, directly encouraging spam. It's probably easier on campaign managers but I don't see any other benefit.

Well done and good luck for your project!

OP, After 5 years of constantly posting in the signature, it is a big move for you. I hope you will not be bored without the required posting.


it's fair of you to give them merit, you take his place in Bitsler campaign

I can not disagree with you.
There are some characteristics of good posters:

• Having enough knowledge and experience (rules, boards; many things relate to bitcoin/ altcoins)
• Spending time to find place to make decent posts (look for issues of other users, eg.)
• Spending time to read, search, and compose and proof-read posts to answer or to help
• Spending decent time each week to do this

The second step is important, because you can not make good posts if you can not find where to post. Without questions, you can not answer with decent posts.
Doing all those things, I don't see problems to make 50 decent posts per week (but time is always issue).  

It is very nice to get paid a little bit to discuss things that are interesting to me. I have found myself sometimes trying to post to meet my quota when I didn’t have a lot of time to devote to researching and respond in an insightful manner.

I understand why campaigns do this, but I am not a fan of forcing users to post in certain subs and not count posts in other subs. I have found myself not posting in unpaid subs when there was an interesting topic and I had already met my quota. I also don’t want to post in specific subs when I may not be interested in any threads in the sub, which has caused me to avoid these campaigns.

I hope your time in signature campaigns allowed you to learn about crypto. This is, by far the best thing about signature campaigns.

Holy shit wow. The sudden rant. Guess what? Regardless of The Pharmacist's intentions with his posts, regardless if it's solely for monetary gain or not, I don't mind. Why? Because he's been helpful as fuck to the community. You? All you do is talk smack. Get a life.

No one is forcing you to stop and do sig, while you are in this forum.
You are free to do what you have to do if you think it is bad and good.

However, most people here provide the best, knowledge, understanding, about Bitcoin that is currently being discussed by the world community.

The Bitcointalk forum is a place for people who need help, "Forums come uninvited, go unanswered". So you can choose to go or stay in the Forum.

Everyone has their own principles and goals, you say that (Q) is not necessarily someone else agrees with (Q).
For example, in your hometown there is a party with lavish and festive food, you can choose to come or not.

The decision is your.

This thread has not turned into a rant against ANY person. It is simply how the permitted flow works. You say you left the sig campaign and say you feel better and voice your reasons for this that seem commendable. Pharmacist comes along and give his "apparent" reasons for staying in a sig campaign.

Others come along and discuss your reasons you give for leaving a sig campaign and support those reasons. They then debunk BOGUS reasons for staying in a sig campaign offered by someone clearly presenting FALSE information.

Threads here are not for presenting false information to the reader. It is VALUABLE to the reader to have the observably FALSE information debunked or given the full context to make their own minds up.

This is the issue with " some" mods interpretation of permitted flow. They want to create and echo chamber that is usually based on the echos of FALSE and MISLEADING information and will REMOVE on topic, natural flow that presents CORRECT and TRUE information.

So I hope that has explained to you how CORRECTING false information on your thread and keeping it TRUE for the reader to digest is beneficial for you and the entire board.

False information that is on topic and related to the OP should be corrected. There is no other possible way of approaching it. So long as you do not bring in UNRELATED and OFF TOPIC  examples to debunk the FALSE CLAIMS then of course the thread will naturally flow in the most optimal way.

Again well done for leaving paid2post.  Your reasons are VALID.  Those reasons offered as the personal reasons thepharmacist remains splashing chipmixer everywhere are debunked as UNTRUE or HIGHLY DOUBTFUL in light of the ontopic and relevant information presented.

You latest post " would join a campaign without minimal post requirements" is another good point. It is true without being forced to make up posting numbers to hit the payout level then that is certainly an improvement and perhaps something that the board should insist upon. This would cut out needless repetitive low value posting.

Pharmacist - to reply to you. You must refrain from making false accusations. That is our contention with you and any other person that continuously posts false and misleading information. That and supporting untrustworthy members. You will be corrected each time that we find you to be making false claims.  These rebuttals will be on topic and relevant and highly valuable. It is good you are not posting the max just to increase chipmixer payments. Perhaps you have been improving recently. Keep to posting what you can demonstrate to be true and stop supporting untrustworthy members and improve further. Win win.

@eternalgloom, nice and brave decision! You made some money here, as you are in sig campaigns since 2014, and that´s money is not free, you really put some effort here. Enjoy your break!

Personally, I am with @ThePharmacist, " It would be like leaving money on the table ", as I am going to be here anyway.

People talk so much about signature spammers, but few people talk about the contributions good members such as eternalgloom or many other here do.
I see that many signature campaign users make amazing contributions to the forum, and being paid for that is not a problem.

Many newbies come here everyday with technical questions and they receive support in less than 10 minutes  by 3-4 different users, who are able to help them !
This is very good for the forum and for the bitcoin community.

If there were no financial incentive, I doubt we would have so quick and quality replies for those legit newbie questions. This is important, in my opinion.
(There are many other good contributions, this was just an example)

Freedom have different meaning or can be understood in different way by different individual. If I understood clearly you felt those campaigns were a burden to you since you had to meet certain amount of post per week before you get paid. In simple terms you didn't (or no longer) love what you were doing. Well, good for you but is there something else you're not telling us because I feel it took you quite some number of years to realize what you just said if that's the only reason you're quiting. Anyways congrats on your new journey.

Personally, I consider participating in signature campaigns to be a privilege, a privilege I have earned due to investing my time on the forum. Like they said "if you can't get a job you love then love what you're doing". I love participating in signature campaigns, not just because i get paid for it but because it also serve as a motivator to engage in more interesting discuss which at the end of the day benefits me even more than the projects I'm promoting.

I've been in the Crypto-Games & Bitsler campaigns, they both had a 25 posts per week requirement.

Yeah, I totally get the "leaving money on the table" argument and that's why I'm still kinda leaving it open to join a campaign in the future.
Now it's just that I really do not have any external incentive to post, except pure interest, it just feels liberating in a way.

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And wow, how did this turn into a rant against The Pharmacist, that really wasn't my intention.
I really didn't mean to shame people who were still active in signature campaigns, heck I have no moral qualms against people who are active in signature campaigns.

The posts I've seen The Pharmacist make were always on point, so I really don't agree with painting them in such a bad light.
Not every reply needs to be overly intellectual, sometimes people just enjoy to read regular stuff too...

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Hey, that could very well be the case, I do think I'd probably join a campaign without minimum post requirements.
OR
Maybe I'll just advertise a project that I'm really interested in and slap a referral link of my own on that.
I won't be making the same kind of money as in a regular Bitcoin signature campaign, but at least I'll have a warm fuzzy feeling

Just FYI, I haven't made the max number of posts for Chipmixer in many weeks (50).  Frankly, I'm having a hard time finding good threads to post in, ones where I actually have something to say.  And please, you can't say my posts are anywhere near as bad as the vast majority here which consist of short, nonsensical idiocy in broken English.  True, I don't write extremely long screeds raging against perceived injustices against....whatever....like you do, but I'm hardly a shitposter.

Fair enough.  I didn't report it as being in the wrong section or anything; it was just a suggestion to OP because it has more to do with him personally than it does with the forum as a whole.

Edit:

That's alright, the argument is over and I won't respond to any more salvos from the peanut gallery in your thread. 

I understand the temptation of earning while you post so you end up posting low quality content than you normally would because you simply aren't interested in the topic. However, think about joining a campaign which has no minimum posts. I've done that for a while, and have hit 0 posts within a period multiple times. I only get paid for discussion which I'm interested in contributing too rather than out of necessity of getting paid.

Pharmacist is one of the biggest shit posters, no he isn't a scammer or thief but he is constantly churning out his max amount of posts for chipmixer without really saying much.  He lacks real knowledge, I don't hate the guy or anything but he won't just be honest with us.  He is here just to make money, if there was no sig campaign he would barely be active here at all.

It was my last merit that I sent to OP, because OP mentioned the real truth. Most of campaign ask a minimum post count & posting board requirement. But fortunately we have to accept it whoever want to earn some extra money from here. Whoever paying they might have some requirement, this requirement has not  came from managers.

By the way enjoy your freedom.

This is a good move.  We agree that UNLESS you find a project you really believe in and wish to support then there is no reason to be wearing a sig for financial gain.

You should only make posts that you feel add value and not feel you HAVE to post to meet a quota OR that you are wasting the opportunity to make money.

What the pharmacist just said above is CLEARLY NOT TRUE.  He is a financially motivated shit poster and has been caught red handed being extra greedy and sneaky and using his racist trolling sock puppet HugeBlackWoman. He was caught because he was NOT SATISFIED with spamming 2 sigs he was trying to spam for the maximum rates he could get and was swapping from one scampaign to another.

This clearly demonstrates you can not trust what he tells you. I mean is he claiming now that he would be racist trolling for free ANYWAY?  or that he was not trying to jump out of one campaign to another for GREATER REWARDS??

He even admitted here he feels his greatest achievement ever since being a members was GETTING ON TO A HIGHLY PAID SIG CAMPAIGN ....

You can not trust the "REASONS" these people give for spamming the low value garbage for the highest rates.

However, well done to the OP. Become a real enthusiast for this movement and only post when you are certain to be adding additional value.

Sadly suchmoon just decided to demonstrate she can no longer resist joining her "pals" to spam CHIPMIXER all over meta board.

You have to wonder at the dumbo who thinks having 10 CHIPMIXER sigs per thread in meta is better for CHIPMIXER than 5 CHIPMIXER sigs per thread. LOL

At least now you can be free of the forced posting mandate of these kind of campaigns.

All meta posters should be sig free. You are setting a good example. Well done.

No please leave it here. All we ever seem to have in meta is people constantly feeding trolls at the moment it'll be nice to have something different for once (at least those are the ones that seem to get continuously bumped)...

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I guess he left to be a bit more free, personally I'd give it a month and then you'd probably rejoin. I've had points where campaigns have closed that I'm in and I've just left for about a month for a break. It's quite nice every so often, I still stayed here and kept posting but it's just a bit different from being in a sig...

Same... I don't like having to meet a quota so I haven't had a paid sig in like years..
I have applied to chipmixer a few times because I like that their is no minimum post limit and you won't get booted if you don't post for a week or whatever but I highly doubt I'll get in because my posting style isn't what they are looking for..
I was thinking about possibly asking Yahoo or someone if he could broker me a sig deal on such terms sometime but eh..

I don't know what campaign you were in since I have signatures blocked and never saw yours, and I just looked at your profile and you obviously removed your campaign signature--but what I was wondering was whether they had a minimum number of weekly posts or not.  I've been in campaigns with minimum posts, and I always hated that unless it was a very low number.

If that's the case, why are you going campaign-free?  The only reason I've been in signature campaigns was because I figured it'd be better to get paid for doing something I'd be doing anyway.  It would be like leaving money on the table if I didn't take part in one.

But hey, props to you if it makes you feel more free.  By the way, this might be better in Reputation or some other section.

This probably isn't anything too interesting for other people, but it is for me.
I'm leaving my signature campaign and will not join any other ones for some time.

Mind you, I've been in a signature campaign constantly since 2014, so it's a pretty big step for me to just walk away from them.

I just don't want to deal with the hassle anymore, you know, having to post X amount of times per week...
Now, I doubt I will be any less active, but now I can purely post for fun without actually having to post.

The campaigns I've been in, were always great, never had any issues with the campaign managers, but after a while the obligation to post starts to wear on you.
I've probably spend some time responding to topics I wasn't really interested in, so it's great that I don't have to do that anymore...

I just thought this deserved to be put in a topic, hehe, I could almost shed a tear because being in a signature campaign was part of my life for so long.
Anyway, this might inspire others to take a break from signature campaigns and just enjoy Bitcointalk for what it is, without expecting payment for it

I'll probably have way more time to spend on my Steemit blog now and to participate with interesting projects here on Bitcointalk.
Had my first Bitcointalk meetup the other week, plus I'm participating in a very cool project, so I doubt that I'll spend any less time on here.

See y'all around and this time you can be 100% sure that whatever I say is because I mean it, instead of upping my post count. (Really, you can never be 100% sure when someone's in a signature campaign, no offence)