Topic: Where do we draw a line? Signature campaigns or shilling campaigns - page 3. (Read 1446 times)

Nothing here addresses campaign managers/advertisers manipulating speech.


Would that not cause people to compromise their honesty?
Did the OP really go out of their way to recommend Sparrow, or did they just participate in normal conversation?

If I have a signature for Bitcoin Core and someone asks "what is everyone's favourite wallet?"
Does that mean I have to say Bitcoin Core even though my honest preference is Electrum?
If I say Electrum can Bitcoin Core kick me from the campaign rightfully?
If I say Bitcoin Core instead of Electrum just to keep my signature, isn't there a big problem with that?

These are a lot of questions. I suppose the main one is: Does signing up to a signature campaign now mean that we have to be mindful (or have to compromise) our honest opinions?

There are not many members who pay attention to what they promote.
The last time I applied for a gambling campaign, it turned out that that casino did not allow users from my country to register. I withdrew my application because there was no possibility to even test the platform. I cannot represent them (even if only through a signature) if I cannot have personal experience with them.
I'm not saying this because I'm a moral stone, I just can't represent something I know nothing about, I don't even have a chance to find out.


SirJohnVonSlotty is a very intelligent person with very good reasoning. Much earlier, before you participated in his campaign, he gave an excellent summary of why to choose one participant instead of another. I wouldn't have much to add here.
(I believe that translating will not be a problem for you)

If the casuistry is far too extensive to the degree not every angle and permutation can be covered (and it would be), one would expect common sense to at least apply where common sense is due.

For example, if a world famous personality earned money to sit in a press conference because they have been hired to promote tourism to the Seychelles and wears a "I love the Seychelles. You should visit soon" t-shirt, you would expect them to use their common sense when they are giving answers.

Yeah but Pepsi can't make you stop drinking CocaCola and saying that you like it ^{(I don't like both btw)}
I personally would never advertise something I don't like, but if you look at advertisement outside bitcointalk it's mostly BS propaganda and people would say anything for the right price  
For example, does anyone in the right mind really thinks that Cristiano Ronaldo is actually using Binance exchange?
He is one of the biggest paid influencers in the world but I think he never used it in his life, except maybe to dump some tokens binance gave him for free.



There is a word for such people, they are hypocrites.
And how about some members who are constantly talking how this services are illegal and in the same time they are wearing gambling signature that is also illegal in their region.  
That doesn't prevent them at all to participate in of the biggest spam campaigns in forum.

I only promote things I like, but I get that most people don't care. And you can't even blame them: any advertising company doesn't care, and is totally fine taking offers from competitors.

This is how I like it: the campaign chooses candidates based on how they're already posting, and all that's expected from them is to continue that way.

From my perspective, it's not a "boss" relationship, but more like being self-employed. That means both parties can end the relationship at any moment.

See: Signature Campaign Guidelines (read this before starting or joining a campaign).

Yes, of course "If you post about Kitchenaid mixers again, I'll stop paying you" is a perfectly fine deal. Take it or leave it.

I agree with everything in your post...I think that the first statement is generally a little bit blurred though. Are there any specific rules for operators? Can they threaten campaign positions for content that is not actually dangerous to anyone, just like the OP? It seems like it's a (potentially dangerous) moot point.

Honesty is the best policy. The moment that honesty is being compromised as a result of the signature campaign, is the moment that the forum can be considered corrupted in some way.

One might say "well, then people like the OP should not participate in a signature campaign" - though that would be penalizing an honest member who is not harming anyone...and that would mean that everyone within the signature campaign would have to refrain from being honest or compromise their honesty if they have an opinion outside of the operator or campaign managers interests.

Forums are for honest discussions. We should not be entertaining icopress's behaviour if we want to preserve integrity here in this forum. Allowing "clauses" or campaign terms that influence honesty or the originality of what people think/say is a one way ticket to damaging forum integrity further than it already is from paying people for their posts.

Maybe Leo was onto something after all if this is rooting from Wasabi wallet founders complaining to ICO Press about pawel posting a recommendation about Sparrow instead of Wasabi...says something about their values if it is rooting from them, that's for sure.

Really? I think it's simpler than that, it's understood when you join a campaign. If we get into specifying everything as it is done in the contracts we will not cover all the possible casuistry even if the OP occupies two pages. Contracts are full of specifications and even then they sometimes end up in court, which is not going to happen here.

Yes of course, if you do not believe in the product then you will not be able to offer it to others.

Campaign managers need to set a rule if they want to force the members to use the product, on the other hand if it is not on the rules then they can request the members to try the product because the product marketing starts from the campaign participants. I don't think any campaign manager can force me to do a certain job but with a request he or she can easily use me do so many volunteering tasks.

A few years ago I was a participants of a reputable high paying sportsbook. At that time they paid us 0.015 BTC if I can remember correctly. Several times I was asked to defend them in the scam accusations because I was not willingly joining the discussions. But just because I was not joining the discussion does not mean they can ask me to join there. When they noticed I don't response and following their instructions, finally they decided to remove me. I did not mind at all because I will stay without a campaign instead of someone offering me a signature spot and set me a set of rules that you can not do this and you can do that.

Shilling is not okay, ignoring service is okay. As long as you don't feel to recommend a service you are free not to recommend it. If you are a reputable member and everyone knows that you are not biased by anything but suddenly you started to change your mind because your campaign manager is not going to like it and started doing the things to make your campaign manager happy, then [1.] you sold yourself including your reputation to the money [2.] you started to cheat the community that trust you.

It seems the incident happened in Wasabi campaign. I am sure many of the participants don't feel comfortable to wear their signature because of what we experienced after LEO posted his farewell thread. But because the manager managed to offer good payment in the campaign, those users are tempted to stay in the campaign and compromising their unwillingness. If Wasabi was paying regular payment like $70 to $80 or even $100, I am sure we will see a lot of members were leaving the campaign. It's not only the LEO saga, Wasabi team are lying, they advertise themselves heavily involved in privacy but in reality they support censorship, practice questionable privacy, even they don't mind to ddoxx their competitors. There are many reasons to avoid Wasabi and any product related to the brand. But all of it unfortunately won over $150 per week.

There is a big chance that for the member who did not add Wasabi in the list had a lot of thoughts but because it's his own list he wanted to be biased free. Too bad that the campaign manager felt it's not okay and he wants to interfere in the freedom of what his campaign participants can post and what they can't.

I don't say it's not okay for icopress because I always see a rules which tell, as a campaign manager they can add-remove anyone anytime. But it's bad practice that manager use this rule and force members to act according to their own (managers) interest. Signature campaigns were used to be a privilege than a regular job. Signature campaigns used to be boss-less but it now has a boss and you can not ignore his order or you are out. This is insulting.

I've been wanting to open this discussion for some time, but I have a slightly different view on all of this.

If someone joins the campaign, isn't it to be expected that he will first be interested in the service he is going to promote? at least to know what they are promoting
A company that pays for promotion through such campaigns, of course, want the best results from there, thanking the participants is certainly not the final goal they want to achieve. Holders of paid signatures seem to me to rarely think about whether their participation is worth the campaign owner.

I certainly support managers when forcing campaign participants should try the product they are promoting, or at least get to know it better.
Maybe I should have started this as a separate topic to get a bigger reach, but I will mention it here at least as the 37th post in the thread.

I remember that one participant of the Sinbad campaign, after several months of participating in it, accidentally found out about their ANN thread. And that's because there was a voting contest for the avatar

There were cases where individuals criticized mixer services, treated them as harmful, and at the same time carried mixer advertisements in their signature.

I will give an example of the BestChange campaign. One of the longer-lasting ones, with a solid payment rate, stable campaign, and it cannot be said that the participants produce spam. I have been in this campaign for a long time, so I am quite familiar with everything.
So, there a 25 participants, and the campaign is currently at 213 weeks. Out of 25 participants, only 6 of them wrote at least one post in the BestChange ANN thread. (I checked this on ninjastic.space, I believe it gives accurate results)
To me, this is more a lack of interest in the service they promote than avoiding shilling.

Here is some more reality from this campaign.
At one point, a Best_Change official asked for the community's opinion on a certain implementation of features on their service. In order not to go unnoticed, I shared it in the campaign thread. Clearly, there is much more activity when we talk about the BC service.


Out of 25 participants, only two left their feedback. And I am quite convinced that most of them have seen this call because they are quite active in the signature thread.
I already mentioned that this campaign is not a spam producer and most of the participants know how to write useful posts.

So contrary to the topic of this discussion, if we don't allow shilling (I'm definitely against this), is ignoring service from the campaign OK? Where is the line?

to be clear. This is not my attack on the participants of the BC signature campaign, this is just an example due to its seriousness and duration. I tend to believe that other reputable managers would be much more rigorous here, because of the reasons mentioned above


Sending a PM with a warning like in this case has more chances to be seen as shilling pressure. I wouldn't do that, we've seen what kind of drama a public release of a PM can cause. Icopress did it in the best way, I already stated that in the thread.

If any campaign manager asks/instructs campaign participants to make negative posts about competitors (either other campaign managers or products being advertised), it is unacceptable. Thankfully that is not the accusation here.

If I understood correctly what icopress stated/implied, I would like to give an example: I am wearing a Wasabi signature. If I came across a thread that the OP was asking for a list of products/services that could do a particular job (such as coinjoin) and I decided to post a list of some names that might interest the OP, if Wasabi encompassed what the OP wanted it would be (in my opinion) both highly unethical and dubious on my part to not even mention Wasabi in that list by virtue of wearing their signature. If others state it is not unethical or dubious to not list the name of the brand that rents their signature then that is a decision for them and we are all entitled to our views/opinions.

In short, signature campaign participants mentioning the brand/name in their signature when compiling a list of multiple names of companies offering similar services is not shilling.

Put simply, from what I can see all that icopress stated was that if members are in any of his campaigns and they decide to make a post listing brands that provide identical or almost identical products/services to the ones they are being paid for, there is common courtesy to mention that brand alongside others. I see absolutely no problem with the stance icopress has taken.

Having said that, if in order to stop threads such as this popping up again a clause should be added to the campaign thread then that is something for campaign managers to consider.

This is absurd. You should respect the very people who put you in business. The advertisers should respect the content creators. Without posters on this forum, there is no business for you and nor is there any growth opportunity for advertisers as a result of advertising here.

You are obviously an advertising amateur as well! If I recommend Sparrow wallet while I have Wasabi in my signature, then one could draw that Wasabi is as good as Sparrow if it is in my signature as well. There is nothing in a recommendation of Sparrow that leaves any possible interpretation that says not to use Wasabi!

The only time that I would throw you a bone and reason with you is if a poster directly slandered/unreasonably criticized Wasabi while they wore the Wasabi signature. At this point, sure, kick them out of the campaign if you want as it harms you and the advertiser. Otherwise, there is no reason to unfairly treat posters.

As a campaign manager, maybe you need some reminders?
- You can not force people to recommend advertised products
- You can not censor legitimate discussion about other products.
- You certainly not attempt to control what people say on the forum if it is not harming the advertiser nor the forum!


I strongly agree with this.

There is nothing bad mentioning other wallet or like recommending another exchange for a user, most times I do mention the brands that i am promoting in my space but that will be if such person doesn't have the exact quality he or she is looking for then they can search from the brand i am promoting. So far, even when i do mentioned another brand it's not a thing to get penalized but our major priority should be on the particular brands we are promoting at least that was why our space are being rented out to them.

And again that doesn't mean we can't mention other brand but before that we should look if the brand we are promoting has the feature or do run such services if no then we are free to mention any other brands that has exact features a users is looking at. To me technically Icopress is correct our main target should be when the products is being needed we can recommend people to that, except it doesn't relates to the brand we are promoting then we are free to list other brands that provides and renders such services just CryptopreneurBrainboss in his post.


We are being hired and get paid to make sure that their brands are openly promoted maybe we can also recommend them to people when the need arise, hiring our space and yet keep promoting other brands doesn't show utmost respect to project and also the amount they are paid for, because it's very bad spending huge amount for promotion and when time is reach to recommend people for the brand you then list another brand, it's so annoying.

Icopress I just accept what yahoo62278 said of getting them pm if they fails is best for you to know what to do.

I don't think Theymos would do such a thing, a shilling campaign has been in existence ever since, and not only here in Bitcointalk you can find it even in restrictive forums, joining a campaign is a privilege, you are there because you are qualified based on the rules and requirements laid out by the campaign managers and the campaign was launched between the agreement of the campaign managers and project admins to brand the site and generate leads.
So it breaks that agreement if you are a participant of let's say casino and someone asks for a list of the best casinos and you leave out the casino you're  promoting in your signature.
It just breaks the agreement of branding and lead generation that the campaign managers and project admins agreed to, honestly, it's not easy for campaign managers to request the project to hire him he must lay out a plan that the project admin will agree that he is qualified to brand a project.

Personally I agree with icopress position, though, maybe removing participants from campaign is a bit too harsh. Maybe I would just send them warning to PM with warning.
When you join campaign, you're not asked to be their paid shill, but some common sense should be used too. You're getting paid by one company and you're literally suggesting to use their direct competitors. It just doesn't looks good. I know that most of users don't care what they're advertising and don't use service that they promote, but maybe feel some loyalty for company which is paying money to you.
I can give not the best, but very obvious example. Let's say Leo Messi have have contract with Pepsi and Adidas. You won't see him drink Coca Cola and wearing Nike anywhere, otherwise he would get huge fine or even can get contract terminated.
Personally, I wouldn't advertise service that I don't use, I just wouldn't feel right if I would do it. Though, now I advertise Betcoin, but I actively participate in promotions made by their direct competitors - other bookmakers. But I someone would ask me which bookmaker to use, offcourse that I would mention service that I promote.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal to me. Just something to be aware of. People in those campaigns have their opinions bought and paid for. They are literally the definition of shills. It makes me thankful for the campaign manager I have, that doesn’t police opinions this way. I frequently tell people to gamble for fun and not money, yet have never been told to push an attitude of bet big to win big…

This is true, but practically, you would have few participants that cares about what brand they promote, some are majorly in the campaign just for the dollars and that's why we see this situation play out here.


@Icopress, I understand your feelings on this though, but for a diplomatic approach, you have 100 percent right to PM, count /remove the participant from the campaign if the posting style not interest you. But let's be honest for a participant to be promoting a particular brand and a question is thrown to give a response relating to what the participant is promoting, and where he/she now has the opportunity to include on the list the brand he/she is advertising and the participant failed to do so, then what is the essence of hiring and paying the member in first place?

Operators can run their campaigns however they want as long as they're within the rules of the forum, but I think things like this should be stated upfront as part of the terms of the campaign if it's an issue but I don't think users should be expected to refrain from promoting competitors without warning. I can see from the operators perspective why they wouldn't want this just like if you were advertising for Pepsi they wouldn't want you advertising for Coca Cola or promoting any other drinks but this would all be laid out in their contract and I think it should be the same here and made part of their rules if it's something they don't want. Rather than recommending the product they're advertising they should probably just refrain from posting on the subject if they can't remain impartial under the terms of their campaign, which is what I would do in this situation.

I don't think icopress ever asked for any shilling, both publicly or in private, but members should not change opinions and posts based on signature they wear.

I would understand your point if this member would publicly talk against using Wasabi wallet and wear wasabi wallet signature in the same time, but I don't think he did that ^{(I would like to see his post)}.
Sparrow wallet should not be directly compared to Wasabi, I always compared it more with Electrum wallet, and it's coinjoin feature is only optional and done with different third party wallet implementation.

Yeah, but they also said what they don't like about Bisq, and we should all be able to say that

Before anybody joins any signature campaign, you surely must have read the rules of that campaign, and accepting to join that campaign means you agree to keep the rules.

We all know what a signature campaign is. It's an advertisement for a brand. What do you think someone else will think about your brand when they see you recommend another brand when the brand you're advertising offers that same service?

There were times I was not in any signature campaign and some signature campaigns were open, I didn't apply to them even though I was ready to join a campaign because for some reason I don't like the services they offer. Now what kind of advertisement would I be doing if I had joined that campaign and spoken against the service or product they render? Or recommended something else?

I get it that there are no signed contracts and lawyers and whatever is needed before signing an ad campaign, but you agreed to certain rules and you have to follow them. It's like advertising a Samsung phone but recommending a Huawei phone to someone, what's worse is you're doing that openly.


Using terms like "compelled or restricted posting" is a little far don't you think?
The way I see it, it's simple "If you're advertising a brand, don't make that brand look bad". That includes all your activities on the forum. Don't be a shit poster, or a spammer, be active, etc.

And even if a brand decides to restrict your posting, as long as you've signed up with them, you should keep their rules. I saw a campaign that told its participants not to take part in some political issues because they were neutral. That is a restriction and if you're okay with that, by all means, it's your account.

Every user that read the rules saw this "I reserve the right to change the rules and disqualify any post and any participant for any reason" before joining the campaign.

Um....can I ask where you got that very specific statistic from?  I've no clue what the percentage is of member who have nothing to do with whatever they're promoting, but I'm guessing it's probably high and perhaps even near 70% but I'm curious as to where you pulled that number from.

I was doing a lot of post reviews in the gambling section before I made the decision to exclude that section from any future reviews, but honestly most of the posts I looked at were made by members who at least seemed to know about gambling, and quite a few of them seemed passionate about sports betting in particular.  Granted, I did not look at any other posts aside from those from the members who'd requested reviews, so my perception is probably very skewed.  One of the reasons I don't even consider joining a gambling-based sig campaign is because I don't gamble and any posts I would make in that section would be pure crap.

On the other hand, I have posted a few times when the topic of gambling addiction has come up because that interests me and I know a little bit about how harsh the consequences are and how brutally difficult it is to stop gambling.  Anyway.