I just came across this post by Icopress (one of the most active campaign managers currently):
(...)
There is something else I would like to discuss.
As you know, a signature campaign is a type of advertising that is shown under a member's profile through discussions in various sections of the forum without explicit indication. And I have never forced anyone to mention or recommend an advertised project directly in posts as this should be voluntary.
But today, as a manager, I was extremely outraged because I observed a situation where a user wears a Wasabi signature, and recommended other open source wallets.
After advertising for mixers was banned here on the forum, payout rates began to decline due to lack of competition, but Wasabi decided to be understanding and respectful of the contributions of quality posters while maintaining a high level of rates. At the very least this deserves respect.
I don’t mind at all if you recommend this or that wallet as long as you list the list of available options. But if you recommend open source wallets without mentioning the one whose advertisement you are wearing, then you have no place on my team, since I see this as a disparaging attitude towards my work and the advertised project.
I will respond to similar incidents in the future.
Bits emboldened by me.
As much as I understand his logic and I even respect him for stating that publicly rather than kicking out "misbehaving" participants without stating the reason - I think we have a precedent here where the campaign manager is openly policing (to a small degree but still) the content of the posts by telling participants what they can't post, or what they must include (i.e. you can't say you like product X without mentioning product Y).
This alone might not sound like a big deal, but the unwritten rule was that signature campaigns are nothing more than renting out advertisement space, and there was no expectation of participants to endorse advertised services.
I feel that if we leave things like this unchecked, that's a short way to the introduction of shilling campaigns, where participants will be openly required to make a minimum number of positive posts about advertised service, or maybe even negative posts about its competitors.
So again, I don't imply any ill will in Icopress' post, in fact, I think he acted in participants' best interest, but I see this as a small step in a potentially very bad direction.
So the question is, should the forum introduce any rules on compelled/restricted posting, or do we let anything go, including shilling campaigns?