Topic: Why does bitcointalk allows signatures? (Read 504 times)

I can speak both in favor of and against the signature campaign on this forum. While on one hand, they encourage posters in posting utmost quality posts since they are being paid and also encourage the posters in bringing new ideas to the forum they have certain downtrends before the introduction of merit system. You can consider this forum as an alternative to Youtube where the content creators are being paid based on their ad count from the videos they have posted and higher they are being paid the higher it passively encourages them to increase their quality of content making. I have been a member in various torrenting forums where uploading of movies, TV-Series, books and discussion around that has been the center point while they indeed lack consistency among the members.

Not most of the members would be around for 5 or 7 years creating quality content since they aren't being paid for it. They have been various instances in this forum where the shitposters were paid with hundred thousand dollars for spamming this forum with translation shits and signature spamming (well I don't wan't to mention the bounties which paid hundred thousand dollars for shitposters to ruin the forum) If they aren't creating quality content or were of no use to other posters, I would argue that they shouldn't be paid even a single penny and that is happening perfectly after the introduction of Merits. If youtubers are getting paid for the content they generate which somehow educate or entertain the viewers, then posters getting paid here shouldn't be considered different.

This. I like new projects getting into picture and doing something for the community. I have been part of freebitco signature campaign and other few gambling companies which has done a lot more to the community of bitcoin in general. Freebitco has made me to earn the first satoshi and the parent company of the current signature which I am wearing is a popular exchange where I have traded btc and alts.

Using the don't show user's signature option does not help with spam as you still view the posts made by other users

It's a personalized option and is down to user preference. Some members visit the forum only for the discussions and are not interested in the latest projects and websites or they prefer the layout without ads.
Some other members prefer to visit boards were signatures are automatically disabled, as posts there are purely non-incentivised.

I surprised that there is also way how to disable the signatures and even ads. Thank your for sharing this stuff.
Anyway, why do we turn-off signature or ads? It is more good if we see them since we become updated regarding to the new campaigns/projects/sites running in this forum. It is also presentable for me to see such user wearing signatures even it is came from campaign. It is also my assurance that a poster is not spamming because of the sig that he is wearing just like, chipmixer. We all know that every participant of it is contributing a lot in this forum.

Besides, there is no color in the forum if there are no signatures and ads. And it is really boring to look post without sigs.

Not to my knowledge. That's the one and only individual thread significant enough to justify that treatment. There are a few others that have thousands of posts too but many have gone off the boil years ago or they're about alts so no one can be arsed to tame them.

Here's the top threads.

I know that some boards have that "display_signature: off" feature, but curious if there are any other sig-restricted threads in non-sig-restricted boards
Economics and Speculation boards don't have any sig restrictions.

The ivory tower and serious discussion sections are also sig free and were created sig free. The WO had to make that change to save it as it was starting to get on moderator nerves and it was briefly shut down before being relaunched with its own mod and no signatures. It certainly changed its characteristics and a lot of dead wood made an exit.

I  assume the WO thread is an isolated case, right?
I did not see any "disable user signatures" option when creating a new topic. Are there any others like that?... just curious

If I am not wrong I saw once this same question in the past. The answer was same if you don't like it you can stop seeing add from the setting. Also if you see anyone who spamming to get paid just report them to moderators.

I don't sure why the question is alive in your mind. But it’s the hard reality that if there is no way of earn from this forum most of the members leave this forum. So It's is a way of promoting crypto that was made by the administrator so that people can earn some for helping each other about crypto currency.
And I am not sure you hate this or not but most provably in the near future we can see that you are also wearing these signatures to get paid. Nothing wrong here if anybody don't make spams.  

I think the signatures here, and all personalisation, is pleasantly restrained compared to many forums. I've seen some that gave me convulsions and require several seconds to figure out where the actual post is. This forum does a good job of making it palatable.

There are also some properly interesting links and thoughts in some non advertising signatures. It's not all noise.

Uh, yeah....hopefully you've gotten the message that not only is advertising in your signature space allowed, it's probably the biggest factor that drives traffic to this site, and if members weren't allowed to include that advertising bitcointalk would be a much less lively place than it is.

But I agree, it certainly can be annoying.  Not the advertising itself, because you can put avatars and signatures on ignore, but the posts being made by sig campaigners/bounty hunters themselves.  Tons of people from around the world flock to this forum because they've heard you can make money just for posting, and a lot of them don't necessarily have an interest in cryptocurrency or a lot to say about bitcoin or anything else.  The net result is that there's very little discussion going on, and there are a lot of garbage posts polluting threads across many sections--and this has been going on for years, OP.  Just get used to it, because Theymos definitely isn't inclined to change anything anytime soon.

No need to apologize for stating your opinion, bro (or sis).  You have a valid point, and it's been discussed to death here.  Take note of the merit system here: that was put in place primarily to combat account farming and shitposting, which is usually done by people advertising stuff in their signature space.  It's much harder to rank up now, which limits your signature space and thus the amount of money you can earn through campaigns.

There is option to disable and don't see any signature, and there is also parts of the forum that don't show signatures.
We can help making forum better with reporting spammers.

I'm not defending signatures but yeah, who doesn't want to earn a little bit for their contribution towards the community as well as the forum? I mean, nobody is here to do anybody a favor for free (this world ain't no such world anymore) and I guess if you're too much annoyed about seeing the signatures, why not just disable them in your profile? It'll solve your problem at least to some extent and at your level. If good forum members are working for the better of the forum and the community, shouldn't they be rewarded? Then, be it through this signature business or any other means - that can be decided by admins.

One more thing I count as important - the forum will look extremely boring without signatures; not because we won't get paid if it gets removed permanently, but because we will be missing different colors, shades and types of signatures that we see daily. I mean, I'm personally a fan of this signature thing just because I love to see how cool they look when almost everything gets fit into a BBcode and they look hilarious.

If you look closely, often people who are dissatisfied with subscription companies have red trust. I do not mean OP. Well, according to the law of the genre, those who are not accepted into subscription companies are very often against many things on the forum.
There is always the right to choose what to advertise and which signature to wear. You can simply turn off signatures.

Why there are so many negatives regarding to signature campaigns? What's the problem with you, guys?
1. hilariousandco - wears paid signature but does great job to lessen spam.
2. LoyceV - wears paid signature but did a lot of amazing tools for bitcointalk that help users to prevent scammers and spammers easily, very beneficial user for forum.
3. minerjones - was wearing paid signatures but he is one of the most trustworthy member of this forum, amazing guy indeed.
4. Lauda - wears paid signature but works hard to kick scammers/spammers asses and make this forum clean and enjoyable place.

And the list goes on and on and on... A lot of amazing guys on this forum wear signature and fight against scammers, spammers... At the same time there are some users without signature and still spam. So, you know answer...

And why is this topic discussed so many times?

P.S. you can ignore users that you don't want to see, additionally, I want to provide you with old list if you wish, check this: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/my-personal-ignore-list-973843

There is no reason for you to feel offended by my comment nor do I consider your comment offensive in any way. It is in no way an attack on you or your opinion. You are entitled to your opinion and I can agree or disagree with it. In this case, I disagree with it. If the admins decide to take that route, I think a 40-50% drop in traffic would be noticed immediately, if not more.

If you are a shop owner and want to ban users entering your shop in sandals and flip flops during the summer, some other shops might just take your customers.

Okay, sorry for expressing my opinion. Sorry if my opinion was offensive too.

People on internet always attack when they don't like an opinion, we've got to admit that.

Like them or hate them, signatures and signature campaigns are the reason for a lot of traffic on the forum. Many discussions wouldn't take place if there were no signatures. That is a fact.
Freedom of choice. If you don't like them you can always turn them of. Your signature mentions God putting gold on earth for us, the people. Those who don't believe in God maybe don't like the idea of such a signature. But you are still wearing one.   

I warned spammers about it in August 2019, you can read a full content Since 2018, what did you contribute to prevent signature ads removed globally?


Don't ask because the admin can do it. He asked community opinion about it in the past. Don't feel strange if someday you wake up and don't see any signature on the forum. I don't believe it will happen because the merit system works.

And I have nothing to worry about that revelation. Yeah, I asked, because I was curious that you guys get paid of it. So?

Why this question? Because you are unable to earn from it? I have remember you have sent me PM regarding earning way. I am posting your PM here since there nothing secret which would harm for you. I am forced to post because your post and PM likely conflicting each other.

Fine. You should know about so, you are looking for oppurtunity to join such as paid campaign since you are asking for links. On the other hand you are creating thread against such as advertising. Isn't conflicting?

The forum can prevent all forms of profit from this forum, an idea that may be implemented in the future, but what will the interest be? Many accounts will leave the forum and there will be no further discussions.
I think that there were sections that applied this theory and did not capture much of the discussion.
If a solution to this problem is not found, the administration will delete all profit methods.

When I say custom I mean ads, I think some people call it a bounty. My signature isn't something that a service paid me to write it. I write it, because I wanted to and it doesn't affect your eye while reading my posts.

I wonder, you are also carrying a signature for yourself. If you really hate signatures, why do you still create your own? Moreover, you mentioned custom signatures, I don't really understand, all signatures are custom, if you classify it, 1 is custom, what is 2 and what is 3? Maybe you can also talk about fixed signatures  Do not allow customizations, ie, fixed it, right?

stompix gave you instructions to disable all signatures. In other cases, you can disable signature in one of your threads, it's the same way that people have done with Wall Observer

Are you talking about an advertisement that comes below the posts or the Bitcointalk signature that a user puts in his profile?

The advertisement is common on any platform, you can see on any website, forums, social media platforms, etc. You can put some adblockers to avoid those.

And about the Bitcointalk signature, it is common that most of the users put the signature for promotions. It can be their own website or product or they participate in signature campaigns for promoting other websites. You can ignore those things if you are not interested.

Thank you! I hadn't searched for it. Since admins have this way, then it's okay, no problem.

[Guide]: How to disable signatures without using scripts
Also, the signature stuff has been debated so many times a new topic won't change anything.



Report all the posts that you consider spam if the mods agree they will delete them and the spammers won't get paid a cent, in the long run they might even get banned.

In my opinion, bitcointalk should not allow anyone to add a custom signature. What's the point? Many many members use them to advertise services. They have seen it like a business, but it's just a forum.

I read posts and I always get advertised, and it gets annoying sometimes. Since there are no many admins/mods online, so they could penalize those who advertise, they can simply disable the signature system that doesn't provide anything important.