Just to clarify one point; A new member can have a signature on sign up BUT to put links in posts there is a 5 post minimum.
All the options that you have all put forward have been tried/trialled in the past and all had varying degrees of success. We are not closed to the idea of trying different things and neither are we slapping down on people who suggest different things.
Personally I would like to hear all suggestions that would help SitePoint keep hold of valuable members and get rid of all the spammers/sig link posters/paid dipsticks so come on, let us have your ideas.
If you want to PM me directly please do. Like I said earlier in this thread, We try to be as transparent and as fair as possible to all members.
According to spikeZ’s post below (and the evidence shown to you that contradicts your statement), there is no limit on signature links. Also, if there was a change now, you would not be affected because you have been a user here for years and have thousands of posts. I don’t think anyone who posted on this issue has a problem with you keeping your signature links.
I don’t understand why you refuse to accept that there is no “probation period” for signature links and that they are abused often. If you just came out and said that you like having your links, you help make the decisions on this forum, and you don’t want anything to change, that would be fine, but twisting facts, ignoring evidence (look at the post from risahe above), making inaccurate statements, and hiding complaints (I am talking about Sitepoint mods as a whole, not you, unless you are the one who deleted the original thread about this issue) seems very odd and is pretty annoying.
I appreciate that you mentioned problems that came up when there were changes to signature links in the past. That is some evidence to use in favor of your position.
While i don’t get any value, and really don’t answer many questions the big time guys do.
Only on forums can you pay a specialist who is making 50-150K a year with no follow links that are hidden from all people except the few that are logged in.
He is a moderator in that he can close threads, remove posts which have been reported. But he doesn’t have the authority to make decisions like how signatures are handled. In fact, none of the volunteer staff (Team Leaders, Advisors, Mentors) do. We have discussions with the SP corporate staff, but the final decisions are out of our hands.
But to answer your original question, the reason it was closed/removed was essentially the correct answer was posted in the fifth post of the thread - report the offending posts. But the discussion continued on and went to add restrictions on members before they got the benefits, etc.
Signatures are a touchy subject, and one that have come up numerous times over the years, and as a long time staffer, I can honestly say that this is the best balance that we have found.
[LIST]
[*]We’ve tried requiring 100 posts (I think that was the number) before the links were allowed/followed, and that caused us (the staff) far more work, and the amount of spam was horrendous(sp?).
[*]We tried not allowing signatures - that was a no go.
[/LIST]Yes, people can’t read, and I wish on the sign-up screen that we could put a big flashing sign telling these SEO spammers not to bother and that the links were no-follow, along with a similar sign on posting areas until they get to a certain number of posts, but the problem with either of those approaches is it hurts legitimate members, and newer people coming to SPF for help. It’s a microfine thread to tread, but SPHQ has to err on the side of the users.
we should get the mentors in the community team to mention the salient points in a reply to every new thread made in the Introductions forum
yeah, i know, the evil sig spammers are less likely to post in there, and the good members more likely…
… but when someone does say hello as a new member, we should have a standard reply like “welcome to the sitepoint forums, please don’t spam us with stupid fluffy posts because search engines can’t see your signatures anyway” (except in perhaps a bit more detail and not so brusquely)
Thanks for the reply. I am aware that mods can’t make decisions, but their suggestions hold a lot more weight than something coming from a regular user, and a mod could make SP owners aware of complaints. I still think that having some sort of age requirement to clear before being allowed to have signature links would work better than the current setup and I don’t think that deleting a user poll because someone didn’t like the results was a good idea, but I appreciate that you at least answered the questions in the thread, acknowledged that there is an issue, and discussed potential solutions. The real topic of this thread moved away from signature links a while ago.
As I was only asked to be a mod a week ago I am still feeling my way as regards what mods are supposed to be doing with all the spam and fluff threads that most regular members only see a small fraction of. All that I get for being a mod is that I see a lot more of the problem posts than the regular users do and have the opportunity to help in cleaning up the spam on the forum. My only reward for doing so is that the forum contains less spam.
Anyone can make SP owners aware of complaints - it doesn’t require a mod to do that. I wouldn’t expect that my word would carry any more weight in that regard than any other legitimate member of the forum.
Trust me, there’s a lot of fluff and lot of self-promotion going on that particular forum. Still, I personally believe that the service is necessary.
We try to do our best to keep the fluff and the spam down. Unfortunately, even with the help of SP Headquarters, it is quite difficult. The amount of spammers in the world is high and this is a juicy forum with good potential.
Getting the right compromise is hard. People should be rewarded for their effort and time, but funny enough the major contributors don’t care about having signatures or not. Yet, there are a few SP members that would think it a bad idea.
Throughout the years, many different solutions have been tried but it seems that there is no way to get it right.
Guys, I know this is a nuisance for all of us. Your complaints have been heard and we are working on a number of ways to try and get rid of the scum. This is just one. Hopefully it will help.
As Dave pointed out, the difficulty we have in this is that it’s hard to use automated means to detect spammers without making it overly difficult for genuine newbies who are here for the right reasons.
In the meantime: you know it’s possible to turn off all signature viewing, right? Just look in your profile options. I used to browse with them off until I was made an admin, because they annoyed the heck out of me all the time. I only keep them on now to catch signature violations.
This new rule might just work. For these vermin 90 days is quite a long time to wait.
You will never be able to get rid of these rats, they find holes that are invisible to most people. But this new rule might just cut this annoyance in half.
