New signature rules

[Mimoun]

We have added new signature rules.

Here are the rules:
- The post you make needs to have at least 100 50 words.
- You need to have at least a total of 20 posts.
- Only 1 signature will be displayed per page even if you have 5 replies on 1 page.

Is this a good set of rules or do we need to change some metrics here?
Let us know what you think about the new signature rules.

[CovertPea]

As one of the Mods I think the new signature rules are a brilliant idea!!

Should mean less time spent on chasing and removing 'hit and run' spammers and more time giving help to our genuine members.

Thumbs up from me Mimoun.

[Olaf]

Hi Mimoun,

100 words is a lot and will not protect the forum against spammer. This many topics becomes boring. I see a lot of postings here are very "un-formated", just a block of text. Maybe posted by a bot?

I wrote for my own forum a plugin that ads rel="nofollow" to the links from regular members. You can do the same for the signatures, I think a trustful and active member should get a reward.

Maybe an idea to show signatures only for a new member type "Super user".
The other two rules are great even for SEO

[enigma1]

The problem with signatures is that they can be long and quite distracting as you browse forum threads (apart of the spam-seo incentive).

Perhaps you could have them off by default for new users, eg: people who have less than a number of posts in the forum won't see them (they can change the cp settings to see them at anytime).

Signatures are used mostly for "marketing" here and in my opinion this would benefit someone who has something in common with the freewebsitetemplates.com (template services etc.) not the average user, as search engines give weight to relationships among domains/links nowdays. And I don't think you want something like that exposed directly.

[ishkey]

What would I do between 5:00am - 6:30am ET
After a year battling spammers, I just got the hang of deleting spammers and answering questions at the same time.

A 100 words for several of the posts is a lot.
The hard part is getting people engaged in a conversation - they seem to want an answer right away - the way of the world. Kinda like a junkie looking for a fix.

All good suggestions given, maybe some fine tuning is required.

[Mimoun]

Originally Posted by Olaf

I wrote for my own forum a plugin that ads rel="nofollow" to the links from regular members. You can do the same for the signatures, I think a trustful and active member should get a reward.

We already have nofollow tags on the sigs.

Originally Posted by Olaf

Maybe an idea to show signatures only for a new member type "Super user".
The other two rules are great even for SEO

I don’t know about the Super user idea. I’m just afraid it may create a class structure in the community.
I’ve seen this on many forums in some cases it’s for the better and sometimes you get a community where it’s hard for new members to feel like they belong. New members get very intimidated by the Super user class.
I think a more egalitarian community is more beneficial for the community right now.

Of course a super user or pro accounts could be beneficial for the community as well if it’s implemented the right way. If we can find a system where we can reward people who contribute the most in the community.

Number of posts will not work because if you ask 100 questions and help no other people yourself, you wouldn't want to give the member a super user class.

Originally Posted by enigma1

The problem with signatures is that they can be long and quite distracting as you browse forum threads (apart of the spam-seo incentive).

Perhaps you could have them off by default for new users, eg: people who have less than a number of posts in the forum won't see them (they can change the cp settings to see them at anytime).

Signatures are used mostly for "marketing" here and in my opinion this would benefit someone who has something in common with the freewebsitetemplates.com (template services etc.) not the average user, as search engines give weight to relationships among domains/links nowdays. And I don't think you want something like that exposed directly.

You've summed up the signature problem very good. Before we had posts with more signature content than real content.

You can already disable every signature on the forum when you're logged in go to edit options -> scroll down to Thread Display Options -> Visible Post Elements.

We can disable it by default, but I think if you contribute to the community the least we can do is allow you to have a signature on your long posts. However if the signature problem is not solved with the new rules we'll have no choice, but to disable it.

Originally Posted by ishkey

What would I do between 5:00am - 6:30am ET
After a year battling spammers, I just got the hang of deleting spammers and answering questions at the same time.

A 100 words for several of the posts is a lot.
The hard part is getting people engaged in a conversation - they seem to want an answer right away - the way of the world. Kinda like a junkie looking for a fix.

All good suggestions given, maybe some fine tuning is required.

If it wasn’t for you, CovertPea and the other moderators the forum would have gone under, because of all the spam attacks.


To all:
100 words too much? Let me know how many words you would like to have as a minimum and we will change it.

[ishkey]

Lets try 50 words.
I miss my signature.
Why not limit the amount of links. the size of the graphic and the amount of lines that can be displayed.

[helpimadj]

100 is far to many imo. 50 as ishkey said sounds right.

[enigma1]

Originally Posted by Mimoun

We can disable it by default, but I think if you contribute to the community the least we can do is allow you to have a signature on your long posts. However if the signature problem is not solved with the new rules we'll have no choice, but to disable it.

As a community you already doing more than enough (for me at least) with template development, tutorials, resources etc just to name a few.

Now I also understand that many members, including me, may earn the living indirectly if somehow expose the nature of their business via the signature across the forums. However it's important to note that if one member likes the work or contribution or response of another, he will probably contact them in private.

[Mimoun]

We have changed the least words required to 50 words.

Originally Posted by ishkey

Why not limit the amount of links. the size of the graphic and the amount of lines that can be displayed.

Sounds like a good idea.
Help me out with the metrics here, because I have no idea what the fair and right amount of links, lines and graphic size would be.