Allow or not allow signatures?

[yankeestonk]

Hi, recently I was pleased to see a surge in new members. (not huge, but 3 or so per day, which is big for us!) However I noticed that 75% have signatures with links to stores, or items to purchase etc. No posts, just registering and adding a signature that is not relevent to golf. (buy ottomans, clothes, etc.) I 'm thinking of setting the "number of characters allowed" in signatures to either 1 or something small like 30. Need an opinon if this is a good or bad idea. Is there a downside?

Also does anyone know if I do this will it remove existing signatures that are over the new allowed size?

Thanks!

[Ken.]

Signatures with links to ads or commercial sites is a common thing that spammers do and as a general rule you'll likely need to delete or ban their accounts. 

[yankeestonk]

That's what I figured. But is there a benefit to allowing signatures in general? If someone wanted to sign up and spam i can easilly see their post and then delete their account. I don't want to delete a member just because they put a link in the signature when I'm allowing them to do so. Do you allow signatures? If so, why? and what would you consider to be an "acceptable" signature?

Thanks!
ken

[Arantor]

Well, what this forum does is disable users adding signatures until they have made 10 posts.

[yankeestonk]

is that an option?

[Arantor]

Yes, by not giving out the permission to edit "additional profile options" to the bottom post count (I think it's done here by enabling deny permissions and denying it for the Newbie group off the top of my head)

If you're not sure about this, you could always ask in the relevant Support board for your SMF version.

[Ken.]

I allow sigs on my site, but it's a small controlled member base, so it's not a good example.

A better example would be on the TinyPortal site, we allow sigs there but keep a close eye on what is contained in the members sigs... links to their site is OK, but not ads, or commercials. We also have a post count set so that a member must reach a post level before being able to do a sig.

[yankeestonk]

Thanks guys. Really appreciate it. I already lowered the allowed sig size to 30 characters (from 300) and deleted the sigs of spam posters. I have about 150 members, so I don't want to remove members if there's a chance they may like the forum but just want to take a shot at promoting their own business. But as you say, a store or site is ok, but this selling Ottoman's stuff is out! ;0) I don't see how that can possibly work anyway. I have enough trouble selling golf stuff on my golf site! How are you going to seel Ottoman's by adding a signature to the site on a golf site? Maybe I'm missing the boat, I'm trying to sell putters when I should be hawking furntiure!

Thanks again!
ken

[Ken.]

Spammers operate on volume... if you post 10,000 spam messages and you only get 1-2% in response to your ads then you are likely seeing a good return on your investment.

[wynnyelle]

I allow sigs on my forum. I don't even mind if people advertise other sites or products in them as long as they are also good members. But if they're there only to advertise, and not even to post, there's no point in letting them stay, I'd just delete the accounts and ban the URLs they got in their sig.

[yankeestonk]

Hey Groovystar, thanks for the response. Problem with that though is you don't know if they'll ever post. I've been getting a bunch of members who sign up, add a signature that goes to a website to buy something, and never post anything. I'm pretty sure they're just adding there signature link on a million sites. I wound up limiting the characters to 30. (just picked out of a hat the number.) Wish there was a way to allow signatures after a certain number of posts app. or something. Don't want to stop good members from sharing their info, but don't want a ton of members just adding a link and never coming back.

[Arantor]

Wish there was a way to allow signatures after a certain number of posts app. or something.

Sure there is. I even mentioned it earlier in the thread.

Yes, by not giving out the permission to edit "additional profile options" to the bottom post count (I think it's done here by enabling deny permissions and denying it for the Newbie group off the top of my head)

If you're not sure about this, you could always ask in the relevant Support board for your SMF version.

[yankeestonk]

I don't think I saw that reply after I asked "is that an option". I'll check it out, thanks?

...but just thinking out loud now before I try it, wouldn't that just stop them from adding signatures altogether...rather than adding one after a certain amount of time on the site or posts?

[yankeestonk]

I meant that "?" to be a "!" btw.

[Arantor]

If you deny it against the Newbie membergroup, it only prevents them adding it while they're still in the Newbie group which is by default the first 5 posts.

[yankeestonk]

I just tried and it looks like I can't do it on my forum. All I have are "guests", "regular members", Administrators, etc. No sub-catagories for "newbies or anything like that. 

[Arantor]

Admin > Permissions > Settings > Enable permissions for post count groups

[~DS~]

If you deny it against the Newbie membergroup, it only prevents them adding it while they're still in the Newbie group which is by default the first 5 posts.

I think I remember we having this discuss on PT about a specify mod about denying permission but then again I don't see the point with this denying permission when you have "additional profile options" option based on membergroup UNLESS it depend on postcount which DOES need denying permission.

[Arantor]

Doing it with deny to block it from a single post count group is far quicker than disallowing it from Regular Members then removing it from post count and maybe other groups too.

[~DS~]

Doing it with deny to block it from a single post count group is far quicker than disallowing it from Regular Members then removing it from post count and maybe other groups too.

far quicker, you said? Than disallowing from membergroup?

[Arantor]

Disallow != deny

Remember, we're talking about a permission that is by default applicable to regular members. If you disallow in regular members you have to re-enable it in all the post count groups.

Here it's quicker to leave it enabled since it's only one group you don't want it for, then just use deny to forcibly block it.

It gets more complex when you have multiple groups that need it denied especially if there are other groups that otherwise allow it.

[yankeestonk]

It's a tricky little app. ! I enabled it, then when you go to the deny/allow etc area everything is marked "X". Which if I recall is disallow, not deny. Don't really know wht that means exactly. Do I have to change every "X" to "A" even though by default the permission are allowed? Or do I just go to that one group, "newbie" and mark that one permission (advanced permissions or whatever it was.) and mark that "deny" and leave all the others the same?

Don't want to mess up the functionality for everyone as since I'm the moderator I'll be able to still do everything and won't know if others can or can't.

Last thing, if I'm correct in the first paragraph above, and go back and mark the newbies to "deny", then change the signatures from "30 characters" say back to 300, do newbies get any kind of message stating that they can add a signature after 5 posts?

I'll bet you're sorry your responded to me in the first place huh?

Thanks

[Arantor]

You go to that one group and mark it D.

No, they don't get a message, they just find they can do it.

Reason it works the way it does, every user is implicitly in Regular Members - from which permissions are normally derived - unless you give them a different primary group (that is visible in the forum itself). So even though it's X (disallow) for post count groups, the user still has permission (A) in Regular Members.

[~DS~]

The best way to deny permission is from within the postcount group IF you rely on postcount based no MATTER what membergroup you are. And you are right it's the quickest way. In other word setting permission should be left by default in the membergroups. If you don't want want them to use signatures and must require a posts of 10+ then it MUST be denied from the newbie group (postcount) instead of membergroup. Did I get all that correctly?

[Arantor]

Yes

[~DS~]

I have to said...I agreed with yankeestonk, it's a bit tricky and confusing at first unless they know what they are doing. I should make a tutorial...

[Arantor]

Permissions in general are kind of confusing, especially when you mix in deny permissions, or (1.1.x) board specific permissions or (2.0) board permission profiles.

A tutorial would be good

[yankeestonk]

Ok, thanks to your help I did it! Could not have figured that out before. I added a child board to my "introduce yourself to the forum" area with a list of benefit of being a member, and that after 5 posts you can add signatures etc. Might help with guests registering and getting more to post up.

THANKS VERY MUCH! Very cool of you to take the time to help me.

Ken

http://golftipsforum.isuckatgolf.net/

[rd]

isuckatgolf.net/

It's not nice to have almost nude pics in the frontpage of a website... What if I was in a public place O.o

[yankeestonk]

Tell that to Sports Illustrated! And what pic was "almost nude on the homepage"?

[Ensiferous]

The flash film has some scantily clad ladies. Best front page EVER! Seriously, though. I do not see the issue here, you're on a page clearly about golf, if someone sees the ladies and calls you out on it you look at them and ask if they fail to see the topic of the site and whether they're idiots or not. Problem solved. Now more scantily clad ladies please.

[DoctorMalboro]

http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1242

Did you try this mod?

[yankeestonk]

Hey Ensiferous. (pretty sure I mangled that spelling.), Thanks man!

I don't think the guy was serious about haveing a problem with the girls on the homepage, do you think so?

The real girls are in The 19th Hole Lounge! (or the caddygirls pages)
Ken

[wynnyelle]

no problem Yankeestonk One great way to at least partly solve the spam issue would probably be only allowing members to view sigs. It would discourage people only coming to advertise if they knew the search engines would never find it

[~DS~]

Behold my tutorial here:
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=378919.0

[alex30]

Enable stronger capitcha protection on registration to avoid spammers. Ban or delete if this continues.

[mamaof2boys]

I allow signatures fully but have it very clearly stated in our Community Guidelines that links/advertising, etc in signatures is a privilege for those with a certain post count. 

Obvious spammers are deleted if they somehow make it through activation, but if a newbie seems semi-legit but has a link in their siggie, we delete the siggie and send a nice PM inviting them to establish a solid membership before trying any nonsense like that again.