Quote from: Mikestang on April 29, 2015, 06:00:35 PM

Quote from: Snagglebone on April 29, 2015, 05:46:43 PM

Quote from: Mikestang on April 29, 2015, 04:24:18 PM

Quote from: QuestionAuthority on April 29, 2015, 03:22:42 PM

Members that I've talked to for years have either vaporized or post very infrequently.

That's the way most online forums are. Rarely do you see users who maintain a high level of involvement year after year after year; either they tire of the forum or of whatever hobby that forum is supporting. This is hardly the fault of signature campaigns.

I would say my opinion is biased as well, since I participate in a sig campaign, but it's no more biased that those who don't participate and don't like it. I actually see more spammy posts/posts that make no sense/bad google translation posts from people without ad signatures than those with.

Support the little guy, both advertiser and avertisee, keep paid signature campaigns around.

When a forum is properly curated and moderated, you see people sticking around for a long time. When you have a free-for-all like you have here, the trolls and other anti-social people are allowed to run rampant and it chases away the intelligent people that are here for proper discourse. It's not a surprise and happens all the time with unmoderated or lightly moderated forums. Without moderation, a forum will decend to the lowest common denominator, which is that of the trolls and anti-social element and that's exactly what we've seen here.

The problem is keeping a good moderator staff that has the ability to fairly and more importantly CONSITENTLY moderate a forum. Right now, this forum lacks any sort of real moderation and the moderation staff are inconsistent in their applications of what few rules there actually are. So if you want a forum that's useful and maintains users for a length of time, you need to a) start moderating heavily and properly and b) get a good moderation staff. Both of those things are incredibly difficult to do, unfortunately and even money can't buy a good, consistent staff. That takes time to build.

I have to wonder if the sheer volume of posts this forum receives has something to do with the level of moderation. There's like 20+ pages of new posts every 30 minutes, it must be difficult to review every thread, not to mention every individual post.

The posts you're talking about are all in altcoins, mining, marketplace and gambling. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=unread

Those sections are almost not moderated at all. The altcoin section is a little better now than it used to be. A couple of years ago there were death threats and all kinds of shit happening in altcoins.