I'm using the maximum length for a Newbie signature, and I wouldn't want to lose it.
As much as I hate spam, restricting legit users isn't the right solution. I'd like to see spam banned faster, especially the army of useless "great project" posters in the altcoin section.
Right! Restricting users from doing stuff isn't always the right solution. For instance, I'm pretty sure in the coming years we will have massive traffic and restricting the sign up process on invite basis only wouldn't be the right solution.We have to go beyond that and harness the best of tech to figure out stuff.
If there were a way for theymos to limit the number of alt accounts a person can have, that could solve a huge problem. Bots could be controlled and so could be shitposting. I don't see any legitimate reason for a person to have more than 3 alt accounts other than just to shitpost. Accessing hundreds of accounts using TOR would be almost impossible, for TOR takes a few minutes just to bypass recaptcha. So most shitposters won't likely use TOR. It'd take a lot of time.
So only the VPN issue exists, blacklist the most common VPN IPs? I have heard that there are numerous websites that have huge lists of common IPs
Again, just like my point above, "Restriction doesn't always mean the best solution". Technology is way beyond VPN's and Tor exit nodes. You can never stop the attacks, you can only prevent them.
Limit any random person from starting bounties. Only like a few managers should host campaigns. This is a hard blow, but it might just work in the long run. And for anybody to be a campaign manager, he should be qualified for that. Qualified as in, he should have knowledge of this forum, know how to select participants, be a trustworthy individual et al.
So if I start my company and would want my employee to manage my campaign, do you think forum should force me to use one of their managers? Why would I?I don't like how every solution you have mentioned revolves around restrict this and restrict that when we are here to be free from the centralised world (speaking psychologically) in the first place.
To sum up this post : Ban Signature Campaigns, forum is sorted (and dead)