This post is written with all due respect to Bitcointalk and their mods.  I love this board and visit it exclusively.

I believe a lot of the ideas which are being done to prevent spam are actually causing more spam on this forum.  It's fairly easy to spot the flood of people attempting to satisfy post counts for signature campaigns.  I'm guilty as well. 

The one sure way to stop spam on this forum is to stop the signature campaigns.  If the moderators were truly serious about the spam on this forum this is how you stop it.

By deleting posts and threads in an attempt to contain the spam the signature campaign bounties hunters are forced to create even more posts each week than is required so as not to go under the total needed to receive stakes. 

Another issue is the merit system.  Now that it is very difficult to raise up past jr member guess what happens.  People create multiple accounts and spam even more to get the stakes they would have gotten by ranking up by the old method we used to have. 

I feel like we have done nothing but created more spam in the end.  The signature campaigns must end if we want to stop spam.  If signature stay the rules should be continued to be studied because I do not believe this is working.  I do not have a solution unfortunately and appreciate the work the mods do to help fight this situation.