That's why Newbie and Junior signatures need to be removed completely. They then cannot get paid for this until they become a Member and earn ten merit. Ten merit is not a lot to ask, but it is if you're a bot or the worst of the worst of posters.
I think that would be the best option, and I dont think it would affect traffic so much. The forum would send the message that you can make money
if you make an effort to rank up and get merits. And ten merits is not that much, but a shitposter will never get them. There would be people trying to cheat the system, of course, but the situation would be much better.
It wouldn't effect traffic at all, nor does it effect anybody being able to post here. All it effects is your ability to earn via signatures as a Newbie or Junior and that's not what this forum is about anyway and I don't think they should be able to earn here straight away because that's what leads to the abuse and people trying to post about something they little to nothing about. Newbies and Juniors who come here to earn aren't going to magically just throw in the towel because they can't earn by posting straightaway and they now need ten merit or whatever. They can still collect bounties for a start, or just cough up for a Copper membership... or, you know, just earn the merit naturally by making meritable posts. Ten merit isn't a lot and you could probably achieve that by writing one great post or a few at most. I'm sure other members would be more liberal with their merits if this happened as well. I want to see people making worthwhile posts and I want them to be able to earn here in the process. I just don't want copy and paste bots and lazy farmers writing a hollow sentence over however many dozens of accounts they have.