A paid signature is a form of trust in you. The user will click on the signature or prefer to use the service because he trusts you or sees that you provide high-quality posts, so what you ads will be a good thing.
These are the same reasons why advertising companies pay millions to Messi and Ronaldo, so you must try as much as possible to avoid advertising for scam/HYIP, or at least stop advertising for these services whenever you are certain that they are scammers.
I agree with this. Would you say the minimum requirement is that the service should be legitimate? Or more than just that?
My opinion:
The advertisement should be considered as a paid advertisement, not a personal endorsement from the wearer.
However, users should be responsible for ensuring that the signature they are wearing is not a scam.
If not personal endorsement, why encourage others to use it? Advertising is encouraging others to use it.
If it's safe to use, is that not good enough?
I think everyone wearing signatures aren't encouraging gambling and mixers generally. There is nothing generally wrong with both of them if they are currently legit, so it's fine to be paid to advertise them, as people can do what they want when it comes to using them...
Gambling is not good for health and mixers have a high rate of
eventually becoming a scam, both of these are factual. Does that mean we, as a community, are encouraging the usage of them?
I don't think so, personally, but I'd like to hopefully hear more about this topic too.
If a bitcointalk user is wearing a paid signature for a service, should readers view them as either personal endorsements from that bitcointalk user?
Yes, of course. The moment you enter the signature of a business, you become part of it. You don't have the power to make decisions, but you are certainly some kind of representative.
Interesting, so how responsible are you, for example, if they eventually scam? I think considering people are representatives adds liability that I am sure, no one wants.
If a bitcointalk user is wearing a paid signature for a service, should readers view them as either personal endorsements from that bitcointalk user?
Don't the managers select the participants by selecting the best offered? Probably because the owners want the best users to represent them.
They pick by who has contributed the most value to the forum, and the sections that the users post in. This theoretically brings the most traffic. There are probably more factors, but those two I would guess are the main factors.
I don't think users would be impressed if they found out that they are representing the business, especially if that business turns into a scam. What happens then?
If a bitcointalk user is wearing a paid signature for a service, should readers view them as either personal endorsements from that bitcointalk user?
What I think is a more interesting question, is how many users actually do any research about campaign owners before applying for a sig. campaign. It's a bit disappointing when I see a user in a well-paid campaign, who doesn't even know about ANN or has never visited the website of the service they promote.
icopress started encouraging campaign participants to test the service they are promoting
Therefore, please note that I will periodically ask you for favors, and please treat my words with understanding and seriousness, (for example, to begin with, I would like each of you to test MixTum and share your experience).
Campaign managers are good marketers. I'm sure icopress is doing that more so that the business gets more reviews, than for users to "do research" about what they're promoting. People should be doing that anyway, and you only need to read the thread and website to understand a service, you don't also have to share your experience in order to have researched it.
I would assume that users at least read the thread, website and understand the service, before they wear the signature.