hilariousandco was in PD sig campaign before he was a mod (I think?), so according to you, he should be booted from it now?
You were perfectly fine with a tiered payout according to rank. Now when there is a staff/legendary tier, it's a problem all of a sudden? If you're going to bitch about staff having higher pay in sig campaigns, then also bitch about unfair payouts according to rank.
This problem you bring up is isolated to one mod and one sig campaign. You don't sound any more professional making sweeping generalizations like this.
PS - why don't you come on your real account to bring this up? Ironic that you bring up such small "problem", yet your alt account is solely for buying/selling forum accounts, which is borderline shady. Only reason why this activity isn't against the rule is because it can't be enforced. So like you said, how are you going to enforce mods not giving inside info through email instead of PM? You can't, it's all based on the honor system.
I have no issue with users earning different amounts based on their ranking. A full member account is able to display a bigger signature then a member. A senior account has the same feature then a full member account. A hero account is able to display background colors while a senior account cannot. A legendary member's post is generally looked at more closely then a hero member's posts.
A staff member on the other hand generally will have their posts directed towards a smaller subset of people, more often then not addressing a specific concern of a user. Sometimes a staff member may post something unrelated to their duties as a moderator (and adding something to the conversation of the topic) but the rules for signatures are not changed because someone is a moderator, and a post is generally not looked at more closely because someone is a moderator/staff member (I don't have specific stats on how much staff members contribute to a conversation verses are directed towards a specific concern, but the best case scenario is that a moderator contributes 100% to the conversation and carries the same signature as others in his ranking). As a result there is no valid business reason to want to pay a staff member at a higher rate then other senior members earn (assuming the subject staff member is a senior member) other then to use that additional payment to get something out of them later.
In my private career, I have been forbidden from accepting gifts exceeding $25 per year from any one person in order to prevent any perceived conflict of interest. In the case in question, a senior member who also is a staff member would receive an extra $60 per month (based on $500/BTC) in compensation which comes out to $720 per year, or would be able to take advantage of an offer that is not available to anyone except for a staff member if they are not yet enrolled. The purpose of this limit is to prevent judgment from being clouded in the event of a request being received that should not be granted or a request that is borderline appropriate/inappropriate.
There is only one signature campaign that is doing this to my knowledge. The reason why I did not name the specific campaign is because I think the rules should be evenly be applied to everyone.
Someone's username and/or ranking should not have an effect on how you receive a message as long as the message contains a valid point. I would hope that you would not give money to a legendary member when they are clearly scamming when you would not give money to a newbie when the newbie is trying to pull the same scam. Why should my message be any different?