No More Signatures

[Rob Beckers]

Signatures (the line of text underneath each post that the user can customize) have become more and more of a thorn in my side. The policy has been to allow a link to someone's site in there, but I've noticed a trend of posting banal, meaningless posts, just so that link shows and gets indexed by Google (for a better search score).

I have been cracking down on gratuitous links lately, where the sole purpose is promotion of someone's business or products, and in that light I believe it's time to do away with signatures for regular users as well. They could have real purpose (as in linking to someone's personal site to show off projects), but have devolved into yet another SEO vehicle.

It particularly bothers me when someone claims ignorance and asks questions, when from the (business) link they post it's obvious they know the answer very, very well. Just to drive traffic to that question ("How can I store more energy?" with a link to a company selling those solutions).

So, unfortunately due to abuse no more signatures...

-RoB-

[Rob Beckers]

I've tweaked things a little: Users with 150 or more posts now have signatures enabled, while those with less do not. The people abusing the system tend to not stick around, it's post & run, or a few posts and then disappear. For the users with a real commitment to communicating and helping others with answers they now continue to have access to signatures under their messages.

-RoB-