Sig Whores, What Do You Think?
 

In my travels to other boards, I see an awful lot of sig whores. We are lucky enough to not see many here and when we do, we get rid of them quickly. So, for the boards, do you think these whores help or hurt? For the programs they promote, do sponsors actually make any money from people that only post a few words to get their sig seen? And for the whores, is this their only business? Are they really making a living by posting 100s of times/day on boards?

I know that some people are posting these large amounts hoping it will increase their PR with Google. And maybe once it did.

I know someone who at gfy has referred over 300 webmasters from his gfy sig alone - ofcourse that is an enormous amount of posting but it is a fact that continual board whoring will get people to click on your sig - assuming it is interesting enuf to click on ofcourse. Do people make money on their sigs? HELL YEAH. Is it enuf to live on? i think that depends, it is all relative imo

Unfortunatly for the people that use the boards to network professionally and gather information these 'board whores' definatly fuck it for the rest of us as we have to read thru so much shit to find anything worthwhile


just my opinion and thank fuck you guys have the sig rules

|peace|

they are?

crazy shit man

Sig whores are just as bad being a spammer imo. You have these "characters" who contribute nothing meaningful to the board and post so often you have to wonder if they are really webmasters at all. Whats worse is these other board owners who encourage it by paying nickels for every post in an attempt to be the most "active" board. Sad, really. |angry|

you havent got enought spam yet lol

I totally agree however

Consider that "JuicyLinks" guy from gfy - everyone has seen that guy posting - and I dont know about you lot but everytime I have seen a post from that guy it has been a couple of lines of complete shit and then a pic of himself followed by his 600 pixel high sig - it is completely and utterly insane

how about the guys with 500k sig files?

Yes thats right, I have seen with my own eyes at least a dozen guys with sigs that are 500k to 1meg in size

madness

So, who do you guys think is the worse whore of all time? :)

Everyone needs to make money somehow.

I have a bit more respect for sig whores then the bums panhandling at the corner 7/11.

Then again I have no use for GFY and never go over there.

|gabbo| (click my sig)

Simply put 'sigwhores' are a huge asset to a board. The more posts, the more popular a board seems, and the more people visit it. While I hate the idea of 'sigwhores' or 'postwhores' ..... unfortunately thats the model that seems to work.

LB - I have to disagree. The popularity of a board is sort like traffic and we all know that quantity does not equal quality.

SigWhores suck ass IMHO. They do nothing to contribute to the community & are only there to leech of the "popularity" of the board.

We could easily be on the top of the list by letting every Tom, Dick & Harry post whatever mindless topic spewed into their heads.

But I like being #6 :D

I think this board (and a few others that have legit rules) are a much better place to get business done, get straight answers to legit questions, bounce ideas off each other, etc.

Greenguy & Jim is #6 on Boardtracker without sigwhores and without paid posting.

IMO that speaks volumes.

Well be back to 7 or 8 by the weekend - just watch :D

Yeah, most likely. Boardtracker doesn't really keep up with the bullshit posts as they should. They do a great job for something so big but...some still get through.

Maybe this would discourage the sig whores. |cool|

huh

And I agree with you Greenie. I truly believe that both sig and post whores are the scourge of the resource business. They never have anything productive to offer the community and make it hard for real business people find useful information.

abso-fucking-lutely |pimpin

man they need that mod on gfy, it would seriously fuck the sig whores up |cool|

Sig whores... that's just too broad.. am I a sig whore for flying that button of a huge and reputable company advertising at this great board too?

Cleo translation…
I think sig whores are to this biz what the bums panhandling on the corner are.

They are a cancer to a board, just look at GFY.

that sums it up very well jim

who is the biggest board whore of all time? that 'juicylinks' guy on gfy - 55,000 posts - all of them pics of himself :(

I totally agree

You might remember that Eric told us that their mods were much more professional because they don't get in the middle of the surfer fights :)

Let me guess... Juicy? |cool|

well if its a problem there would be a easy way of getting rid of sig whores

just make it so a person doesnt get a sig untill a certian number of posts like 250

my sig at the top of second page :-)

Hey Tommy! I think I owe you a |buddy| PM me your address :)

I would say No, not at all.
Because you're a real, known person who contributes to the community. Ultimately I think thats the deciding factor.

Our definition of a Sig Whore is one (male or female) who posts for the sake of posting & getting their sig file seen.

We have a few, but they tend to get picked on & either leave or are banned :D

I don't visit boards that allow large or annoying sigs. If I'm trying to read text and I see a large animating flash advert only a few pixels below what I'm reading I get distracted. If I see 20 of them I go nutty. Then I come back here.

Not allowing large obtrusive adverts also cuts down on the type of people who would abuse them - forum spammers, including those who consistantly only contribute to discussions using the words 'awesome', 'lol', and other insightful single-word remarks.

Some boards look like dirty webmaster whore houses. This one has class.




(I realize my sig is slightly annoying so I'm moving it down this page until I find a better one)

Now ... I totally agree with your reasoning, however sigwhores (posters who really only add non-business discussions mostly) increase the activity in a board.

When you have an increase in activity you attract more regular contributors, and your visitors vist more frequently.

Eg, i can look at GG&J 2 times a week and take in all the discussions and threads quite easily. You get me hitting your forum twice and only seeing 2 sets of banners etc etc. I hit netpond constantly, and its not because there is more business related content ... but because its always moving.

I just believe sigwhores are a necessary evil. :)

I think it's cool when I have to scroll just to read a banner in a sig |yawn|

Back when I did frequent a certain three-letter board, I surfed with sigs turned off, the whoring was so bad. At the time there was enough decent content to make a visit worthwhile. Now, that is not the case (IMO). Whether the proliferation of sig-whores contributed, I'll leave to you, gentle reader, to decide.

PS - see...naw, I won't go there. I'm too busy whoring for a custom title and a Buddy Christ. ;)

There's also something else to consider on the three letter board. Post count = "respectability" on that board. If you don't have a large post count you're a newbie and anything you say is basically ignored and/or challenged. So I think "serious webmasters" starting out pretty much have to start as post/sig whores to be taken seriously later.

Being new to the board, and adult boards in general, i must say that sponsor referal links in sig files are a great resource. I am happy to use them and hopefuly send a fellow webmaster a commish.

But I can be slightly selective in who's sig i click on. People who have been helpfull or at least nice in responding to my posts will likely get a click when im looking for new sponsors. Or others i see posting often and contributing good stuff in other discussions.

The sig whores probably have a very low conversion ratio from posting to boards, unless of coarse those scummy buisness practices attract more scummy webmasters. meanwhile us honest business people tend to stick with those that practice good honest business practices.

my two cents.

some sig whores do the posting because they are getting paid by doing so but sometimes they come to a point of spamming instead of contributing to the board.

Yes, it can...

And as for sponsors making money from sigs all over...i dont think so...its mainly for branding...

I know what your saying & I think we accomplish that by having the Chit Chat forum, but part of the problem is that I think we are the only board that at least tries to separate the business from the bullshit & a lot of people have a problem grasping that concept.

I like having the variety of categories here, but most people that are new to the board just default themselves to this forum without poking around a bit 1st, which is why we see these Sig Whores annoying us from time to time.

That's true for every board, this one included. Unless you know the name of the poster before they came over here, most people automatically assume that the poster is a "newbie" (myself included)

I do think that the good part about this board (and a few others) is that legit webmasters with legit questions will get legit answers, regardless of post count :)

I just clicked over to "Gotta Fuckin' Yell" just for the hell of it, hadn't been over there forever, and you see really quick why you never go there, sig whores fight and bring on confrontation just for the fact of making more posts which is just friggin' lame and every thread turns into a "fuck you you're wrong and I'm right" kinda bullshit just to bump up post counts