Megan wrote: It would be

greg — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 19:05:53 +0000

Megan wrote:

It would be work for moderators to take care of if it became a problem...

There'll always be spam, it matters not what angle it comes from imo.

We stop it in sigs and it comes in the posts instead... Same shi..enanigans different day.

A few posters do do that but

Megan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:46:49 +0000

A few posters do do that but more often than not it seems to be innocent (they don't know how to set up a signature, or think something went wrong because it didn't show up)

I wonder if people would bother to do this... anyone who stuck around longer would find out soon enough that this isn't allowed here. It would be work for moderators to take care of if it became a problem...

I like that idea of a wall

Megan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:19:02 +0000

I like that idea of a wall of fame. At one point we were thinking of having a featured project that would show up on the sidebar somewhere. We were also thinking about replacing our paids ads with members' sites.

Ummmm.... I'm really

Megan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Ummmm.... I'm really hesitant about adding too many complicated rules. We already have some confusion when signatures don't show up on shorter posts. Normally I think signatures (and avatars, for that matter) are nice to have. They let people personalize their posts and help us to get to know them. 6 months is a long time...

ETA: But we do have rules like that for posting in market place. Same idea...

Something like this might be an option if we try rel=nofollow and continue to have problems.

Hi Bill, Yes, you're right

Megan — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:55:35 +0000

Hi Bill,

Yes, you're right that some will continue to post from these dofollow lists. The plan is to try to get our name off as many of those as possible. I think some will gradually disappear once the posters realize that we're not following links anymore (somone who tries it and notices will go back and tell them).

I'll have to see if there are any "bad behaviour" type plugins for Drupal. There is an akismet-like plugin (called mollom) that might help a bit.

Just had another brilliant

trade-show-bill — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:53:51 +0000

Just had another brilliant idea... maybe only allow signatures after 10 posts (which I just hit ). Or does that mean drupal 6? In that case, I say go for Drupal 6. I'm betting the spammers are too lazy to make 10+ posts. ~ Bill, the trade show displays king

I have a feeling that if

trade-show-bill — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:50:20 +0000

I have a feeling that if you're on that many lists, you will still get hit by the spammers. I don't think that many would notice that the links are now no-follow. I think if it's that bad, you might want to get rid of signatures entirely, which would be a bummer. It's too bad that a few, well, a lot of bad apples can spoil the party, or however the saying goes. But my main point is, as long as there are signature links (follow or no follow) I think there will be spammers.
As an alternative, I use "bad behavior" on my blog, which blocks ip addresses from "bad areas" from even accessing my blog (much less commenting). It has gotten rid of 95% of the spam. Don't know if there's such a thing for forums. Anyway, that's my suggestion... Bill, the trade show displays king

I'm all for no-following sig

teammatt3 — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:12:00 +0000

I'm all for no-following sig links. But I'm worried that if you don't nofollow all links in a post, it won't really solve the problem. People will still throw in the fake signature:

-------------------
My Spammy Website
My Other Spammy Website

But maybe that won't happen. I haven't seen anyone do it for a while.

I think the limitations per

greg — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 19:29:00 +0000

I think the limitations per user post count/time as member etc is a good idea. No sig at all for xx time as member and yy post count etc.

People should be here to get help and advice, chat to others and give help and advice. And although it's nice to have your pride and joy website, blog or forum in your signature, it isn't the main reason to be here.
And if you are to have a sig when you pass the criteria, then you are a regular member anyway, so everything works out perfectly for all concerned.

But I think we need Drupal 6 for anything fancier than a simple rel=nofollow, or no sigs at all.

While I think this is a good

Renegade — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:42:05 +0000

While I think this is a good idea, what about implementing what Greg K was saying as well? So you have to meet the requirement of having "reasonable" amount of posts after a period of time - say six months - before you can post a signature, which has rel="nofollow" to it anyway.