Mary2e

Any reason why not? The titles issue has been discussed for a while now, as well as commercial links in signatures.

[I'm not being difficult, I want to know if I'm wasting my time giving my opinion ]

kipper

Just a suggestion.
IIRC, multiple people have offered to help, and have been told it's a moderator thing.

goalie

Ok-then the moderators should grab the aforementioned bat and step up to the plate-or at least partake in this discussion and tell us what "looking for a bad signature entails" as surely they're not waiting for another member to report a bad signature. And no, I'm not discussing specific moderator actions as that is a F/T no-no but rather what their job entails

tom911

I think this is something the moderators and Talk Board need to work out with the Community Director off the forum. Not going to accomplish much discussing the moderator signature committee here when the moderators that are on that committee are not even participating in this thread and no one here can speak for them. Maybe we can put the thread on hiatus until the back room stuff is sorted out.

Tom in Seoul

kipper

As of April 2012, there was a:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/18373798-post7.html

Here, you'll find an example of someone who had been on the signature committee explaining that non-moderator volunteers simply wouldn't work.

The links in signatures is a topic that comes up every year, at least once, for a few years now. I'd really like TalkBoard to finally take some action on it and provide guidance to Carol on how to address this. First, please read the other threads on this. Lin821 posted those in the 2nd post on this thread.

Taken from one of my posts on one of those threads:

My general input on signatures:

• No referral links to sites where the referrer receives an incentive of some sort for each new referral as we usually have congas for those in S.P.A.M., and if we don't the person should start one
• No "PM me for a referral to XYZ" as again, we usually have congas for those in S.P.A.M. or the person should start one
• No "vist my blog for XYZ," be it various offers for points, miles, cheap hotels, cheap airfare, whatever.
• No advertising for bars, pubs, hotels, restaurants, airlines, pet stores, grocery stores, clothing stores, etc., to mean no commercial advertisements at all.

IMO, referrals should be done in S.P.A.M., in conga fashion. Should one not participate in the conga, they should not be allowed to list their referral in their signature, potentially earning several referrals, when those who play by the rules in S.P.A.M. can only earn one referral. Same concept for the "PM for me a referral," that is very popular, when there is a conga for those sites in S.P.A.M.

I would think that those who were concerned about people "gaming" their post counts by using OMNI games should support a change like that, since currently, many people are "gaming" the referrals.

SkiAdcock

As the TB members know, the TOS Committee recently provided TB members (& mods) with updated FT guidelines to review & provide input on that covered all aspects of FT guidelines, including signature links. Input was provided in the private TB forum (and presumably by the mods) which the CD passed along to the TOS Committee. So my guess is the updated guidelines will be presented publicly at some time in the not too far future after they've had a chance to assimilate all input, although I've not yet heard a date.

Cheers.

goalie

Bolding mine: Or they could participate (perhaps with a nudge from the CD)

OverThereTooMuch

I agree that this garbage needs to be removed from signature links.

There should also be no links allowed where the person has some level of financial interest unless they clearly disclose that interest. FTC guidelines require employees to disclose their relationships with a company when making a recommendation. So maybe we can find a lawyer who is willing to sue a bunch of these folks for posting their spam here! (How would we find these lawyers? By their FT signatures of course! )

Additionally, IB should also consider banning links using URL shorteners. Those typically mask affiliate links. I'm sure IB can track page referrals from FT in another way.

goalie

Bolding mine: IANAL, but I'm not sure how this applies to or is handled if the person with the referral link is the company (i.e. a travel blogger. I would hope the same way and it would be nice if the financial interest was disclosed (don't know if it could be done but perhaps if properly disclosed by the member to IB, when a member clicks on a signature link, a "pre-page" from IB/F/T appears stating that the link you are clicking will take you to a 3rd party site and that site/person will gain financially from you doing so [or something like that])

SkiAdcock

IANAL but I know IB has plenty of them, & my guess is their lawyers are going to say the above is a no-go for a variety of legal reasons.

And even if they did allow it, so what? That's not eradicating the commercial links in signatures & gets back to my take on the issue - FTers are adults & they can make a decision to click on a link or not for themselves. If they think one is/might be of value then perhaps they will. If they don't they won't.

I acknowledge that there are some who think the problem is overwhelming, but my guess is that of the approximately 10,000 active members on FT most don't have commercial links in their signatures.

I'll be interested in what the TOS committee comes up with regard to this, although my guess is that as with all things FT not everyone will be happy. Since the entire revised guidelines should be coming out in the not too distant future I'm willing to wait to see what the section re: signatures ends up being.

Cheers.

Mary2e

Agreed. But that also means those with signature links are posting an awful lot in different forums to be so noticeable/bothersome. In other words, padding to get their links out there

goalie

Only a suggestion/thought/idea as when it comes to how this interweb thingy works, all I want to be able to do is click and go (but not on a link that someone makes money from and IB/FT gets squat). I personally don't think that the "signature issue" is overwhelming but rather a method for some to skirt the rules because they (the rules) are either silent or vague and imho, that needs to be fixed-and I too would be interested in what the TOS committee comes up with but to be perfectly honest, I'm not holding my breath as imho, "it's gonna be too difficult to fix" so nothing will be done.

Yup ^

SanDiego1K

The signature policy is going to become far more restrictive. I've been working on language with Internet Brands. Until that is finalized, I can't say specifically what will be disallowed, but do know for certainty that credit card links will be amongst them.

goalie

Thank you! ^^^ And thank you for sharing this ^^^

kokonutz

That is not surprising for several reasons, including the notion that if someone is going to put affiliate links on FT, it will be IB and no one else. @:-)