Sigs shouldn't be displayed for non-registered users

[N35t0r]

That.

Signatures are displayed for non-registered users, so people like Alpha Protocol can SEO his site through his link.

Somehow making it so that sigs are only displayed for registered users (Asher says it can be done) might diminish the amount of spambots we get, or at least not benefit them when they do show up.

[Zoetstofzoetje]

non-registered users can post??

[Ming]

First... Alpha Protocol is a full (registered) member.

Second... non registered users can NOT post.

[Asher]

I think he just means if someone isn't logged in and views the website, sigs should not be displayed.

[Robert]

What Asher means is that it doesn't benefit spammers to signature-seo-spam b/c search engines won't pick it up anyway. (they're not logged in members and will therefore not see the signature links)

Seems to be a good idea.
Any reasons to not do this? (and thus keep signatures visible for not-logged in visitors)

[Ming]

My signature is read by the search engines... I can do a search on Keep on Civin' and it will find many of my posts where it is only shown in my signature

[Ming]

But on a serious note... many legitimate and long time posters use their signature to promote links. Why should they not get the advantage simply because of posters like Alpha Protocol?

It's not like this site is swamped with spam bots.

[N35t0r]

It is, they're just caught quickly.

[Ming]

Sure... they get caught quickly. But Poly doesn't get all that many of them. Annoying... yes. A real problem... Not really.

Again, why should legitimate/long time posters have the links they are promoting in their sigs ignored by the search engines because of a few spam bots.

[N35t0r]

It's a good point. I don't know. Off the top of my head, there aren't many though.

[Asher]

Dale

[Robert]

Good point by Ming.
I also agree with Ming that spambots isn't a big problem.
Especially not since the last walls that have been built against them.

It's annoying at most.
(and now spambots even can't have sigs b/c of the 20 posts rule I wonder if there will be any signature spamming left)

Even Alpha Protocol is not a bot.
We should watch out that we do not want to pester one dedicated SEO spammer that much that we limit our normal users.

And Ming, your "Keep on civin'" line is being abused by other civ-sites! Go get them

[Hueij]

What's wrong with rel=nofollow in signature links?

[Robert]

it also hurts honest members who want to advertise their sites...

[DaShi]

No one should be advertising their sites here. At least not freely. In fact, I think sigs shouldn't be displayed for members. Why should we be subjected to all this spam.