I very highly doubt anyone is going to put an affiliate link in their signature. Either way you'll find out soon. I think you might make a U-turn on this move... (from a neutral perspective as I am not a part of this campaign).
They might not have a choice if they can't get on any other deals. Some will stay just out if loyalty or because they like PD or whatever though.
It's honestly just too difficult to moderate all these people at lower levels. When I first joined bitcointalk the quality of discussion was so much higher, part of the watering down is due to the rise of bitcoin but I still think I've played a key role in this.
I don't think you can blame yourself for the quality of discussion dropping, as like you said that's just down to the popularity bitcoin gained so suddenly and everyone just came swarming in trying to get rich quick in whatever ways they could (scams or spams). Though signature deals (not just this one) obviously will have encouraged the lesser quality of posts it would've happened anyway with or without sig deals and that's the users fault not yours or anybody else's. Even if the deals get banned in the future I think the quality of posting would still be the same or may just naturally get worse due to more and more of the general public getting involved.
Ok. I think a lot of lower ranks would just leave for another guaranteed fixed rate deal though to be honest. Some of those allow ref links too (though like I said above that's if they can actually get a place on one of them). Users could win big with the ref links, but they could also get nothing or next to nothing so it's risky. I'm interested to see what you come up with though.
There is "pooled" ref link campaigns to make risks lower.
But I still like paid per post more.
Yeah, but they're not very transparent imo and you're counting on the operator dishing out the funds fairly. I'd rather bank on my own link as opposed to joining a pool.