It's a tough one. I think the system works pretty well as it is - and there are always going to be people trying it on, regardless of whether links are follow or not, signatures allowed or not etc.
I do also think it's a bit unfair to single out new members, as there have been a lot of new members recently who've added value & interest in the short time they're been here.
Whether it's new members making spurious posts, or established members gratuitously bumping their own sales threads to "add the latest month's exact matches" I guess all we can do as a group is try to discourage such behaviour in a way that doesn't put an intolerable load on the team that keep Acorn clean and tidy and free of such abuses.
As we've seen many times that some people on here will try almost anything to either get links into the site and/or to get their domains for sale in front of as many eyeballs as possible, regardless of how many people they irritate in doing so. They see it as an easy (and free) way to make money, so I don't think any rule change is going to make them change their ways - they'll just find new ways to abuse the system.
Personally I think using negative rep & reporting flagrant abuse are the way to go.
The only thing I'd love to be added to forum functionality is an ignore button that works (for both single threads and for selected members). The current ignore function still flags up the persons activity on the "New Posts" list etc, so that kinda defeats the object - but the ability to remove people who abuse the forum from my own viewing of new threads etc would improve the experience for me enormously.
