Signature size

[PCHeintz72]

I like signatures, oftentimes because of interesting links or funny quotes that make my day - its just that some threads devolve to 2/3 signatures and 1/3 spam (spam is ok )

The sad thing is, the banner on the bottom of my work e-mails is bigger than some of the SIG's here. It is not just a picture, but a advertizing slogan and hyper links. The current one is not the biggest one we've had, but still takes about a 1/5th of my screen, but I should note I am at 1280 by 1024.

I'm required by the company to have it (they did not understand my objection that each internal or external email containing it takes that much space on the corporate server, worse in email discussion streams).

 

[Cornuthaum]

I'm putting this here because I can't think of any other place to put this:

Why the heck can't I use signatures between 490 and 499 characters in length?

The "check signature length" yields me exactly 499 characters, but, alas, I get "Your signature is too long. " all the time. Quite aggravating.

It's always like this between 490-99, too.

 

[PCHeintz72]

I'm putting this here because I can't think of any other place to put this:

Why the heck can't I use signatures between 490 and 499 characters in length?

The "check signature length" yields me exactly 499 characters, but, alas, I get "Your signature is too long. " all the time. Quite aggravating.

It's always like this between 490-99, too.

Ehhh...

I just checked it, it would not allow over 500, but allowed 492, and allowed 487.

I should note though, that for all three, it stopped and warned me that the maximum allowed was 500.

 

[nuclear death frog]

I think signatures should just be disallowed altogether. They're an eyesore and an impediment to scrolling. I know that I have them blocked so at the moment I don't see them anyway, but they just seem stupid and pointless; I really see no purpose for them. Avatars and names are enough to identify a poster; or at least they should be.

 

[PCHeintz72]

I think signatures should just be disallowed altogether. They're an eyesore and an impediment to scrolling. I know that I have them blocked so at the moment I don't see them anyway, but they just seem stupid and pointless; I really see no purpose for them. Avatars and names are enough to identify a poster; or at least they should be.

I've myself have experimented with them, but I in general have never overly cared for them. I consider them something that slows down reading speed, and like you said, you have to scroll by them.

Also, I don't normally even care about Avatars, only place I actually use one is livejournal, and that was mainly because I was playing with them and never removed it, and because it really takes no more space that would otherwise be used with the way the posts are displayed.

I did recently finally break down and give myself a custom description on Invision based forums, but only them. But I really do not care much with them either.

 

[SimmyC]

I'm bumping this thread since, I believe we're encountering the issue again.

It seems people are again, having massive sigs again. I mean, one pic, maybe a little bigger than mine, is fine.

But recently, I've been seeing people with TWO pictures stacked right on top of each other. And not some dinky little ones either.

There is a reason why this thread exist. When people make Sigs, they should consider that not everyone has broadband. Some, even our resident TFFer GH, are still stuck with 56k for who knows what reason.

Though it appears Hawk has been a lot busier and can't take care of the forum as much as before, well, that doesn't mean this issue should be ignored or made to go away. <_< Again, USE COMMON SENSE!

 

[SotF]

However with the length of signitures being restricted the way it currently is, there are other problems. 500 is hard to work several things into it such as those of use playing BVS and want our characters in our sig as well as a bit for ourself.

 

[Zephyrus]

Just to add my own two cents, while I do agree that large sigs made by newcomers with more enthusiasm than common sense are bad, I don't believe that those of us that are fond of large sigs should have to trim their own or resize it at the behest of the minority of people on this forum who have older screens or bad resolutions.

There is that little option that allows you to disable the viewing of signatures and avatars both. If it's such a pain to read and have your place disrupted by the loading of pics, then make use of this option.

I'm not saying that those who use sigs should not exercise their common sense, rather, I'm saying that the use of common sense works both ways. I trimmed my own sig as a courtesy, but I can guarantee you that there will be some that like their sigs exactly as they are and will brook no argument unless Hawk threatens to bring out the Banhammer from behind the counter.

Just my thoughts on the situation.

 

[Vexarian]

Some people happen to like having their Signatures, and honestly if you don't want to look at them, or want to read quicker, there is, more often then not, an option to disable seeing them altogether.

Not everyone is surfing the net on a 13 inch screen and a 14.4k Modem, there's no reason to care beyond unreasonably huge Signatures.

 

[PCHeintz72]

Some people happen to like having their Signatures, and honestly if you don't want to look at them, or want to read quicker, there is, more often then not, an option to disable seeing them altogether.

Not everyone is surfing the net on a 13 inch screen and a 14.4k Modem, there's no reason to care beyond unreasonably huge Signatures.

What you say is true, but I do believe SimmyC raised some valid concerns.

I myself have decently large resolution on all systems and smallest physical screen size is 15.1 notebook screens, and am on House DSL.

However...

When you factor a page on this forum can have 29 posts, and if each has multiple large high resolution images, not only is that annoying to scroll through on even high resolution screens, it is annoying as a slight lag in image rendering.

Keep in mind, any system has to download and display all those images. Even at a *mere* 100kb an image, if you have 58 images on a page, that is 5.8mb just for SIGS. Then there are potentially 29 avatars, though avatars are comparatively small images (except for large animated ones), and since they are to the side, are not nearly as intrusive.

Then there have been incidents with people having SIGS with many times 100kb in size.

EDIT: a quick check of this page of posts so far shows the images used are between 15kb and 145kb. But, for example VexTheWarlord's is really 4 pictures (only 3 show for me though), which adds to 83.5kb.

 

[whitetechie]

The rules about sig size could always change with the amount of posts someone has. The assumption being that the longer someone has been here/more active they have been, they less likely they are to abuse the privilege. Very rarely have I run across a sig that was truly annoying, and I enjoy enough of them to prevent myself from disabling viewing them.

 

[PCHeintz72]

The rules about sig size could always change with the amount of posts someone has.? The assumption being that the longer someone has been here/more active they have been, they less likely they are to abuse the privilege.? Very rarely have I run across a sig that was truly annoying, and I enjoy enough of them to prevent myself from disabling viewing them.

Ehhh... If I had a say in it (and I most certainly do not have any say in the decision), I would avoid rules like that.

I know one thing Hawk had wanted was to keep the rules minimal, and simplistic. Having something like that IMO would not only not be in that line of thinking, but would imply special status.

I may be among the more common posters on this forum (though not the most be any means), but I actually do not want special status assigned to the fact.

If a SIG is annoying people, it should not matter if the person was here 1 month and 2 posts, or 3 years and 5,000 posts. It would still be annoying.

 

[SimmyC]

First, yes, there is an option to disable sigs. And some people have used them.

Thing is, I, and many people here do, LOVE sigs. So why should they disable them altogether if one person decided that they should have a FREAKING HUGE sig?

The problem here isn't sigs, the content, etc. It's the size of them. I mean, no one here thinks it's wise to have a wallpaper sized picture as your sig. So why have a sig that forces you to scroll to say, get to the next post at a reasonable resolution?

Also, even with broadband, a picture heavy thread will get laggy. After all, each picture has to load. And since they came from different servers, and then it has to show up on your computer, taxing your RAM...

 

[Hawk]

The sigs of some people is indeed starting to become an issue again.

Not so much of one that I've started polishing the dust of the banhammer, but I am glancing at the thing from time to time...

Reasonable size, to my mind, is a single banner-sized picture ( if a picture is necessary at all... ) and possibly a few sentences worth of text. Else, skip the picture and tag on a few more sentences worth of text.

I won't dust off the banhammer if someone has a larger picture then this and/or twentyfive sentences worth of text in their signature, but if I come across a signature that takes up more then half my screen again ( 1280x1024 on the primary monitor and 1280x768 on the secondary monitor... ), I'm reaching for the duster.

 

[nuclear death frog]

Since you're back (at least intermittently), I think some signature sanity needs to begin being enforced.

 

[Hawk]

Use the report button to your dark little hearts content, if I agree that a sig is too large or offensive in some manner, they will be forcibly removed by yours truly and if some moron is enough of a retard to put it back, it's the banhammer.

 

[rukia8492]

would mine be considered too big or offensive?

Joking on the offensive part.

 

[nuclear death frog]

would mine be considered too big or offensive?

Joking on the offensive part.

It doesn't offend me, but I'd say it's right on the border of unreasonably large. Shrink the text down to default size and it might pass.

Obviously, Hawk may be more or less lenient, as he wishes.

 

[hchan1]

Fixing the Engrish wouldn't hurt either. Y'know, just saying.

 

[nuclear death frog]

Well, I've just reported a few I spotted that, at least in my eyes, take up too much screen space, but it's a rather subjective thing. I think we need a hard guideline on this, Hawk. If you don't mind setting one.

 

[Vexarian]

would mine be considered too big or offensive?

Joking on the offensive part.

First time I've actually stopped to read it.

It's very silly.

 

[Hawk]

I'm a big fan of common sense, so I likely won't ever impose a strikt 'no pictures more then xxx pixels high or xxx pixels wide'. Something that takes up half a screen, is obviously not something I'm going to like, but somewhere around the size of one of the gazillion banners you tend to spot whenever cruising the www isn't likely to cause me to raise an eyebrow.

So, use common sense. Larger then a banner and I'd likely frown upon it, but possibly not enough to actually agree that it needs removing, but much larger then a banner and I'd likely strip it away.

A picture of a babe in bikini and I'd likely cheer, check it out twice or trice, then just smile and move on. A picture of a naked babe and I'd likely cheer, check it out twice or trice, then smile a sad smile and regretfully remove it even if I myself couldn't care less about nudity.

A picture of a troll screaming fuuuuuuuuck, I would scratch the back of my head at but otherwise ignore. Someone in a Ku Klux Klan outfit buggering president Obama while hollerin' fuck niggers and I likely wouldn't settle for just removing the sig, but whip out the banhammer pretty much instantly.

So, use common sense with your sigs.

 

[Hawk]

Have started getting a few reports on signatures now and started taking action.

If they're way outta line, I've removed them. The first couple, I just removed. After that, I started adding a line about having once had a sig, but Hawk thought it was too large so the reason why it is missing can be spotted.

The ones I find borderline, I've added a line in the signature about rescaling to a somewhat smaller size being appriciated.

One wasn't off size-wise, but the content wasn't appropriate for a public forum even if I myself found it hillarious. Same there, if I remove something because of the content rather then the size, I'll add a line about it having been removed due to content.

So if you find your signature missing or having extra lines of text in it, you now know why.

 

[GenocideHeart]

Have started getting a few reports on signatures now and started taking action.

If they're way outta line, I've removed them. The first couple, I just removed. After that, I started adding a line about having once had a sig, but Hawk thought it was too large so the reason why it is missing can be spotted.

The ones I find borderline, I've added a line in the signature about rescaling to a somewhat smaller size being appriciated.

One wasn't off size-wise, but the content wasn't appropriate for a public forum even if I myself found it hillarious. Same there, if I remove something because of the content rather then the size, I'll add a line about it having been removed due to content.

So if you find your signature missing or having extra lines of text in it, you now know why.

Say, is there any chance that you being back here means you may start writing fics again, or should we expect your soul to be snatched away by the vile WoW demon anytime? :snigger:

 

[Zimo]

This one better Hawk? If I resized it I would have lost the beautiful rant of hatred so I decided to go for something else completely instead. I kept your little line in for lulz though.