Signature Rules: Time for a Rethink?

R0ot

(Is rethink a word?)
So the majority if not all boards.ie users are now using much faster methods to access the internet not as it was back in the day of dial up. Yes even in Donegal we have crawled out of the ice age (kinda of) and subscribed to our fancy 'new' dsl service. The old rules were in place because, to quote the biki, "many users browse boards over narrowband dial-up connections, so excessively large images in a person's signature can cause the page to load very slowly" and thus signatures were limited to 'The Rules'.

All signatures should not exceed the following size limits, and a user can't have both text and images.

* For text signatures: 4 lines normal size or 8 lines small size, and up to 90 chars per line. Font sizes above 2 are not allowed.

tags may not be used.
* For images in signatures: 1 image up to 300 pixels wide, 125 pixels tall and 20k in size. No animated images are allowed.

A signature may not contain profanity, bigotry, racism, or any other content that might be considered offensive by others - essentially subject to the same general rules as the rest of the site.

A signature should not contain any "nuisance links". These are links which may, for example, cause pop-ups to appear on a person's browser, or surreptitiously log the user out of boards.

Now I realise my signature violates...1...2...3 rules (that I can see) and will more than likely be sig2big'd quite soon or at least reported, but I would like to request maybe a more lenient view on signatures. I am not saying throw the rules out the window as some of them are bang on like in relation to animated signatures, who the hell wants an epileptic fit while reading a thread eh? But perhaps maybe a change to the system so we don't get certain users turning into the Sigpo Nazi's we love to hate making it their own personal vendetta to strike fear into those people with signatures that are 20 pixels over the width restriction. (not pointing at anyone in particular just making a generalisation)

I shall leave it up to greater minds to ideas on how to change the rules to bring them in line with current internet speeds that laugh at a 40k image loading. :pac:

Chong

100% agree, time for animated sigs. Wouldnt mind some animated Avatars too.

Sully

I think new rules have been called for already - several times - with no proper response from the powers that be I personally think we need to re-think the rules. There was another thread, maybe Biko created it - im not sure, where the same question cropped up and has been bumped a few time since its creation.

biko

There is an old thread with suggestions here
I'm open to animated avatars but think that animated sigs are too disruptive. But that's just my opinion.
As long as threads can be read easily without massive flashing disturbing sigs. After all it's the posts that matter on boards, not the sig.

Examples of animated sigs, in case someone don't know what they are.




Avatar

WindSock

Switch your sig settings to off. Mine are and I dont know how, but I like it that way.

Ruu_Old

I could live with animated avatars, no fucking way to animated sigs. Every other forum I use has them and they are incredibly annoying. I'm open to a slight increase in size (width x height) and increase kbage.

Necronomicon

WindSock wrote: »

Switch your sig settings to off. Mine are and I dont know how, but I like it that way.

I'll be doing this straight away if animated sigs are brought in. Hate the things.

aidan_walsh

Wouldn't be that keen on animation in any way, shape or form myself.

AlmightyCushion

For the love of science, no animated sigs or avatars.

Beruthiel

Ruu wrote: »

I could live with animated avatars, no fucking way to animated sigs.

I couldn't live with either.
I need animated avatars and sigs like I need a hole in the head.
They would be as annoying as hell.
If the Admins looked like they were going to give this 0.1 seconds of their time to consider, I'll be taking each one of them aside for a 'little chat'
Yes Cloud, I'll even drive down to Galway so don't think you're safe!
So,
in conclusion.

NO

Can I site ban R0ot for suggesting this?
Pleeease??

Sherifu

Ascii sigs for all!

dr.bollocko

Can we at least ban quoting other posters in signatures negatively? That is little more than e-bullying when you have a negative comment about a poster in your signature and it's posted around every single other forum you post in.

Beruthiel

dr.bollocko wrote: »

Can we at least ban quoting other posters in signatures negatively? .

Post complaints for that in the Sig Police thread.

Or, if it's particularly bad, drop me a PM and I'll look into it.

Ruu_Old

Beruthiel wrote: »

I couldn't live with either.
I need animated avatars and sigs like I need a hole in the head.
They would be as annoying as hell.
If the Admins looked like they were going to give this 0.1 seconds of their time to consider, I'll be taking each one of them aside for a 'little chat'
Yes Cloud, I'll even drive down to Galway so don't think you're safe!
So,
in conclusion.

NO

Can I site ban R0ot for suggesting this?
Pleeease??

Yesh, of course I'll back you up. </mod conspiracy>

R0ot

Beruthiel wrote: »

Can I site ban R0ot for suggesting this?
Pleeease??

Ok for the love of god please read my post, I'm 100% against animated stuff, as I said "who the hell wants an epileptic fit while reading a thread eh?". I'm just voicing a rethink of the said signature rules is all with regards to what Ruu said in width/length and kb size. :pac:
[/me hides from Beruthiel wrath}

The_Conductor

javaboy wrote: »

There's a standard template there for notifying someone. AFAIK biko enjoys no special status and if anyone wants to do the sigpo job, I'm sure they can.

There may very well be a standard template for notifying people- its randomly being used by self appointed SIGPOs- as I advised previously in this thread, and indeed received an acknowledgement that it had happened and a subsequent apology over both it, and my being called a liar for suggesting it......

Officious official sounding PMs and E-Mails from random people demanding you do x,y,z without any given reason, and threatening to have you reported to admins and have your account frozen if you fail to do as they say- where this happens- and I am not suggesting it is happening in the majority of cases on this thread- but in those cases- those are the bullying thats happening.

Ps- I could have taken the case further- but chose not to.

Regards,

SMcCarrick

seamus

R0ot wrote: »

(Is rethink a word?)
So the majority if not all boards.ie users are now using much faster methods to access the internet not as it was back in the day of dial up. Yes even in Donegal we have crawled out of the ice age (kinda of) and subscribed to our fancy 'new' dsl service. The old rules were in place because, to quote the biki, "many users browse boards over narrowband dial-up connections, so excessively large images in a person's signature can cause the page to load very slowly" and thus signatures were limited to 'The Rules'.

Let's not **** on our narrowband friends however. Above anyone, it's the narrowband guys who will suffer most from changes to sig rules. God knows that anyone here who's stuck on narrowband isn't there by choice. So let's not make it doubly frustrating for them.

That said, if I was stuck on dial-up, sigs would be off. Avatars too probably.

I shall leave it up to greater minds to ideas on how to change the rules to bring them in line with current internet speeds that laugh at a 40k image loading. :pac:

Yes, but a 40-post page, where half of the users have 40k sigs = 800Kb of sig to be downloaded. Add in avatars, various scripts and buttons and that means that each page is pushing 1Mb. Which, as far as web pages go, is like bringing a Juggernaut to Vespa rally.

Even at 1Mbit download speeds, a 1Mb page would take ten seconds to download fully. Ridiculous. No sig image should exceed 20Kb, as an upper limit. PNG compression should be adequate for any image.

I also wouldn't support allowing higher sigs. Yours as at the upper limit of becoming annoying and breaking up a thread. I would have no problem with wider sigs (maybe 500 or 600 pixels), but not higher.

As for animated sigs and avatars (I know you didn't mention them) - if I had a veto on these, then I would use. Over and over again until I'd used it to bludgeon to death everyone with an animated sig or avatar.

R0ot

seamus wrote: »

Yes, but a 40-post page, ...

/me hugs 15 posts per page setup. :pac:

Boston

R0ot wrote: »

Ok for the love of god please read my post, I'm 100% against animated stuff, as I said "who the hell wants an epileptic fit while reading a thread eh?". I'm just voicing a rethink of the said signature rules is all with regards to what Ruu said in width/length and kb size. :pac:
[/me hides from Beruthiel wrath}

Says it all really.

Hagar

I have a 20meg connection do you think that means I want to be inundated with dancing flashing shyte? No, no, no.
I may even hire an Ulsterman on a part-time basis to keep saying "No" on my behalf.

AlmightyCushion

Necronomicon wrote: »

I'll be doing this straight away if animated sigs are brought in.

Ditto, before I did turn it off though I'd add this to it.

http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn172/cybercatinoc/wwwintenselaserscom.gif

Caution: May cause head to explode.

Mr WibbleWobble

Boston wrote: »

Says it all really.

Steve

I think sigs should be reduced to a single line witty comment.

To me, adding an animated image to your sig is akin to the skangers that stole bmw and mercedes logos from cars and wore them to the local disco..

Non-animated ones are just like plain ol' tracksuits....not quite as bad but still pointless.

Sully

smccarrick wrote: »

There may very well be a standard template for notifying people- its randomly being used by self appointed SIGPOs- as I advised previously in this thread, and indeed received an acknowledgement that it had happened and a subsequent apology over both it, and my being called a liar for suggesting it......

Officious official sounding PMs and E-Mails from random people demanding you do x,y,z without any given reason, and threatening to have you reported to admins and have your account frozen if you fail to do as they say- where this happens- and I am not suggesting it is happening in the majority of cases on this thread- but in those cases- those are the bullying thats happening.

Ps- I could have taken the case further- but chose not to.

Regards,

SMcCarrick

Aye, good point. Not sure about it being bullying though. Even if the template was changed, as its probably years old now, what could it be? Iv seen that layout idea used on another forum also but it was being used by mods only.

As for sigs, id personally prefer a clean up rather then allowing more content in sigs. Definately against anything animated. I always look at peoples sigs which is why I dont turn them of, can read some funny stuff or get links to interesting websites. I just personally feel some can be a bit to long with to much images (mixing of images and text is one thing I dont like, unless its in moderation).

I think the link Biko posted has some good suggestions..

Bob the Builder

Animation. Die.

I use broadband(2mb) and its still shite....

Kintarō Hattori

What the hell is the point of an animated sig really? What does it do that a standard non-animated one can't do? As I think Seamus said it's what's posted that counts and they would only distract and annoy.

Sarky

Beruthiel wrote: »

Yes Cloud, I'll even drive down to Galway so don't think you're safe!

While you're down here, mine's a Guinness, thanks.

Also, no to bigger sigs. They're usually bigger than the post they're attached to, and that's just depressing.

Adam

I'm a no. Sigs are fine and while yes, broadband is getting bigger and better, what's the need for bigger sigs? Can I display 50 songs?

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

Xavi6

OMG ROFLcakes! wrote: »

I'm a no. Sigs are fine and while yes, broadband is getting bigger and better, what's the need for bigger sigs? Can I display 50 songs?

But technically your sig is in violation of the sig rules as they are now -

For images in signatures: 1 image up to 300 pixels wide, 125 pixels tall and 20k in size.

Your image is 429 wide

Personally I think the width restriction should go. Something that's 300 wide is not taking up any more space than something that's 700 wide if they are both the same height.

Rovi

Xavi6 wrote: »

Personally I think the width restriction should go. Something that's 300 wide is not taking up any more space than something that's 700 wide if they are both the same height.

There needs to be some upper limit on width though, otherwise we'd have some flute using one 3000px wide.
What's the average browser window size these days?
The standard for web designers used to be to make pages display correctly at 800px wide, but that was years ago; has it gone up to 1024px yet, does anyone know?

If signature images must be increased in width, I'd say it should be to no more than 700px.
Animated signatures and avatars are the spawn of satan.