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.

biko

Animated avatars and sigs can be discreet but also like this and there is no way to "police" it since both are animated.



The easier rules the better in my opinion, for instance:
Left justified only
Text max 4 lines incl space lines - font 1 or 2 only
Images any number totalling 125 high, 500 wide and 20 kb heavy
Animation, none at all.
Same rules for everyone on the site, posters, mods, admins.

In the other thread Hagar mentioned letting only subscribers have images. This could be good as it could increase subscriptions (rather than access to Sex & Sex :P) That may require some hack by Cult?

Black_Knight

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.

I was thinking the same thing! Im wasting all these lovely pixels here! Granted, bigger (wider) sig pictures means a bigger filesize. If we are to make sigs wider, we would have to make the filesize limit bigger too.

Screw animated Sigs! Pointless waste of time, I come to boards to read thing which interest me, i dont want to be lambasted with flashy lights on every post!
On a different forum im on they have the best gif ever thread. Its quite good really, people can vent their gifs there!

Animated avatars im less against, their smaller, less in your face, but this would have to have a strict filesize limit on them.

faceman

Animated avatars and sigs just look tacky. If you look at other forums that allow them, many threads just end up in conversations and comments via animations.

Black_Knight

Biko thats giving me a damn head ache even trying to read your post!

Earthhorse

SteveC wrote: »

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

I agree. I really don't get these huge fuck off sigs some people insist on having; they're completely distracting and break up the flow of a thread (for the record, I browse with sigs off).

Several forums I've used don't allow sigs at all and they work perfectly fine.

Dades

faceman wrote: »

Animated avatars and sigs just look tacky.

I beg to disagree...
Some are completely tasteful.

faceman

Dades wrote: »

I beg to disagree...
Some are completely tasteful.

ahem, i've changed my vote.....

Black_Knight

They can get much more.... shall we say, better then that, a little less tasteful though. Would animated gifs such as the delightful wee lass above be approved on boards? Me thinks not.

Edit: Look at the file size on that! No way any avatar which is in anyway as entertaining as that would be allowed

Eoin

biko wrote: »

The easier rules the better in my opinion, for instance:
Left justified only

Why left justified only? That seems like quite an arbitrary rule.

smilingeyerish

no! no animation! i dont think there should be any type of picture in a signature! why? well, because it alerts people who glance at my screen while passing by my desk at work that i am just dossing! at least a screen with plain text could nearly pass for some type of work!

javaboy

smilingeyerish wrote: »

no! no animation! i dont think there should be any type of picture in a signature! why? well, because it alerts people who glance at my screen while passing by my desk at work that i am just dossing! at least a screen with plain text could nearly pass for some type of work!

Just turn off signatures then.

The_Conductor

For the sake of those using mobile devices (which are becoming increasingly common) the left alignment rule should be kept and enforced more strongly. Even with regular rendering its very easy to hang devices with centre or right aligned sigs (Opera is better than either FF or other alternates).

S.

The_Conductor

eoin_s wrote: »

Why left justified only? That seems like quite an arbitrary rule.

Because anything other than left justified totally bolloxes up mobile devices (iphones, Samsung F700s, mobile phones, Windows mobile devices, small tablet laptops that can't render at 600x840 or above (e.g. an Asus eeepc)).

People increasingly use these mobile devices for randomly browsing the internet- its no longer an expectation that people are on a desktop machine.

Eoin

Left aligned text will make a mobile browser hang?

The_Conductor

eoin_s wrote: »

Left aligned text will make a mobile browser hang?

No- centre or right aligned may though.

Eoin

smccarrick wrote: »

No- centre or right aligned may though.

Sorry, that was what I meant. That sounds very strange if it is the case.

seamus

smccarrick wrote: »

People increasingly use these mobile devices for randomly browsing the internet- its no longer an expectation that people are on a desktop machine.

Actually this is something I thought of last night while I looked at boards on my bro's new iPhone.

It's all well and good to say "Mobile Browsers should turn sigs off and use m.boards.ie", but we're getting into an era now where people will by default do a lot of their browsing on smaller devices such as the iPhone. The standard boards skin looks fine on these, but if you include big gaudy images in signatures, it wastes space.

At the moment and up to now, people didn't really "surf" on mobile devices. They knew what sites they wanted to look at, and of them which ones were visible on their device. Over the next few years we'll be moving into territory where mobile devices can handle most if not all websites, and it's those websites with the neatest content (i.e. images and ads only where images are appropriate) which will win out.

The_Conductor

eoin_s wrote: »

Sorry, that was what I meant. That sounds very strange if it is the case.

Depends on how the browser tries to display the page- some browsers are optimised for mobile devices- others try to scale the regular page (which is where snarl-ups most frequently occur). Safari and Firefox showing regular rather than optimised pages are the normal culprits, Opera seems to be a lot more stable- though its a bitch viewing the non-optimised pages. Then again- vBulletin is optimised (thats not to say it presents as optimised- which it often doesn't).

S.

Eoin

smccarrick wrote: »

Depends on how the browser tries to display the page- some browsers are optimised for mobile devices- others try to scale the regular page (which is where snarl-ups most frequently occur). Safari and Firefox showing regular rather than optimised pages are the normal culprits, Opera seems to be a lot more stable- though its a bitch viewing the non-optimised pages. Then again- vBulletin is optimised (thats not to say it presents as optimised- which it often doesn't).

S.

That's interesting, and it does sound like justification to enforce it.

I think at one stage "left-aligned only" was suggested purely for aesthetic reasons, which is why I thought it was a stupid rule.

Winters

http://m.boards.ie ?
I dont see any avatars or signatures when browsing on Opera Mini and using the proper boards mobile pages, and it is lovely and speedy quick. If people have a problem with signatures or avatars the option is there to turn them off. If you are on a narrowband or a mobile connection using avatrs and signatures when browsing any forum is just silly and a waste of bandwidth, they are just an optional extra.

Ive browsed boards on Opera (QUI Symbion) and Opera Mini on my P1, Safari on the iPhone and also on the Asus EEE's and never had a problem with signatures being aligned in any sort of way. Id just turn them off when browsing mobile anyway. Maybe a skin that would suit inbetween the mobile and full skin for smaller more portable devices might be a good option?

As for animated signatures and avatrs? I dont see the point, seems childish to me. If your life goal is to have an avatar of some tart with big huge bolders bouncing under your username then you might aswell just kill yourself. A shimmer on some poorly compressed gif of some crap boy racer car under your post reeks of the internet back in 1999 when a spinning mailbox was commonplace on sites. Feck off with animated crap.

The problem with signatues is that people are being too anal about it. Sure there are size limits for people using 300px by 150px images or whatever but whats about people who have a wider but narrower' iamge, say 450px by 50px. Whats wrong with that? The only harm it is doing is decrasing the whitespace used to the right of the page and having no damaging effect on the browsing expierance.

Quotes? I will admit the bbcode for quotes is quite large, why not remove the ability to use

in signatures? Or if its possbile (I dont know VB too great) to have it so it uses a different formatter even, something smaller.

I think smccarrick hit the nail on the head when he brought up the fact about "sigpo". Seriously, a pm from some random user on boards means absolute jack shít to most users. If I got a pm from some random user I would ignore it or maybe offer a whitty response of some sort. It is pointless.

The sigpo thing really started off as a joke, just a name for people who reproted signatures and tbh, most people had fun with it and didnt take it seriously. If someone spotted a signature that was too large just post in the thread to bring it to peoples attention. But nobody likes certain boards users who appear to go out of their way spending every waking moment making sure each and everyones signature conformed exactly to rules like some sort of nazi regimented dress camp. Nobody has a problem with people reporting an obvious screen rape, but some common sense is needed, and less KY.

tl;dr, even for myself