Well, I was thinking that maybe we can have images in our signatures? Sorry if this is has been mentioned before.
I hate to sound like I'm butting in here but as a balance I'd plead with the mods not to go down this route - from my experiences on other forums it can all to easily lead to a horribly cluttered viewing experience.
^Yeah, I have to agree. I like that signature rules are so strict here because it keeps things from getting out of hand. I've been on other forums where it got difficult to tell what was an actual part of the post and what was signature...it's irritating.
We used to allow images with special permission. Those few who had permission abused it. It is a signature, not a billboard, and we want to keep it that way. That's also why we don't allow unlimited length, and do not allow increased font sizes in signatures.
It's not about you/anybody changing it. It's about the possibility of you/anybody having it, and it being an eyesore. As has been said about other forums, I have to agree. Most every other forum I've been on with image signatures has had gaudy, annoying images. Or they're really, really lame.
Well, I'm not very familiar with vB, but if size is a problem, there are resize codes, right? Sorry, ah, proboards user.
Shrugs...I've been on many many forums, both as staff and as a regular member. Some forums have annoying signatures and others are actually pretty cool to see. I think the plus side is it gives people more room to show off their personality (while I don't believe a picture is worth a thousand words, it certainly helps!) It also sometimes makes it very easy to see who all has posted in a thread without even having to read names, and for me, it even helps remember who the person is! I'm HORRID at names, but show me a picture and I could tell you each thread that person has ever posted in. The best forums (as far as sigs go) are the ones who have the following guidelines for images in signatures: max size: 500x300 (down to 300 x 100, but if its too tiny you can't really see all the details which would be annoying in itself!) no animation ONE image only, with up to 2 lines of text Here are a few examples, I'm posting links instead of images to save posting space These are sigs I have made and or used in the past: http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f203/Deviljess/cute.png http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f203/Deviljess/WSS-1.png http://i48.photobucket.com/albums/f203/Deviljess/pegsig.png I know this is all opinion based, but I don't see any of these as being annoying or taking up too much space. And honestly, I prefer images to links in signatures when it comes to site security/bug free. The most important aspect that I could see as being useful, is it MAY even bring professional gfx artists to the site...possible cover artists? This is an interesting topic and I hope everyone considers all positive and negative aspects. cheers!
since we can use any graphic we want under our names at the left of our posts, i don't see any need to have another in the post itself, where the focus is supposed to be on what we write... i found it to be annoyingly intrusive on sites i'd been on in the past and would hate to see it allowed here...
Especially strobe light pictures. They have been used in other forums, and people get away with them. Some got frustrated to see the user's strobe light, and moderators failed to do something about it. It really does not annoy me personally, but it annoys others though. This is something that the moderators should take in consideration, is to limit the types of pictures, such as strobe lights, on the forums. Don't forget that we can also post pictures in a response too.
It might make it slightly easier to see who has posted (although surely the Avatars do a good job of that) but they make it a nightmare to see what has been posted, the most common screen resolution is still 1024*768 so a 500*300 signature image would be taking up about a fifth of the screen without really providing anything worthwhile, you get two or three posters on a thread with sigs that big and all of a sudden the actual content gets very hard to read. I'm running a screen res of 1280*1024 on this machine which by most people's standards would be a decent resolution and a single sig of that size would still be taking up nearly a third of the height of the screen. Not to mention that at the moment the site is very useable on mobile devices, image sigs would blow that out the water!
I have to say, on any forum I've been on where people are allowed to use image signatures; all I see is: OMG look how fancy and pretty and epic my signature is! It's bigger than yours/ it's brighter than yours etc. etc. People usually use it to proclaim what they are a fan of Or self-promote their own website/comic/Roleplay/RPG/book etc. Or post an image with a text-tag or something Or even a picture of themselves. That's why I find this forum great, because I find all that other stuff distracting and annoying; not to mention really really obnoxious. I mean, I've seen some people in a RP forum I used to go on where there was a laaaarge character limit in signatures; so people posted all their own "best quotes" in their sig; either spoken by themselves or some user whose ass they wanted to kiss. Lines upon lines upon lines of it all! I mean, I love quotes in signatures; but only if there's a REALLY limited amount of them. I love to see images but not when I have to scroll down for ages to find the actual bloody post >:/ </grumpy rant> I thnk our system is good the way it is; as a few have mentioned, the post is more important than the sig-tags.
Pros: gains more members including gfx artists who are potential cover artists its like an art museum on the forum allows for even more expression with limitations, it can work, and would not take up too much space (posts with sigs 500x300 on a board like this = 10+ per page. Yes you have to scroll, but you have to scroll on popular threads anyway. Those with most types of phones don't see the avatars anyway, and they would not see the sigs either- I don't think it would affect the download time for phones since it only downloads what its going to show. It would not slow down the site either, as long as there was no animation- its almost the same as any hyperlinks in sigs that we have right now.) Of course there are cons to every choice.... Cons: Some people are going to have bad tastes and some sigs will be ugly. and so forth....but here is the BIGGEST con: it appears most people do not want images (for various reasons). While I think it would be fun and a potential opportunity, I am now against images because I think it would irritate and annoy those who don't want the sigs to have them forced onto their site. Perhaps a poll would be a good idea to see just who stands where, but judging by the responses it seems that most are opposed.
If images in signatures were allowed again, it'd probably best to give members the option to turn them on or off, so that anyone who prefers navigating the forum without the images won't have to see them. The question then, is would enough people leave them on to make having them worthwhile.
Easier to simply not allow images in sigs at all. They are completely contrary to the purpose of allowing signatures in the first place.
