Other people's signature length

[Paul J]

Thanks for the poll Chris.

Xiphoid, I don't make blanket statements about how long a page "should" or "shouldn't" load...I assume that everyone else has something of lower tech than I do.

Assume someone is on a metered ISP with a 56k modem or lower, is suscribed to a thread where they are receiving some help and either you, PPN, eva or the numerous others decide to post a one line "I agree" post in response to the thread.

That person fires up their browser to check out the thread, downloads the whole page, ads for all your websites included, and sees something of little value other than your ads.

Many boards have adopted a "no live links and no images in sigs". This is basic, basic etiquette.

[JamesUS]

That person fires up their browser to check out the thread, downloads the whole page, ads for all your websites included, and sees something of little value other than your ads.

But eva2000's signature isn't full of ads. It is to help people, and it has succeeded very well in that aspect over the last year or two.

As far as I'm concerned (and this is my personal opinion - I'm saying this as a member, not a moderator), if you don't like long signatures, then turn signatures off. It's each member's choice - put up with the signatures as they are, or don't view signaturest at all I feel confident that a majority of members would choose to carry on displaying signatures if we offered them this choice, as there have been very few complaints about this in the past.

One thing I do partially agree on is the use of images in signatures. I think this should be limited or stopped entirely - as those really do add to load time. But text does not add to load time at all. No-one realisticly should be using much less than 40 - 50kbps, which equates to 6-8kb/s if the server here isn't too busy. Say a 30kb page size (which is perfectly reasonable considering gzip), that's 4-6 seconds. Removing large signatures wouldn't even take half a second off that, as George said above, HTML is compressed so much that it makes virtually no difference. Taking signature images out could well take a second off if there are lots of them in the page, as they are not compressed well.

[Paul J]

Sounds reasonable James. So hopefully we can agree on the no images in sigs.

But, can some of the members in question perhaps trim them down a bit? I'm sure eva's links to mysql.com are helpful to some people, maybe he could harness some of that energy into making a webpage lising his various links and link to that?

[Floris]

Originally posted by qwaz
Sounds reasonable James. So hopefully we can agree on the no images in sigs.

But, can some of the members in question perhaps trim them down a bit? I'm sure eva's links to mysql.com are helpful to some people, maybe he could harness some of that energy into making a webpage lising his various links and link to that?

You just 'assume' he disagrees with that, re-read his post.
And just because I replied to this thread, you immediatly take a hostile positition towards me, which makes me re-think my post: I change it to: You are just so full of MOO .. and I just ignore you.

Do NOT be involved in forums, if you can't even download more then 2 characters per page. Update your life.

[Paul J]

How was I hostile?

[Floris]

This person is on your Ignore List. To view this post click [here]

I can't be bothered. And the above line is also to inform you.

[Paul J]

You have issues dude.

[Chris Schreiber]

Ok, I think this childish behavoir is enough.... if it continues this thread will be closed.

[Paul J]

I hope you don't close it Chris.

I just don't see how I was hostile, to him or to anyone.

[George L]

Originally posted by qwaz
Sounds reasonable James. So hopefully we can agree on the no images in sigs.

But, can some of the members in question perhaps trim them down a bit? I'm sure eva's links to mysql.com are helpful to some people, maybe he could harness some of that energy into making a webpage lising his various links and link to that?

okay i changed the layout of my sig although basically the same exact links are still in my sig..

[Divine Coding]

eva's sig is really helpful, as it saves lots of link remembering, and stuff

Saying that it makes the page too big, I use 56kb dial up and have no problems

I suggest that you listen to the other side of the arguement, as that way you will perhaps start to understand, beaucse at the moment you are just not interested in an view point aprt from your own, which if you look, no one else agrees on

Stephen

[firewire]

Since we were asked to post here instead of the poll thread, I am just going to throw in my opinion.

Yes, we too have had the problem of _really_ excessive signatures, including 1 MB images, images of sizes of 640*480, whole poems in the sig, their whole curriculum vitae etc. etc. etc.

I would love to be able to restrict the size of the signature. There are boards where people's signature is twice or thrice the size of their original posting, counting text only.

The coice between "disable signature completely" and "let people add the Bible as their sig" is not really satisfying, let aside that one can disable Images and Code in the sig. So I join in the petition for more administrative options!
Since it will only be an option you can activate or not, I don't see any harm in it. And apparently, there is need for such an option.

Thanks.

[bigmattyh]

Don't limit the sig lengths to a preset limit!

Why not?

1) The sigs bring out so much more of a person's personality. Short, bland sigs bring the mood down. Yeah, I know it sounds flaky, but it's true. I'm active on boards where sigs and avatars are banned, and it's a real drag and NOWHERE NEAR as fun as vBulletin. And it's all because of the liberal use of sigs.

2) Sigs are helpful, especially here! Eva2000's sig alone has been more helpful to me than any of his posts. You get hack info, PHP info, MySQL info! What more could you want?

See, each sig has a veritable party going on inside it! I think we can all agree that there are some sigs that are wastes of space, but it's a small price to pay... Jeez, who is it really bothering, anyway? It would be a real shame to limit the 99% of people out there with reasonable sigs for a few troublemakers.

And if you're not convinced, think long and hard about this: If the sigs are limited, I'll boycott vBulletin. You'll lose me for weeks -- days, even! And none of you want that, I tell you what!