Signature Abuse

[Tubz]

Is it just me or does anyone else think that signatures are getting a little too inappropriate? Well, I hope It's not just me. Because it seems like It's becoming a kind of growing problem. Well most of you probably don't care, and It's not really that big of a deal. But it is kind of stupid and inappropriate some people's signatures. When I say that I mean the content, as in words used. And there is one person who has a certain annoying picture. But I'm not gonna name people so Derby can edit me.

Well I just felt like voicing my opinion, and I just had to let this out.

So what does anyone think about the matter?

[cooba]

No =)

[Fawriel]

Examples?

[Violet CLM]

I feel that some signatures are rather long, yes. Unfortunately, yours was the one I was going to use as an example.
On the other hand, I want the Dopefish Twin Towers picture back. That was amusing.

[Fawriel]

Me too! Me too! ... because I apparently missed that one. ;-;

[cooba]

If you all (two) people request so!
http://www.thisstrife.com/sluggy/DF-911.jpg
Sluggy wouldn't put not-amusing Dopefish on Chasm of Strife, think of that ;p

[Tubz]

I feel that some signatures are rather long, yes. Unfortunately, yours was the one I was going to use as an example.
On the other hand, I want the Dopefish Twin Towers picture back. That was amusing.

That's not what I meant. And you completely avoided the whole point of the topic.

[Link]

I agree with Unknown Rabbit. Long and ugly signatures are more of a problem than inappropriate signature content. If you think content in a specific signature is inappropriate, you should probably contact an administrator privately about it.

[Trafton]

I wish there would be a rule about images in signatures. If it was up to me, for instance, Tublear, your signature would be removed. As for abuse in signatures themselves, I haven't really noticed any huge gain or anything. You have still failed to give an example of what you mean.

[Hazel-rah]

Get rid of the large pictures in the signatues!!!

[Link]

I think we should have some restrictions, though I don't know what would be fair. Maybe a maximum overall signature height, including text. The problem with that sort of restriction is it's difficult to enforce. It would be easier to just make a signature length limit, but that wouldn't completely solve image problems. Possibly disable signature images entirely and enable avatars instead.

[FQuist]

We have discussed that more often, but generally decided to not do it because of all the enforcement it takes. I do occasionally PM people about sigs.

[Tubz]

Yeah, and I have been PM'ed about my sig one time, and that was almost 2 years ago by Derby. Ok, for all the people who like to whine about my signature, you never go after other people, always me, and if you think isn't bad, not even a 1/8 as bad as other sig's I have seen before. Then perhaps you people need to go visit other boards, to see how horrendous signatures can get.

Well Trafton, I guess that means you would have to remove your John Kerry banner. But if you didn't care if you had to remove it, I wouldn't either care about getting my picture edited.

Oh yeah, now I can't be warned for this. Oh ok, Trafton you dared me to post examples. Well now I am going to start naming people, for two: Cooba & Double Dutch. And you can whine and ignore the downheart fact that some sig's are rediculou,s, but yet people can whine about how long they are, when it isn't even that big of a deal. I've seen really long sigs before, I wanted to complain, but I resisted from doing it.

[cooba]

So far three people found this offensive ;p

[Fawriel]

I would find it offensive if I wasn't so nicely "gemütlich". Yay!

And, Tubs, what's supposed to be wrong with Trafton's sig picture?
The point is not that there are pictures in signatures, the point is that your signature takes up almost a whole page. ....about 5 6th of mine, to be more exact.
To be fair, Cooba's takes up only a little less.

*reduces the size of his signature to be ridiculously fair*

[Strato]

Inappropriate isn't an issue, it's just the sheer size of some signatures. Mine used to be a lot larger, but I toned it down. I'm considering doing so again by getting rid of the pictures.

At my large resolution, Cooba and Derviative's signature sizes are equally large, but when I go to a smaller resolution, Cooba's remains relativly large Tub's grows massivly larger. If we try to enforce a size limit on posts, what may appear offensive and huge to one person may be rediculously small to another. I'd suggest the best course of action would be to disable image codes on sigs and turn on avatars with a size limit of around 80x80.

[KRSplat]

I think if you have a problem with someone's signature, you should talk to them yourself. Getting an administrator before actually talking to them is unneccessary.

[Iam Canadian]

I should really shorten my sig, shouldn't I?
Oh, and Cooba, that Dopefish pic made me laugh the first time I saw it. I think I'll post that thing on the most conservative, strictly run board I can find (and if anyone says "this one", I'll laugh in their faces) and see what kind of reaction I get.

[Captain Spam]

Does everyone else understand why I always visit the JCF with signatures off? :-)

Today's vocabulary lesson from The Jargon File: <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/W/warlording.html">Warlording</a>. Look it up. And that definition doesn't even account for garish HTML and images.

For tomorrow's lesson, study the <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/M/McQuary-limit.html">McQuary Limit</a>.

I agree with Strato (and a few others on this thread), it's not necessarily the inappropriateness of the sigs around here that get me, it's the abusively long ones with eye-grating HTML, images, and ASCIIart that irritate me to no end. Honestly, if it were my sole decision, it'd be plaintext-only (accounting for a sane amount of line breaks and auto-linking URLs) with a decent character limit. But, it's not my sole decision. So there. :-)

<small>Yes, I realize that under my own rules, my sig would have to be changed. Which I would do.</small>

[Stijn]

I generally try to make my signature not too big. I try to avoid using big images too, because decent html code can achieve a nice effect too. However, if anyone has problems with my signature please tell me.

I think a size limit would be okay, something like "max. size 150 pixels" would do. In the beginning it would probably need some work, but after a while most users will get used to it and not break it anyway. I've seen it work on forums way bigger than this one.

[Haze]

http://www.furnation.com/hackrabbit/crap/signatures.png

Sure, it's merely a precaution and not a remedy. But it's a start for those who really get frustrated. ;)

[Monolith]

There should also be a "Show Annoying Signatures" checkbox, because I do like some people's signatures. The small and elegant ones.

[Tubz]

^^^

That wouldn't even be possible or would be hard even with your "mad" skillz.

[Captain Spam]

Not really, something more like "Hide all signatures longer than X characters" or "Remove all images from signatures" would be fairly easy to impliment, I'd think. Moreso if we restrict sigs to vBcode only.

[Trafton]

I would also like to see a feature that disabled images larger than your average banner. Those car images and whatnot bother me. Why can't they just be linked to instead of displayed entirely?

Signatures are meant to inform or entertain. I do not mean to make a specific example of you, Tublear, but your signature epitomizes it to me: the image is included for no real reason other than to "look cool." It does not state anything, provide personal information, or entertain. It is just there. In that situation, I think it should be just linked to instead.

This isn't just you, though. There are many other signatures which fall into this trap.

[Captain Spam]

I would also like to see a feature that disabled images larger than your average banner.

Well... it's a fair idea, but stopping images over a certain size is tricky unless we control all the images. Which, of course, we don't. If we had control of all the images (i.e. you had to upload them to us first before using them in a sig), we could easily maintain a database of image sizes and restrict accordingly.

However, as it is now (i.e. you make links to external images), we'd need to load each image from that server every time the signature is called, get the image dimensions (if it's even a valid image file to begin with), and work from there. That'd make a horrendous strain on the server (having to contact X number of other servers per page, where X is the number of unique external image links on the page) and would stall out a lot of pageloads if a server stopped responding and the JCF had to wait for it to timeout before going on.

So, that's not quite gonna work, is what I'm saying. :-)

[Trafton]

Well... it's a fair idea, but stopping images over a certain size is tricky unless we control all the images. Which, of course, we don't. If we had control of all the images (i.e. you had to upload them to us first before using them in a sig), we could easily maintain a database of image sizes and restrict accordingly.

However, as it is now (i.e. you make links to external images), we'd need to load each image from that server every time the signature is called, get the image dimensions (if it's even a valid image file to begin with), and work from there. That'd make a horrendous strain on the server (having to contact X number of other servers per page, where X is the number of unique external image links on the page) and would stall out a lot of pageloads if a server stopped responding and the JCF had to wait for it to timeout before going on.

So, that's not quite gonna work, is what I'm saying. :-)
I suppose this is true, although there are similar processes for avatars. It does not have to be done every time the page is loaded, but rather simply when the signature is made, I suppose. Then again, this would be fairly overcomplicated. It was a utopian suggestion.

[Bobby aka Dizzy]

Ah but, if you changed the picture after you made your signature you could get around it then.

[Monolith]

When a user changes their signature, the JCF could query for the size of the image(s) once, and force that into the <img> code of their signature. That way, even if the user changes the image dimensions, it'll still be shown at the original dimensions from when the signature was last modified. This way if a user wants to change an image (or at least the size of it), and wants it to appear correct, it must be processed by the JCF.


Some specifications that could contribute to to the annoyance level of signatures may include the following:
Number of images
Size of the image(s)
Type of image (e.g. animated gif)
Number of line breaks
Number of characters