Too large signatures annoying

[prateek]

So out of curiosity, is my signature too large and/or annoying? I'll change it if there's a forum consensus that it is

That said, I like pictures and links in signatures. If a builder links to a great MOC of his or hers, I love it because it's just more inspiration for me.

I'm pretty sure your's is fine. I actually like the size of it. Not too big and not too small

[Siegfried]

I recntly wanted to ad a few links to my signature, but couldn't. It won't alow more than 5 links. So I didn't change it after all.

I didn't read this whole topic yet, but I presume it's a new rule.

Sort of. The rule for some time (about a year I think) has been 4 images, the link one was added in when we went to the new board. As it turns out the set limitation is actually the images; we allow Knights to bend the rules up to 6; links are set to 8. My advice is the same as Fugazi; put your recent work in the signature and mention in there that there are more shown on your "About Me" page. To me the "About Me" page is one of the best features of this board, and when I get around to it I'll be posting all my links there too. It enables people to show off their work and interests without slowing down the board.

As a side note, no your signature wasn't huge, but many images slow down page loading in the same way that big images do.

Well there probably are limits, but it's certainly not as restrictive as signatures.

None set by us. If there are any severe ones please tell me and I'll see if they can be removed.

I was wondering why I had so many profile hits... Guess I was sent to the principal's office... sorry... my sig must have been within the rules at one time... though I honestly haven't thought about it much. though I understand being within the rules and being responsible are two different things...

I take it this is a much more responsible signature.

Yes it is, and sorry if I did it in a rude way. In my defense I did pick a small font... If I did it via PM I would have needed to put a note in the admin logs; this way you have nothing on your permanent record.

So out of curiosity, is my signature too large and/or annoying? I'll change it if there's a forum consensus that it is

It's good.

[Bobskink]

If I may suggest, one solution would be to use the About Me page in your profile. It can be structured in the same way as your signature, it's one click away from wherever you are on the forum, and it doesn't have any pic/link/size limits. Well there probably are limits, but it's certainly not as restrictive as signatures.

Thanks, that's a vert good idea. I'll look into that after my vacation (to lazy now).

[Siegfried]

Thanks, that's a vert good idea. I'll look into that after my vacation (to lazy now).

More details and advice on this here.

[drdavewatford]

I have to say that the new 'only 4 URLs on the signature' snuck up and caught me unawares; I only realised it when I tried to update my sig this morning and got an error message. I suppose I should be grateful that I've not been asked to update my existing sig which is now out of compliance (!) but I thought I'd comment anyway as I disagree with this new rule.

I fully agree that ridiculously long sigs are an inconvenience BUT placing arbitrary limits on the number of URLs in a sig doesn't really address the issue and is a pretty lazy and unintelligent way of trying to deal with the problem - you can have a horribly long sig without it containing a single URL. I agree with the comments of others on this thread that it can for example be very useful seeing a nice tidy list of reviews in a sig - it's certainly helped me home in on the reviews I want to see from my favourite posters, and others have commented to me offline that they like to look at all my reviews and having them discreetly shown in the sig helps them to do that.

I'd ask that this 4 URLs per sig rule is reconsidered as it's a sledgehammer to crack a nut and really doesn't address the problem of silly, excessive sigs anyway. This is surely instead a job for the mods to have a word with the offenders offline rather than punish everybody.

Cheers,

Dr. D.

[Rick]

I agree with the comments of others on this thread that it can for example be very useful seeing a nice tidy list of reviews in a sig - it's certainly helped me home in on the reviews I want to see from my favourite posters, and others have commented to me offline that they like to look at all my reviews and having them discreetly shown in the sig helps them to do that.

More details and advice on this here.

You could put one link around the pictures in your signature and link to your 'About me' page with a list of reviews.

Having some simple rules in place probably saves the admins a lot of 'enforcement' work.

[drdavewatford]

You could put one link around the pictures in your signature and link to your 'About me' page with a list of reviews.

Having some simple rules in place probably saves the admins a lot of 'enforcement' work.

Thanks, Rick - you're right, but my point was more about the principle of inconveniencing the many in order to crack down on the few, if you get my meaning.

Cheers,

Dr. D.

[Siegfried]

I'd ask that this 4 URLs per sig rule is reconsidered as it's a sledgehammer to crack a nut and really doesn't address the problem of silly, excessive sigs anyway. This is surely instead a job for the mods to have a word with the offenders offline rather than punish everybody.

I don't like it either, but to be brutally honest I (and the rest of the staff) have better things to do than be the signature police for 11209 members. I have enough trouble with avatars and if the board can give the staff one less bit of work to do then that's great. I'd rather spend my EB time helping out with contests than fighting this losing cause. We have too many members and too few staff to keep doing things this way.

As I've said, please use the "About Me" page and just use the signature for your recent work. It's a more sensible solution than having people load big lists of links for no reason most of the time.

For what it's worth, I do think the URL limit is unfair to many members. That's why the rule is waived for Counts and above. (Knights can have 8.) It comes down to it that most of our members are Citizen and below so by having the site handle those we can then handle the rest on a case by case basis. I've seen that when most members have loads of links many of them are stuff like those dragon egg things; limiting it to 4 prevents that. It also solves a lot of our spammer issues.

Besides, even with the new URL limit we have for years had a 4 image limit, which we do allow some latitude with long term members, including Citizens. Thus changing the URL rule wouldn't help you much anyway...

Thanks, Rick - you're right, but my point was more about the principle of inconveniencing the many in order to crack down on the few, if you get my meaning.

So aside from giving me more work, do you have an idea of how to do it better?

[drdavewatford]

So aside from giving me more work, do you have an idea of how to do it better?

Yes - get more mods on board if keeping an eye on the conduct of the members is proving too onerous for you. As a mod on a busy (non-Lego) maiing list I'm aware that it can be a lot of work, but view it as being my job to try and let things run with as little intervention as possible, only stepping in when someone is clearly overstepping the mark. The EB equivalent would be to only step in when mods come across or are alerted to a sig which is in their opinion too long or otherwise inappropriate. Yes, it's more work than setting arbitrary rules to limit what people can do, but it's also more respectful to the membership and treats them like adults. This is after all an AFOL site, right...?!

Best wishes,

Dr. D.

[Siegfried]

Yes - get more mods on board if keeping an eye on the conduct of the members is proving too onerous for you.

There's no one suitable; we'd recruit more if we could.

Yes, it's more work than setting arbitrary rules to limit what people can do, but it's also more respectful to the membership and treats them like adults. This is after all an AFOL site, right...?!

Indeed it is, and we indeed we do. Adults are old enough to understand that rules are there for a reason, and that it's a sad fact of life that because of a few idiots everyone must suffer. Speeding is a good example; if everyone was responsible there would be no need for rules on this. Likewise because of people filling their signatures with too many irrelevant links we've restricted them.

But I can be reasonable; would six links make you happy?

[drdavewatford]

There's no one suitable; we'd recruit more if we could.

I think you underestimate the EB membership. I'd be willing to bet that there are numerous suitable EB members who'd be honoured to help out. When we need more mods on our Mailing List we just advertise on the List and scrutinise the posting history and contributions of applicants (making a note NOT to prioritise those with the most postings as one million "I agree" postings really doesn't qualify someone to be a mod !). Surely there's nothing stopping you guys from doing the same ?

Adults are old enough to understand that rules are there for a reason, and that it's a sad fact of life that because of a few idiots everyone must suffer.

You're right of course - things would likely descend into online anarchy without a framework of guidelines for members to abide by, and overall I think you guys do a great job keeping EB running smoothly and efficiently. I might not agree 100% with the 'rules' - and hence my request to drop the URL limits - but I wouldn't be here at all if I had major issues with EB.

But I can be reasonable; would six links make you happy?

Per previous postings, my issue is with the principle of the restriction rather than the actual limits. Thanks for the offer, however - use of discretion is exactly what I'm calling for !

Keep up the good work,

Dr. D.

[wmanidi]

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showuser=13639

This guys sig is massive! It made my computer load this page slowly. Thanks!

Wmanidi

[Hinckley]

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showuser=13639

This guys sig is massive! It made my computer load this page slowly. Thanks!

Wmanidi

I don't think it was his sig, since the pics are 80K and 30K respectively. They also meet our signature pixel height suggestion, so I can't see any reason to ask him to reduce it. Are you sure there wasn't anything else in the thread causing your browser to load it slowly, or perhaps a hiccup in your internet connection?

[wmanidi]

I don't think it was his sig, since the pics are 80K and 30K respectively. They also meet our signature pixel height suggestion, so I can't see any reason to ask him to reduce it. Are you sure there wasn't anything else in the thread causing your browser to load it slowly, or perhaps a hiccup in your internet connection?

Just saw I had 10 other windows open. That must have been it, thanks!

Wmanidi

[Hinckley]

Just saw I had 10 other windows open. That must have been it, thanks!

Wmanidi

No problem. Thanks for looking into it.

[wmanidi]

I think this guys sig is big... http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showuser=10233 If not sorry.

Octan

[Fugazi]

I was looking for a bit of advice... I am trying to get both pictures in my signature to appear the same size. I know I could just resize the original picture, post it on my Flicker and link to it, but I was trying to do it the lazy way and use BB Code tags like this:

[img width="100" height="100"]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Bobman123/RedScareMystery/Avatars/farmer.jpg[/img]

But it would seem that the width and height tags are not supported here? Or am I doing something wrong?

[Siegfried]

I was looking for a bit of advice... I am trying to get both pictures in my signature to appear the same size. I know I could just resize the original picture, post it on my Flicker and link to it, but I was trying to do it the lazy way and use BB Code tags like this:

[img width="100" height="100"]http://www.brickshelf.com/gallery/Bobman123/RedScareMystery/Avatars/farmer.jpg[/img]

But it would seem that the width and height tags are not supported here? Or am I doing something wrong?

No, it's not supported. Is that supported anywhere? That looks more like HTML than BB Code...

[Fugazi]

No, it's not supported. Is that supported anywhere? That looks more like HTML than BB Code...

Oh sorry, I thought it was! -> see here

[Siegfried]

Oh sorry, I thought it was! -> see here

Testing...

http://www.bbcode.org/images/lubeck_small.jpg[/img]

Nah, it may be a "standard" but IPB doesn't support it. To be honest I'm glad it doesn't; it'd be abused and we'd find it harder to notice oversized images.

[Fugazi]

Ok I see, thanks for your help anyway Siegfried!

I'll just resize it manually then!

[LegoFjotten]

First, sorry for bumping such an old topic but it seems like it is the appropriate place for my post.

I'm probably just an old grump but…

Is there any enforcement on signature limits these days? I recently found the options to hide single users signature (thank heavens!), and it seems like every day I have to block users with huge distracting signatures. As an example, today I blocked one user who had 5 pictures (total width of 1800 pixels), wrapping over three lines in my browser window with a total height of 460 pixels.

I know I can turn signatures off completely, but it would be a shame since there are a lot of users who have something meaningful in their signatures.

[Rick]

Is there any enforcement on signature limits these days? I recently found the options to hide single users signature (thank heavens!), and it seems like every day I have to block users with huge distracting signatures. As an example, today I blocked one user who had 5 pictures (total width of 1800 pixels), wrapping over three lines in my browser window with a total height of 460 pixels.

Yes, we enforce signature limits. When you encounter a signature that you think is in violation of our guidelines, please report it using the Report button on of their posts (practically, you have to report one of their posts, because people have reported problems reporting members by clicking the button on their profile pages) and mention it's a signature problem.

[LegoFjotten]

Ok thanks, will do.