Do you think that images should be allowed in forum signatures? What happens when too many members post huge images in their signatures?

I think that people really get carried away with them. I've seen full on banners in signatures....multiple banners...flash animations...animated gifs...it's just silly. A small half banner with no animation would be where I draw the line. Otherwise it just sucks up bandwidth which is costly to webmasters

I have seen them getting outragous too. I don't like them. They clog up the forums.

My feelings pertaining to DaniWeb ...

- It clutters the interface and distracts from the most important thing - the content
- Long loading times of threads. Especially when someone with an image in their sig posts multiple times in the forum
- From a marketing perspective, glancing at a page with images in the signature portrays a much less professional atmosphere, which can be detrimental to some prospective members but most importantly when trying to land corporate clients as advertisers
- So many website owners use banners (even 468x60 which isn't HUGE) and link them to their website as their signature ... therefore getting free banner advertising on DaniWeb ... so no one will buy and we won't make any $

The way that the forum system works when you disable signatures, is an [IMG] [/IMG] tag is converted to a hyperlink that points to the image when you click on it ... so it just doesn't show inline.

I feel that images in signatures are fun for some lighthearted / off-topic communities, but I want to give the impression of a professional business I.T. type atmosphere. The images seem to counteract that.

i think that forum members should be limited to one signature with a max size that you can set. But i think it is not fair to not allow any image sigs ever other forum that i have been on allows it.

i dont like this new policy at all i just learndt how to make grunge sigs in photoshop and it took me along time. Also i feel like this is my fault because for a short amount of time i had a really big sig but i didn't know it was that big until i uploaded it i must have been zoomed out when making it.

http://willpull22.remnetworks.com/hl2sig.jpg

Hi mikeandike22

Please don't feel that this is in any way personally directed at yourself. I know we've had a little dialogue about reducing your image size, but I'm afraid that's merely coincidence. Discussion of matters such as this go on behind the scenes on an ongoing basis amongst the administrative team. Refinements and improvements to the forum are constant topics of discussion.

The matter of sig pics is merely one which relates to the overall 'tone' of DaniWeb, which is a forum with many facets. One of the major focusses of DaniWeb is to service a membership of largely Programmers and Webmasters, and attract relevent advertising. Because of that, the 'professionalism' Dani mentions above is a very important consideration.

Personally, I agree with Dani that restricting the images to avatars is perhaps a better way to go, and Dammit, that stops me from having a banner made up of 'Catweazle' pics, like I use on other forums!

Well what i think hes saying is that sig, in a way express who you are, so that when people read your post's they get a feel for who you are and what you like. Its ok to not allow them I can understand that. Ill tell you I never thought they would cause A problem. But at least every ones working together and I support all actions the administrative team puts forth.

People on dial up connections suffer extreme slowness when signatures are too big. The time it takes for them to download the signatures they could have read the thread and posted or moved on to the next thread.

Signatures should be text based or a small graphic that isn't animated. Number of lines for a signature should be limited too.

If I go to a forum that has a lot of people with massive signatures, even though I'm on broadband I turn viewing of signatures off in my options so I don't have to view them.

Well, what about un animated signatures? Mine sure wasen't.