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Dec 17th, 2004
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Re: Images in signatures

I've seen sigs get way out of hand.
On one forum there were people with sigs that were almost a screenfull (at 1024x768) of images and a page of text (for about 500k of data for the sig alone).
They'd then post 10 or so replies in a thread, each a single line long...

That was the end of that, strict limits were imposed as to the size of banners (something like 200x70 pixels and 5kb max, plus max 3 lines of text) and ever since the moderators are having to tell people to scale down their sigs several times a week...
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duckman
jwenting is offline Offline
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since Nov 2004
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Dec 17th, 2004
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Re: Images in signatures

I think it all depends on the type of forum you have and the enviroment you are trying to create. I have been to many a forum and many of them allow pictues which i am fond of esp when they are funny or creative and many ofthe posters limit themsleves on this but at times it becomes a problem and rules are set pertaining to the size of the image. as for animated images i find these semi rude to the people who are still on dial up and have to wait even longer for the page to load. pics in sigs arent bad just not always fitting
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Newbie Poster
Token is offline Offline
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since Dec 2004
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Dec 17th, 2004
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Re: Images in signatures

yeah sigs can cause loading problems but the sigs here are not hosted on this site they are hostedd remotely.

http://willpull22.remnetworks.com/hl2sig.jpg
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Nearly a Posting Virtuoso
mikeandike22 is offline Offline
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since May 2004
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Dec 19th, 2004
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Re: Images in signatures

My take

Quote originally posted by cscgal ...
- It clutters the interface and distracts from the most important thing - the content
That depends on what it is. Make strict rules on what the sig can and cannot be and a uniform look can still be achieved.

Quote originally posted by cscgal ...
- Long loading times of threads. Especially when someone with an image in their sig posts multiple times in the forum
This is not really true. If an image is loaded once it does not get loaded again no matter how many times its on the page. After all, it is just one file regardless of how many times its shown. However, the load time can be an issue if the users servers are slow like many free hosting servers.

Quote originally posted by cscgal ...
- 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
Once again, moderating what sigs can and cannot be comes into play here.

Quote originally posted by cscgal ...
- 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 $
Simply make a rule that they cannot do such things. No outside links. Besides that, they can still advertise in their sigs now with text links. Once again, its about rules.

Quote originally posted by cscgal ...
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.
Can't disagree here. Only with good moderation of sigs could you allow them.
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Light Poster
kernel is offline Offline
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since Dec 2004
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Dec 29th, 2004
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Re: Images in signatures

I am not a big fan of images on signatures because they tend to take away the flow of a topic and are annoying distractions.

I recently had a member who posted two huge images on his signature and I asked him to remove them - politely of course - and gave him my reasons why I didn't want them there.
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Junior Poster
harishankar is offline Offline
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since Dec 2004
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Jan 16th, 2005
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Re: Images in signatures

Yeah. I'd say just make a rule that images can't be animated and can't be bigger than (insert some image size here.) I'd like to put one of those "mmiikkee has contributed x posts to our community" badge things in my signature but I just wind up with a link to it.
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Posting Whiz in Training
mmiikkee12 is offline Offline
274 posts
since Oct 2004
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Jan 16th, 2005
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Re: Images in signatures

Check out many of the forums on the internet, almost all have the ability for sigs. Simple fact is those that have one, love them. either to show off their abilities or work or something similar. Many like them as a simple 1 image with details in it about their PC or gaming clan or work/website or all those other things they are used for.
Personally i like them, its nice to see what users are doing with themselves these days.
I would definately enable them but limit the image size to say 80k or something reasonable like that.
At the end of the day it cant be a size of page worry for this forum due to the adverts all over the place and the html code thus far for this thread being over 24k. Add images and avatars and adverts and the total download is pretty large.
Id say allow sigs but insist they be either hosted remotely or locally but small (im sure you have bandwidth/storage concerns).
There are many free image hosts out there (getsigned.org uploadit photobucket and others)
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Junior Poster
ReDuX is offline Offline
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since Sep 2004
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Jan 19th, 2005
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Re: Images in signatures

Well you can always install only show the signature once per page, that will decrease the crowding, and possibly add a script to check [img] tags for the image etc and if its too large return an error stating the allowed size
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Junior Poster in Training
Antonbomb22 is offline Offline
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since Jun 2004
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Jan 19th, 2005
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Re: Images in signatures

Quote originally posted by Antonbomb22 ...
Well you can always install only show the signature once per page, that will decrease the crowding, and possibly add a script to check [img] tags for the image etc and if its too large return an error stating the allowed size
lol, things are getting complicated (= Good idea.
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Posting Whiz
Sphyenx is offline Offline
366 posts
since Aug 2004
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Jan 20th, 2005
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Re: Images in signatures

also if your using vB use the function that counts the number of times an image tag is used, this you can use to set it to that only one image may be present in a signature
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Junior Poster in Training
Antonbomb22 is offline Offline
91 posts
since Jun 2004

This thread is more than three months old

No one has posted to this discussion for at least three months. Please let old threads die and do not reply to them unless you feel you have something new and valuable to contribute that absolutely must be added to make the discussion complete. Otherwise, please start a new thread in this forum instead.
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