Official Poll and discussion - signature images

[meshedvr]

I have been messing with signatures and found some limits could be set. By default there were no limits and personal signatures shown after messages could be ridiculous.

The limits I have set now are:

• Overall height limited to 80px. Go beyond this and the signature will clip
• Image height limited to 60px. If you include an image taller than that it gets scaled down to fit to 60px height
• No more than 300 characters total
• Maximum 3 lines
• Maximum 3 links
• Maximum 1 image
• Maximum text size 3 (which means 1st 3 sizes are available - so max 12 point)

The signature I show here is just about max height of 80px with max height 60px image. You can notice the bottom of the image is clipping because it is overall over max 80px height. This is to demonstrate.

Please discuss your opinion on signatures here. Thanks!

 

[kemenate]

I vote yes, with the limits it will also "unify" the look of everyone a bit and not waste too much space. Maybe you can adjust the maximum height so that 2 lines of default text + image 60px fit without clipping? Or one line of text for all I care....

 

[meshedvr]

I vote yes, with the limits it will also "unify" the look of everyone a bit and not waste too much space. Maybe you can adjust the maximum height so that 2 lines of default text + image 60px fit without clipping? Or one line of text for all I care....

Yeah I think if I increase to 85px overall you can get 2 lines of 12 point text + 60px image.

 

[Acid Bubbles]

I voted "no" but I don't have a very strong opinion. It's more a personal taste, but since we can disable signatures it's probably not a big deal.

The main reason for using images in signatures is branding and publicity, and while I understand the desire to use opportunities to push patreon accounts or self-brand, I'm wondering if forum discussions is the best place to do so. The "actual" discussion content is already using a very small portion of the screen real estate (this page have 4 posts and I need to scroll already).

 

[MacGruber]

I'm not sure we need signatures at all. The optically break the conversation flow and everyone would start to shamelessly advertise their Patreons (myself included). I started a thread yesterday about how to advertise Patreons, I would be more inclined to have some banner for that in the resource post. Possibly in some unified way.

IF we allow signatures, the height should be restricted to the equivalent of 2 lines or say 40px. IF we allow images, we might want to outlaw animated images (GIF). These are annoying as hell for this kind of thing.

 

[meshedvr]

IF we allow signatures, the height should be restricted to the equivalent of 2 lines or say 40px. IF we allow images, we might want to outlaw animated images (GIF). These are annoying as hell for this kind of thing.

Not sure what you mean.

edit: removed offensive flashing gif that was in this space. I don't want anyone to suffer a seizure. I should have come up with an offensive, but not painful gif here. . If you really want to see it, click on the attachment.

 

[meshedvr]

Fortunately, yes they can be turned off as a user preference:

I sort of agree they disturb the natural flow of messages and get repetitive. Limiting size is probably best option. Images could be turned off completely. I don't see a way to disallow gifs

 

[kemenate]

I don't overly care, too. And if gifs can't be blocked, then maybe it's best to disable images altogether.
For self promotion or some funky quote a one-liner of text would be enough.
If it's possible just auto-center it and it will look less intrusive.

"America's first gay president" - George Washington​

 

[Tiseb]

I find the signature needs to be as small as possible,
I find it pollutes the forums if it takes up too much space.
A link and a sentence for me is enough.

 

[meshedvr]

I think I am going to disallow images. I'm finding my own banner signature annoying.

 

[meshedvr]

OK - just reduced image size limit to 120px width and 30px height. Maybe this is ok. Will leave it at that for a bit to see. Example shown in my sig

 

[meshedvr]

Well decided I still don't like the images - they get super repetitive in the middle of screen while scrolling. Seems ok for avatars at left, but middle of screen is just annoying.

So text-only sigs it is!

 

[meshedvr]

Next question!

Official - Poll and discussion - signature links

Should links be allowed?

hub.virtamate.com

 

[meshedvr]

I think I'm going to disallow smilies as well. I think anything eye catching should probably be disallowed (links included).

 

[meshedvr]

Color, font, etc. as well because of this:

lol

 

[meshedvr]

Closing this thread since I have already made up my mind. Thanks for the input!