Signature sizes and smooth sailing
 

So, we are coming back to a certain rule here that some people just cannot seem to abide ;)

Signatures:
The reason for this rule: To keep the forum smooth, without right/left scrolling bars, and massive download transfer for images and animated gifs that can run up to a MB or more.

Over the years, we have increased the size limits, they are more than triple what they used to be. It won't be long before some people are inserting their Facebook pages here as a sig. :arrgh!:

The question I put to you: does size matter? Do you care if someone has a sig 600 high and 1200 wide, or a gif that loads 1 MB+ each time you open a thread? Does it impact your forum viewing? Or do you not even notice it or care? Should we have a limit and what should it be? And how do we handle those who are practicing Lebensraum with our monitors?

Thanks for your time.
Neal
SUBSIM

http://i.imgur.com/FgyUM.gif

Too big or under the limit?
@ Neal I got the postal-mailz from you.:up::rock: Thanks.

I am only posting and viewing threads in the SH3 forums.
I have never came across of such big signatures.

Yes, size does matter.

while some might go perhaps 20% over the allowed limits I'm fine with that but let's not have it going out of hand so that the forum lay out starts to get screwed or when I have to abuse my mouse scroll just to get to the next member's post.

I think the current dimensions are perfect.

as for filesize leave it 200 - 300kb top.
1 Mb Gif files are uncalled for at while they won't bother me at home on my own PC but at work on a not so state of the art pc it does bother me as big animated gif files just lag the browser and makes it a pain to navigate a thread.

HunterICX

I find it annoying when a sig is larger than the pictures people post in the threads. That's way too big. Yes, size does matter.

Technically speaking it's more than five times the 200 MB file size limit. My personal problem is that my old computer hates all gifs. Other than the lag every time I read one of your posts it's kind of cute.

Fixed :doh:

It doesn't affect me when I'm on a PC, but if I use my phone (often) it can be a bit annoying. I think the current rules are fine, with some slight moderator leeway - particularly if it's a subsim* related pic, less so if it is political or a. n. other.


*and obviously flight sim :03:

Edit - the only gif I don't find annoying when it's repeated on a page is Steve's cat one.

I don't think that any of us want to go around with calipers, so to speak. Unless a signature is high or wide enough to make reading problematic, I don't really care too much. File size is a different matter, however. Too many large files used as signatures do make an impact on the loading of the threads. A 1 MB signature is obnoxiously large in that aspect. Imagine if everyone had one.

Sig file size never bothered me much, but I guess that's because everyone around here kept them smallish. Big huge images that take up 60% of the screen are annoying though.

I'm more concerned with the part that says

"Sigs that are political or religous in nature may only be displayed in General Topics. Only naval-oriented sigs are allowed in the naval and game forums."

So if you were to take a strict interpretation of that rule, my sig would be out of bounds for posting in General Games discussion? There's no real way to enforce this. You can't have two sigs at once, and your old posts update with your new signature when you change it. So I can't have a SH3 signature, post something in the SH3 forum, then jump back over to GT, change my sig and post there. All my posts will reflect my current sig.

I understand the spirit of the rule, but there's some practical problems with its execution.

Aye that...in fact the current allowance is quite generous IMO...the other two forums I frequent have bigger restrictions.

Same message from me as well Neal...I left a thanks in the moderator section yesterday but not sure if you saw it. :sunny:

My interpretation has been that a general statement is permissible while a specific statement is not. By that I mean the following.

Permissible:

Government is best which governs least - Henry David Thoreau

Not permissible:

Never vote Libertarian. They are destroying America.

In that aspect, your signature is fine. There are some, however, that need to reevaluate their sigs in that regard.

do you not have the option to disable signatures? For some reason I think you can turn them off in your settings :hmmm:

Regarding size, I think it affects to those who have weaker computers and smaller resolutions which, while a minority these days, need to be considered. Rule of thumb in my opinion is that if a sig is longer than an averagely small post, it is too long. And if the sig is wider than the resolution of smaller monitors (yes, some still use 800x600 resolutions), then it is too wide. So I think the 220x640 limit for sigs is very reasonable and should be kept that way. Same for the size, especially regarding .gifs, since 10 of them at the same page could easily grind weaker PCs to a halt.

Thanks, I didn't even notice I'd done that. :sunny:

There have been a couple, but at the moment most seem to be within good limits...although to be fair, I have a 1920 x1080 screen resolution so it would have to be a VERY big picture to be a problem for me.
I couldn't honestly say what size my sig is, but in comparison with others I think it's about right.