Define Cynical Fan Forums

Hi all<br><br>I was wondering if there has been any thought of limiting the size of signatures on the forum. The reason I mention this is I can't stand reading threads where 80% of the screen real estate is filled with signatures and icons and images, and the actual content of the thread barely manages to fill up 20%. It makes it really hard to keep track of the thread if the signatures are too long, and most of the time, most of the content really belongs in profiles anyway.<br><br>Consider the difference in readibility between the following blocks<br><br>=====================================================================================<br><br><b>[LotharBot]</b> Hey, O&M really rocks!<br>- LotharBot<br> www.zometool.com<br><br><b>[Joe Schmoe]</b> Yeah, I agree, it's a great comic!<br>- Joe<br> "Great is the power of steady misinterpretation" - Darwin<br><br><b>[Random Fan]</b> Definitely! My favorite is "define cynical".<br>- Random (insert small image here...<br> .<br> . end of image.....)<br><br><b>[Millie]</b> Yeah!<br>- Millie, president of the<a href="http://www.slashdot.org">legion of confusion</a><br><br>=====================================================================================<br><br><b>[LotharBot]</b> Hey, O&M really rocks!<br>- LotharBot<br>My block of geek code: *ALK+++LKJ--SH+++GEKJHKG+++++++SKLJ:^^--QEWE++++<br>My computer specs: pentium-200<br> 2 megs of RAM<br> 80000 gig hard drive<br> 2x CD-ROM drive<br> Broken joystick<br>My favorite links:<br> www.cnn.com<br> www.ozyandmillie.org<br> www.espn.com<br> www.washington.edu<br> www.reallifecomics.com<br> www.zometool.com<br> www.tomandcatherine.com<br><br><b>[Joe Schmoe]</b> Yeah, I agree, it's a great comic!<br><br> ( many extraneous blank lines )<br>.<br>.<br>.<br>.<br>.<br> ( end of extraneous blank lines )<br><br>- Joe Schmoe<br><br> www.ozyandmillie.org<br><br> "Great is the power of steady misinterpretation" - Darwin<br><br> "All you need is love" - the Beatles<br><br><b>[Random Fan]</b> Definitely! My favorite is "define cynical".<br><br>- Random Fan<br>aka RF<br>aka Random Guy<br>aka Mike<br>aka Michael<br><br> (insert way-too-big image here .................................<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> .<br> ......................................... all the way down to here, and then some)<br><br><b>[Millie]</b> Yeah!<br><br>- Millie, supreme uber-commander of the Legion of Confusion!<br>Join the legion of confusion: click <a href="http://www.slashdot.org">here</a><br>Rules for the legion of confusion<br>1) you must be good at confusing people<br>2) ouyay ustmay eakspay igpay atinlay<br>3) sdrawkcab epyt ot elba eb tsum uoy<br>4) you must not be confused by any of our rules<br>5) bargle nawdle zauf<br><br>=====================================================================================<br><br>The actual useful content between the two was the same, but in the first, it was actually easy to find... and 90% of the stuff in the signatures in the second was just plain useless. For the most part, the short signatures express almost as much as the long ones do.<br><br>My own personal preference is to limit signatures to, say, 5-6 lines including blanks, or an image no taller than 100 pixels and no wider than 600 (for those running in low res.) Anything bigger than that really belongs in your profile, or in your "hi I'm new here" post. Any thoughts? Am I just off my rocker? ;)<br><br>-Tom aka LotharBot<br><br>P.S. yeah, I know, I'm new here -- who am I to critize the established order? Well, Millie is my hero :D

The same discussion came up in another forum i was on and ended with the administrator actually banning the signature images completely.<br><br>I agree with you that images can get too big. The main argument of the opposite side seems to be that it expresses yourself. I'm not too concerned with them now but if a vote came i'd cast mine with the no sig images people, or at least reduced sizes.

Hmmm. Actually, I edit the signature legth in bytes, so It'll be hard to work out the number of lines there is. Right now it's at 50000 bytes. I'll half the size of that for now, and well see what other members have to say. I'll leave the images in for now.

i tend to agree w/ less is more as far as signatures go, but i myself have been guilty of taking to much space in the past... for me i suppose it would depend on the image, some of it is relevant/tasteful some isnt *shrug* its hard to judge that tho... but if i was to vote i'd say reduced sizes, and avoid banning sig images at all costs... for example, i happen to like 5hfifty's sig VERY much! and get a laugh from seeing it, maybe some other person gets sick of seeing it *shrug* dont noe who would, but for examples sake... *shrug*

So, would you say mine is too big?

'The maxium allowed length is 25,000 characters. You have used 89 characters'<br>-The "Check Length" button in the signature options<br><br>It can be a problem when people blast their signatures full of random crud, but I haven't noticed overly large signatures here yet. <br><br>It'd be cool if there was a way to personally disable signatures.<br><br>ps: <i>Broken Joystick</i> = lol

Heh. I always thought mine was way too big. It always seems to stick out..... <!--emo&:lol:--><img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' /><!--endemo-->

I think images are OK, as long as they're sensible in size. Not too many words, though.<br><br>By the way: it's "Bargle nawdle zouss".

I agree with the sentiments about massive images in signatures. I usually stick a nice banner of my name in my signature, but I left it out on this forum, replacing it with my furcode and O&M code (not to mention bandwidth problems).

Well, I significantly shrunk my name banner, we'll see how it works out. If someone can tell me how to make a linked image, I can drop one line from my signature <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://definecynical.mancubus.net/forum ... /smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif' /><!--endemo-->

Pleeeeease leave images, it's fun to have a banner in your sig... Though people are right about them sometimes being way to big (yes I am going to shrink or replace mine)

If you crop yours a a bit, like cut off the top and bottom around the words, it should be fine without any scaling.

I'll resize mine just as soon as I get photoshop reinstalled.