IMPORTANT: Signatures and Signature Abuse...

AboveTopSecret.com Signature Guidelines...

www.abovetopsecret.com... They exist for a reason! We've recently had an issue with a member using an abusive advertising banner with inflammatory language in their sig. In addition, there have been repeated occurrences of people circumventing the signature maximums by repeatedly putting the same large images at the bottom of their posts. In both cases, these actions are not allowed on ATS! The controlled space for signatures is maintained for a very good reason, readability of our board threads. Large graphic signatures make long threads exceptionally tedious to read, especially for our members on dial-up connections. If you are discovered to be circumventing the signature guidelines, or using abusive signatures, you will be put on global ignore until you yourself fix the problem. We'll no longer "fix it for you" by editing your posts or deleting your signature from your profile. When you're on global ignore, no one can see your posts. If this continues to be a problem, all signatures will be disabled... for everyone. (edited a typo in title) [edit on 11-9-2004 by Zion Mainframe]

Thank you, I'm glad that it has been said....
I hope that everyone starts complying with this, because personally, I like signatures. There are some funny quotes, Links to blogs, and other threads I never knew about! I wouldn't die if they were taken away, by any means.

Cool...I know I've seen some pretty huge banners out there for sigs...I used to have one myself until I was told to reduce it...

Size doesn't matter people - It's what you do with it

[edit on 11/9/2004 by EnronOutrunHomerun]

is this one too big? I can sort it if it is?

Originally posted by bigdanprice
is this one too big? I can sort it if it is?

Yours is 83x467 and is 43.5K...

Here are the guidelines from the link SO posted above:

Signatures:

A maximum of five lines of text, with any graphic image counting as one line.

No advertising of your personal or other websites until you have been a contributing member for at least 60 days.

GIF and JPEF file formats for any images with a maximum dimension of 500 pixels wide by 50 pixels tall. File sizes are not to exceed 25k, and animated GIF's are allowed.

No profanity. No 3rd party advertising other than links and copy to your own personal website(s). The content of your personal website may be reviewed, however, and based on how it compares to the standards and Terms of ATS, you may be asked to removed the link to your personal website.

Hmmmm I've seen a couple of things that I though, " wow, I'm surprised that's allowed here"....guess they weren't

Since this is the place to ask about signatures, is there any issue with using PNG images? Also how hard and fast are the size limitations, would say 8 pixes over the height limit be out of the question? I ask these because I have limited time frames to access the server where mine is hosted so I wanted to know if I needed to make adjustments to my signature later on today.

www.abovetopsecret.com... GIF and JPEF file formats for any images with a maximum dimension of 500 pixels wide by 50 pixels tall. File sizes are not to exceed 25k, and animated GIF's are allowed. From this point forward, no exceptions. If your physical dimensions exceed the above, there will be a brief grace period to allow changes as long as the file size does not exceed the standard.

Originally posted by bigdanprice
is this one too big? I can sort it if it is?

Yes the dimensions and file size are too big. I reworked it for you. Now it's 50 pixels tall and 25.1 kb in size.

***bump***

I understand the concept of abusive in terms of language or imagery, but what about signatures that are generated such as those signs that state what your IP is and what browser you are using? I ask because I use a simliar fashion to create the image I use. Is this within the acceptable limits?

The only way to be fair is get rid of all sigs.

Originally posted by pfcret
The only way to be fair is get rid of all sigs.

OR...have everyone follow the rules.

Wait, wait, wait! I know that sounds crazy, but just hear me out. I had my signature image for a year now and I just realized today that it was 53 pixels too large. Now I was about to:

- write a u2u to Simon
- complain to SkepticOverlord that he is trying to trample my rights
- start a complaint thread (in the wrong forum of course)

Then I realized. OH MY GOODNESS! I could just do the mature thing and change my signature to follow the guidelines.

Now, I am still happy I have my signature. ATS is happy. It's what is known as a WIN-WIN situation. You should all try it.

[edit on 9-11-2004 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

Originally posted by ZeddicusZulZorander

Originally posted by pfcret
The only way to be fair is get rid of all sigs.

OR...have everyone follow the rules.

Wait, wait, wait! I know that sounds crazy, but just hear me out. I had my signature image for a year now and I just realized today that it was 53 pixels too large. Now I was about to:

- write a u2u to Simon
- complain to SkepticOverlord that he is trying to trample my rights
- start a complaint thread (in the wrong forum of course)

Then I realized. OH MY GOODNESS! I could just do the mature thing and change my signature to follow the guidelines.

Now, I am still happy I have my signature. ATS is happy. It's what is known as a WIN-WIN situation. You should all try it.

[edit on 9-11-2004 by ZeddicusZulZorander]

Excellent post Zedd. For it you get an unprecidented:

Do these rules also apply to those who 'quote' what people say in order to make fun of them.A certain person here likes to do that alot.I find it very immature

I'm surprised signatures are allowed at all. I find them annoying.

It's odd that we get warned and our "wrists slapped" for making one line posts that make it harder for members to read and follow.

It can become discouraging for new members or guests to wade through too many short responses, just to get to content that continues the flow of thought.

A token penalty of 20 points has been deducted from your account for this action. Please, in the future, make an attempt to provide more to the flow of conversation than a simple one-line or less comment.

Sorry for this slight slap-on-the-wrist. Hopefully you take this in the tone intended, as a reminder to make an effort to ensure our content is easy to read, access, and use by anyone who finds it.

Signatures make reading posts so much more difficult than an on topic one liner (I added a carraige return, and all was well with the 2-lined world). If flow of conversation and ease of use is paramount, then signatures should definitely go. Are they really necessary?

How much load would be reduced if signatures were gone? Graphics, text.. it would at the very least save reading time, loading time, and more posts per page could fit.

I'm sure many would freak out of their signatures were gone, but you can always put it all in your member profile instead.

If people had websites to pitch or links of interest, could the be made into a grey buttons titled as the member desired that linked to a page along side of the U2U or profile buttons below a single post?

Since we're on the subject of guidelines, SO has an exceptionally large avatar that is now within guidelines, cept he is apparently the only one able to set an avatar that large, since everyone I try and set that has a height of 400px is said to be too large. Well then...

Severe beatings for anybody seen breaking the signature guidelines, and I dont think they should be taken away just because of a few bad apples.

Originally posted by dreamlandmafia
Since we're on the subject of guidelines, SO has an exceptionally large avatar that is now within guidelines, cept he is apparently the only one able to set an avatar that large, since everyone I try and set that has a height of 400px is said to be too large. Well then...

Severe beatings for anybody seen breaking the signature guidelines, and I dont think they should be taken away just because of a few bad apples.

Yes, same here. I made an avatar of 160x400 (400 = height) and the size of the file is 40k and the type is of .jpg.

I try to set it as avatar, but it is said to be too large. I would like a response to my query of "WHY CANT I GET ONE THAT BIG?"

(That sounded wrong )

[STAY COOL)
-prophetmike

I find sigs annoying when people have posted a short response on a thread. In most of these cases, the sig is larger than the post. That should not be. What I would like to see happen, and I am not sure if the server can do this or not, is that the sigs only appear for longer posts. I'm not sure what the defining limit would be or anyting but that would seem to be a much better use of sigs.

Is mine too large? please say no.