Signature Clarification

[Imaginary Friend]

I was given to understand by Burnside, that the signature dimensions currently denoted in the guidelines, are relative to the 500 maximum. So that a signature 200 x 300 is fitting , even though the hight of 200 is above the posted 150 limit, it is in keeping with the 500 maximum over all.

[Saru]

The size limit is 500x150, that is, it cannot exceed 500 pixels in width or 150 pixels in height. 200x300 exceeds 150 pixels in height and therefore exceeds the limit.

Your signature image (at the time of this posting) is currently too large.

Remember, a signature is meant as a short endpiece to your posts, it shouldn't contain huge pictures or large blocks of text.

Full details of our signature guidelines can be found: Here.

[__Kratos__]

it is in keeping with the 500 maximum over all.

Saruman has a point with this mainly because you just know some wise butt would do this:

1 pixel width, 499 pixel length

Edited July 20, 2006 by __Kratos__

[Imaginary Friend]

Wow, I guess then the Moderators are going to be quite busy deleting every signature over those restrictions. Those that must be no more than 150 high or 500 in length, exactly.

Sympa Sheri ,Yelekiah, Irish, Bosanchero, starlitkate,JayRob303, amybutts, BDV, Leliel, frogfish, Lion of Judah , etc...

And these are just from browsing a few threads. If the signature restrictions are exact, so to then should the editing across the board, when signatures exceed the permitted size. However, as has been witnessed on board, that is not the case. Some members signatures are edited regularly, while some members are left unattended.

Edited July 20, 2006 by Imaginary Friend

[Saru]

The moderators have a lot of things to deal with on the forum, and signature sizes are quite low on the priority list. We're not going to quibble over every signature that is a couple of pixels over the size limit, nor are we going to go around every day actively scouring the board for such signatures. These are guidelines that we ask our members to follow, even if we don't constantly patrol around looking for people who don't.

Some members signatures are edited regularly, while some members are left unattended.

Trimming a few pixels off your signature is not that important, however we do get frustrated when we ask someone to reduce the size of their signature and they refuse to co-operate. If a member keeps refusing to reduce their signature size, then they are likely to be having their signature removed on a regular basis until they do.

As for those people you have listed, one is 4 pixels over, one has no signature at all, one is 10 pixels over, one isn't over the limit and another has an error in their signature which is making some images stack vertically instead of horizontally.

Yes some of these do exceed the limit, and we'll get to them in due course.

The point is, please check to ensure that your signature is within the size guidelines, as it saves us having to remind you to make sure that it is.

[Bella-Angelique]

Wow, I guess then the Moderators are going to be quite busy deleting every signature over those restrictions. Those that must be no more than 150 high or 500 in length, exactly.

Sympa Sheri ,Yelekiah, Irish, Bosanchero, starlitkate,JayRob303, amybutts, BDV, Leliel, frogfish, Lion of Judah , etc...

And these are just from browsing a few threads. If the signature restrictions are exact, so to then should the editing across the board, when signatures exceed the permitted size. However, as has been witnessed on board, that is not the case. Some members signatures are edited regularly, while some members are left unattended.

I had to change my sig to meet the 50 KB limit, so I get it.

What can ya do?

They just do not like us all that much I suppose so we should just be glad they let us post at all perhaps.

--------------------------------------

Im-Fried 6 KB

Sy-Sheri 82 KB

Yelekiah 11 KB

Bosan 53 KB

starlite 3 KB

JayRob 230 KB

amy 93 KB

Leliel 56 KB

Frog 45 KB

Lion 17 KB

[00000000000000000000000000]

I had to change my sig to meet the 50 KB limit, so I get it.

What can ya do?

They just do not like us all that much I suppose so we should just be glad they let us post at all perhaps.

I can't speak for the mods, but the sig in question (which I liked) would have immediately drawn attention to it's filesize because of the animation, which always increases filesize because it is, in essence, 5 or more pictures stored into one, as frames. I don't think it was singling you out in any way.

[__Kratos__]

What can ya do?

Resize, change formats, compress and use options in your photo program to lessen the size.

My current image sig took me over an hour and a half to get right because I had to keep resizing it and working with my program to get it just right.

I have DSL upgraded and I still notice page lag when someone goes over board with a sig or avatar. It effects surfing and posting. I can't even think what those poor dial-up users are thinking when they click on a page with member's going nuts on sigs and avatar size.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

As SaRuMaN said the moderators on this site are busy.

As a forum leader I get to see just a little bit of how much they have to do. This site has more than 37,000 members and there have been in excess of 1.2 million posts. The moderators have to police all this. They have to deal with the huge number of spam messages that get posted on here. They have to deal with the flame wars that break out, with the offensive language that is used, with the accidental double posts that we all make from time to time and with people that hit the "REPORT" button every time this disagree with someone elses point of view. They have to check that offensive image aren't posted or that links aren't to inappropriate sites.

They do all this voluntarily. They usually do so without any thanks and often at the end of a load of abuse. They give up their time to do it and on the whole I think they do it exceptionally well.

This website has rules. They are not particularly restrictive and, in my opinion they are fair. Is it too much to ask people to try and follow them? And if you do break them and are caught doing so, I'm sorry but whinging that "he does it too but you haven't caught him," just does not cut it as a defence.

[Bella-Angelique]

Yes, well, that is all well and good but sometimes we all need just a tad of whine and sympathy once a month or so.

[coldethyl]

I had to change my sig to meet the 50 KB limit, so I get it.

What can ya do?

Ask the guys in the siggy workshop to help you out. That's what I did when I was having trouble resizing my pic to look decent. Took them no time at all and they were very nice and helpful.

[Bella-Angelique]

I asked them a long time ago on the old sig I had, but got no response.

I liked that pic better because it was funnier to me with Six holding Baltar's face in a vise grip to force him to focus on looking at something.

I ended up going through images on Google to find a sig and found the one I have now.

Little too mucn emphasis on the boobs for me, but it is the Capria Six cylon so I am happy with it.

[Imaginary Friend]

Yes we should be grateful we can post at all. And so to should UM be grateful we do. It's a mutual relationship you see. Without the members UM (any site) is nothing.

As SaRuMaN said the moderators on this site are busy.

As a forum leader I get to see just a little bit of how much they have to do. This site has more than 37,000 members and there have been in excess of 1.2 million posts....

You misunderstood me. I wasn't making excuses at all. I was relating an observation that, thanks to your reply, is made valid in it's claim of "favorites" on board.

If Moderators are as busy monitoring post content, it's a simple matter to take the time to mouse over the signature contained therein. A click on properties is a simple matter as it is when those Mod's, per your statement, check links in posts , etc....

And while I do appreciate Mod's responsibilities being enormous on a board this size, I also appreciate fair measure of oversight and editorial critique, from those that can take the time to edit posts for content and all the other reasons Waspie outlines, but claim taking the same amount of time to include scrolling over the signature contained in that same thread under scrutiny, isn't realistic. It can be said that doesn't cut it as a defense either.

And that Burnside earlier communication about the 500 overall dimension limit is not the case, is unfortunate. Because a signature 200 X 300 takes up less room than the 150 X 500, but none the less is against the rule for size.

[tiddlyjen]

Why is it that people are always fighting the rules?

Regardless, check the member list, see how many THOUSANDS of members there are, then counter in the amount of posts that would be made each day, by every member, does that not give an indication as to the magnitude of the job that moderators have to do, without counting the fact that they would then have to remove signatures all the time? The purpose of the signature rule is to stop the need for the removal of signatures, if its kept under or sitting just at the said dimensions and size, then the page runs faster, everybody can do what they want on UM and not wait for chuggy page hoggers with too big signatures to load (i unknowingly was the cause for this once myself)

If people have a problem with their signature then ask us in the gallery, we can resize it in two seconds, we cant always promise a fast response, re: Bella-Angelique, because there is a "queue" system, whereby if someone asks for something first, their request will be processed first, and please dont whine about not getting things done, we all have personal lives too, and may not be able to handle all the requests at one time.

[Saru]

If Moderators are as busy monitoring post content, it's a simple matter to take the time to mouse over the signature contained therein. A click on properties is a simple matter as it is when those Mod's, per your statement, check links in posts , etc....

It's not a simple matter at all, and in fact you have demonstrated quite nicely yourself why this is not the case.

When your first signature image was removed, a picture which was both over the limit and inapropriate, you complained bitterly about it, arguing with the moderator who removed it that she had no cause to do so instead of acknowledging why it has been removed.

Then you went on to replace it with another image that was over the size limit. When that was removed, you started this thread to ask confirmation for the size limits, which in itself is fair enough, but when I confirmed what they were, you started complaining about the fact that now according to you we are not removing other people's oversized signatures fast enough.

Imagine how difficult it would be to moderate signature sizes if everyone reacted like this to having their signature removed. You're saying that checking a signature size is a two second job, but how much time have we all wasted dealing with you after your signature was removed ?

The bottom line is, this is a free forum service, and as such is provided as is. If you are not happy about our signature size limitations or if you believe we are not removing oversized signatures fast enough then please by all means go elsewhere.

[Raptor]

Resize, change formats, compress and use options in your photo program to lessen the size.

My current image sig took me over an hour and a half to get right because I had to keep resizing it and working with my program to get it just right.

I have DSL upgraded and I still notice page lag when someone goes over board with a sig or avatar. It effects surfing and posting. I can't even think what those poor dial-up users are thinking when they click on a page with member's going nuts on sigs and avatar size.

50036 bytes.

Saruman, I'm sure there are some codes that can be used to automatically restrict or resize any images that exceed the dimensions you set. It's probably not worth your while trying to figure out how to do it, but if someone on the forum knows how, it could be helpful.

Here's a link to a program which compresses animated .gif signatures, which reduces their size. Click

Edited July 21, 2006 by Raptor X7

[Waspie_Dwarf]

50036 bytes.

And your point is? 1kb = 1024b. Therefore 50kb = 51200b

That signature is only 48.86kb.

[Raptor]

And your point is? 1kb = 1024b. Therefore 50kb = 51200b

That signature is only 48.86kb.

Touché.

[Saru]

Saruman, I'm sure there are some codes that can be used to automatically restrict or resize any images that exceed the dimensions you set.

I'm currently looking into improved ways of checking signature sizes, a system that could automatically detect whether a signature was too large when it was submitted would be ideal if it could be done, i'm currently checking into this to see how viable it is.

Ideally we need a system which is automatic and non-confusing, so that everyone is aware that there is a size limit, but which will disallow oversized signatures without us having to manually intervene each time.

[coldethyl]

Why don't you appoint a siggy moderator. Just some random person everyone hates anyway to go around and bitterly remove siggies? Just kidding. Although a sig nazi would be a pretty funny title to run around UM with....

[Saru]

I can't imagine anyone would want that job, its extremely boring, tedious and time consuming, and I doubt that person would be very popular if all they did was remove signatures.

An automated system is a much better solution.

[coldethyl]

I can't imagine anyone would want that job, its extremely boring, tedious and time consuming, and I doubt that person would be very popular if all they did was remove signatures.

An automated system is a much better solution.

True. But it would be funny. I have my vote for who should have to do it. Hey that's it, it should be more of a punishment.

[Saru]

In that case I can think of a few people for the job.

[+Link of Hyrule]

WHy not ask Imaginary Friend if he wants the job? He seems pretty rearing to keep to the guidelines

Edited July 21, 2006 by Paranoid Android

[Imaginary Friend]

Ha! So funny. Given you PA are already a Mod. perhaps it's your calling.

Actually I'm not raring to keep to the guidelines. I'm just tired of having my signature removed when in the same thread just a scroll away someone is boldly in violation and yet their signature remains untouched. (And especially when my signature is 200X 200 and is deleted because the 200 is 50 over the 150 limit but the entire siggy. is well under 500 max) If the guidelines were followed, there would be more people PO'd, because their free ride would suddenly disappear like my signature does.

Don't think I don't appreciate the obsession btw. Editing signatures might suck as the only job a mod. would have on board, however that's not to say some don't get their jollies for the duty they subscribe to in that regard amid all their many other responsibilities. Browse 5 threads in Spirit/Skeptic or Religion forum, and I promise you'll find at least one that is either over the bytes maximum for animation siggy. or otherwise!

That's why I posted the SN's in my initial statement. I found those browsing 3 threads in Spirit/Skeptic forum. And that was just during a follow-up to threads of interest.

The bottom line is, this is a free forum service, and as such is provided as is. If you are not happy about our signature size limitations or if you believe we are not removing over sized signatures fast enough then please by all means go elsewhere.

God's how I expected so much more than the weak; If you don't like it you can leave, retort!

For sure you may have noticed many members are doing just that. Leaving.

However what you may not be aware of is, even if they go elsewhere the issue remains on board as an example that while the rules may be posted, compliance and censure of violations, is not consistent. Which does little to allude to any notion that the rules are worthy of respect when they only apply to some, not to all. (the disrespect is evident in those that continue unabated, posting huge signatures) We can leave by the hundreds from this site, as long as that little discrepancy in Moderator oversight remains as an example on board it broadcasts an image of the policies and policing discrepancy that lends an indelible impression as it stands, of UM.

I like this site, that's why I mentioned the issue at all. If one does not like people bringing up their issues, perhaps one shouldn't have Moderators that lend cause to make them by their ....predisposition to "power" rather than fair policy.

Edited July 21, 2006 by Imaginary Friend