Omnimaga

Omnimaga => Site Feedback and Questions => Topic started by: Eeems on July 26, 2013, 03:23:24 pm

Title: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Eeems on July 26, 2013, 03:23:24 pm
In light of how ridiculously large some peoples signatures are becoming the admins have decided to start enforcing limits on the size and content of a signature.

We would also like to request that people only have relevant content in their signatures.

The list is not formally in the rules yet, but we will be enforcing them as such. A more definite version of the rules will be added to the rules page soon.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Juju on July 26, 2013, 03:26:55 pm
But spoiler tags are useful!
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Sorunome on July 26, 2013, 03:28:02 pm
^agreed. Maybe as long as there is text-only in spoiler tags to prevent tons of image loading in the bg?
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 26, 2013, 03:33:06 pm
By relevant content, does it means that anything such as MLP, Youtube and Facebook links will no longer be allowed at all or is it just some sort of recommendation? Some links in my sig leads to various music places of mine and some members might have personal sites like juju with julosoft.

As for Spoiler I didn't mind 1 spoiler but the issue is that they are used to circumvent the overly large signature height that would result otherwise. Also, another issue is that some spoilers were misused then actually took more space than their content, eg stuff like this:

Quote
THE GAME

Compared to the much larger
Quote
Spoiler For Spoiler:
THE GAME

Notice, for example, how many images, links and content I could cram in my signature, yet it's still small? Using spoilers to hide the 2nd line of text would actually make my sig increase in height. And if I really want to say THE GAME I can put it right next to the Bandcamp, Reuben or Illusiat banners and it won't even take an extra line of text.


There should be a rule on large avatars as well, though, because when someone converts the entire rickroll video (or that old classic Flash animation showing a stick guy having a rage fit) in GIF then use it as his avatar, some members use 10% of their monthly bandwidth just by loading it.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Juju on July 26, 2013, 03:34:25 pm
Yeah, the implications of that rule should be researched more throughoutly.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Eeems on July 26, 2013, 03:37:40 pm
By relevant content, does it means that anything such as MLP, Youtube and Facebook links will no longer be allowed at all or is it just some sort of recommendation? Some links in my sig leads to various music places of mine and some members might have personal sites like juju with julosoft.
That is a request not a rule. Use your own discretion as to what is relevant or not.
Quote

As for Spoiler I didn't mind 1 spoiler but the issue is that they are used to circumvent the overly large signature height that would result otherwise. Also, another issue is that some spoilers actually took more space than their content, eg stuff like this:

Quote
THE GAME

Compared to the much larger
Quote
Spoiler For Spoiler:
THE GAME

There should be a rule on large avatars as well, though, because when someone converts the entire rickroll video (or that old classic Flash animation showing a stick guy having a rage fit) in GIF then use it as his avatar, some members use 10% of their monthly bandwidth just by loading it.
There is an unwritten rule about the avatars. That is also part of proper netiquette.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: XiiDraco on July 26, 2013, 03:38:41 pm
There should be a rule on large avatars as well, though, because when someone converts the entire rickroll video (or that old classic Flash animation showing a stick guy having a rage fit) in GIF then use it as his avatar, some members use 10% of their monthly bandwidth just by loading it.

8 |    Yeah, when school is in, I use the library computers (or my laptop, which sucks), to go on omnimaga during my free period ((Online german) usually completed in only a week).
Point being, whenever I use it and I load another page, I'm almost reassured that there is going to be a gif on the page. >_< With my schools internet, I then spend the next 10-20 minutes trying to scroll past the gif. XD
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Spyro543 on July 26, 2013, 03:43:17 pm
In case anyone is wondering this is 800 by 200 pixels:

(http://i.imgur.com/vxEgTUi.png)
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 26, 2013, 03:46:13 pm
Indeed. THe main issue though is that I always found enforcing strict avatar rules very hard when I was admin, because as soon as you delete someone's avatar, there is another one popping up on someone else's account, among the hundreds of members we got. There are just too many accounts to monitor, so the only real way to enforce it is if members cooperate then report a post, saying the avatar is too big in file size, or if a moderator with a slow connection runs into such avatar then he can remove it.

Of course, if it was possible for SMF to check the size of off-site avatars, not just uploaded ones, then it could be handy, but then the user can just use the trick of linking to a small avatar then replacing the off-site image with a much larger one. IIRC the limit for uploaded avatars is 25 or 50 KB.
In case anyone is wondering this is 800 by 200 pixels:

(http://i.imgur.com/WKkj6aL.png)
This is an example of disturbing signature. If someone uses that large red pic as their signature, I doubt that it will remain for long.

Just kidding, I know what you mean. :P
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Darl181 on July 26, 2013, 03:50:41 pm
Personally not 100% on the spoiler part, but judging by the past few months I can see where it's coming from.
Looking good :)
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 26, 2013, 03:58:38 pm
If I had more time, I would have used a Reuben Quest userbar for much longer. I already had an Illusiat one but it might have just been for the 13th game. I stopped doing so with my music, though, because it took way too many chars and was confusing to edit.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: AssemblyBandit on July 26, 2013, 04:28:35 pm
Spoilers are what my signature is made of! I guess I could change it, I still never found out how to make it say 'spoiler for' whatever.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 26, 2013, 04:30:24 pm
Due to having Flash material (Youtube), it might be best to replace them with links actually. iOS and Android don't support Flash I think anyway.


EDIT Also note that the new sig rules are far less restrictive than any other calc forum. :P I think since 2006 on MaxCoderz and on Cemetech, images can't be higher than 50 pixels in height or something and there were even forums where images used to be disabled entirely. The goal is most likely to ensure that sigs are not as large as posts. :P

Of course for people who still find the new rules not strict enough, there is always the Disable Signatures option in your control panel.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: AssemblyBandit on July 26, 2013, 04:47:53 pm
I like being able to see other peoples blogs, projects, and project updates, but I think 800x200 might be a little overdoing it! My new sig will be something like Darl181's. I really don't need the videos, though they were nice when the apps first came out (I hope).
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Scipi on July 26, 2013, 04:53:27 pm
I'm a bit dubious on the Spoiler one, since when used as, say, my signature, it greatly shortens and organizes my sig while still be able to show what I wish to, to those whom are interested.

I think, since due to the nature of these rules one of the things you are trying to do is prevent too distracting of signatures, the dimensions of the signature with all spoilers closed shouldn't exceed the stated dimensions, but the spoilers themselves can exceed when opened. That way, members who are interested in seeing the signature and spoiler are able to do so, while those who are not won't be distracted.

I agree with all the other rules though. I went ahead and removed my "Historical Formations" spoiler under Interests, since it contained several rather large images.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 26, 2013, 04:59:28 pm
The problem with spoilers is that some people abuse them too much. For example, juju's signature didn't even fit in my screen when completely expanded and that's with a 1920x1080 resolution. It would be fine to reduce the size of some text, though. Maybe allow 1 spoiler maximum and only allow text and links in it?
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Juju on July 26, 2013, 06:28:46 pm
Well, personally, I don't really mind it's really long when expanded, all I care is the length when not expanded.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: AssemblyBandit on July 26, 2013, 07:01:54 pm
My new signature! All it does is link to my blog, I was going to have it go to the seperate pages, at least its short.
Title: Re: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 26, 2013, 07:15:45 pm
On a semi related note, anyone here remembers Randomist's signature in 2006 or so? O.O

Basically he just wrote his nickname (which was PyroXP or something at the time) using smileys and the background surrounding the text was made of that flashy :hyper: emoticon :X

There was also the episode with signature chatrooms, where there was a site letting you create shoutboxes that showed up in a JPG or PNG then display it in sigs. Some Omni haters at the time used them to circumvent Omni rules by trolling in those chatrooms instead of the forums. O.O
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Sorunome on July 26, 2013, 07:17:36 pm
BTW, why do wee need a sig policy all of a sudden, it worked fine for years without......and then this one is a very drastic one in comparison.
Title: Re: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 26, 2013, 07:20:44 pm
Some members complained about large sigs and some sigs just became overly large I guess
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: shmibs on July 26, 2013, 08:03:33 pm
that, and page loading times have been getting progressively worse and worse recently because people keep piling more and more things into their signatures
Title: Re: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 26, 2013, 09:38:57 pm
Also with large sigs, Omni had a reputation of spam site among some older community members and the large sigs turned some people away.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Hayleia on July 27, 2013, 02:26:26 am
Erm, I need some explanations there.

  • They will not have animated images of over 15 frames
This one is annoying me for my Pokemon Topaze userbar. I guess this is a measure to avoid long loading times, but then, it is more a question of size than a question of frames isn't it ? and since my screenshot is 96x64 pixels, in only two colors, it is "only" 180 KB, which is "only" half the size of DJ_O's bandcamp image. Moreover, my image is hosted on Omnimaga so I guess it doesn't take additionnal time looking for the hosting site. So do I have to change it ?

  • Animated images must not be too "loud"
For this one, I need a plain explanation, not about "why" but about "what". I don't get what you mean (English is not my native language).
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 27, 2013, 02:30:32 am
Erm, I need some explanations there.

  • They will not have animated images of over 15 frames
This one is annoying me for my Pokemon Topaze userbar. I guess this is a measure to avoid long loading times, but then, it is more a question of size than a question of frames isn't it ? and since my screenshot is 96x64 pixels, in only two colors, it is "only" 180 KB, which is "only" half the size of DJ_O's bandcamp image.
It's actually the same size ??? (My image is 90 KB large and yours 95). Btw is Pokemon Topaze 27 FPS? Maybe redo a 9 FPS screenie if that's the case.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Hayleia on July 27, 2013, 03:59:11 am
Erm, I need some explanations there.

  • They will not have animated images of over 15 frames
This one is annoying me for my Pokemon Topaze userbar. I guess this is a measure to avoid long loading times, but then, it is more a question of size than a question of frames isn't it ? and since my screenshot is 96x64 pixels, in only two colors, it is "only" 180 KB, which is "only" half the size of DJ_O's bandcamp image.
It's actually the same size ??? (My image is 90 KB large and yours 95). Btw is Pokemon Topaze 27 FPS? Maybe redo a 9 FPS screenie if that's the case.
Weird, mine displays "180 Ko" on my computer.

Anyway, changing some Wabbitemu settings as you said (FPS, shades) , I managed to have a 55 KB gif (maybe smaller if my PC is lying as it was with the other gif), which is smaller than some static images found in other's signatures. So is the limitation about frames or about size ?
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 27, 2013, 04:14:57 am
I think they limit frames to ensure that screenshots are as small as possible, but I guess it depends of the content and actual file size too. The rules are not 100% official so they are subject to changes.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Sorunome on July 27, 2013, 06:43:38 am
yeah, IMO gif rules shouldn't be over frames but over total file size and over noisyness of cource :)
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: TIfanx1999 on July 27, 2013, 08:57:26 am
Here are my thoughts on the changes so far:

Size: 800x200
This isn't too bad, but could perhaps be a slight bit taller.

Animated gif frame limit 15:

Not really sure as I don't use animated gifs that much. Might be a bit low? *The gif in Hayleia's sig is an example of a gif that I think is fine, but likely contains more than 15 frames.

Animated gifs must not be to loud:

This is fine, totally agree. For our non-english natives, this means they must not be to distracting or obnoxious.

Signatures will not contain spoiler tags:

I understand, because this allows people to circumvent the size rule. Also, I've seen some people with spoiler tags within a spoiler in their sig with further nested spoilers. It gets a bit ridiculous. If you feel the need to have that much in your sig, you probably have too much. Userbars can also be quite helpful to save some space.

*Should contain relevant content:

We are primarily a programming/tech oriented website that also has some music creation. That would be what is relevant to Omni. However, I would say things relevant to your interests are ok as well as long as you don't go overboard with it. If you like MLP or Minecraft or whatever, I think a small nod to them in your sig would be fine.


Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Eeems on July 27, 2013, 02:51:10 pm
*Should contain relevant content:

We are primarily a programming/tech oriented website that also has some music creation. That would be what is relevant to Omni. However, I would say things relevant to your interests are ok as well as long as you don't go overboard with it. If you like MLP or Minecraft or whatever, I think a small nod to them in your sig would be fine.
Does nobody read the word request in the post? I even bolded it. Relevant content is not a rule it is a request.
Size: 800x200
This isn't too bad, but could perhaps be a slight bit taller.
Actually the current thought is to make it smaller. That size is almost the size of a post with very little content. If the signature takes up that much space then too much of the topic is filled with excess and people have to sift through to get to the actual content. Albeit it is not as bad as before, but it is still going to be a bit much.
Quote
Animated gif frame limit 15:

Not really sure as I don't use animated gifs that much. Might be a bit low? *The gif in Hayleia's sig is an example of a gif that I think is fine, but likely contains more than 15 frames.
We are thinking about not allowing GIF's in signatures. The reasoning isn't about load times its about some browsers having a lot of trouble with rendering lots of GIF's at once.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: TIfanx1999 on July 27, 2013, 03:20:33 pm
@Eeems: Yes I did realize it said request, even if I didn't separate it from my reaction to the actual rules. That's why it's got an "*", but I suppose I could have made it clearer. "Relevant" is rather vague in the context you gave so I felt the need to explain.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 27, 2013, 04:37:07 pm
On an off-topic note, the /me command and red text looks really bad in quotes O.O

Also @Eeems, do you think for animated GIFs there could be an exception for Z80 and monochrome Casio calc screenshots, providing they are less than 50 KB? This used to be a common practice on older calc forums way back in 2003-05, but this changed after some sites added stricter signature rules and due to how hard it is to make a small animated GIF with WabbitEmu compared to CalcCapture (since it allowed 4-5 FPS capture). I usually just used a still pic, though.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: lkj on July 27, 2013, 07:38:07 pm
Actually the current thought is to make it smaller. That size is almost the size of a post with very little content. If the signature takes up that much space then too much of the topic is filled with excess and people have to sift through to get to the actual content. Albeit it is not as bad as before, but it is still going to be a bit much.
Looking at the average size of posts, a smaller sig than 800x200 would just create more empty space because of the info about the poster on the left of the post content, which is much taller than a short post. A small post still fills over half of the height of my browser window. You could say my screen is too small, but on (most) other forums (calc example: cemetech) three to four short posts fit on it.
If you want to waste less space with not-so-relevant things, you should think about doing a redesign of that part too, for example showing more of those things only in the profile that shows up when you click on the username.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Levak on July 27, 2013, 07:46:25 pm
Also @Eeems, do you think for animated GIFs there could be an exception for Z80 and monochrome Casio calc screenshots
My modern laptop (that has an i7) activates its fan when browsing on some omnimaga topics because of animated GIFs in sigs.
On other pages where said signatures are not present it is fine. Why would we bother consume such power to browse on unrelated topics ?
Obviously, if there is only one or two animated GIFs (which was the case in the said "back in 2003" forums), my CPU is fine, but what would prevent all other people to put animated GIFs if one has the right to ? Either limit their usage or simply forbid them.
Just put a static image with a link to your project and fill your project topic with these animated GIFs.
As I said in the other topic,  your sig is not your portfolio, you can quickly describe your hobbies with a single sentence, you can put a link to a topic describing all your projects, you also can put other links related to yourself and on what your love doing, not on what you did, it should be static in time.
Why not ? Regarding some sig, it looks like it has become an area to prove you have the most beautiful projects or the most enormous sig. Sorry to say that but it is a stupid way of mind. The sig is not for your promotion, it is for people wanting to know more about you, to identifying you easier, to understand if, without knowing you, your post can be trusted for sure.
I hope this little more detail on what a sig is according to the netiquette (without talking about limitation) has opened your mind.

On the other hand, Admins are talking of drastic limitations, most because a lot of people abused of the sig concept and its advantages to be present in every single post they make.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 27, 2013, 08:52:19 pm
As I said in the other topic,  your sig is not your portfolio, you can quickly describe your hobbies with a single sentence, you can put a link to a topic describing all your projects, you also can put other links related to yourself and on what your love doing, not on what you did, it should be static in time.
Why not ? Regarding some sig, it looks like it has become an area to prove you have the most beautiful projects or the most enormous sig. Sorry to say that but it is a stupid way of mind. The sig is not for your promotion, it is for people wanting to know more about you, to identifying you easier, to understand if, without knowing you, your post can be trusted for sure.
I hope this little more detail on what a sig is according to the netiquette (without talking about limitation) has opened your mind.
First, just to make it clear, what you just said here is your opinion, not facts, so 1) I doubt it's the official netiquette (every forum can apply their own rules) and 2) you should have said something like "I think it's a stupid way of mind" rather than "It's a stupid way of mind". Don't try to force everyone here to switch from their mentality to yours. [FRENCH] S.V.P arrête d'essayer de forcer tout le monde sur Omnimaga à se conformer à ta mentalité. Aussi tu as le droit de dire ton opinion, mais nous avons le droit de dire la nôtre aussi sans se faire dire qu'on est stupide de penser comme ça.


Also @Eeems, do you think for animated GIFs there could be an exception for Z80 and monochrome Casio calc screenshots
My modern laptop (that has an i7) activates its fan when browsing on some omnimaga topics because of animated GIFs in sigs.
On other pages where said signatures are not present it is fine. Why would we bother consume such power to browse on unrelated topics ?
Obviously, if there is only one or two animated GIFs (which was the case in the said "back in 2003" forums), my CPU is fine, but what would prevent all other people to put animated GIFs if one has the right to ? Either limit their usage or simply forbid them.
Quote
providing they are less than 50 KB?
Also on MaxCoderz, Casiocalc.org, Omni and Epic Studios, my Pentium II 350 MHz running Windows XP could go through hordes of Metroid, MLC, XXR and Reuben Quest animated GIFs pretty fine. It was a little choppy during scrolling, but not bad enough to make my CPU overheat or stuff like that. Of course the screenshots were much smaller back then, which is why I suggested a strict limit on amount and size. However I like your idea of just using a static screenshot that links to a screenshots thread.


As I said in the other topic,  your sig is not your portfolio, you can quickly describe your hobbies with a single sentence, you can put a link to a topic describing all your projects, you also can put other links related to yourself and on what your love doing, not on what you did, it should be static in time.
Why not ? Regarding some sig, it looks like it has become an area to prove you have the most beautiful projects or the most enormous sig. Sorry to say that but it is a stupid way of mind. The sig is not for your promotion, it is for people wanting to know more about you, to identifying you easier, to understand if, without knowing you, your post can be trusted for sure.
I hope this little more detail on what a sig is according to the netiquette (without talking about limitation) has opened your mind.

I agree about the portfolio part and hobbies description part and I wish that some people who shrank down their sig had not removed the projects from them. I'm fine with a project list and links, though.

I disagree with the rest, though. As I said earlier you have your opinion but I have mine and none is superior to the other. Just so you know, most forums disallow creating topics for the sole purpose of advertising your own site or selling stuff, except in your signature. In fact, some forums even encourages users to put their personal sites and stuff in their sig just so people won't start signing up just to spam. Omnimaga has similar rules as well. Besides, I find it ironic that you say that sigs are not for promotion, when you're actually using your site for it (links to 3 sites). IMHO it's fine to use part of your sig for that, since it's discrete.

In case you didn't know, all the profits of my music sales are donated to Omnimaga so that they can afford the next hosting bill and contest prizes. If sigs were really not for promotion and I stopped advertising my music in all forum sigs, then maybe Omni wouldn't even be online anymore today. And on my Bandcamp traffic stats page, a lot of visitors came through Omnimaga topics.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Levak on July 27, 2013, 10:14:47 pm
Regarding some sig, it looks like it has become an area to prove you have the most beautiful projects or the most enormous sig. Sorry to say that but it is a stupid way of mind.
First, just to make it clear, what you just said here is your opinion, not facts [...] you should have said something like "I think it's a stupid way of mind" rather than "It's a stupid way of mind". Don't try to force everyone here to switch from their mentality to yours.
So, if my english is not crap, what I understand is that you encourage people to prove they have the most beautiful projects using the most enormous sig ?
What I wanted to underline is the contrary of the latter, and I did not thought there were any argument in favor of it, but, if there is, pardon me, of course you can think what you want, I just think it is a stupid way of mind.

Quote
Besides, I find it ironic that you say that sigs are not for promotion, when you're actually using your site for it (links to 3 sites). IMHO it's fine to use part of your sig for that, since it's discrete.
I am just saying by these 3 links that I am the co-administrator of TI-Planet and Inspired-Lua. This helps peoples that do not know me but TI-Planet or Inspired-Lua to understand who I am, not what I've done. If I link my personal website, it is to remove every single gorgeous links to all my projects or my creations. Thus, I do not find this ironic at all.

Quote
In case you didn't know, all the profits of my music sales are donated to Omnimaga so that they can afford the next hosting bill and contest prizes. If sigs were really not for promotion and I stopped advertising my music in all forum sigs, then maybe Omni wouldn't even be online anymore today. And on my Bandcamp traffic stats page, a lot of visitors came through Omnimaga topics.
Maybe you took the "your sig is not your portfolio" from my post to a personal attack, and it was not.
I was speaking to people reading my post in a general way, that may have been a bad English written part, sorry.

If I had to comment on your sig, I would only say that the "Reuben Quest Illusiat" is completly offset and may be removed. Of course I do not know what it is and what it represents and you may interpret what you want from this : Why not a reduce it or even make it a text-link ?
On the other hand, the upper part of you sig is completely homogeneous and I have nothing to say on its content since it does not disturb my topic walk-through.
Anyway, you absolutely do not own the worst sig, your sig even could be an example for some people...
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 27, 2013, 10:43:25 pm
Nope, I never said that I encourage people to have enormous sigs. My opinion is that we shouldn't force people to resort to text-only sigs nor disallow them to showcase any of their project/website. Just because I disagree with your opinion doesn't mean I encourage the total opposite. In fact I feel the new signature rules are a good idea. I'm just not annoyed about the sigs *as much* as you are and would personally not have made as much a huge thing about it nor tried to force others to think my way.

Quote
Besides, I find it ironic that you say that sigs are not for promotion, when you're actually using your site for it (links to 3 sites). IMHO it's fine to use part of your sig for that, since it's discrete.
I am just saying by these 3 links that I am the co-administrator of TI-Planet and Inspired-Lua. This helps peoples that do not know me but TI-Planet or Inspired-Lua to understand who I am, not what I've done. If I link my personal website, it is to remove every single gorgeous links to all my projects or my creations. Thus, I do not find this ironic at all.
Well it's still (unintentional?) promotion in some ways, so if you have these 3 links there, then other members should be allowed to link to sites too. Otherwise it's a double-standard. By the way I think the links are fine.

Quote
In case you didn't know, all the profits of my music sales are donated to Omnimaga so that they can afford the next hosting bill and contest prizes. If sigs were really not for promotion and I stopped advertising my music in all forum sigs, then maybe Omni wouldn't even be online anymore today. And on my Bandcamp traffic stats page, a lot of visitors came through Omnimaga topics.
Maybe you took the "your sig is not your portfolio" from my post to a personal attack, and it was not.
I was speaking to people reading my post in a general way, that may have been a bad English written part, sorry.
Not really a personal attack, I just thought you wanted every single member (including myself) on this forum to never ever post their own sites in their sig again, regardless of the reason, and I disagreed (to a certain extent) with that and specified my music example.

If I had to comment on your sig, I would only say that the "Reuben Quest Illusiat" is completly offset and may be removed. Of course I do not know what it is and what it represents and you may interpret what you want from this : Why not a reduce it or even make it a text-link ?
On the other hand, the upper part of you sig is completely homogeneous and I have nothing to say on its content since it does not disturb my topic walk-through.
Anyway, you absolutely do not own the worst sig, your sig even could be an example for some people...
So my sig is the second worst one?? O.O

Just kidding :P  Reuben Quest: Ev Awakening was not only the first 84+ grayscale RPG ever made in existence (and the second 83+ grayscale game overall), but it achieved that feat in hybrid BASIC before xLIB APP even existed. The entire Reuben series made ticalc.org front page in 2004-2005 and GamesRadar in 2009. Illusiat is a series of 13 RPGs and remakes that came out in 2001-2002 but only gained in popularity in 2009 because of their retro factor and ASCII animations (perhaps the TI-81 port of Illusiat also brought more attention to the rest of the series). Now there are people who want to create Axe Parser remakes of some games in the series and Sorunome hosts two sites about the games.

Personally I was not gonna include the two logos in my sig, but Sorunome kept insisting every few hour so that I do. It was supposed to be userbars, but I had none and never felt like making them >.< . I want my sig to look nice, but while keeping it as small as possible (and hoping that people take example by shrinking down their sigs). :P
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: AssemblyBandit on July 27, 2013, 11:02:31 pm
I am definitely in favor of people displaying their projects in their sig, and pictures (especially gifs) draw my attention to them a lot more than just a name and a link. Sigs should be all about promotion and representing the member. They also make the pages a lot more colorful, fun, and personal. Who wants a boring text only forum? (not mentioned in this topic, just worst case senario) Out of all the forums out there, I am here the most. Not necessarily because of the unique sigs, but they do help to set the atmosphere.

DJ: There's nothing wrong with your signature, I think it looks professional.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Xeda112358 on July 27, 2013, 11:20:12 pm
I agree with AssemblyBandit, but I still cleaned up my signature some.

I definitely think spoilers are beneficial for keeping signatures compact, too. For example, if I decided to link to the other 100+ projects I have worked on and completed, I would want them in a spoiler :P I don't think they would all fit, though, since the size limitation was set to 3000 characters instead of 10000 >.>

I also want to say in response to a previous post that my 1.6GHz computer that is three or four years old has never had trouble with heat issues loading pages. The only time my fan comes on is when Windows Update decides to update the .NET framework, when I run a virus scan, when I press F1, or when I am doing something else that eats my CPU. Maybe your ventilation is being blocked? Speaking of which, I haven't cleaned my fan in the past year >.>
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: TIfanx1999 on July 28, 2013, 12:19:08 am
I am definitely in favor of people displaying their projects in their sig, and pictures (especially gifs) draw my attention to them a lot more than just a name and a link. Sigs should be all about promotion and representing the member. They also make the pages a lot more colorful, fun, and personal. Who wants a boring text only forum? (not mentioned in this topic, just worst case senario) Out of all the forums out there, I am here the most. Not necessarily because of the unique sigs, but they do help to set the atmosphere.

DJ: There's nothing wrong with your signature, I think it looks professional.

This pretty much sums up how I feel. I do think the idea of adding some restrictions is good to keep signatures from getting out of hand. However, I dont think they should be so restricted that you cant use them for much of anything. I'm sure we will be able to find a good balance.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 28, 2013, 12:39:09 am
Also I want to point out that regardless of the sig rules that are chosen, Omnimaga will not be able to please everyone.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Levak on July 28, 2013, 01:48:03 am
Humm, there are some misunderstandings of my posts, I would say.

My opinion is that we shouldn't force people to resort to text-only sigs
Where have I said that ? The initial "complain" was about animated gifs that disturb reading and slow down the display (and "activates the fan of my laptop", not "overheat"). Plus spoilers in sigs that margin a lot more than a simple text and is abused to hide tons of useless content (in general, don't make me say what I did not).
I was also reminding, that according to the usage and good-practices (also called netiquette for the net) sigs is neither a portfolio nor a junk but a place to identify the poster. Obviously, I am wrong since this does not apply to forum where there is a left describing part. Good point.
However, it could be a really good idea not to think the contrary. I recognize that saying my opinion as such may display me as a pure troll in order to return to text-only sigs, but honestly, all started with some abuses in some people sigs : I only wanted to reopen the debates of what a sig really is. It appears, contrary to my thoughts, that people to not own a place to expose their projects and removing them from their sig would hurt them.
My message is : "make it as homogeneous as possible and think of any readers that cares more about the topic than your sig".


Quote
I'm just not annoyed about the sigs *as much* as you are and would personally not have made as much a huge thing about it nor tried to force others to think my way.
Honestly, I have been reading omnimaga for a long time now (~2y) and saw the sig evolution going worse and worse. I did not had the time to express myself on the topic due to a lot of school projects going on. Now I have some time to discuss, I did it, but it's hard to maintain a constant flow acceptable for the readers. You may have thought my reaction was oversized maybe because of my long silence time.

Quote
Quote
Besides, I find it ironic that you say that sigs are not for promotion, when you're actually using your site for it (links to 3 sites). IMHO it's fine to use part of your sig for that, since it's discrete.
I am just saying by these 3 links that I am the co-administrator of TI-Planet and Inspired-Lua. This helps peoples that do not know me but TI-Planet or Inspired-Lua to understand who I am, not what I've done. If I link my personal website, it is to remove every single gorgeous links to all my projects or my creations. Thus, I do not find this ironic at all.
Well it's still (unintentional?) promotion in some ways, so if you have these 3 links there, then other members should be allowed to link to sites too. Otherwise it's a double-standard. By the way I think the links are fine.
You're taking my words too literally ; Of course it's an advertisement for TI-Planet ! Anyway ...

Next person :

I am definitely in favor of people displaying their projects in their sig, and pictures (especially gifs) draw my attention to them a lot more than just a name and a link. Sigs should be all about promotion and representing the member.
For sure, I just don't like the way peoples abuse of it making their sig 10x taller than the topic itself, thus, I was reminding what a sig was (for example in emails or back in 90' text-only forums). This helps to contrast between the abuses and this "picture". It also helps to describe new limitations face to those abuses.

Quote
They also make the pages a lot more colorful, fun, and personal. [...] Not necessarily because of the unique sigs, but they do help to set the atmosphere.
It creates an atmosphere and I'm not the one who will disagree, but as I said the main reason this discussion exists is because of abuses.
At first I only examined the abuses and it appeared that a good part of the loss of space was to list all the made projects using a lot of animated gifs.
Regarding the sig I do not mind, indeed, there are promotions of projects, but made cleverly, and with care of the reader.

Next :

I definitely think spoilers are beneficial for keeping signatures compact, too. For example, if I decided to link to the other 100+ projects I have worked on and completed, I would want them in a spoiler :P
The spoiler acts like a link to a topic listing your projects. Having spoiler made certain person want to create that topic inside of their sig.
Spoilers are indeed a good idea to collapse the sig (in order to silence people like me), but as said above, abuses of this concept broke the line of trust : at first it was a single spoiler, then spoilers of spoilers, then an entire page that would not fit in a 24" screen...). Since it is not only one sig affected, what would you do ?

Quote
I also want to say in response to a previous post that my 1.6GHz computer that is three or four years old has never had trouble with heat issues loading pages. Maybe your ventilation is being blocked?
Activating the fan is not only a source of heat, but also a source of throttle the CPU (or GPU) has to run in order to prevent the heat.
Modern browsers optimize the areas to re-render, but it became insane facing animated GIF all over the page with different framerates and sizes.
As I said in the post you're referring, I did not encounter this behavior on every pages, just pages where said people had posted consecutively.


End : feel free to hate me after this long post.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 28, 2013, 02:22:35 am
Ah ok thanks for the clarification Levak. I wasn't sure if you wanted sigs to really be as limited as possible at first, but it appears to not be the case. I understand your concerns about the recent abuse. As for why I might have been worried at your topic it might have been due to the short amount of time that elapsed between our recent misunderstandings and the sig topic. Also the topic title was a bit misleading since it said ponies instead of GIF abuse.
saw the sig evolution going worse and worse

I agree, and I'm glad you weren't here in July 2006. That psychedelic smiley art (http://ourl.ca/6141/355726) still holds the record for most annoying sig on a calc forum. O.O
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: AssemblyBandit on July 28, 2013, 02:37:57 am
Levak: I don't think anyone is going to "hate" you over your opinion! I think its a good thing that you brought it up to keep the signatures in check. I realized that I really didn't need two videos in my signature :) I also realized that not everyone has the fastest internet speed (especially after looking through the post your speed topic) and crazy sigs might really get annoying! I remember when I had to use my cell phone to connect to the internet. No 3g, just my iden phone plugged into my computer and I only had close to dial up speeds, images were not an option :(
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: TIfanx1999 on July 28, 2013, 03:05:50 am
@Levak:I actually appreciate the explanation. Thanks. I understand more where you're comming from now. :)
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on July 28, 2013, 03:20:37 am
Levak: I don't think anyone is going to "hate" you over your opinion! I think its a good thing that you brought it up to keep the signatures in check. I realized that I really didn't need two videos in my signature :) I also realized that not everyone has the fastest internet speed (especially after looking through the post your speed topic) and crazy sigs might really get annoying! I remember when I had to use my cell phone to connect to the internet. No 3g, just my iden phone plugged into my computer and I only had close to dial up speeds, images were not an option :(
Yeah I'm glad on my phone I have Tapatalk, because when I use the city bus, other public wi-fi or am not close to the computer things are slow otherwise. I can't download attachments from Tapatalk, though. (It does nothing). GIFs are usually fine but anything with javascript and AJAX just slows down insanely.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Streetwalrus on July 28, 2013, 05:19:47 am
Wow this topic is already 4 pages ! O.O I'm too lazy to read through it but hopefully my cleaner sig is OK now. I also made my avatar static (and compressed) because some people complained about hypnotization. :P

Spoiler For Totally off topic:
Also not really the place but 777 posts ! :w00t:
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Sorunome on July 28, 2013, 07:02:26 am
yep, your sig is ok :D
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 01, 2014, 03:49:53 pm
Question: On the new board, would some sort of AJAX spoiler tags be feasible, so that the spoiler content doesn't load until expanded?

I also wonder if sig lenght and file size detection would be hard to implement when people change their sig (although file size detection would be easy to circumvent, as the user could upload an 1 KB GIF somewhere then once the sig is edited, replace it with a much larger one)? That way you could get rid of scrollbars, which can be a little annoying when scrolling through pages using a mousewheel.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: Eeems on March 01, 2014, 04:43:32 pm
Question: On the new board, would some sort of AJAX spoiler tags be feasible, so that the spoiler content doesn't load until expanded?

I also wonder if sig lenght and file size detection would be hard to implement when people change their sig (although file size detection would be easy to circumvent, as the user could upload an 1 KB GIF somewhere then once the sig is edited, replace it with a much larger one)? That way you could get rid of scrollbars, which can be a little annoying when scrolling through pages using a mousewheel.
Possibly. Not on the plans right now though.
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: flyingfisch on March 01, 2014, 11:21:05 pm
There was also the episode with signature chatrooms, where there was a site letting you create shoutboxes that showed up in a JPG or PNG then display it in sigs. Some Omni haters at the time used them to circumvent Omni rules by trolling in those chatrooms instead of the forums. O.O

How would those work? Could you show me an example?
Title: Re: New Signature Limitations
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 01, 2014, 11:42:09 pm
Basically, you created a shoutbox on some random site (sigchat I think) and it was possible to view a screenshot of the chat as an image. Think of if Omnimaga allowed users to embed OmnomIRC in their sigs, but in read-only mode and only updating on page refresh. All you did was using IMG tags to put it in a forum sig