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Text signatures, one or two lines high, tops.  No images.

60 (15.3%)

Text signatures, 3-6 lines tall.  No images.

100 (25.5%)

Text signatures, 7-15 lines tall.  No images.

19 (4.8%)

Unrestricted text signatures.  No images.

15 (3.8%)

Text signatures, one or two lines high, tops.  Cap image height at ~60 pixels.

13 (3.3%)

Text signatures, 3-6 lines tall.  Cap image height at ~60 pixels.

67 (17.1%)

Text signatures, 7-15 lines tall.  Cap image height at ~60 pixels.

9 (2.3%)

Unrestricted text signatures.  Cap image height at ~60 pixels.

3 (0.8%)

Text signatures, one or two lines high, tops.  Cap image height at ~100 pixels.

3 (0.8%)

Text signatures, 3-6 lines tall.  Cap image height at ~100 pixels.

49 (12.5%)

Text signatures, 7-15 lines tall.  Cap image height at ~100 pixels.

18 (4.6%)

Unrestricted text signatures.  Cap image height at ~100 pixels.

3 (0.8%)

Text signatures, one or two lines high, tops.  Cap image height at ~150 pixels.

0 (0%)

Text signatures, 3-6 lines tall.  Cap image height at ~150 pixels.

7 (1.8%)

Text signatures, 7-15 lines tall.  Cap image height at ~150 pixels.

4 (1%)

Unrestricted text signatures.  Cap image height at ~150 pixels.

8 (2%)

Text signatures, one or two lines high, tops.  Images as big as the sky.

1 (0.3%)

Text signatures, 3-6 lines tall.  Images as big as the sky.

0 (0%)

Text signatures, 7-15 lines tall.  Images as big as the sky.

0 (0%)

Unrestricted text signatures.  Images as big as the sky.

13 (3.3%)

Total Members Voted: 392

[Mephansteras]

Question for Janus: Would it be possible to have settings on a per-forum basis?

Basically thinking of the stories one specifically. That forum would be especially hurt by large or distracting signatures, in my opinion. Much more then, say, General discussion.

[slMagnvox]

They are just distracting.  Noone wants commercial banner ads interspersed within their favorite forum, even if they are ads for our favorite companies.  They take up space, waste bandwidth and distract from reading the forum.  From an operational perspective, I can't really define a difference between commercial banner ads and sig image banners.

Shouldn't the conveying of information be the subject of our posts and not so much our signatures?

Think of the childrens!

Honestly, this line of attack doesn't even make sense.  "You shouldn't be allowed to communicate via a .sig.  You should only communicate via posts!"

Personally, I like to keep important links in my .sig.  That way, they're always available to me and a lot of posts on repetitive questions can be shortened to, "Yes - this works.  Check the link in my .sig for more information."

Information contained in a signature will by off topic to the thread by default.  Any important links and off topic information can be conveyed in 3-6 text.  If 3-6 lines of text is not enough, you should probably consider making a thread to convey that information, replete with images.  You could even make a text link to that thread and include it in your signature.

[Draco18s]

They ... waste bandwidth

If I'm not mistaken we've disproven that one multiple times.
The animated .gifs so far presented have been under 10 kb.

[Janus]

My apologies for getting into the argument, I let myself get a bit too annoyed. People who refuse to make even the slightest compromise for the sake of others tend to do that to me.
I known, I know, here I am still getting that last barb in... I will however not be continuing with the argument/discussion past this point, so feel free to lambast me.

Question for Janus: Would it be possible to have settings on a per-forum basis?

Basically thinking of the stories one specifically. That forum would be especially hurt by large or distracting signatures, in my opinion. Much more then, say, General discussion.

That would be a hell of a lot of work for miniscule gain. I currently have no intention to work further on the mod than I already have, anyway.
Here's what the mod will do. You will have an option in your profile to have images within signatures under posts completely stripped out before the data is even sent to your browser.
Note that the mod does not strip out signature images anywhere else, so you would still see them when viewing that person's profile or when viewing a PM sent to you by them. The signature images would only be stripped out beneath posts in the forum.

That's what the mod does and all I plan to have it do. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Skanky]

10 kb of useless data is still a waste, no?

Its a moot point though, considering we will have the option to disable viewing images in sigs and still see text, or turn sigs off altogether.

Damn you Janus! Such a sad waste of a good argument! 

[Derakon]

Damn you Janus! Such a sad waste of a good argument!

No it's not.

[slMagnvox]

My apologies for getting into the argument, I let myself get a bit too annoyed. People who refuse to make even the slightest compromise for the sake of others tend to do that to me.
I known, I know, here I am still getting that last barb in... I will however not be continuing with the argument/discussion past this point, so feel free to lambast me.

Was a good debate though.  Like I said in my first post in this topic, we're putting this to a vote so its good to get party lines clearly defined and well debated.

And while my viewpoint might strike you as selfish, I feel its kind of selfish for some to append a distracting and irrelevant animated .gif to every single one of their posts, serving me in no way but maybe making them feel some gratification.  Shall I reference Samuel L Jackson again?

Sure some are tasteful and responsible but I still feel its just a feature for feature's sake.  txt FTW

[Surma]

Yay! Thank you Janus for giving us options.

and re: useless data debate.
A forums is full of wasted data regardless (trolls, flames, this post, etc..) so that point is moot.

[Grek]

I've changed my vote now that it is possible to turn of sig images. There's not much of a point to disabling them if people that don't like images can just turn them off with the click of a button.

[Keiseth]

I've changed my vote now that it is possible to turn of sig images. There's not much of a point to disabling them if people that don't like images can just turn them off with the click of a button.

Same. Those with slow connections can disable signature images and everyone else can use AdBlock (or something with equivalent functionality) to block anything they dislike. Everybody wins! Hm, would it have been more fun if everyone lost?

[Slartibartfast]

1. People with bad connections should expect slow page loading.  Despite what you say, it is still their fault their connection is slow.

Because it is their fault they live in a remote location? Or that no ISP has the required infrastructure to supply them with high speed internet? Or because they can only afford to leech off of some free and slow wireless connection? Or whatever reason they have.

4. Its a distraction only if you let it be.  After the first time, you should know its there.  If not, then you need to work on self control and/or willpower.
12. Its only a distraction if you let it be one.
13. Oh, did I mention that its only a distraction if you let it be one?

Wrong all three times.
Human brains are wired to focus on motion and contrast and other things people would normally refer to as "eye catching". It's not even a conscious decision to look at those things, you have no choice in the matter, you will look there.
What you are saying is equivalent to "If you can't cause your heart to stop beating just by willing it to stop, then you need to work on your self control."

6. Forcing people to use ASCII art is not a good solution, especially if said people dont know how, or just suck at art in general (such as me).

If you suck so much at art maybe it's better for everyone (including you) if you don't post anything artistic in your signature?

(rest of the points have been "answered".
I mostly "had" to reply because of that #1.)

[Mikademus]

Well, this thread is over, then. 3-6 lines of text won.

[WingDing]

This whole discussion makes me angry. 

Now if you'll excuse me I'll be in the ANGRY DOME.


On a more serious note; stop with all the hostility and personal attacks! Seriously guys, you're making yourselves look bad and you're alienating all the moderates! How can we defeat the conservative menace if we're too busy fighting each other over petty issues like whether or not people can have the freedom to fill the forums with giant strobing neon signs!? 

[MaxVance]

Well, this thread is over, then. 3-6 lines of text won.

No way. The real issue here is whether or not we can have images in signatures. There are 136 votes for no images vs. 150 for images of any sort, so we win.

On a more serious note; stop with all the hostility and personal attacks! Seriously guys, you're making yourselves look bad and you're alienating all the moderates! How can we defeat the conservative menace if we're too busy fighting each other over petty issues like whether or not people can have the freedom to fill the forums with giant strobing neon signs!? 

I see I wasn't the only one thinking of LCS with this poll.

[Aquillion]

This is an excellent opportunity to learn a new skill, then. And again, if you want to show off some non-ASCII art you've made, you can make a dedicated post for it. It needn't be in your signature.

More relevantly, most forums I've seen that allow for images in signatures have had a lower level of discourse than those forums that don't allow for images in signatures. I've observed similar correlations with avatar size (larger avatars correlate with worse dialogue). I haven't demonstrated any kind of causal connection, but there's still concern that there is one. If nothing else, having images in signatures could drive away a subset of your audience (those who don't like images in sigs) while I think it comparatively unlikely that someone will leave the forum because they couldn't have an image in their sig.

Covering both in one fowl swoop:

No one uses a signature as an online gallery.
For example, on a rather serious-minded forum where there are no limits on sig size most are within the limits presented by this thread's poll (not counting "as large as the sky"), here's one of them:


Then three lines, one saying that the website that the image links to is back up, a second linking to DeviantArt, and a third, a quote from Baruch Spinoza.

Serpenthor is one of the most intelligent and serious people I know.  Another is Vellos, here's his sig:


Webpage  Drawing

PEOPLE DO NOT USE SIGS TO DISPLAY NEW ART.  People generally take OLD images and crop them in tight, then add some simple text (usually their name) and then link it to a personal webpage.

On this forum we can expect people to link to a story thread ([insert image saying, "Boatmurdered!" with picture of a shipwreck]) or links to mods (probably raw text), links to graphical sets as an image of part of the graphic tile set.  How gorram cool would that be?  To use a tileset to advertise the tileset!  You knew what it looked like--at least partially--before clicking on it!

Both of those sigs seem absolutely loathesome to me.  Banner ads in your sig?  That should be an autoban.  I don't come to the forum to see a pageful of repeated banner ads for people's websites or blogs or MyMiniCity or whatever; certainly nobody would seriously suggest that people should be allowed to post the same banner ad for their website multiple times in the same thread, whether it's part of their 'sig' or not.  If you want to tell people about your website, you can use a text link or start a thread devoted to it; wanting to be able to plaster a banner ad at the bottom of every post you make is unreasonable.

Making it possible for people to disable images in sigs is not really a good solution in my mind.  It isn't good for people to see radically different things when they look at the forum...  it can make for confusing discussions.

And, finally, I'll be blunt:  I don't want this to become the sort of forum where the presence of a banner ad in a post is considered acceptable.  I am moderately disappointed that discussions went on this long, and would probably prefer a plugin that not only concealed the images from sigs, but concealed the posts of anyone who uses an image signature entirely.

I don't just want to prevent people from smearing banner ads over the forum; I want the people who would insist on doing that to go away.