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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

[Kagus]

That would be putting breathing holes in an android, JT's talking about personality.

[Aquillion]

My queston is, who voted for this?

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

...someone offended by the sight of text?

[JT]

You need to get our more Because, you know, in the real world, people don't care about appearances and everyone's main interest is the ventilation of complex intellectual constructs.

Most people don't go around with nametags.

[MaxVance]

My queston is, who voted for this?

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

...someone offended by the sight of text?

Probably someone trying to make fun of this entire poll.

[Wooty]

I would imagine it was people who really didn't see the point of signatures at all. Also, six lines is pretty big if you think about - almost annoyingly big - The poll should be 1-3, 3-6, 6-15 in my opinion 

[Draco18s]

6 lines is my old signature referencing when cooked food gained temperature and booze food melted because, quote "reality took over."

[Torak]

Yes, but it's hard to associate actions with people when I can't remember who is who.

How hard is it to remember a name? Sounds like you're just trying to make up an excuse for images.

[Draco18s]

An image I can see out of the corner of my eye and help associate when reading, whereas names I need to see them, read them, pronounce them aloud (at least once), and remember them.  Some of the ones here I can't even pronounce (qwertyuiopas? 0x517A5D?  4bh0r53n?), much less remember (Impending Doom?  I honestly can't remember seeing any of Impending Doom's 846 posts).  I'm also terrible at remembering names, faces on the other hand I can remember quite well, "oh yeah, I've seen you around before, what's your name again?"

Guy with a black and white dwarf avatar, yeah, see him alot.  Sometimes says things I think are insane, sometimes is quite reasonable.
Goblin knocked off cliff, generally agree with everything he says.
Red cross, black marks, intelligent.
2 faced coin: good with php.

Bet 10 adamantine full plate mail suits you know who all of those people are without scrolling and looking.

[Kagus]

Mikademus, MaxVance, don't know the third one because I've got avatars turned off, and Janus. 

Also, those aren't very difficult names to pronounce.  You've got qwertyuiopas (kwer-TEE-oo-ee-oh-pass), 0x5147A5D (OKS-ee-az-dee) and 4bh0r53n (abortion).


And I'd just like to add that people change their avatars and their signatures on an almost regular basis...  The name, however, will stay for much longer.  I'd equate it to identifying someone by their hairstyle, but I've got things to do and I'm only passing through. 

[Draco18s]

And I'd just like to add that people change their avatars and their signatures on an almost regular basis...  The name, however, will stay for much longer.  I'd equate it to identifying someone by their hairstyle, but I've got things to do and I'm only passing through.

While true it only takes a moment, maybe a minute to recognize the new hairstyle, avatar, facial hair, glasses or lack thereof, after that it's back to operations as normal.

And the third one was Tylui.

[Kagus]

In order to recognize them, you need something else to recognize them by.  If you went purely by hairstyle, every time someone changed it they would become an entirely new person.  Just as with a forum persona, you need to look at the name in order to recognize who it is.  Otherwise, you'll have to start over with figuring out who they are, unless you remember their posts and can identify them through previous comments.

And if you can do that, I doubt it would be much of a stretch to memorize a name.

[Draco18s]

Seeing as I rarely look over to the left--I can see new avatars out of the corner of my eye and identify them, but text burrs into nothingness.  If it's new, I take note of the name.  If it's a name I've never seen before, "New user."  Name I know: recall old image, "oh!  Old person."

[Mikademus]

Again, from a psychological perspective, we human are exceedingly poor at remembering names. How often have you been introduced to someone only to not register or immediately forget his or her name? That is normal because we tend to focus on aspects other than the name to remember identity - hairstyle, body posture, attractiveness, etc, with the common denominator that most of what we remember are physiological, physiognomesical or attributal aspects.

Kagus remembers my name because we've called each other names in a heated debate and he thought I was an Avatar of what's bad with the 'net (hope you're dispelled of that notion now, btw!), Capritastic I remember because we usually post in the same threads and are both quick to poin out duplicates, and draco I will remember because we've been on the same side here. However, it is also noteworthy that me and Kagus have been on the same side of heated and quite deep debates in the suggestion fora some time ago and he didn't remember me from that, or he wouldn't have thought me to be a 1337-sp33king haxx0r bringing disorder to this community.

Then there are hundreds others users here. I'm sorry, all of you other, but you're in the teeming masses. Your nicks don't mean anything to me. We may have bantered exchanges in threads for a long time or it might be the first time you've posted - I simply wouldn't know. Now, if you had a distinguishable avatar, you're likely to be remembered. If you also have a signature that help me fire associative synapses, then you're even more likely to be remembered by me, and your prior statements taken into consideration.

When writing normal, physical letters (yes, some of us still do - it is NICE to get a letter!) we start by saying something like "Hi, this is James", and we end them in a signature. This is a very imperfect analogy with forum posts, but the point that avatar and signatures establish and enforce identity is undeniable. I personally prefer communication with people I recognise, whether I like them or not, and dislike anonymous conversations over time. Also, "anonymity" (in the sense of lacking recognisable identity) tend to be more passionate, inflammatory, generalising and insulting, than when you have an identity to nurture over time.

So, the overarching points are, (1) established identities are better for the development of communities; and (2) if we want to be remembered or recognised, then we want to provide as many queues to trigger associations as possible. If you want to be hated and shunned, then make your identity attributes as obnoxious as possible, but this describes exactly how many of us?

[E. Albright]

Your nicks don't mean anything to me. We may have bantered exchanges in threads for a long time or it might be the first time you've posted - I simply wouldn't know. Now, if you had a distinguishable avatar, you're likely to be remembered. If you also have a signature that help me fire associative synapses, then you're even more likely to be remembered by me, and your prior statements taken into consideration.

I'll not deny that this works like this for you, but it doesn't for everyone. A lot of people when citing how much better sigs are than screen names have listed a handful of sigs along with claims like "there's no way you don't know who X% of these are". Out of all of these, I think I've recognized one sig. One. OTOH, if you throw a list of screenies at me, I'll do much, much better... because I pay more attention to the fixed, consistent handle. Which also, mind you, lets me identify people who neglect to make sigs or have avatars...

But that's, again, me. It's also worth pointing out that I don't think it's a burden to actually shift my gaze to the left to read a name, but then I'm apparently also a freak who sees nothing inherently wrong with reading through "wall of text" posts, so my irrational willingness to pause for a second after every post in a thread can probably be dismissed as an aberration.

[e: That last isn't meant to be hostile or accusatory or anything beyond a mildly snarky pointing-out that we're not all approaching things from the same perspective.]

[Draco18s]

E.  Albright....E.  Albright....
Nope, no bells.