We're changing the way we treat member signature lines.

[Skinner]

As the amount of traffic to Democratic Underground continues to steadily increase, we are faced with many tough choices about how to best manage that growth. As more and more people post here, the DU Administrators feel that it is no longer in the best interest of the community to permit members' signature lines to continue virtually unrestricted.

Some of you may be aware that we already have rules on the books regarding the size and content of signature lines. But the moderators have more important things to do than police sig lines, so those rules are rarely enforced (except when it comes to our attention that someone has gone way beyond the limits set out in those rules). Not surprisingly, this type of hit-or-miss enforcement leads to a lot of resentment whenever a particular member is singled out for enforcement. The moderators are almost always professional and polite when they ask members to edit down their sig lines, but that is little consolation when you see someone else trolling around with an even bigger sig, apparently unmolested by the DU moderators.

In an ideal world, everyone would be considerate enough to voluntarily limit their sig lines so as to not massively increase download times or scrolling. But we live in the real world, and after years of running this place, I know that many people are not inclined to voluntarily act in a manner that respects others here. It is sad but true.

So, in an effort to address this issue, we feel that the fairest way to enforce some universal rules regarding signature lines is to have our software automatically enforce a particular set of rules on everyone (where it is feasible to do so). For rules that are not easy to automate, we will give strict limits, and the moderators will enforce a zero-tolerance policy. Here is what we propose:

Proposed rules regarding signature lines.

To be automatically enforced by our software:

1. Your signature line may not exceed 400 characters. This 400-character limit includes *all* characters, including spaces and URLs for links and images.

2. You may have no more than one image (.jpg or .gif format) in your signature line at any time.

3. You may not use any HTML code in your signature line except the special message board code for bold, italics, and text links. (Please note that this would disallow most formatting, including text alignment, line breaks, and font changes.)

To be strictly enforced by the moderators (when they are aware of violations):

1. The image in your signature line may not exceed 500 pixels wide, 200 pixels tall, or a file size of 20 kilobytes.

2. Your signature line must adhere to the community standards for this message board. It may not be inflammatory, highly controversial, or otherwise disruptive.

Of course, for those of you who would prefer not to see any signature lines at all, we will still give members the option to completely disable them on your "preferences" page.

Please let us know your thoughts on these changes. At the moment, our intention is to begin enforcing these new rules sometime next week.

Thank you for your understanding.

Skinner
DU Admin

[SidDithers]

1. Fine by me...

Save the bandwidth for the more important stuff.

:toast:

Sid

[dutchdemocrat]

70. It's not DU Bandwidth

In my case - it's my own. Unless you are storing images on the DU server (which is not happening), it does not affect the bandwidth at all.

[Jersey Devil]

140. deleted

x

[Not_Giving_Up]

2. As a dial-up DUer, I say

Thank you!!!!

[rodeodance]

35. yes, thanks (me to).

[girl gone mad]

43. Yep.

I didn't realize how bad you guys had it until last week when I was stuck with dial-up.

[HereSince1628]

68. Yep, I concur with that.

[etherealtruth]

130. Yep ...

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

3. will sig lines that do not conform be automically deleted?

and will we get warning when they change from proposed rules to reality?

[Skinner]

10. I don't know.

Automatically deleted? Probably yes.

Warning before the proposed rules become a reality? This is it.

[MadAsHellNewYorker]

12. Alright, thanks for warning Skinner!

:yourock:

[swag]

4. Sounds great.

And now I'm considering changing my sig to read:

"apparently unmolested by the DU moderators"

[Ron Green]

5. What about my needs? WHAT ABOUT ME????

Waaaaahhhh.

:cry:

[Cha]

242. I'm responding to your sig

line..

But, he was a cokehead and a drunk..he Really did do that:D

[xultar]

6. No argument here.

[Ariana Celeste]

7. On dial up, will definitely make long threads

easier to load. That's for sure. :D

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. No problem

[crispini]

9. Yay!

Not a dial-upper (anymore) but still, there is such a thing as "waste of bandwidth" even if you're on a fast connection.

[Zenlitened]

11. Perhaps set a maximum font size, but allow smaller fonts?

As well as font color?

I find small/color font useful in distinguishing sig lines from the body of a post.

[Skinner]

16. They already do have a smaller font and different color.

The default for sig lines is small grey text. When a sig is written in the default text (which will be required by these changes), it is easy to tell what is a sig and what is not.

[Zenlitened]

28. *Insert Emily Litella quote here*

Sorry -- I didn't know that.

Nevermind!

[Mr_Spock]

112. I use underscores to delineate sig from message

Without carriage returns I will be bummed.

[TaleWgnDg]

304. Hhhmmmm, "the default for sig lines is small gray text" . . .

.
Hhhmmmm, "the default for sig lines is small gray text" and "when a sig is written in the default text," you said above; however, my signature line is smaller than the default although the same color (I believe). So, am I to understand that my signature line will no longer be acceptable? It's in "comic sans MS" font with size 1:

"Facts are stubborn things and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." John Adams, Arguments in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, December 1770

And, thanks for any explanation you want to give here in this thread.

_________________________________________________

[SoCalDem]

168. Could admin put an automatic line before the sig..

We used to be able to use hr and have a line pop up, but haven;t been able for a while.. The sigs that are all text run into the message , and it's sometimes hard to tell the difference:)

[Horse with no Name]

13. Sounds reasonable to me.

:)

[Gemini Cat]

14. This dial-up user thanks you!! nt

[rman]

15. seems fair enough

[Goldom]

17. one thing

20k seems pretty small for a max size, especially for an image that is 500x200. I think those dimentions are more than sufficient, but as a test, I just made a single-color box of that size, saved at a good amount of jpg compression, and even that was ~35k.

[geomon666]

101. My sig image is under 20k

It's good enough. Of course we could always go back to the 10k limit. :)

[kliljedahl]

18. Just changed mine to conform, removed two photos

Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Skinner]

23. For the record.

We're not going to permit people to post "pseudo-sigs" to get around these rules. Like, for example, inserting an image for your favorite barbeque website directly into your posts would not be permitted.

[kliljedahl]

25. OK, I've been doing that all along

[Strelnikov_]

213. Thank You. I Have Sigs Off For A Reason

And find that the "pseudo-sigs" are an annoying loophole.

[Dragonfli]

197. that does not conform unfortunately

Most animated gifs that use color and more than a couple of frames will be a file size larger than acceptable, Your sig gif is illegal as are both of mine.

It's for people that don't know how to turn off the feature in the control panel, rather than expect them to learn, we make it illegal.

It's Like when the right wingers want to do away with strong language and boobs on all forms of television. There is a v-chip for concerned parents but rather than ask them to use it; We must all be forbidden for the sake of "the children".

So Much for being proud and showing it.

[kliljedahl]

220. See my post #118, I suggested they differentiate

between static & animated. Got no response.


Keith’s Barbeque Central

[Dragonfli]

223. I have the feeling I never should have made those

It seems to piss people off I guess. To be animate, they would have to be larger than 20k or simply ugly.
This is as much a statement of dislike for movement as it is about Sig's that scroll too far down.
It is obviously about something else or we would be allowed to display our pride tastefully in a reasonably sized sig pic like I tried to make these.
I can take a hint.
I will silence my pride and discard my art.
I am sorry that I have shared my shame and my mistake with you and others.
I am learning that I should just shut up stay home to avoid controversy rather than always trying to feed the revolution with encouragement.

[hallc]

237. Chill..

Its just a sig line

[Dragonfli]

248. It was just a bumper sticker that got me fired last year (4 more wars!)

and now this has been forbidden here:

I don't understand why it is so offending.

I simply wanted to be proud of my stance.
I will never understand unnecessary rules.
Or why I should hide my colors.

[kliljedahl]

261. I'm with you

removed my Turdblossom photo:

& my smarmy photo:


& was told I couldn't post my website:

Keith’s Barbeque Central

But if I posted a thread, and I did today, I could post all of this & it's OK:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4326156&mesg_id=4326156

[Dragonfli]

263. The inflexibility of the plan is the dangerous part

The way I understand human nature, this is a very likely scenario:

People who are creative yet disallowed the option of expressing their political passion or individuality in their sig lines, given no option for compromise. (limited # of line breaks, color, or say 50k animated images that don't scroll down the page forever and a day). Will take this newly repressed need to express themselves and leak it into the general posting area of the message. (No one wants to turn that off).
That will shift a large balance of load from a feature that is easily repressed by choice, to everyone who views the general posting area!

Then we will have the inevitable discussion about the 20 k picture limit in the general posting area.


A flexible plan, while not perfect from the technicians point of view. Would avoid this scenario while limiting the excesses and abuses of the the special "sig" feature, so more may feel comfortable using it.

half a screen of scroll for every single post sucks. Height requirements are a reasonable compromise. As an example my old sig line was not out of line height wise.

animations are a matter of taste. lighten up people. My DU activist sig is not barfy ugly or too terribly distracting to most adults, to make it "not barfy looking" I needed 45 k to get that cool energy pulse effect.

which brings me to bandwidth. not a financial or server issue when off site.
A user load issue? Yes (a potentially crippling one if not managed well)so indeed levels are in order.

The concern for lurking visitors is important. We want them to come here , stay, learn, and eventually share their vision with us.

The Simple bandwidth solution is quite obvious, so why do we not discuss it?

Three levels.(or similar proposal)

Level 1
no sigs unless logged in or chosen(for purists and lurkers who aren't here for their best friend's sweet cat picks)
by the way, don't underestimate the community value of that sort of thing either! Personality breeds friendship!

Level 2
Text Only - for people who wish they would stop with all the silly pictures and just give me some good quotage!

Level 3
broadband - for people who like things like DA's Creations and my activist avatar, and who, like me, love seeing all the beauty, creativity, and individuality expressed by the rather artistically adept people that seem to be drawn here.

Why is the only plan so grey, one lined, unmoving and visually silent, with no options left but to post your pent up expression on the main board clogging things more for those who would be better served to choose for themselves if they want things so image intensive?

Extremism of restriction simply does not work, look at King George to prove my point.

Edited to add: just went to that link. Geat Toons! I hope only us "image lovers" went there, we wouldn't want to inconvience people that don't like loading pictures, now do we?

[vickitulsa]

282. Because the human brain loathes repetitiveness

and shies away from *excessively* loud, frenetic, or otherwise annoying or offensive input, I'm afraid the creativity and artistic skill of many who post here actually get diluted and lost by the fact that the sig file is seen by everyone on every single post of the creative ones.

Obviously I'm relatively new here, but I'm not new to message boards, groups, blogs and other forms of online discussion. I was so impressed with how well organized the DU site was when I first came here, but then I must admit I have been a bit put off (not offended) by how much sheer tonnage or bytage I encounter in sig files here. Even the very best of the graphics in motion wear on a person after awhile and with sufficient repetition, no matter how much one might agree with the message or appreciate the artistic talent.

Turning off all sig files isn't what I'd prefer as a solution. I happen to like the sometimes-brilliant quotes and a lot of other good stuff I've seen in the sigs, and some posters are smart and energetic enough to actually CHANGE what's in their sig files periodically so as not to wear on others' nerves and, more importantly, to offer up new thought-provoking or pleasing material.

Just one example of how some of the graphics (most of which I truly appreciate and enjoy) can wear on me, I laughed out loud the first time I saw the Turd Blossom graphic. Then I smiled a few times as I encountered it over the next few days. But by now I'm so sick of seeing KR's ugly-assed face in that flower that I could just scream. I agree with the sentiment, totally; but I just do not LIKE seeing his face over and over again, sometimes a dozen times in one thread.

In one sense, this sort of thing amounts to preaching to the choir, doesn't it? And even if the choir agrees wholeheartedly and backs the effort, still it's preaching and if it's loud and annoying or just plan ugly (like KR's face is), well, that gets a bit hard to take over the long haul.

Just my thoughts on this issue... personally I'm very glad to hear the mods talking about changing how the sig files are handled at DU. They do everything else here so skillfully -- why can't we trust them a bit to make some intelligent decisions about this? (Though of course after considering our thoughtful input on the issue.)

And to all those creative, talented, artistically gifted posters out there -- by all means do NOT feel bruised at such changes, PLEASE~! Don't stop utilizing your gifts to enlighten and uplift and even scold when necessary. We all know that things repeated ad infinitum grate on the nerves of humans of every ilk, and thus lose their effectiveness. To have the most powerful and useful effect, the greatest artworks might best be placed a LITTLE BIT more sparingly, so that we remain always hungry for more!

I for one have gone to almost every website of the graphic artists I've recognized from their sig files, just to look at a lot more of their work. :-)

[Mairead]

239. Turning off sigs turns off all sigs, not merely the annoying ones

An all-or-nothing choice is the least useful of all choices.

[Dragonfli]

250. I already apologized for annoying people

I got instant messages telling me it was good, not annoying.
Had people been more honest with me....
But they were not, so I did not know it was so annoying to post this:

I apologized already leave me be, I will not offend you any more if you don't poke any more sticks at me.

[Mairead]

281. I was objecting to your suggestion that people should turn off sigs

if they find certain sigs annoying. I wasn't motivated by any sig of yours. Sorry for not being more clear.

[meganmonkey]

19. Good plan.

Some sigs here are out of control! They are fun and interesting, but difficult on long threads.

[WMliberal]

20. as a dial-up user. I say hell yeah

I usually won't even visit a thread if there's more than a hundred posts because it'll take 5 minutes to repeatedly download graphics of one or two posters who are in a flame war.

now I gotta see if my David the Gnome is too big :blush: :hide:

[Thtwudbeme]

21. Heh heh heh....does this mean my husband is going to have to find

shorter verses by that damned RATM group put as his sig!

Ha!

I will make sure he sends you another donation before he reads this! ;)

[wakeme2008]

22. I guess I do not understand

if you link to an off site photo library for a picture for your signature line, DU doesn't pay for any bandwidth to deliever the picture to the end viewer.

[matcom]

24. my question as well

exactly how does this impact DU traffic? :shrug:

[goodboy]

59. does this mean "goodbye" stair-climbing ass, and purple thing? (nt)

[Tace]

The Stair-Climbing Ass Would Be A Loss...

But you can have boogying Barney. : )

[Dragonfli]

201. It appears to be a courtesy for dial-ups

There must not be a way to turn them off in the control panel.
I thought there must be, but I guess not, or there would be no reason to change the rules.
All of my images are hosted on my own server and so does not affect DU bandwidth.

[Skinner]

27. True.

But our visitors still have to wait for the thing to download, or scroll over it. This isn't about DU bandwidth -- it's about being considerate to the visitors to the site.

[matcom]

29. but you already GIVE them the option of hiding them

:shrug:

i don't see why that isn't enough

ON EDIT: why not make the sig feature OFF by default which will force users who want to see them manually turn it on?

[Skinner]

34. Because...

just because someone chooses to see signature lines does not mean they should have to wade through pages and pages of crap. This is about balancing different interests.

[matcom]

193. "crap" to some

give this board and its members an identity that most OTHER boards to not.

but guess that is "crap"

[Dragonfli]

266. I respect you, but I disagree with you

Balance is never found in extreme restrictions.



Please , I beg you, try intelligent flexibility.
You, like me, are a fine technician, (I am an AutoCad technician as well as a web Host) but people like us must consider the point of view of the artists while making our decisions. I married one and done went and learned her other side brain thinkin'.

but seriously, see my other post for flexible solutions.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4329137&mesg_id=4335751

You are too good of a leader not to explore flexibility on this issue.

*Edited for grammer, did I mention I am a lame writer?*

[Bucky]

318. You raise some good points, but I think Skinner's right in this

The restrictions he's placing here aren't "extreme". Extreme would be to end sig files or restrict them to unformatted text only or reduce the character count to 100 instead of 400. These seem to be moderate requirements.

Artists should be able to create and express their art, but a constantly repeated sig file that ties up a reader's bandwidth in a discussion forum is not necessarily the appropriate place for that art.

It's true that someone does have the option of turning off the sigfiles in their personal options. But why should they have to blank off seeing everybody's signatures just for the sake of avoiding one or two signatures that take forever to down load.

The purpose of the forum is to carry on a conversation. Signatures add color to the personalities who do the discussion, but they don't really add to the conversation itself since they are, by their nature, a one-way and nonresponsive form of communication. If sig files become so burdensome to the conversation that they slow down the conversation, then you've got the tail wagging the dog.

Or put another way: let's say you and I go to the opera. You believe, no doubt, that I have freedom of speech. But if I stand up in the middle of the opera and start denouncing the war in Iraq, I'm not actually engaging in freedom of speech. I'm just being a butthead.

[Dora]

46. I like seeing most of the sig lines

And when I'm at work the mega-sigs aren't a problem. When I'm at home using dialup, it's like watching grass grow when waiting for some of these post-heavy sig-heavy threads to load.

I hid signatures for a long time, but I missed seeing them. I think sigs give us a nice window onto other DUers personalities.

But I like your spankin' sig.

[FizzFuzz]

230. I think default to OFF is a great idea.

I really enjoy siglines--they do give DU something special.

I understand the traffic issue (sort of), but automatic default to OFF seems like a great idea, solves everyone's problem.

:shrug:

(hey you speeded up your ass. Ha! I like it!)

[Dragonfli]

211. Is there a way to pay to keep the dragonfli ?

It has spiritual significance to me. As for the other one, I was merely trying to show pride. I can reluctantly hide my creativity and pride, much as I have to when I am at work.

I understand it is more for the lurkers that can not turn off the function and have slow connections.

I lurked for a year before joining and even tho the creativity of your members was one of the things that drew me, I understand that we have to play down, quit down, and all that implies, to help people find the information that is so hard to find elsewhere.

To make it work tho, posting any pictures larger than 20 k would have to be forbidden as well.

I am sad, because I like to express myself in images. But I will be silent if you think my silence is best for the movement:-(

[Rhiannon12866]

265. I think that you should try to keep as much of your sig as you can.

It's important to DUers to express individuality; that's one of the reasons we're drawn to this site. And it also identifies each of us to the others, gives a little window into who each of us really are. (Although I should talk, since I changed my avatar, for the duration, to support John Conyers, so I now just appear like everybody else...:D) If you're having trouble making yours work, within the guidelines, you might consider asking for suggestions. I'm not particularly technical (obviously), but many others here are, and are very generous about helping fellow DUers. Just don't give up on it. Your sig is obviously very important to you, as are most of ours. They express who we are...:hi:

[Dragonfli]

268. This is who I am

And It is illegal to express it here now. :(
I could take out the energy, but my little avatar's prime function is to raise energy. To take that away would be to display only his "still-image" corpse.
My activist avatar is also forbidden now

why do they hate the expression of who and what I am so much?

[Rhiannon12866]

294. Nobody here hates the expression of who you are, I promise!

Everybody's free to express themselves here. Have you ever taken a good look ar Matcom's?!:eyes:

I think both your avatar and your sig, as it's posted now, are terrific. I wish that I was half as clever and I've been here for ages. What is it that you're not able to express? I think what you do have expresses a lot, more than most. And your avatar is also quite beautiful.:pals:

[Dragonfli]

296. It may not be an intentional, but they are to be banned

And thank you for the nice things you said about my avatars.
But the truth is I can no longer put them in my sig line due to the new rules.(file size) So I would have to ugly them down and choose only one. I don't want to make them ugly, and I consider them both relevant (expressing who I am, and what I do here)

I have three choices:
1. loose the pretty colors
2. Loose the animation
3. Or Choose not to express myself at all
with dead stillness or lack of color.

It is against the rules now to express myself using those avatars.
There has already been a warning that they would not be allowed even posted in the general body of the message, they are calling that "pseudo-sig-line cheating" and it is not to be tolerated.
But thank you for your encouraging words, it is good to know not everyone here thinks they should be banned even tho they will be.

[Rhiannon12866]

297. Well, there must be a solution to this.

It's a shame that you can't express yourself as you wish. That's the whole point of DU! I don't know if you read Swamp Rat's post (just below yours), but he got help in figuring out how to post his and still conform to the rules. And his are pretty large and expressive, not to mention memorable! I just wish that I had more technical expertise, so I could help you, but I am sure that there are numerous DUers who do have the know-how and would be willing to help, as MoPaul helped Swamp Rat...:shrug:

And these rules aren't being put into place to prevent your freedom of expression, I promise, but only for technical reasons to make this site run more effectively. And it is a shame, but we have gotten awfully large, even in the less than three years I've been here. And this has to be seen as a good thing, since we need more people in our corner!:-)

And you're welcome, always, for the encouraging words. I'm a liberal, don't forget, so I'm absolutely in favor of freedom of expression!:D But so are the others here, so I'm sure that they're in your corner whether they saw your post or not. Some sigs are memorable for their content, others for their artistry. Yours are, for both. Don't give up on this...:-)

Rhiannon:pals:

[Dragonfli]

302. I have tried optimization with several programs

The good news is I was able to help someone that no one else could.

I can even pitch in and help optimize images for others that either don't require many frames or that don't need many colors, Or that lack any gradient pulsing effects. That is actually quite easy in photo-shop.

I tried many forms of dithering and color palette restrictions, used photo shop and image ready and was only able to bring mine into compliance only by making them quite ugly. (they were already previously optimized meticulously) I need 22 k for the dragonfli, and 40 k for the activist.

Most of the images here were never optimized properly so fixing many of them will be rather easy.
Unfortunately what I created as art needed a little more to make them look the way they do. I will try to find some software that works better than photo shop, but I don't feel very optimistic.

I took on the baby because the local wizards seemed unable to help. (there were a great many frames but it was only using 16 colors so it was quite possible to make a half size gif with only 1/4 of the bytes. Not very good work I admit, but it is an insanely restrictive environment to be creative in. I saw the others gave up and decided to try to give her something to keep even if it wasn't as good as what she had.

I am sure someone will try to help, goddess bless them, but the results will not likely be any better than what I have already tried.
If I want a smaller dragonfli I could make that work, but I don't think he is that large @ 128x128 even if the world disagrees.
The activist is never going to work tho, not without great sacrifices to the way it looks and why bother posting common amateur looking animations? that is what smilies are for.

The new rules will greatly diminish the expression of many here, I hate to say it but it looks like this little guy below will be the new spirit of DU.
I will respect his athoritay.

On the bright side at least I met a new friend
:hi:

[Rhiannon12866]

340. Wow! Well, I guess you really do know your stuff!

I was hoping that someone could help you, but, as it turns out, you're the one doing the helping. Elsewheres Daughter thinks you're a genius and I can't imagine who CatWoman might become without her beloved cats!
:scared:

For what it's worth, I agree with you. I love seeing the considerable creative abilities of other DUers on display. They not only entertain and send a message, but differentiate themselves in the process. I agreed to change my avatar to John Conyers, per CatWoman's request, to honor the man for all he has done for us, but, as I said, how will we now tell each other apart?!:shrug:

I think that your dragonfli is both beautiful and remarkable, though I don't know the true meaning for you. And I do agree with you and Swamp Rat and others that it is a shame to stifle creativity and expression for convenience. But I still hope you know that this is the only reason for the rule change. It is technical, not personal nor prejudicial.:-(

And I am grateful to have made a new friend, and an incredibly creative one, as well.:hi:

Rhi:pals:

[Swamp Rat]

270. I finally registered here for the reason you just stated... MoPaul did it!

:D

I haven't used a sigline for a while, but I really like to see other DUer's siglines. I lurked for three years on dial-up, but I learned how to make it work instead of getting frustrated over large graphics. As soon as I got DSL, I registered and began making art to express what I was observing and reading by other DUers.



edit: I will upload my old sigline pic again. :)

[Rhiannon12866]

295. As if I could have failed to notice who you are, Swamp Rat! LOL!

With your memorable sn and your incredible sigs! Each one is more impressive than the previous and each is a work of art! I love them and enjoy them a lot! They truly are an expression of yourself and your beliefs, as well. Thank you so much for sharing them with us!
:yourock:

You say that you got help from MoPaul? I know that many DUers have helped out others, even right on this thread! Maybe you could give some advice to Dragonfli. He seems to be pretty disheartened and there has to be a way to help him, and certainly to show him that nobody here's against him...:shrug:

[Swamp Rat]

301. Thanks for your kind words.

:hug: Actually, when I first came on the board, MoPaul completely ignored my first post on his thread, which was a testament to him... well, he didn't ignore it. He just didn't SEE it. I even felt bad... for a few minutes. :D

I see that Dragonfli is a bit upset, and I understand. Artists are sensative folk, but DU would be lifeless without us. In fact, it was because of the possibility of expressing anger and frustration creatively, in this new medium, that I regestered here. If I wasn't able to post pix, I would likely not post here anymore. I'd go back to reading mostly BuzzFlash links, like I did in early 2001 after the theft of the election.

For the most part my efforts have been well-received, and I have gotten better at making my mental images come to life, I'm really trained to be a musician (also currently working on a couple of social science grad degrees), but y'all can't SEE my guitar and percussion playing. Ever since I was allowed to post pix and improve my skills - if I had a full version of Photosop I could conquer the entire Bush Cabal :) - this new ability has enabled me to actually help Cindy Sheehan and folks in Camp Casey (I was up all night for the past couple of days making them protest signs and emailing the images to them).

So, if Skinner ever happens upon this post, I'm sure he will see the value in allowing this creativity to flow, while balancing it with keeping the door open to dial-up users. Perhaps there should be a "text only" link at the portal, and the sigline feature default should be set to "off." For 3 years I had dial-up and a 1998 iMac... believe me, I learned to turn off siglines very quickly, and learned a few other tricks to get past slow page loads... so, there's hope for the luddites, too. :D

New poster to look for at Camp Casey:

[Reciprocity]

308. I'm on a dial-up and

I find pictures this size are as bad or worse than sig pictures.

[Swamp Rat]

320. Then don't click on my posts any more. Ignore me, for I am not verbose.

See, you shouldn't have clicked! :D I mostly post pix in GD anyway. I posted two small pix in LBN this week by accident. I have always avoided posting pix there - maybe 3-4 times this year?

My comments are made THROUGH my art, AND my pix are kept under 100k (usually around 60-70k), which really isn't bad on dial-up. I did it for three years, even before folks learned how to compress images (including me). :)

[Rhiannon12866]

341. Hell, it is so easy to overlook posts, no matter what the content...

I tend to notice those that look as if they are being ignored, like Dragonfli's, whose got to me. And his work is so amazing. But I can't imagine how anyone could overlook yours!:D

And so I can see why Dragonfli is upset, and you, as well. I did my best to convince him that this isn't personal, but a technical consideration, but I can see how it would be extremely discouraging for those of you with such talents. As for me, I am neither artistic, nor technically proficient *sigh*, but I sure can appreciate really clever work.:shrug:

As for your musical skills, isn't there a DU group for that? I have run across other DUers who have posted original songs and they really were very good! I have another DU friend who is also a musician, and, sadly, also had to give up his very clever animated sig.:-(

And if you are good enough to work for the folks at Camp Casey, you really are a celebrity among us! Yikes! This definitely deserves its own thread! If anything might impress Skinner, it would be this! And the reminder that such sig lines (along with profanity and smilies) are also forbidden on FR!!! How do we bring this to his attention?!
:evilgrin:

And this is an incredibly effective sign that you've made! Wow! Thanks so much for sharing it with me! As I said, this definitely deserves its own thread!
:wow:

I know that ask the admins is gone, but couldn't you suggest your idea to Skinner or, perhaps, elad? It seems a terrible shame for such creative artists like you and Dragonfli to be frustrated, let alone the loss to the rest of DU!:shrug:

Anyway, whatever happens, thanks so much for sharing this clever sign with me. I just wish that both Skinner and the folks on FR could see it! LOL!
:evilgrin:

Rhiannon:hi:

[dutchdemocrat]

75. Exactly

It has nothing to do with DU bandwidth. The real issue here is advertising. So let's get to real issues here.

[Skinner]

90. Congratulations, you figured it out.

Standardizing everyone's sig line is going to dramatically increase my bottom line. With the massive increase in income from this change, I will finally be able to purchase a new sound system for my Porsche.

[geomon666]

127. Hey don't forget about the Mod payola

[dutchdemocrat]

138. It's got to do with traffic

It's got to do with traffic and the diversion of it.

Come on Skinner.

Don't tell me otherwise. I don't see an altruistic shift capitulating to the dialups as being the 'wonder-move' here.

People have been feeding off the back of DU and building site after site around your audience for months if not years and sigs play a part in that.

They are the one's buying new sound systems for their Porsches.

An answer back to my query (email) on why a member was recently tombstoned after close to 8000 posts would be nice.

[Skinner]

143. You sent your email this morning.

Geez. You make it sound like you've been waiting a week for a reply.

[illuminaughty]

269. I am woefully ignorant of computer graphics, bandwith

20kgb and the rest, but I recognize a monkey festival when I see one.

I was in a part of Texas last week where dial-up's the only game in town and it was a painful reminder of how, instead of waiting, you just gave up. New rule is a good idea.

Of course, no one wants to give up the ass crack on the staircase, the Karl Rove dancing dildo (ok, there wasn't one...but there should have been) but, jeez, sometimes my corneas were singed after reading just a few posts. As far as sigs expressing individuality, I don't know. I added my Conyers avatar in Nov. along with one other poster. We were the only two. Now the board looks like it's mandatory. Not a big deal.

Of course I want to do my part, so given the current state of our country you can shorten my sig down. Just take off "robbed". "We was" seems appropriate. There you go, Skin., now ya can really go on out and fix yerself up with that 8 track you've been a hopin' fer.

[LSK]

134. have you ever read a 100 post page on a modem???

Why must everyone wait for your image to load to read the whole thing??

[matcom]

169. you don't HAVE to

turn them off

[Kerrytravelers]

26. Am I breaking any rules now? And how do I fix that?

I admit my sigs have gotten large, but it takes me so damn long to get everything fixed, they get huge before I get things deleted. Seriously. I'm not HTML versed at all.

[Skinner]

30. Your "center" tag will not work under the proposed changes.

Also, the line breaks ("br" tags) in the signature would not work either.

And I'm not going to count your characters, but if you're over 400, that would also not be permitted.

[DS1]

50. Kill the Marquee tag while you're at it

!!!

oh look, another idiotic comment in motion

[Skinner]

56. These changes would kill the marquee tag. (nt)

[Spider Jerusalem]

278. Disallowing the "center" tag is pointless and stupid.

At least, in my opinion. Character limit, image size limit, fine. Those make sense. Disallowing formatting does not--and a centered sig line with line break is easier to distinguish from the rest of a post, for those who have a problem.

[merh]

31. Thanks Skinner for the heads up

I will have to count my characters, I hope mine qualifies under the new rules. I'm not good at figuring all this out. :freak:

I do understand the decision & I thank you and the other admins and moderators for all you guys do! I so love DU. :grouphug:

[proud patriot]

32. sounds good to me

of course my sig hasn't changed for over a year .

[evolved Anarchopunk]

77. I hate to play devil's advocate here: Proud P., you do realize

your signature has 706 characters w/ spaces, 615 w/o them, right? Under these rules you couldn't even display the one poem you've written, at least not in its entirety. My sig is short and sweet but i love appreciate other people's elaborate ones, they're inspired.

Of course I'm on cable, i'm not trying to be insensitive, just expressing the sadness i felt at first. DU wont ever look the same.

But hey ! Good to hear traffic is WAY up !


Edited because my whiny bitchitude didn't come through completely. Problem solved.

[proud patriot]

120. uh oh , I hadn't counted it

:-( I'll figure out a way for it to fit .... :dunce:

thanks for pointing that out :hug:

[JNelson6563]

33. Good and bad of it

While I completely understand these sig-lines and the photos in them are probably like bandwidth incinerators I'm a little sad about this.

Some posters have such great stuff and I always get a kick out of it. BushIsAnIdiot is one of those posters. The pics match the name so beautifully. heh

Julie

[Skinner]

40. Members still have plenty of leeway to post nice pictures.

But now they are forced to actually pick one, rather than throwing up a whole bunch.

[JNelson6563]

186. Yes, I did catch that compromise

and it's fair enough. I thought I'd give an honorable mention to some of the clever little collages some use to have.

Julie

[Walt Starr]

36. As one who has abused the rules on siges in the past

I concur with your decision.

:thumbsup:

[dogday]

178. To be honest with you

I read the one liner tags alot more than the larger ones. I decided to keep it simple for just that reason....

[Walt Starr]

192. I didn;t start out with too huge a sig

And the reason mine grew beyond a reasonable level is sadder still.

I'm thankful the mods finally told me to remove it. IT got too long for all the wrong reasons.

:cry:

[Why Syzygy]

202. ditto here

I'm here to read the posts.

To Skinner: how about a sig gallery? Just tossing the idea. DU seems to attract the innovative.

Make it a sig group maybe?

[cry baby]

37. OK

thanks for all you do.

[DS1]

38. and not a moment too soon

:-)

[Skinner]

65. Perfect.

500px wide
119px tall
19.73 KB

:thumbsup:

[Redstone]

141. And that oughta be big enough for anyone to express themselves

without driving everyone else nuts.

Redstone

[Democracy White]

39. Awwww... but I don't wanna get rid of mine!!!!

But if it goes, oh wells I'll just have to dfind something else.

Dee

[UrbScotty]

41. It would seem as if my sig line is okay, then.

Right?

[Skinner]

44. Your center tag isn't going to work under the new guidelines.

Other than that, I think you're probably okay. You'll find out soon enough.

[UrbScotty]

66. Well, okay. But I just counted, and it was 750 characters long.

So I removed the Bushism and one of the links, and will make other adjustments.

[Sapphire Blue]

229. What is a center tag?

[hvn_nbr_2]

42. Mostly fine. One question.

3. You may not use any HTML code in your signature line except the special message board code for bold, italics, and text links. (Please note that this would disallow most formatting, including text alignment, line breaks, and font changes.)

If it stays within the 400 character limit, it's not immediately obvious to me how text alignment or line breaks affect download times or cause abuse or other problems. Is there a reason for this one?

[Skinner]

49. Two reasons.

First, when people change the font it makes it difficult to distinguish between the post and the signature line.

Second, excessive formatting, like line breaks, can be used to take up *a lot* of vertical space and force the visitor to scroll excessively.

[gmoney]

82. Keep line breaks, please?!?

You could set a max limit of maybe 5 or 6 or leave it to the mods' discretion if someone goes overboard...

[Zenlitened]

88. I agree. The line-break tag is mighty useful.

:)

[Mr_Spock]

122. Please keep line breaks!!

I use underscores to delineate my sig and I don't mind having my font smaller but my sig was a disaster before I added line breaks :(

[TahitiNut]

181. I agree - PLEASE permit line breaks!

While I heartily agree that 200 line breaks should be regarded as ABUSE, a no more than a couple of line breaks (as shown in my sig) is just Good Housekeeping.

PLEASE permit (some small number; 3?) line breaks.

[sleipnir]

271. Thanks, I'm sick of having to look at the same damn cartoons/pics

It gets old, so fast.

"Brevity is the soul of wit."

[sniffa]

45. first they came for the avatars and i said nothing

then they came for the sig Lines, and again i said nothing.
when they came for the capitaL L's there was no one Left to speak for me.

:yoiks:


:P

[City Lights]

71. LOL!

:rofl:

[gmoney]

87. So, what are you saying?

speak up!

On edit: we can further reduce bandwidth by using this as the new styleguide for DU postings in the future...

http://tinyurl.com/bje33

Double-plus good!

[Dragonfli]

215. My sig line is guilty of thought crime (I mistook it for pride)

[LeftyMom]

47. I think that's reasonable

Another site I visit does not allow users to spam thier businesses in thier sig lines unless they pay a small fee for sig line advertising (I think it's less than five dollars a month, but I'm not positive.)

I don't know is you'd want to do that but I thought I'd pass it along because it seems like more people are putting ads for thier business in thier sigs, which dilutes the value of the paid advertising content.

[Skinner]

51. Interesting idea.

It never really crossed my mind. At the moment, I'm not sure it's necessary, but it's worth considering.

[demobabe]

326. Except

If you accept $ to allow users to have extended sig lines, that kills the argument that the sigs are being pared down for the sake of the community and modem users. Although I wouldn't care and like to see DU make money so this resource continues to be here. Ultimately, modem users CAN turn off the sig lines.

Weirdly, the first thought that sprung to mind with the 500 x 200 graphic limitation was that size is bigger than most banner advertising, and I just imagined a DU full of 500 x 200 banner ads on everyone's postings.

Most sigs don't bother me unless they're on extremely long threads. I know there isn't a perfect solution here...

Please keep the line break tags. Text jammed against images and other text is unappealing as well.

[LynneSin]

48. Come on Skinner! Isn't 20kb a little bit harsh

I mean, I'll get rid of my protesting smilies I'll even get rid of my smilie holding the sign but come on, let me keep my Cowbelling Animated gif (the one with Will Ferrell), I finally like my sig line!!

[Skinner]

54. I do not think that 20KB is harsh.

On most days, the graphic on our homepage is right around 20KB. You can do a lot in that much space.

[LynneSin]

64. So are you going to make get rid of my Wil Ferrel gif?

I love that gif

[wakeme2008]

58. this morning somebody was looking for you

:)

[steve2470]

52. Skinner, my sig photo is 266 pixels tall but the file is only 9.37 kb

Does this fit the rules ?

[Skinner]

55. I'm sorry to say that it does not.

The rules say 200 pixels tall.

[steve2470]

57. ok, I'll trim it down

Thanks for your time.

[Taxloss]

243. I love that image. nt

[steve2470]

273. thank you ! nt

[Redstone]

53. Works for me. When a given poster has a large picture in the sig,

and has many messages in a thread, the scrolling does get quite annoying.

And it does slow things down, even for those of us with DSL.

I think it's a good policy.

Redstone

[chimpymustgo]

89. Thanks Skinner. I've enjoyed reading this thread with smaller images.

Much easier on the eyes.

[City Lights]

60. I can understand about the number and size of pictures, and the

number of text characters, but don't understand what impact centering a sig line has, nor do I understand what impact a forced break has on someone using dial-up. Do those commands really slow things down? :shrug:

So when these rules are enforced, will my sig line automatically be converted to comply with the rules, or will my sig line not appear at all because it's in violation?

[Skinner]

69. I don't know.

I think that the your sig will still show, but the HTML tags will not work. But I'm not sure.

[Democracy White]

61. So which photo and drawing should I get rid off?

Decisions! Decisions!

Somebody help me!!

And Skinner, are any of my drawings too big or are they just fine?

Dee

[Ariana Celeste]

67. I like the one on the right

:hi:

[Democracy White]

96. Well I was thinking of getting rd of the one on the left and then maybwe

switiching my sig line around every often.

I am thinking of a new picture that I am going to draw of Joni, the girl who can get into cyberspace with her mind and is attached to DU. I've had it in developing now and I want to get it started.

Heh. It's kinda lengthy to give the backstory on her as I don't have much time.

But anyways I was thinking of getting rid of Blu Sqorpion on the right and keeping the font the way it is. That is if we can.

Can we use color on our fonts?

Dee

[Ariana Celeste]

103. No..

will have to be the standard grey. :)

[Democracy White]

123. Ugh... how boring. n/t

[Dragonfli]

272. I feel like crying, seeing you so naked now.

The wave of the future is grey, devoid of light, art & creativity.

[Debi]

83. Get rid of the damn club scene....it gives me a headache!

But I do like your artwork!

[Beam Me Up]

62. I have a sig line but I keep viewing others turned off because

so many of them are large and overstated. I have a fast connection but I get tired of seeing the same graphic or sigline over and over again, especially in lengthy threads. Would be fine by me if they were done away with completely.

[Tactical Progressive]

260. I've seen that green-devil Rummy image more than enough

There are alot of images that are really creative and fun, but after seeing them hundreds of times it's too much.

Some ideas:

- allow bigger images for paying customers over us freeloaders

- allow only one copy of a given large image per thread

- alot of times people have many nice pics to show that people want to see, like Cindy's camp right now . Maybe they could simply request an allowance from the moderators.

- Even though pic excess is far more common, there are times I'd like to see *higher* res pics than you have even now. If there were a way to put up a small pic, but you could click on it and get a full high-res version, that would be great - best of both worlds but only by demand.

- find a way to put the sig line on the post composition page so it would be easily changeable. People would probably change their sigs alot more often if they didn't have to navigate down to their profiles to change them. If sig modification were on the post page they'd probably get changed alot more often.


-- oops, sorry, this wasn't supposed to be a reply to BeamMeUp

[ET Awful]

63. I'm fine with most of it, but it would be nice to allow say

one jpg within the guidelines you mention, along with one smilie style .gif (all of which are tiny). Many of us have a photo or something of the sort along with a smilie in our sigs. It would be nice to be able to keep both (especially since the smilies are typically only 1 to 5k in size).

[Barad Simith]

72. Two birds with one stone...

I've removed the multiple sig pics I was using, and am promoting DU's new mission statement at the same time.

:D

[SharonRB]

156. LOL

[eleny]

73. What will happen to the weekly 'toons and other pictures?

I read your reply here about pictures inserted within postings. But I'm still not clear on this since this thread is about sig lines. The dimensions of sig line pics doesn't translate well to photographs and Photoshop images.

I like to create and post political pics and upload them to Photobucket and just want to be within the rules.

[Skinner]

78. These changes are just for the signature line.

Members will still be able to post images directly in their posts.

[eleny]

92. Thanks Skinner

[Debi]

74. Thanks Skinner!

I'm not on dial-up, but major sig lines take up so much space!

(Please don't get rid of the cowbell...this board needs more cowbell!)

[BrklynLiberal]

76. I can see why these rules are needed for dialup..

Did I miss the question about the color of the font? My sig line includes red print at the bottom.

Would this be discontinued?

[Skinner]

95. You would not be able to change the font color. (nt)

[tabasco]

79. Cool baby baby.

It's stupid seeing the same big-ass, multimedia signature like ten times in the same thread.

[troubleinwinter]

80. Well, I'm stumped.

If I reduce the size of this pic to 200 pixels high (115 wide) @ 72 ppi, it still seems 68K. What to do?

[eleny]

116. troublewinter - Here's one that's under 20 kb for you

I reduced the size, sharpened it and reduced the kb. If this helps, just right click and grab it.


Edit - I realize that your text at the bottom about Andy isn't as crisp. Perhaps a change of font would help. I'll try and see if making it a gif will help.
New edit - Okay, here's a gif version. Looks a little crisper.

[troubleinwinter]

121. Well, cool!

When I reduce the Kb, it seems like just a few pixels.

It isn't quite as beautiful as before, but I guess it gets the message across.

THANKS!!!

[eleny]

126. I saved it as a gif instead and it looks much better

See my original reply above. The gif is ther now. The Andy text looks a little better. Gif images can look better for that type of text graphic sometimes.

[troubleinwinter]

133. Oh that IS better! Thank you!!!

[eleny]

144. Any time

That's a great graphic, btw. Ballot is such a cutie pie doggy!

[troubleinwinter]

153. Thanks, eleny! I made the change, and am now "in compliance"!

[Terran]

81. Agree and approve. n/t

[Misunderestimator]

84. (edited).... Seems like being able to set signatures off in Preferences...

should be enough. That's what I do. But then, that's what I do because I agree with you that these sigs suck up a lot of valuable space on the page when reading.


------------
However... On edit... I think that the signatures provide a powerful means of artistic and self-expression. I don't understand what it accomplishes to limit this since you already provide the option to turn sigs off.

[Kerrytravelers]

151. I have a dial-up and the slowest computer in the world.

I never minded all the sig line. In fact, I loved all the sig line.s I'm going to miss everyones.

I admit it, mine can get a bit big--- especially when I'm really, really pissed. BUt, what do I know. It takes me, literally, an hour to get all the HTML typed in right.

[progressoid]

85. okey dokey - works for me.

[arwalden]

86. Two Comments

I have no problem with the default text size, but the default gray color is difficult to read. (Maybe it's just a symptom of my cataracts, but the sharp contrast between black text and a white background is easier to look at.)

I'd like to see an automatic <HR> tag added to the beginning of the sigline... or I'd like to have the option of adding it in manually. It looks nice and adds a clean dividing line between the body of the message and the signature line. (It's my understanding that there's some sort of security issue regarding the HR tag... but as long as changes are being made, it should be a relatively simple task to add an extra line of code that will pattern-match and remove any offending or illegal characters.)

[Maddy McCall]

97. I agree, allen.

[Skinner]

119. The automatic horizontal line is an interesting idea.

We'll think about it.

[TaleWgnDg]

309. I agree that an auto horizontal line is a great idea! It would . . .

.
I agree that an auto horizontal line is a great idea! It would . . . definitely sharply divide a DU post from the signature line. Now, that that has been "settled," why go for all those other "adjustments" that you propose due to confusion of some folks not knowing what is the sig line from the rest of the post? <cough>

[Mr_Spock]

323. I add a horizontal line to differentiate my sig from message

As you can see below...

[graywarrior]

91. I have no idea how to change the size of mine

without losing the animation.

[Dragonfli]

212. I have the same Problem

We will have to discard them, or make them ugly
or make them silent and still.....

[Maddy McCall]

93. Bossman, I want to hear it from the horse's mouth.

I reduced the size of my sig. Is it too large?

Thanks.

[Skinner]

100. Yes, it is too large.

43.4 KB is greater than 20KB.

[Maddy McCall]

110. OK. I'll trash it and start over.

Thanks.

(I'm totally uninformed on what KBs are.)

[Redstone]

146. Maddy, give me ten minutes and I'll give you a shrunken frog

that will conform to the rules.

Redstone

[Misunderestimator]

172. Yay! Good job.

[Redstone]

177. Never mind. I was confused. Glad you like the frog.

Redstone

[Misunderestimator]

179. Haha... I didn't see what your post said before...

but I should have clarified that I like the frog! :) :hi:

[Redstone]

252. No, your post was fine. I was confused. As usual.

Redstone

[Maddy McCall]

185. You rock, REDSTONE!!!!

:loveya: Thanks!!

[mongo]

Those of us with two computers sharing one dial-up line

Thank you!

[Maddy McCall]

99. In your circumstances, you can turn off signatures.

That's what I would do if I were you. I am on dialup, but I don't have any problem with sigs loading. Not sharing the line with anyone, though.

[xxqqqzme]

94. I think this is good

When I had dial-up, it would annoy me as well. Like an earlier poster, I would avoid mega # threads. This way we all get to read more.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

98. I don't know if my pic complies with size or not..and am concerned about

what is considered controversial.

[Maddy McCall]

102. My sig has been controversial, believe it or not.

Someone will always find something wrong with anything you put in your sig line. :eyes:

[steve2470]

107. I cannot imagine someone objecting to yours

Unless they are an amphibious dentist :-)

[Maddy McCall]

113. Yep, I've received four or five complaints.

"I can't look at that." "That is gross!" Blah blah blah.

[troubleinwinter]

124. I love it! I think it's funny & it always makes me smile!

[Lars39]

128. Aw, heck! He just needs some whitening strips.

[eleny]

131. I love him!

And I second the teeth whitening suggestion. But the pink teeth do make him all the more wild.

180. teeth

maybe if you whitened his teeth, looks like he hasn't brushed in years.

:silly:

[FizzFuzz]

233. what in the world would anyone object to

about your funny frog? Weird! I can't imagine what the problem could be.

I LOVE that frog!

[Skinner]

105. I would think that having a nazi flag in your sig is not appropriate.

I know that your intentions are honorable, but I just don't think that people come to DU in order to see nazi flags. I think it's unnecessary.

BTW: Your image is too tall. Right click on it and select properties.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

115. OK whatever...I didn't come to DU and expect people to defend groups like

this but they did..I'll change it.

[Susang]

109. I can still see your sig line

So I guess that means it's okay, right? I'm assuming that's the test, if it goes away, it didn't conform to the standards. :shrug:

[Skinner]

111. We haven't instituted the changes yet. (nt)

[Susang]

135. My mistake.

[Dragonfli]

219. Mine appears to be controversial

I apologize. I will make something that does not move
I didn't know people here hated my sig so much, I should be quiet and still. I don't get it tho, it seems weird to me; that I should not be proud of DU, Activism or of my spirituality; It is like that at work so I know how to keep my mouth shut and not speak too loudly, I just though this was the place to be proud of my activism and I am really very sad right now. :( I'm sorry to everyone I have offended, no one told me they hated my work so I thought it was OK.

[hallc]

241. good lord...

You make it seem like this is a personal attack on you. Its so the pages don't take so long to load. Its only some pictures. Just chill out and find a new one to use.

[Dragonfli]

253. You are right

Pictures suck.. This says nothing at all (not a sig line by the way):



The Grey is good, it loads faster, the bandwidth I pay for on my server is harming others.
If you look at this cartoon you will notice what side the grey (no pictures or color wanted) types belong.
Colorful expression is the real enemy
The artistic expression of all the colorful, beautiful people here, the real distraction..

You have enlightened me to grey conformity.
I thank you ... blandly.... as it should be...
We should ban all the people like DA who try to speak in pictures as words convey so much more than artistic expression ever could.
:sarcasm:

I am having a bad day, and then I find out that an electric "t-shirt" of sorts that I created for the activists corps members who asked me for one, are not welcome here. I am upset because I thought people liked them, and now it appears they are hated. I was only trying to build solidarity, not blind your beautiful mind with images.

Sue me. I still love beautiful artistic people, and have never liked grey conformity. And yes, I still have not purged all emotion, as required.

[DS1]

291. Hey, don't blow it all out of proportion or anyting

We wouldn't want anyone's feelings to get hurt. The rules didn't say anything about color depth - everything can be worked around - I know I've been a bit busy reworking multiple animations into one file, under 20k.

You don't have to cut your wrists in public. Sheesh

[UrbScotty]

104. How to make sure your sig line doesn't have TOO MANY CHARACTERS!

If you have Microsoft Word, open a blank document. Copy the code for your sig line into the blank document. Then click "Tools," then "Word Count."

If the number of "characters (with spaces)" is over 400, you have a problem.

[Lowell]

106. Good idea

I enjoy looking at some of the sigs, but to be honest I am more interested in the content of the statements than redundant illustrations.

[Mr_Spock]

108. I wish we could still use HTML for carriage returns & some font changes

It really takes the fun out of trying to delineate importance to certain items. I can see limiting font size - like I could make my "He who lives by the sword shall die by it" smaller, but without any CR, it will not be me anymore :(

I shrunk my font but I'm dead without CR's!

See below:

[graywarrior]

114. Is the duck too big. Please say he isn't.

I have no identity without him.

[graywarrior]

136. Never mind. I'm smarter than I thought.

[Dragonfli]

267. Umm a .. I think you killed him...YOU KILLED YOUR DUCK!

No wait , he was only stunned. I see him moving again.
You know if you harm those little organs it's torture.

[MaineDem]

117. Excellent plan

And this is another happy Dial Up user!

Thanks, Skinner. I like the way you change DU to make it better!

:thumbsup:

[kliljedahl]

118. How about 2 photos if they're static, 1 if animated

This doesn't distinguish between the two.

[hippiegranny]

125. fine with me -

long sig lines can make an already lengthy thread quite tedious.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

129. I've altered my sig to conform with the new changes

[Misunderestimator]

200. LOL

So have I.

Love your sig! :loveya:

[Anarcho-Socialist]

206. Hi!

:loveya:

:hi:

[grytpype]

132. It's about time.

Some people were putting huge photo galleries in their sigs, and even though I'm a high-bandwidth guy, it was getting annoying.

How about banning animations in sigs as well? There are a bunch of DUers I have on Ignore just because I can't stand to see their crappy animated sigs dancing all over my screen.

[RC]

214. I agree!

Animations are very distracting for me.


Thank you Skinner.
Abuse seem to be the name of the game for some here. As for the business ad in the sig line, charge the poster. After all they are ads. They are making someone money. It's your site, no reason why you shouldn't case in on it.

[Ron Mexico]

137. You read my mind on the large images.

I've seen a couple that make me want to scream. Not that the opinion of a newbie counts for much, but I'm all for this.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

139. PLEASE someone help make my speedboat baby comply for me?................

i am so techno-impaired....i am in need a 12-step sponser

[expatriot]

159. sorry, I can't save it as an animated .gif file only as a static gif

Your problem will not be reducing the dimensions as it will reducing the size of the file from 80k to 20k. You might be able to do it if you reduce shades of grey to like 4 or 8 but with the reduced dimensions it probably wouldn't look like much at that point. sorry.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

161. i was afraid of hearing this...thank you for the explanation, i will miss

my little guy :cry:

[Why Syzygy]

208. what a hoot!

can't stop laughing. Thanks for the experience.

[Dragonfli]

300. I saved the little guy

He just got a little smaller
and lost a couple of frames.
but at least you get to keep him (@half the pic size and 1/4 the file-size)



I am sorry, I tried my best but this was all that I could do for you in such a restrictive environment.

[Jersey Devil]

142. OK, done Boss

I never used graphics out of consideration for dialup members but I took out the line break, centering and font changes. I never realized they caused problems like scrolling.

Your plan sounds good! Those of us on broadband tend to forget how loooonnnnnggg it took pages to load with dialup.

[Catherine Vincent]

145. "..apparently unmolested by the DU moderators."

How do I get molested by DU moderators? Pm me. :P

[SharonRB]

147. Thanks, Skinner

I will appreciate not having to scroll down so much to read posts.

[expatriot]

148. Oh crap, I am in major violation of even the old rules. I had no idea.

I will need to do some reducing. And to think I thought I was being spartan compared to a couple months ago when I had those graphics advertising my DU polls. It makes sense and I will comply.

On edit: See how quickly I complied? I strive to be a model DU citizen, I really do.

[Maeve]

149. I hate losing the color, center and line break

Those being my sig's distinguishing features (other than being half in the Irish, of course!). But I do know what a mess it can be for dial-uppers.

[bridgit]

150. works for me...

B-)

[Name removed]

152. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[northzax]

162. guess someone didn't like the new rules?

that enforcement comes fast, huh?

[Renew Deal]

187. lol

:spank:

[Dragonfli]

306. Respect The Athoritay

[jus_the_facts]

154. sigh...so is mine illegal now?

:shrug:

[lonestarnot]

244. Hey avitar police... are you going to snatch mine away after I just

figured out how to do it? LOL:spank:

[Marnieworld]

Yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!

I for one hate scrolling through so many pictures and repetitive text. Sometimes the text in the sig looks like a post and it gets really annoying when you are reading a long thread. It is so unnecessary. Good decision. Keep this board rocking!

[expatriot]

160. Even though I was one of those in violation I have to agree....

I lived with the delusion of exceptionalism, it was okay for ME to have photos of my beautiful wife and beautiful cat-children, but others' signatures were just annoying!

[Sapphire Blue]

155. Updated... and hopefully, now in compliance.

[kick-ass-bob]

157. I don't know if this has been answered or not: BR tags

As you can see I have 3 quotes that would run together without the {br} tag.

What is the thought process behind removing that piece?

[converted_democrat]

158. Sounds good to me, I'm just glad we are growing!!! n/t

[The Straight Story]

163. Question on posting pics (ala sigs to pics)

I am assuming that someone posting a pic in their reply, most every reply, would be considered a sig even though it is not auto generated under the sig heading, right?

I think this may also be a good oppurtunity for someone to start a thread for sigs to help come up with new ones and/or to test your new sigs on to make sure they work. Fire up the creativity pool so we can help each other get the most with what we are given to use. I can help some folks with image conversions, shrinking, sharpening, et al as I am sure many others here could.

I do understand and like the new policy as we do get a lot of drive-by readers so I can grasp the why of it.

I DO though agree with someone above who beat me to the punch about a small fee for those wishing to go above the bounds cited. I would myself suggest a set donation amount yearly and also have the sig approved beforehand. We might also want to encourage in some way, shape, or form a sig which says something like 'click here to advertise on DU, we reach X people a day' or something like that - and people who agree to use the sig get some free trinket or something after so many posts they have made (maybe, I helped DU and all I got was this damn t-shirt, or award them a star after so long or if they have one allow them to donate one to someone).

Keep up the good work!

[expatriot]

164. I just realized the effect this'll have on quite a few cute cats' egos!

my little girl, Sonora, has already noticed the absence of her portrait on my signature and looked at me so pitifully hurt. I told her at least she is in my avatar. That is, until, Skinner's chihuahua jealousy grows even more to the point where kitty avatars are banned! :)

[booksenkatz]

167. Hey expatriot

I'm already weeping about your cats, as well as Lorien's! I always look forward to the cat sigs!
;(

[expatriot]

262. Have no fear! I can make a sig wth the new dimensions with just cats!

Your wonderful recognition of my cats is all the reinforcement I need.

[Dragonfli]

307. Could you pass this along to the proper owner for me?

I don't remember the post I saw her in earlier, I think her name is catlady but I am not sure.
her original was 236,382 bytes
this one is 20,556 bytes.
I did not want to see her babys get eaten by the ravenous sig line monster/chihuahua as mine were.
Thanks in advance!

original sig

[Rhiannon12866]

336. CatWoman, Dragonfli, those are her cats...

What are you doing with them and what do you want me to do? Tell her? I'm sure she'll appreciate your help, especially since Trinity recently passed away... I'll PM her, or you can, if you haven't been able to let her know. We're all in this together.:-)

Rhiannon:hi:

[Dragonfli]

338. If you know her, just tell her where I posted the pic

edited to wave back
:hi:

I enjoy all the creative sig lines I see here and I just want to help people keep them when the rules change.
I had seen her cats many times before and I just loved them. Something told me to work with it when I recently saw it in a post because I thought the 1/10 reduction in file-size would seem daunting to someone that doesn't work with web graphics all the time.
I am so sorry to hear about Trinity, I know from experience that losing a child (my wife and I consider our pets our fur kids) is devastating and I know of no way to cure the sense of loss. I am glad that I was at least able to fix an image of her kids so she can keep them as part of her personality here.
I don't know why I didn't remember "CatWoman", I totally space on names.
If she has any problems with any part of the edit or if she wants to change something, tell her to feel free to PM me with a request.
I love a sense of community, :grouphug:I love animal lovers, and I love liberals.:pals:

[Rhiannon12866]

339. Thanks, my friend. I PM'd Cat Woman with the link to your reply.

Without her beloved cats, I can't imagine who she'd be! I know that she's had help with them before, since I suddenly noticed that they were actually watching me, LOL! So I'm sure she'll appreciate that you reduced them so that they can meet the new specs.:D

And I absolutely agree about pets. Without mine, I don't know who I'd be, either. I don't know if you ever noticed my sig line, since it isn't spectacular like yours or CatWoman's, but it does express how I feel. If I post pics, they're of my guys, all rescue.
:loveya:

I have trouble with names, myself, unless it is someone I'm acquainted with or they have a particularly memorable sig. I don't know if you saw Swamp Rat's reply to my reply to you :crazy: but he absolutely agrees with you, and makes an excellent argument for keeping the sigs, besides.:-)

And I also agree with you on all counts. They are the reason I am so grateful to have found DU. It really is a community here, and I consider it my home. I hope that you come to, as well.
:grouphug:

Rhiannon:pals:

[CatWoman]

342. thank you so very, very much for this!!!!!!!!!!

DS1 had reduced it for me, but it was much smaller.

This is very nice work.

thanks, again!!!!!!!!!

[Dragonfli]

345. Anything I can do.

What is happening here is similar to the lyrics in a RUSH song.
......Now the trees are all kept equal, By hatchet, Axe, And Saw...

The admins have chosen to ignore creative solutions to the technical problems (and have ignored all posts proposing them).
What is left can be made to work for some, with the help of people who understand how to work in a restrictive environment. I am glad I was able to help save you from a rather blunt and closed minded hatchet.

Not all can be helped this way tho. I believe it is an intentional purging of the non-verbal element here, and will gladly take the hint and go back to lurking, or just go, as their silence would suggest they prefer. Next will be a major restriction on image posting and we will loose swamprat, DA, and others.

The one person who I care most about in the whole world, will fall under this blunt and narrow minded axe.

Her name is Ruby Phoenix, do a search for her posts. (She has only two) and although I started the thread she posted in, I have not continued in it because I was waiting for her to be well enough to post again, she is not well enough just yet. Please read that thread and understand perhaps why the admins close mindedness fails to realize what such "trivial" little things as sig lines can mean and represent to some. I knew your cats were not trivial to you, and was so pleased to be able to rescue them.

They are going to take away a gift I gave her tho. one that means a great deal to her right now for reasons that will become clear to you when you read that thread. I camped out at this thread and was ignored, even tho I know of several better solutions. And yes, I know Ruby well. I brought her to this board to meet the other element here, the kind, gentle loving souls who have built friendship and community around the chaos and frustration that is politics, A breed that I think will slowly die off as the admins ignore them more and more.

Actually this is my last post for a while because I think I should only put out positive thoughts, and for the last few weeks they have been rare. Better silent than a drag I always say.

[welshTerrier2]

165. could we keep HTML?

i really like the effort to cut down on sig line overhead ...

i especially like the restriction on images and would actually prefer to see images eliminated completely ...

on the other hand, it's not clear to me that there's much overhead associated with html in the sig ... rendering standard html should not incur much overhead ...

would it be possible to make the other changes now and then reassess whether the elimination of HTML is really necessary? ... i like having HTML in the sig to add a little bit of individuality and a little more interest ...

thanks ...

[nolabels]

166. What's a signature line ?

:spray:

[geckosfeet]

170. 20k is still pretty big for a sig image. A longish thread with 20

sig images of 20k each adds up pretty fast. Then there are all those images in the posts that far exceed 20k.

Text on the other hand, loads fast takes up little bandwidth. 400 characters at 4bytes per character is 1.6k.

Us dial up people have to wait a long time for graphics to load on a long thread. Can there be a general rule to optimize images to less than 20-25k before posting?

[Ms. Clio]

171. While we're on this kinda subject

Would it be possible to change the option that allows you turn off images and avatars so that you could turn off one but not the other? I like seeing avatars, but usually have all images turned off because I'm on dial-up.

I have been considering turning off sigs, too, so I think this is a sensible new policy, thanks!

[Taverner]

173. Shouldnt this be a sticky thread?

Took me a while to find this

[Misunderestimator]

174. While we're at it... can you move the red "Edited by" line down to the...

bottom of the post... It ruins the flow of the post to be the first thing you see.

Thanks :)

[bvar22]

175. I support the changes. No big deal.

I'm on cable, but find the feature heavy sig lines to be annoying on long threads. The 200 pixel height and 20K graphic limitation is not as bad as I first thought.
I seldom include graphics in my sig line, but will miss the line breaks and font changes. Such is life.

I changed my sig line yesterday to use a pic of Cindy that I will use as long as she is at Crawford. The size limit made very little difference.


Before correcting
file size 21.6K



After resizing to 200 pixels height
compression 20:1
File size 12.4K



After Camp Casey, out of respect for dial ups and the increase in traffic, I will use to a single graphics free statement.

[Eloriel]

176. Hooray!

Tired of scrolling...scrolling...scrolling...scrolling past miles of sig line for some DUers.

[lpbk2713]

182. I'm OK with that.

Some sig lines show a lot of imagination and talent but at the same time might go over the line without the DUer realizing it or even knowing there's a limit. Automatic detection/notification is probably the best way to go.

[Kali]

183. I have a very slow dial-up

But I like the sigs, for the most part. Some are a bit long and tedious with the small grey text and I agree sometimes it can be hard to tell them apart from the message - My faves are usually the humorous graphics or short phrases. I like some of the animated ones too - love the smiling frog (although I can see why some might find it disturbing) and the baby in the tub, for instance. I like Matcoms stairclimbing butt-smiley better than that purple thing but in general I enjoy them. Of course I never learned how to do them myself, or even put pix in the body of a message so...maybe I am just in awe of the magic!

Just my 2 cents.

[garthranzz]

184. Whatever helps - it's a great site

[Spider Jerusalem]

188. Disalllowing formatting seems completely unneccessary.

You ought to at least allow the <center> tag and line breaks, IMO.

[Mairead]

238. I agree -- and the image allowance is far too large

Formatting lines costs essentially nothing in terms of bandwidth, but huge images are both bandwidth hogs and rather obnoxious to encounter over and over and over and over and over and over again.

[alfredo]

189. Kick

for the cube rats returning from a hard day at the CRT.

[Nothing Without Hope]

190. This sounds very reasonable to me. Here is what 400 characters, including

spaces looks like:

Word word word word word word, word word word. Word word word word word word. Word word word word word word, word word word. Word word word word word word. Word word word word word word, word word word. Word word word word word word. Word word word word word word, word word word. Word word word word word word. Word word word word word word, word word word. Word word word word word word word.

That's a generous amount of space for something that is printed in each sig line. And a 20 kb image is considerably larger than the size of a DU avatar. When very large images or groups of images are used in every single post by a DUer, it can make a thread very long as well as slow to load for people with lower-speed connections.

Overall, this change makes a lot of sense to me. My current sig line has 445 spaces, so I'll trim it down a bit.

edited to add: I've trimmed it to 371 spaces and I actually like it better now.

[Coyote_Bandit]

198. Delete

[ahem]

225. I think you'll have to trim yours some more, though.

The characters in the URL for your picture of Andy in your sig will count toward the 400 limit (according to the new rules.) I think, with the URL added, it puts it around 433.

(Not trying to police your sig! Just wanted to make sure you got a chance to change it to whatever you want before the new system kicks in. BTW, I like your sig-line.)

Peace.

[Nothing Without Hope]

231. Thank you. I'm making the assumption here that the URL of the photo

wouldn't be counted, but perhaps that's not true. I can't use TinyURL because then the photo wouldn't display.

So I suppose I would alter my recommendation to specify that the characters in the URL of a photo NOT be counted in the total - after all, they won't take up space in the sig line.

[ahem]

232. Yeah, I'm sure there will be some confusion until the system starts

automatically denying things. The reason I think the photo url is counting toward the 400 limit is this line from Skinner's post:

1. Your signature line may not exceed 400 characters. This 400-character limit includes *all* characters, including spaces and URLs for links and images.

(bolding mine)

I think I understand why they're doing it that way. Since the URL for an image is typed into the same line as the text is, the only way for the software to force a limit of 400 characters is to count all the characters entered into that line.

I think TinyURL may come in handy for a lot of people. These new rules will just make us all get a little more creative :)

Peace.

[Nothing Without Hope]

234. yes, you're right. I'll have to do some more trimming. TinyURL will be

helpful for giving long web page links, but it won't display a link as an image. Neither will TinyPic.

What I would suggest is that they "officially" set the cut-off at 400 but not act as the URL police and cut anyone off under, say, 450. That extra unadvertized bit of wiggle room would save a lot of hassle all around, I think.

[NMDemDist2]

191. kicking it as a must read n/t

[ahem]

321. --kick-- (nt)

[LynzM]

194. Makes sense to me

There are many people around who can help 'shrink' files that are too large, etc.

I will, however, add my voice to those requesting that the "break" HTML may be used. If not, then not, but it'd be nice :)

[FlemingsGhost]

195. "There's a deception to every rule." -- Hal Lee Luyah

"There are no rules, here ... We're trying to accomplish something!"
-- Thomas Edison


Are these acceptable signature lines?

[LeftPeopleFinishFirst]

196. Keep the center tag option

Why is that a big deal?

The Line Break is also crucial for sig lines

some people put their names, then a line break and an image... to separate things...

[Coyote_Bandit]

199. Great! But.......

if I choose to have a text only sig and completely forego the use of any images it would seem like maybe that should be worth a few more text characters.

Could the limits be described as either:
(1) 400 characters plus maximum 20k image, OR
(2) if characters only, a maximum of 400 + x characters, OR
(3) if images only, maximum size of 20K + x.

Just a suggestion.

And, yes, it is a very welcome change. Thanks!

[VOX]

209. Was going to post a similar question re multiple images less than 20K...

combined.

Thanks, CB.

[Wizard777]

203. Thank You for the honest explination.

Not a lot of boards do that. They just drop the bomb and ban away.

[dpbrown]

204. I think you should allow line breaks

Most normal signature lines in any corporate or personal environment put the:

"Name"
"Address"
"Phone"

...all on separate lines.

It is therefore reasonable to allow signature lines that have a few line breaks in them, and to expect DU to adjust to the "individuality" that would result.

Thanks,

Dan Brown
Saint Paul, Minnesota

[fujiyama]

205. I can't say I blame you

I got tired of them and ended up disabling them all together and I have broadband that too. I can't imagine how long it would have taken with dial up.

It gets tiring to see the same huge images (and even paragraphs in some cases )repeatedly. I mean one small image doesn't hurt, but when the same images end up taking half the page then it can be a problem.

[Catch22Dem]

207. I wasn't going to involve myself, but having the ability to turn sigs off

Seems to make the new rules completely unnecessary. Don't like scrolling through sigs? Turn them off. Problem solved. Don't like waiting for sig images to load? Turn them off. Problem solved.

Some battles are worth fighting, and some aren't. To me, the sigs aren't important enough for me to raise a stink about them, but the whole thing seems a little strange.

[mcscajun]

210. Another vote for line breaks...

My sig is well under 400 characters, but I use two line breaks.

I'm in favor of keeping them (within reason, as some others have mentioned: excessive line breaks can be as wasteful and annoying as many other 'abuses') but I can certainly see stopping the use of centering, marquee tags, animation and oversized images.

I'm guessing that eliminating the HTML is death to the various "Google bombing" efforts we have ongoing at DU, such as the Commander Cuckoo Bananas" link in mine and many other DUers sig lines.

:sigh:

I'm gonna miss links like that.

[mcscajun]

292. Correcting: I see the links get to stay.

Yippee!!!

I still want Line Breaks, though. :)

[LittleClarkie]

216. I shrank Kerry. Is my sig okay now?

Or do I need to shave off some more?

[ahem]

226. You'll be limited to one picture and you'll lose your font formatting.

None of your pics are too big individually. You may even be able to combine them side-by-side into one picture file and use that, if that doesn't make them too big.

[Qanisqineq]

217. sounds great to me

as someone stuck with dial-up, I don't like when people have sig lines that take forever to load. At the same time, I don't want to use the "hide sig lines" option because I am interested in seeing them.

[Endangered Specie]

218. Sounds reasonable.

:)

[hyphenate]

221. It might help some people

to use some image optimizers. There are some online that are accessible to everyone, and there are others out there to download that can work as well on both GIFs and JPGs.

http://www.creatingonline.com/online_image_editor/

http://www.netmechanic.com/GIFBot/optimize-graphic.htm

http://www.spinwave.com/crunchers.html

wizard.com/

http://tools.dynamicdrive.com/imageoptimizer/

http://www.321webmaster.com/optijpg.php

You can also do a search at CNet, Snapfiles, or Downloads.com for image optimizers to download. In addition, many of the cataloging software programs can optimize as well. You can check out Xat.com for their array of optimizers.

I think limiting sigs is good for one particular reason: people need to get more creative as a result. Long sigs are fine in a perfect world, but this isn't a perfect world. I myself don't need to worry about bandwidth problems or loading time, but those days of dialup are not so far behind me that I can't relate.

Look at it this way, guys: we are a lot more creative and resourceful than others not here at DU. We can certainly make this work if we all agree it's a challenge that we have chosen to accept. :)

[VOX]

227. Excellent resources! Thanks! n/t

[LTR]

255. Here is a good program for image editing

Does a great job at reducing resolution for static images:

http://www.irfanview.com/

[hyphenate]

258. I use CompuPic myself

and it does allow for optimization, so I imagined IrfanView might, but wasn't certain. Thanks for letting everyone know!

[sellitman]

222. That's it.......I'm going to Free Republic....

I'm back :puke: :puke: :puke:

Ok Boss....sounds good to me!

[Rhiannon12866]

337. Just a warning... On FR, they're not allowed to either curse or puke...

And, considering the tripe and invective that they post, this may be a fortunate thing...:D

[Princess Turandot]

224. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Even with broadband, threads with a lot of responses take awhile to load. Then having to weed thru endlessly growing signatures is a waste of time. I'd prefer to see signatures to get a sense of a poster, but not when they turn into bulletin boards of every and anything that strikes someone's fancy, and personal manifestos. So I go back and forth between turning them on and off, or using an ad-blocker to block specific photos.

Next, I'd consider asking people not to post gratuitous photos in texts with have nothing at all to do with the topic being discussed but are just their favorite photo-shopped picture of Bush dejour. Start a forum for grotesque photos where people who like to see those can post them to their heart's content.

[tishaLA]

228. Thank you Skinner and mods!

I've never understood the need for such expansive sig lines. I'm saddened that you have had to take these measures, but they seem necessary.

[FizzFuzz]

235. I don't know how to count KB's or pixels

I edited my sig, but don't know if it complies or not

I still think matcom's idea of default OFF, manual ON for those who want them, seems like a good idea.

:(

[ahem]

236. Yours is within the new limits.

It could even be a tiny bit bigger. Just right-click the picture and select 'Properties' to see the the stats for your image. :)

Peace.

[FizzFuzz]

246. Oh! Thanks, ahem

total computer illiterate here.

I love your sig pic, btw. Beautiful.

I'm pretty visual--I'll miss all the eyeball entertainment

[ahem]

247. I'll miss some of it, too.

But there were a few that were a little busy even for my tastes :)

Thanks for complimenting my sig pic! I think of it as a self-portrait of a sort. I grabbed pictures of a bunch of people, things, and places that I love and layered them together. I figured people could get to know me better from my sig pic than from most of my posts. I had to shrink it down a little today, but it's not too bad.

Your mascot pic gives me a good chuckle.

Peace.

[FizzFuzz]

249. Hey I see Mr Winkle in there!

Howwwww cuuuute! As rosie the riveter, yet.

Great job on the collage! I agree, I really enjoy the personality that images give (and hey, people who choose no imagery make a personality statement too. But I digresss). I wish I knew how to do that stuff, but I probably don't need any more distractions right now.

I've been away from DU for awhile because I get too addicted here. (sigh) Probably gonna have to back off again, because I'm spending too much time already! :eyes:

[ahem]

251. You have good eyes!

Mr. Winkle is probably the hardest part to make out of that graphic--and you even recognized that he was being Rosie! I sure do love me some Winkle. It seems really silly but when I was going through a rough patch a couple of years ago the only thing I could crack a smile at was funny little pictures of him.

I get a bit addicted here, too. I take breaks from it regularly--sometimes because I'm spending to much time here sometimes because the flames take over. Ya' know.

Anyway, since you don't do computer graphics yourself, if you ever want a custom graphic for your sig or need to have a graphic tweaked for the new rules, just drop me a PM.

[FizzFuzz]

316. doesn't seem silly to me at all!

I remember a rough patch before Mr Winkle was around, where at one point, I needed to look at pictures of goofy chameleons, the kind with the googly eyes.

Thanks for the graphics help, I just might take you up on it sometime! And, glad you know what I mean about disappearing from time to time--sometimes I think I'm being rude, but that's probably just worrying for nuthin. With so many people here, its probably not even noticeable!

:hi: :D

[thrift_store_angel]

240. As someone who runs a message board.....

I don't think a lot of you realize the the ability to turn things on or off and to limit sizes is generally built into the message board software. With the html code and the BBC code you check a box and it is on or off. I don't know about the software used here but in the software I use you can allow exceptions for certain codes but it requires extra work. I am thinking the people who run this board probably have enough work to do. The thing like allowing a this or that option (you can have this thing or that and that) are simply impossible to do within the message board I have and I am 99% certain that they are here too. Being able to do that would require a re-write of the whole program, or at the very least writing a mod which is a fairly decent amount of work (and something you have to be able to know how to do). Even the new rules on this board are fairly lax a lot of boards don't allow pictures in the siggy lines at all (mine doesn't) and 400 characters is standard on the board package I use.

Just my .02 *going off to count my siggy line which I think might be a bit long*

[ChiciB1]

245. Not A Problem Here...

I have never taken the time to figure out how to insert them. One less problem for me.

However, there are some very interesting ones. Good call though!

[NMDemDist2]

254. kick for the night shift n/t

[ahem]

274. --kick-- (nt)

[LTR]

256. For the most part, I approve

Personally, I have always strived to keep my image sizes down and minimize the clutter at the bottom of my posts. It's not too difficult to scale down images.

However, I don't agree with the elimination of certain HTML tags. I use the 'center' and 'br' tags in my sig, and wish they would stay.

[quinnox]

257. a few comments

I looked at the difference with the new 20k image limit and the images are still too large for my taste to want to turn sigs back on. Similarly, the space allowed for sigs {without images} is still too large for me to want to turn them back on.

And although I'm on dial up, my feelings would not change if I was on broadband. The speed of loading is not the principle problem for me, but simple annoyance with large sigs.

On the other hand, not being a paying member, I can understand leeway given to those that do pay to peruse this site. And that some consider sigs to be an important part of their DU identity. So my comments are said knowing this as a background.

Still, in my opinion this is a good change that is long overdue.

More broadly, if this leads to a direction where DU rules begin to be enforced on a more consistent basis, then I'm all for it. I have recently noticed DU rules are not always being enforced on specific cases like personal attacks for instance. For example, I have started threads which are controversial apparently and get a lot of personal attacks which are not deleted and then others jump in when they see this is allowed. When this rule is let to go lax it leads to an atmosphere of hostility which is unfortunate. In the past, this would not happen and attacks were properly deleted.
Other DU rules which seem to be violated on a regular basis are the DO NOT POST ALL CAPS IN THE SUBJECT LINE and the no stalking rule where a DUer takes a disagreement with another from one thread to the next.
In my view, Duers should not be allowed to post links to another Duer's past comments in order to smear/malign. In my opinion, quoting any Duer's past posts from other threads should be against the rules. (unless there is a freeper in disguise and the Duer is exposing this)

If DU rules are to be effective, they should be enforced consistently with a zero-tolerance policy as stated in the OP regarding this new sig rule.

Please excuse this detour but as the "Ask the Admin" forum is no longer active, I wanted to take this opportunity to post some comments.

On another topic, I noticed a good idea posted earlier that I think should be followed up, putting the red edit line at the bottom of the post instead of at the top, this seems to me rather logical.

[Why Syzygy]

289. Another vote

for the edit line change. The current placement is obtrusive. Thanks.

[patricia92243]

259. What purpose do signature lines serve? Just do away with them -

end of problem - that goes for aviators too. I have them because we are allowed to have them. Getting rid of them will be easier than "policing" them.

[Tigress DEM]

322. You can show ongoing support for an issue

That is why I'm hoping I can make mine work. I think everyone on DU should see the pic I found because it should have been on the cover of Time or Newsweek, but because the child was not a tiny blonde hair, blue eyed American being carried out of Oaklahoma's tradgedy by a firefighter... it wasn't considered to be newsworthy.



And I want everyone to get to Washington DC on Sept 24-26 and help get the IMPEACHMENT message on the boards with numbers to big to ignore so our House Reps have to follow through.

[Grey]

264. Thank You n/t

[Balbus]

275. A much appreciated change - Thank you! eom

[vard28]

276. As a...

... long time "lurker", but recently frequent poster, I enjoy that we can personalize our blurbs. Unfortunately I live in the "sticks". Shoot, not only am I stuck with dial-up, but we don't even have cable out here! I appreciate the smaller graphics so that I may still enjoy the creativity of others, but won't have to wait quite so long for the loading. Yes, I could turn the sigs and stuff off, but since I do enjoy them for the most part, it would kind of suck if my only alternative was to turn them off.

Plus, I think the bottom line for me is that there is FINALLY a place that I can come for REAL information about the world around me. I had sort of thought of myself as a bit of a "news hound" until a friend that is a more veteran member here than I, pointed me in your direction. Cripes! Never in a million years could I have EVER imagined that what I was seeing and reading before wasn't true and accurate. And there is NO sarcasm in that last tidbit. I have learned more from so many different people here that I have become much better informed politically!

I have been away from computer access a little bit lately and I swear, I can't wait to get home to sit down and see what I have missed. I'm informed, entertained, educated and most of all... I am becoming a more involved citizen, activist and voter!

Thanks to Skinner and all the others that make this neighborhood available to us. I know I appreciate so many of the folks that have posted "welcomes" to me and made me feel like one of the gang. Hopefully those of you who find the new guidelines a bit too restrictive can work with Skinner and the others to figure out a nice compromise.

Okay, now I'm off to see what I missed while being gone all afternoon and evening, and to see what's next that I can do to support Cindy!

:pals:

[cynatnite]

277. Absolutely!

I can't tell you how much I loathe having to deal with download times, especially with longer threads and many of the posts filled with what I see as unnecessary graphics. Even on broadband it can slow the loading of a page.

I support this completely!

Thank You, Skinner!

[Jamastiene]

279. I have mixed feelings.

I can't remember everyone on here who has the wonderful cat pictures in their siglines, but I love those and was planning on copycatting them when I got my new scanner sometime by Christmas, hopefully, and adding my 3 cats' pictures to my sig line and ditching the quote. Now, I'm racking my brain trying to figure out how to do it and stay within the rules.

On the other hand, I'm on dialup and will enjoy having less to download to be able to read the posts.

One question I do have is this: If and when I get my new scanner, if I still decide to put my cats' picture in the sig line in some way without going against the rules and it happens to go against the rules anyhow and the software detects it, will it count against me in some way or just detect it and not allow it until I get it to comply?

[charlie]

280. Software won't detect it

If a moderator notices your graphic is too large or heavy, you'll be asked to remove it.

[Jamastiene]

283. Then all I gotta do is remove it or make it smaller, like

icon sized?

[charlie]

284. Smaller or lighter

500x200 pixels, 20K are the limits. Whichever you exceed, you'll need to fix.

[Jamastiene]

285. Thanks. I'll remember that and just keep it there when the times comes.

[Mairead]

286. SUGGESTION: make 2 sig fields, 1 of them non-graphic

and put separate switches in the prefs. Disallow graphics, animation, and larger fonts in the text sig. Formatted text isn't ever a problem, except for text that uses GIGANTIC FONTS.

If there's a problem, it's usually where someone believes in the depths of their soul that what people really need to see for the next year is an animated gif of Bush shoving his head up his own arse every 2 seconds. Or some splashy photoshop job using full-saturation, max-contrast colors.

[charlie]

287. Good idea

Also, I'd like to see a ban on BIG, H1, and H2 tags in the posting area. Having to scroll a couple of screens to get past a single post because someone thinks a megaphone is the only way to communicate their VERY IMPORTANT thoughts is beyond annoying. Unfortunately, there's a couple of people here who do that regularly.

[Moderator]

288. kick

:kick:

[psychopomp]

290. I do not see the need for rule no. three

Specifically, the prohibition against alignment, the need for which has not been adequately explained.

[meti57b]

293. I was using 5 little DU avatars in my sig but upped it to one big cat pic.

Five (5) 48X48 avatars were less of a load but I have to agree, one big pic of my cat is better.

[Why Syzygy]

299. Great Cat! n/t

[Adelante]

298. One exception

There seems to be no necessity for banning html code so that seems arbitrary. The rest I think is fair. The artists among us can show their work directly in the post area without it being repetitively shown in the sig line, if I understand Skinner.

I like Matcom's suggestion for reversing the default to see or not see sigs. I also like Matcom's ass - I always have. I missed it when it disappeared for the primaries.

I also like the suggestion for a programmed bar or line above the sig.

OT: I always thought the avatars could be twice their size without doing harm. Some I can barely make out, because they are so small and nondescript.

[benburch]

303. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

I cannot stand huge signature pictures.

[Pithlet]

305. I understand

I'm sorry it had to come to this. There are a few good sigs I'm going to miss, especially some of the kitty ones like Catwoman, ETAwful and Lorien. I'm sure they'll be able to downsize, but it won't be the same.

But, this is good for our dial up members, and I don't think they should have to turn off sigs because of the overblown sigs of some.

[JohnLocke]

310. Is this OK?

[charlie]

312. Too tall

Needs to be shrunk (or cropped) by 1/6.

[steve2470]

311. Maybe this thread should be bifurcated to facilitate dialup access

:-)

[Sinistrous]

313. I guess my abuse-of-the-rules sig line had to go.

I bet it took 40 - 50 bytes to display.

What the hell. I'm barely here any more, anyway.

[RoyGBiv]

314. Question about formatting ...

I understand the need for this in the abstract and have reduced my sig to one link/graphic for Firefox, but I admit I'm a bit bothered by not being able to use a line break. My current sig has a line break for obvious reasons. The comment doesn't at all relate to the graphic. I suppose in that case I could just choose.

But, at one point, I had a sig with a little poem in it. It was very short and probably fewer characters than my current sig. I'm anal about formatting such things, and having it all on one line would have been irritating.

I guess what I'm asking is if using a line break chews up any significant amount of bandwidth, even spread out over thousands of posts.

[Skip Intro]

315. I wish it wasn't necessary. I hate to see limits placed on creativity.

Not saying I don't believe it is necssary, just wish it wasn't.

Of course I"m not worried about my sigs - I'm not that inventive with them, but there are some talented people here who use their sig lines to indentify themselves, to say something about themselves, in just the right way. SIg is short for signature. I'll iss some. And it'll be sad to see that curtailed.

Can we donate money for some server upgrade or something? Maybe throw in a different colored star or something that requires a periodic donation to retain. Not that I know anything about this stuff, just a thought...

[Bucky]

317. Is this sig file appropriate?

I do use some font, break, and paragraph align tags in my sig file. They seem to work okay now. do I need to go back thru and edit this down or is this permissible?

[Bucky]

319. Never mind. I see the answers to my questions. I'll conform

I originally used the right align paragraph tag in order to reduce the amount of verticle space my sig file used up. So I'm violating the letter of the law in order to meet the spirit of the law.

Of course there's other ways to get the effect I'm going for. But I'm sure gonna miss changing the color of the words in my sig.

It just now occurs to me what a big nerd I am for worrying about such things.

[Tigress DEM]

324. Skinner, I'm working on mine

My husband created a special page so I could put the pic up, but even though it is smaller than allowed, the size is over in KB. 34 instead of 20, so I'm going to shrink it down to 100 x 96 as soon as I can get my husband to log into his site as admin and fix it.

Even though I'm in IT, I'm not 100% clear on whether my text is in compliance or not. I'm going to take out a few lines, and I'm already using TinyURL, so hopefully that helps, but I like the bullet point and lines down which was in the HTML lookup table provided. Is that OK or not?

[Tigress DEM]

325. Done

[sendero]

327. I honestly..

... don't understand why you care about HTML formatting. If you just count the chars, including tags, what difference does it make to you?

Sending out /font/ that is 20 characters long is the same to your server as sending out 20 chars of whatever, so why do you care?

[Skinner]

328. I care because excessive scrolling is annoying.

Some people have dozens of line breaks in their sigs, and manage to take up half of the screen. It's a complete waste of space.

We might be able to somehow place a hard limit on the number of line breaks. I'm not sure, though.

[sendero]

329. So everyone has to be penalized for the abuses?

Why not set a limit, and forget enforcing it in code. Publicize it and those who break the rules (let folks alert it ) more than once or twice lose sig privileges altogether. :)

Here is my problem with your proposal - the way you are doing this it will be difficult to differentiate a sig from post content (not being able to use color, font, etc). That is not good either.

[Skinner]

333. On the contrary, it will be very easy to tell the difference.

The post is in medium black font. The sig is in small grey font.

The whole idea of enforcing it with code is because that's the easiest and most consistent way to enforce it.

[sendero]

334. Ok...

... I missed that bit of info :)

[Spider Jerusalem]

330. So eliminate or limit line breaks, and keep the "center" tag.

Its use doesn't cause any additional scrolling. No good reason for getting rid of it.

[charlie]

332. If elad doesn't recode to strip attributes

from tags, centering can still be done within B and EM tags with CSS:

[b style="text-align:center; display:block; width:100%"]

[welshTerrier2]

343. just an idea re: line breaks ...

perhaps you could either allow only one or two line breaks OR perhaps you could count each line break as some fixed number of characters (e.g. 80 or 120 or whatever) ...

this way, DU'ers could "spend" their 400 characters on blank lines if they felt it was that important to have them ...

just an idea ...

[proud patriot]

331. Okay my new sig line is complete

:hi:

[Mike Niendorff]

335. Thank you!

It's about time.


MDN

[noamnety]

344. Thanks skinner!

The changes sound great.

[Sinistrous]

346. To be brief, the universal prohibition of HTML really sucks.

I could easily hang a whole bunch of less-than-flattering adjectives on that prohibition, but they would just get me tomb-stoned. My sig uses three HTML codes, but does not use much bandwidth at all. Yet these new rules allow bandwidth hogging images. Somewhere in here that there is a breakdown in logic. Maybe I should start logging in a Procrustes. That should be really popular.