NEW! Signatures! (now with more regulation)

• starpaw7 wrote on 2011-10-15 18:11

  [SIZE="4"]Signature Rules[/SIZE]
  

  
  
  • Total signature file size should not exceed 1.5MB.
    

  
  
  The first two I can easily deal with, since most of the ones I see me or other use aren't that big.
  
  But that one screws up everything about using most of the .gifs I try to use.
  
  Seriously; I can either reduce the quality to make it look like I pulled it out of my colon, re-size the height as the main focus to make it unidentifiable, or go with the much preferred option of re-sizing the width so that the height is within a 100 pixel radius of the limit (without seeming as miniscule) and reduce the quality just slightly enough.
  
  In the end, making it just tiny enough so the quality decrease isn't too noticed, but still very small as compared to the original better-fitting size.
  
  With short cartoons scenes? Sure, it's not too much affected so I'm fine with it - I'm pretty picky when it comes to what kind of quality I want to use.
  
  
  But with real footage, or longer cartoon scenes, this restricts most of them from being used in a good quality unless I plan to Spoiler-tab it every time.
  
  I really have no problem with this outside of these kind of .gifs - and I completely understand for some reasons, such as if it affected the server my a good margin, but other than the spectrum around that I disagree.
  
  
  I agree with most of what Pika is saying:
  
  - The left-bar is more of a problem then the signatures
  - Members could set their own signature limit before (or remove signatures altogether)
  - If they really were that obnoxiously big, they could just report it and a mod could nuke it then
  - ^All of this if the main problem was the server or many player's internet
  
  
  To be honest; I have never except once gotten a complaint that I can remember for any of the .gifs that were large - and the one complaint was because they had a horrible bandwidth themselves.
  
  :chomp2:
• Claudia wrote on 2011-10-15 18:31

  Quote from Cucurbita;620586:

  21 inch monitor, 1080p
  ALMOST a 3rd. To be accurate though, 28%.
  
  On my main monitor, which is a 17 inch laptop (how is it small? Thats still pretty big for a laptop), I have 1600 x 900 setup. Thats directly a 3rd of my screen.
  
  Now for anyone who is using a laptop with lower resolution, I feel sorry for you, but I know theres a lot of you out there. 14~15 inch seems to be the standard for most consumer usage.

  
  
  Yep. 10.1' represent.
  
  1024x576.
  
  Also yeah, i'd love it if something could be done about mass number of pets stretching the posts. I already feel guilty that almost all of my posts stretch, even though I have...one pet.
• Cucurbita wrote on 2011-10-15 18:41
  starpaw, 1.5MB is pretty ridiculously huge for an image to be loaded every page we visit.
  
  Or maybe I'm biased because I come from the age in which 1.5MB was the most you can fit in one of these things.
  
  

  [Image: http://trendsupdates.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/disk.jpg]
• Juno wrote on 2011-10-15 18:43

  Quote from starpaw7;621585:

  I agree with most of what Pika is saying:
  
  - The left-bar is more of a problem then the signatures
  - Members could set their own signature limit before (or remove signatures altogether)
  - If they really were that obnoxiously big, they could just report it and a mod could nuke it then
  - ^All of this if the main problem was the server or many player's internet
  
  
  To be honest; I have never except once gotten a complaint that I can remember for any of the .gifs that were large - and the one complaint was because they had a horrible bandwidth themselves.
  
  :chomp2:

  
  
  1.5MB isn't a terribly restrictive limit. Even your current sig is only a third of that. The goal is that people with poor internet will still be able to browse the site, though we also tried to adjust for the fact that anyone playing online games will have reasonable service.
  
  We're also aware of the signature shortening feature. Because of that, we aimed for a limit that wouldn't touch the vast majority of signatures. However, we didn't want people to have to use that just because of a handful of users.
  
  In the end, we'll see how this turns out and possibly adjust the values later. If something seems really off then we'll re-evaluate.
  
  

  Quote from Claudia;621602:

  Also yeah, i'd love it if something could be done about mass number of pets stretching the posts. I already feel guilty that almost all of my posts stretch, even though I have...one pet.

  
  
  Yeah, this is definitely up next.
• Osayidan wrote on 2011-10-15 19:26
  The current resize thing is globally for all images on the site, not for sigs only. All it does is tell the browser to display it smaller if the width is over 500px to avoid breaking the website layout. It doesn't reduce the file size, it's the original image but scaled down with javascript. It won't resize based on height, so if you have a 1000px high image that's only 450 wide, it won't touch it.
• TA wrote on 2011-10-15 22:46

  Quote from Misaka;621378:

  There's even an option to LIMIT THE HEIGHT OF SIGNATURES. If it really was a problem for some people and they still wanted to see signatures, why not just limit the height and carry on with your day?

  
  
  The problem with that is that it doesn't resize signatures, it just cuts them off at that point. So you would never see a good half of someone's signature, or even someone's entire second signature. It's even worse as a mod since they could have a big "F U" as their second signature and you'd never see it if you had the cut-off on.
  
  300px is quite massive however, and nobody needs more than that. It's very generous...
  
  

  Quote from starpaw7;621585:

  But that one screws up everything about using most of the .gifs I try to use.
  
  To be honest; I have never except once gotten a complaint that I can remember for any of the .gifs that were large - and the one complaint was because they had a horrible bandwidth themselves.

  
  
  Let's not be selfish, and try to be considerate of users that do have slow internet or low bandwidth caps.
  
  If you have problems resizing your gifs, you're more than welcome to make a request here and I (and several others) would be more than happy to try and help.
  
  And keep in mind, these are signatures. Think of a signature on a piece of paper. It's just a tiny little fancy signature of your name, and maybe one line of text like "Yours truly," or whatnot. I think people are missing the point of signatures. It's not a personal art page to display how unique of a snowflake you are. It's a small signature that represents you.
  
  I mean, what we're talking about is basically the equivalent of this:
  
  

  [Image: http://i.minus.com/ibyFnUwlM6pS1t.png]

  
  
  How ridiculous would that be?
• Iyasenu wrote on 2011-10-15 23:24
  I'm still good, right, since my Kenero-pic is in spoilers.
  Image Info says my "are you next" thing is scaled down to 500 x 151 and my Mabination Migrator is only 20 tall.
  Dunno how tall the spoiler tags are but I don't think it's 79 pixels tall.
• Hitokagay wrote on 2011-10-15 23:56

  Quote from TA;621877:

  I mean, what we're talking about is basically the equivalent of this:
  
  

  [Image: http://i.minus.com/ibyFnUwlM6pS1t.png]

  
  
  How ridiculous would that be?

  
  
  [FONT="Palatino Linotype"]

  ...You mean people aren't supposed to sign their letters like that?
  
  I'm kidding, obviously. That picture made my day though, I lol'd heartily.
  
  Also, is my signature still too tall? I made some adjustments, but I feel like I should kill a line of text.

  [/FONT]
• Adelynn wrote on 2011-10-16 16:47
  My chibi signature was too big. D=
  
  My single pet and my special icon along with level 3 avi size starts to stretch my post anyway, though. lol.
• starpaw7 wrote on 2011-10-16 17:58
  Thank you Spoilers, for saving future me from a wall of text:
  
  
  [SPOILER="Spoiler"]

  Quote from Cucurbita;621617:

  starpaw, 1.5MB is pretty ridiculously huge for an image to be loaded every page we visit.
  
  Or maybe I'm biased because I come from the age in which 1.5MB was the most you can fit in one of these things.
  
  

  [Image: http://trendsupdates.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/disk.jpg]

  
  
  I guessed that most here had no problem with it, for if they really had a problem they could tell me or report the image if it was too ridiculously large.
  
  I'm not savvy with internet pages, so all I can compare to is that after the first load, the computers I use don't have to take time to load it again - as in, if I look at the .gif once, it almost never has to take time to load again.
  
  
  Along with my response to Juno, I can perfectly understand that reason.
  
  Goodbye Dwayne

  [Image: http://www.freesmileys.org/emoticons/tuzki-bunnys/tuzki-bunny-emoticon-030.gif]

  
  
  
  

  Quote from TA;621877:

  And keep in mind, these are signatures. Think of a signature on a piece of paper. It's just a tiny little fancy signature of your name, and maybe one line of text like "Yours truly," or whatnot. I think people are missing the point of signatures. It's not a personal art page to display how unique of a snowflake you are. It's a small signature that represents you.
  
  I mean, what we're talking about is basically the equivalent of this:
  
  

  [Image: http://i.minus.com/ibyFnUwlM6pS1t.png]

  
  
  How ridiculous would that be?

  
  
  Tell that to half of the forum.
  
  Also, this is an Internet Signature; not a piece of paper - a "personal art page" can certainly be used to represent themselves without it being obnoxious.[/SPOILER]
• Cucurbita wrote on 2011-10-16 18:24

  Quote from starpaw7;622834:

  Also, this is an Internet Signature; not a piece of paper - a "personal art page" can certainly be used to represent themselves without it being obnoxious.[/COLOR][/SPOILER]

  
  
  Signatures on the internet are intended as the same type of signature of a paper.
  
  Which original began with proper email signature, which should look something like this at the end of every mail.
  
  Example:
  
  Dear Kitae
  
  <content of email here>
  
  *signature begins here*
  <Name>
  <Title>
  <Acknowledgement>
  <Location of office>
  <Location of Employment>
  <City, State>
  <Work Email>
  <Work Phone, Work Fax>
  
  <favorite quote>
  <favorite links>
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  
  This is the format that gave birth to online signatures. Its still what forum signatures are intended for. Throwing in a few good quotes, contact information, something that really represents you (hence the word signature).
  
  It did nicely evolve into a place where we can throw on pictures and such, and even I'm doing so myself so I can't criticize much, but take for example TA or Kingofrune's sigs, which are basically mini profiles of their characters on vindictus and mabinogi, very appropriate for this forum. Or cynic's current signature, which has a favorite quote/image of sorts, followed by links to her blogs/sites.
• starpaw7 wrote on 2011-10-17 20:28
  Today I Learned:
  
  

  Quote from Cucurbita;622873:

  Signatures on the internet are intended as the same type of signature of a paper.
  
  Which original began with proper email signature, which should look something like this at the end of every mail.
  
  Example:
  [SPOILER="Spoiler"]
  Dear Kitae
  
  <content of email here>
  
  *signature begins here*
  <Name>
  <Title>
  <Acknowledgement>
  <Location of office>
  <Location of Employment>
  <City, State>
  <Work Email>
  <Work Phone, Work Fax>
  
  <favorite quote>
  <favorite links>
  
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~[/SPOILER]
  
  This is the format that gave birth to online signatures. Its still what forum signatures are intended for. Throwing in a few good quotes, contact information, something that really represents you (hence the word signature).
  
  It did nicely evolve into a place where we can throw on pictures and such, and even I'm doing so myself so I can't criticize much, but take for example TA or Kingofrune's sigs, which are basically mini profiles of their characters on vindictus and mabinogi, very appropriate for this forum. Or cynic's current signature, which has a favorite quote/image of sorts, followed by links to her blogs/sites.

  
  
  I see.
  
  Although I was leaning toward today's most-used Internet/forum signature - it's not ridiculous to use something outside of it's original intent as long as it's not obnoxious.
  
  I could splash on my game/other contact information, but that's what those big
  
  

  [Image: http://mabination.com/images/info/info_mabi1.png]

  [Image: http://mabination.com/images/info/info_vind.png]

  
  
  
  

  [Image: http://mabination.com/theme1/misc/im_aim.gif]

  , and others fill in for me.
• Fabian wrote on 2011-10-20 01:05
  i think we'd save a lot of trouble by simply going with something like this:
  
  http://mabination.com/archive/index.php/t-9935.html
  

  [Image: http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt305/darkzero46/Perfection.jpg]

  
  
  It loads almost instantaneously and would allow people with crappy 1mg internet connections to browse everything.
  
  Feels like we should go pre-Nexon forums style.
  
  :awesome:
• TA wrote on 2011-10-20 01:08

  Quote from Fabian;627631:

  i think we'd save a lot of trouble by simply going with something like this:
  
  http://mabination.com/archive/index.php/t-9935.html
  

  [Image: http://i622.photobucket.com/albums/tt305/darkzero46/Perfection.jpg]

  
  
  It loads almost instantaneously and would allow people with crappy 1mg internet connections to browse everything.
  
  Feels like we should go pre-Nexon forums style.
  
  :awesome:

  
  
  That is gross.... :barf:
• Fabian wrote on 2011-10-20 01:41

  Quote from TA;627643:

  That is gross.... :barf:

  
  
  Whaaaaa? Why?
  
  You can read a thread that would normally take you an hour (say 30 or so pages) in like 10 minutes. There are no avatars, sigs, or unnecessary things that distract you. You get the information you were looking for, plain and simple. Plus it loads super fast. 8D