OK, now that the stupid stuff is out of the way (and it is, so don't bring it up here), perhaps we should discuss the nature of the signature rules properly.

Proposal:

Have a maximum sig height of (roughly - text reasons to be explained) 150px inclusive of all components. Keep the maximum sig image width at 600px, and no multiple images on the same row that go beyond this size. Text would be allowed to go all the way across.

Now, consider text of size 100% (the forum works in percents) is ~20px tall, with other sizes being fairly easy to work out (just times by the percent for their size). Font styles do not greatly affect the size and size 200 is the greatest allowed in sigs. If the text wraps (goes to a newline without an enter in between), it would be judged in length on a ~1000 width window. This gives approximately half the signature space of a 1600 width window (full screen on a standard 22" TFT), so 4 lines of solid text on there would become 8 as far as the rules are concerned.

This would mean you could have any one of;

• 8 lines of standard size text.
• 4 lines of size 200 text.
• A single 600x150 image.
• Two 300x150 images placed side by side.
• Two 600x75 images placed above each other.
• A 600x100 image, 3 lines of text.
• A 600x100 image, small xfire thing and 1 line of text.
• A quote with 6 lines of text contained (A quote box takes up about 2 lines/40px of extra space).

I'm sure you get the idea by now, judging the size of the sig should be fairly easy. Maximum image size limits would be placed by software and should NOT be circumvented.

These rules would have no leniency as they would be perfectly fair for everyone. Breaking of the rule could be dealt with by an admin placing the signature in a spoiler box and informing the person that they need to change their signature.

Other issues for discussion;
Images with links (some people find they accidentally click them, though I presonally don't).
Animated gifs (should possibly have a limit on the size of these as they get annoying if they are too big and flashy. Also take into account filesize. One's like Wynney's would be fine (very small).

Thoughts?

NOTE: These rules are not in effect, they are for discussion only at this time. The current rules still stand

Hmm, I do personally thing that the size of an image with no text should be slightly bigger than 600x150, either 600x175 or 600x200.

Reason being that with the 600x100 image, small x-fire box and one line of text comes to pretty much exactly the same size.

Really? (To borrow Aaron's work)


Comes to pretty much exactly 150px, especially considering that image contains the _____ line above.

All the numbers match up to 150px high, which is the rule. The list was given as examples. The idea of the proposed rule is to make a more uniform covering while not making sigs any bigger on the whole.

Thanks for quoting me

Ah, fair enough. It seemed like more on a cursory look over.

They don't need to be massive tbh, maybe 10-20% larger then they are now. That's my 2 cents.

On the Discovery Forum where I mainly spend my time there are Signatures in the sizes of 700x250 (Total size, nothing above those pixels). Yet they dont look massive. Even if you move into the Flood Forum the sizes arent really distracting. Also one image is less distracting, and by the way cleaner than the 2 Images and a line of text which is currently here.

Some people have just a quote in it, others a big image. You can take a look here. Discovery Forum

No, I am not suggesting those sizes now. I fairly think 600x150 or 700x150(I dont think someone is using the old solution 800x600 here) is pretty fine.

The bigger size is letting people to show some art, I really had problems making those small Signatures, because you sometimes really dont have any space. Signatures are just art...You take a look, think "wow cool" and read on. Probably you wont ever took on the signature ever again.

The thing I was raging against was that I'm not allowed to use a Signature which is having the same size as the Admin's one and other people as well. The same size, just not being randomly scrambled together as yours Skillers. Or Nannal's or BB'S. I couldnt get this into my head, the others couldnt get it into their heads. As I read, even Si said it is fine.

The thing why you couldnt see my downscaled Signature was because you have taken away my Signature before. I was working on it and as I came back I couldnt change it anymore. And it is the one I have posted before, which as well has the same size as your Signature.


Sure I could have done this in another way, but sometimes people are stubborn. I wanted to do this in my way. See if other people are annoyed by its size, but somehow it was only you.

This is not the place for further discussion on the matter of your signature, but quite simply, you broke the rules, which was my problem. My explanation of the reasoning behind the rules was probably not the best, which probably came across poorly. While there are some things we are quite stubborn on, for various reasons, if you had brought up a sensible suggestion for an amendment to the signature rules, such as the one in this thread, with reasoning as you had (this signatures are x size, why can't I sacrifice the text for a bigger image). Also, the image you used was not the same size as mine, it was bigger by ~50 pixels.

As for the larger ones for those forums, that's fair enough. It's worth considering, though, that the average post length there is probably significantly greater than here (what with it being an RP forum), which means that larger sigs don't matter so much (the content to sig ratio is still high).

Anyway, you seem overall happy with the solution proposed in this thread, so I'll take that as a good thing.

One thing I do note, though is that making the sigs wider half defeats the point of letting them be taller, as if you went to use the full width, the proportions wouldn't be as easy to work with for the whole art thing as simply increasing the height, without increasing the height excessively (I gather/find that the main problem is it being a long thin image).

Also, you say that sigs are for art and that "Probably you wont ever took on the signature ever again" which to me seems slightly odd. As a sig, it's something that people see on every page, and I feel it should be more of an identifier (like the avatar/name colour etc) than a piece of art only intended to be viewed once, which would be something better suited to a separate post where you have far more freedom of expression.

Proposal seems fair to me.

On the Facepunch Forum where I mainly spend my time there are Signatures in the sizes of 0X0 (Total size, nothing above those pixels)....

On the Techious forums where I mainly spend my time there are signatures just the right size, they require very little or no size increase. I'm getting a netbook soon, which have crappy res screens I don't want half the screen covered by some random signature, and not being able to make out the content.

It's ok for most people here schlurbi, who use desktops with decent sized screens and aren't noobs (lololololol). But the few people who do use laptops it's very distracting and unnecessary, not to mention the times when people may be forced to use BAD interwebz, having to load up images to make out the content they came for is a major hassle.

Some of the best sigs I ever saw where on the freelancer universe forums and they managed to make perfectly good sigs WITHIN the limitations of the forums. If you cannot do that then make the sig you want and scale it down.

I think skillers posted, and I had heard about on twit the photoshop images that are incredibly detailed and you can zoom right into any portion of it, so just size it down.

1st - Excellent use of time!
2nd - I agree completely, that is why the rules proposed are not allowing signatures to be bigger overall, rather more flexible (I know I keep saying this, I just want people to make sure they see that bit )

I don't really mind what you decide but this seams perfectly reasonable to me.
Sigs show people who you are, and adds some colour to the forum, which is good. but you dont want them to be too distracting or take to long to load as scottie said. If the recent (and pretty silly) issue is due to people not being able to express themselves artistically then perhaps an 'Art' forum would be a good idea? sig of the week competitions and the like..
as for Huge sigs, just no. I'm something or an artist myself and i get annoyed when i have to scroll through loads of massive images to find what i want regardless of how attractive they are. we'd probably need to disable them completely in anything but forum games if we wanted people to read anything.