Forum Moderators and Rules/Guidelines

[Astro Forever]

Sorry.

It was 400x100, now it's 640x100. I wrote 200 in the image I posted above, but the image is actually 100. I got confused by the file size in kilobytes (which is 200)!

I'll change the text on the image right away!

Edited: it's done. The text on the image is now correct.

[diehard67]

the 200k size limit, is that for images uploaded to astroboy-online for sigs only or does it apply to images linked to from someware else, photo bucket or my own server????

[Alittleacorn]

(Gives you tutu) careful with that thing.

Something came to my attention. Back on July on the thread 'The Show Off Your Sig Thread' From posts 10 to 35 on pages 1 and 4, there was discussion on increasing Signature sizes from 400x100 to 400x150.

Jeffbert even quotes on page 4

No concrete decisions yet, as only 2 of 3 mods have posted in the thread. Even then, the owner must make the final decision.

However, as it stands now, we are thinking that by no means should a signature's height exceed 150 pixels. Many posts are no more than 2 lines, and such a signature is many times the height of 2 lines.

Though not official we were all lead to believe signatures were 400x150 pixel and now have discovered this is not the case. Though signatures sizes have been increased in width by 200 pixel, really to many of us the height has been decreased by 50 pixel, resulting in sig making being trickier to deal with, since if you take a screenshot from a show, film, video game or comic, their width most the time is 640x360 some low to 320x180, making 150 pixel easiest to cope.

So where we thought it was this:


And you accidently mislead with this:


It’s actually always been this:


But now you’ve done this:


Making us have to do this:


Or this:


Resulting in this:


What I'm trying to say is you Jill sandwiched us?

[AprilSeven]

Obvious we can't put as much content in a long, skinny strip. LittleAcorn did an excellent job showing how an image is "strangled" by the new constraints.

Some of these are real little masterpieces, and add a certain charm to the Forum. I can also understand size of the files to be uploaded being too much -- and also a concern for post after post featuring a big sig (the post becomes all artwork instead of message).

A couple thoughts:

Could we "grandfather" this in, so those of use with previously "legal" sigs could keep them (at least for a while)? Any new ones would have to be the new size.

Could we compromise on the size/use of the sig - in other words, if I was only going to post a few sentences, instead of taking up all that space with my big (BEEUTIFUL ) sig, I could "turn it off" by unchecking "Show your signature" under Additional Options? (to make an example, I'll do my part right now!)

100 pixels is simply not enough height to create much of anything. Hopefully we can find happy balance?

[Astro Forever]

(Gives you tutu) careful with that thing.

Something came to my attention. Back on July on the thread 'The Show Off Your Sig Thread' From posts 10 to 35 on pages 1 and 4, there was discussion on increasing Signature sizes from 400x100 to 400x150.

Jeffbert even quotes on page 4

No concrete decisions yet, as only 2 of 3 mods have posted in the thread. Even then, the owner must make the final decision.

However, as it stands now, we are thinking that by no means should a signature's height exceed 150 pixels. Many posts are no more than 2 lines, and such a signature is many times the height of 2 lines.

Though not official we were all lead to believe signatures were 400x150 pixel and now have discovered this is not the case.

In the Rules and guidelines page, it had never changed before yesterday, it had always been 400x100 pixels. This sentence has also always been there:

Some exceptions may be made for signatures that are just over the recommended limit.

Over the years, we (I mean the moderators) have tried to keep the signatures on the smaller side but except maybe for the very beginning where all the regular members adjusted the signatures they were using when the guideline was established, we've always been lenient and even more and more as time went by, because we knew it was really small, people always seemed to come with new signatures so we would have always been "fighting", it was a guideline, not a rule and then there was this little sentence I quoted above. So, I definitely don't think we've ever said anything about signatures that were at 150 pixels (at least not in a long time), but it had never been the rule and when I read this, for me it's clear that jeffbert never announced it was the official new rule. Of course I know where he was coming from, so it may be easier for me.

(Sorry for misleading you, although I know you are teasing me a little When I first read Mark's reply yesterday, I read it too fast and thought it was 200, which surprised me because a 640x200 pixels stripe, when I drew it, seemed huge, but then realized today it really was 100 (with 200 being its size in kb). But the text from the guideline did say 100 pixels and at least my image was the right size.)

Although from the time Mark chose moderators, we made suggestions about some of the rules because of what the forum had experienced in its first years, we had made no specific suggestions about this. Back then, I even asked Mark to increase the Kb size for avatars a little because it was incredibly hard to come up with any animation, so if you think it's hard now, imagine what it was then! Anyway, I'll e-mail Mark with a link to this thread and we'll see what he has to say.

the 200k size limit, is that for images uploaded to astroboy-online for sigs only or does it apply to images linked to from someware else, photo bucket or my own server????

It was for all images. As I understand it, I think it was to make sure that all the signatures within a page wouldn't make that page take a long time to load.

Could we "grandfather" this in, so those of use with previously "legal" sigs could keep them (at least for a while)? Any new ones would have to be the new size.

That wouldn't be fair to the new users though. I would just never be able to ask anybody to comply with a rule that doesn't apply to other users (especially since they were never truly legal in the first place!).

Could we compromise on the size/use of the sig - in other words, if I was only going to post a few sentences, instead of taking up all that space with my big (BEEUTIFUL ) sig, I could "turn it off" by unchecking "Show your signature" under Additional Options? (to make an example, I'll do my part right now!)

I don't know, I don't think people would think of doing this on a regular basis. And I certainly won't start warning people with "Hey, user X, you should have turned off your signature, you only posted a single line!"

As I said it's not my decision; I tried 200 px yesterday and it seemed really big, but 150 pixels seems acceptable to me, as long as there isn't also more text below; but I guess the text could be on the left/right side of the image, especially if the idea is to use a picture from a TV or movie screen?

But something like this seems scary:


In any case, as I said, I'll e-mail Mark. Keep your signatures as they are for the moment. If other people have more ideas, it's time to share them.

[jeffbert]

I agree, that is a bit scary; & even with my large screen, a few of those one line posts would fill the screen from top to bottom. I think we need to discuss why we even use signatures. Not as though I am against them, but that some poeple use them to make statements, while, as I understand them, they are merely there as an additional way to personalize our posts; hence, the word, signature is used instead of billboard. I think wide and short is all anyone really needs; If you want more, just animate it.

[diehard67]

how about this, the colours don't meen anything other then I was just being silley



tall enough to have content but not tall wnought tio kill off sombodies screen realistate, unless you are me and zoom in to beable to read the text.

[Astro Forever]

I did the same thing on my side; I'll post it anyway because I think there is more contrast than with the light purple and we have a better idea:



Not as scary, but still a little bit big... could live with it I guess, but, and I'm saying this as a user, not as a moderator, I tend to agree with jeffbert on the purpose of signatures.

[Astro Boy2866]

My sig is 309 x 220. I've seen people with small sigs, but they have a bunch of links or text under it, so if there was a picture the same size it would be about 300 pixels tall

[Mark]

Alright folks, I've upped the signature guidelines to 640x150

Don't get too hung up on them though, really we just want to keep threads from becoming 90% signatures and 10% actual posts. To quote a great pirate, "They're more what you'd call 'guidelines', than actual rules"