Popular Post Chaos he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Popular Post Posted September 17, 2015 Hey guys, It's come to our attention that some signatures (that is, the thing that appears after your post) on the forums are quite unnecessarily long in vertical space. With this in mind, we are changing our guidelines on signature length. I think the previous, very loose guidelines worked for a small community, but as the site's evolved, things need to change, and the rules need to be more strict. Here's the general idea: if you make a really small post (a line or two), your signature should not be much longer--vertically--than the space the forum regularly allots your post to be. When signatures are long, this is very annoying to scroll through when a person writes a one sentence post, and yet it actually takes the space of two or more posts. I think we can all agree that we want the desktop viewing experience on the forum to be as pleasant as possible, and long sigs really hurt that goal. Here are the new signature rules: Image Restrictions The total size of all images in your signature may be up to 500 pixels wide by 100 pixels tall. This means you can have multiple small icons next to each other, but all the images cannot take up any more than that space. It's really important that this is the case. Having images much wider than 500 pixels extends the forum length in the Personal Messenger area, and as for height, we generally want to reduce the amount of scrolling that takes place on topics. Yes, this means you can't have multiple big banners any longer. Sorry. Animated GIFs should also not be used. GIFs cause direct page-load and performance problems. Total Signature Size Look at one of your posts. See that vertical line separating the left-hand side--which has your avatar, post count, and rep count--and the post content? That's the minimum height of your post, regardless of how much or how little you write in a post. Therefore, here is the restriction on signature lengths: if you write a one-line post, your signature should be contained within this vertical line. This makes it so short posts actually appear short and do not cause undue scrolling. Note that images also need to be within that vertical line (in a one-line post), but fortunately, if you have a 500x100 banner, you actually have a lot of room for text--like, say, the theories you espouse, or other pithy lines. Also, as should be obvious, your signature (or posts, for that matter) shouldn't increase the width of the site. This has very rarely occurred, so I'm not concerned, but let's make that explicit. No More Spoiler Tags Some use spoiler tags in signatures to hide particularly long content. There's not much reason for this, and hiding large images in these spoiler tags still means that your browser has to load them. Due to the general unnecessary nature of these, and the increase in page load from hiding lots of things, there should no longer be spoiler tags in signatures. Elimination Score Count This one is specific to the players of the Sanderson Elimination games. There should be no more keeping scores in signatures. There have been concerns brought forward about them, and it’s time to stop having that as part of your signature. In Conclusion We'll start enforcing these rules this Sunday, September 20th. We'll generally PM you to alter it, and if that doesn't happen in a reasonable fashion, we'll remove it. I hope this sounds reasonable! End of the day, your signature should tell us a little bit about you, a personal touch, a bit of flair. It shouldn’t be an all-inclusive autobiographical history of your life, or even your time on the site. 20
Delightful Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Are spoiler tags with only text inside ok, or are they banned altogether? 1
Chaos he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Author Posted September 17, 2015 Are spoiler tags with only text inside ok, or are they banned altogether? Removed altogether.
WayneSpren he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Are spoiler tags with only text inside ok, or are they banned altogether? My spoiler tag only holds one image, but their are a lot of words. Is it allowed?
Haelbarde he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Fixes up my sig, gets it down to a size where it don't increase the vertical size of the post for a one liner. Realizes the image is 5 pixels over regulation... 1
Rubix he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 My spoiler tag only holds one image, but their are a lot of words. Is it allowed? It is not allowed.
Mailliw73 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 I propose that anyone who wants to keep the banners and such just move them to their About Me page instead. That way, it doesn't clutter regular thread viewing. That works, right, Admins? 4
Chaos he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Author Posted September 17, 2015 I propose that anyone who wants to keep the banners and such just move them to their About Me page instead. That way, it doesn't clutter regular thread viewing. That works, right, Admins? Yes! An excellent idea! 3
Mailliw73 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 And anyone with the banners from Hael, Kas, or I, if they are too big(I think most should be fine), let one of us know and we should be able to resize quickly.
Seonid he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Although, as they keep score in SE, they probably fail on that count. I'm still looking forward to getting one so that I can put it in my about me page
Mailliw73 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 That's true. Chaos, what's the issue with the scoring, is it that they take up space or that they could be conceived of as boasting or something else? Seonid, Hael's claimed yours I think, so I'd ask him.
Rubix he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 what's the issue with the scoring, is it that they take up space or that they could be conceived of as boasting or something else? Some of column A, some of column B.
Mailliw73 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 So would the banners with scores on them be against the rules?
Rubix he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 So would the banners with scores on them be against the rules? Yes, they would. 1
Mailliw73 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Well, any banners without stats or ones for HttFE or other things can be scaled down easily, if you need it.
Young Bard he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Winter Cloud isn't going to be happy about this... 1
Blaze1616 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) I'm just going to use this space for a test post. Edit: There we go! Someone let me know if that image in my sig is too big...I have no idea how to count pixels... Edited September 17, 2015 by Blaze1616
Haelbarde he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 I'm just going to use this space for a test post. Edit: There we go! Someone let me know if that image in my sig is too big...I have no idea how to count pixels... That version of the coppermind banner is 205 x 80 pixels. If necessary, here's a 200 x 45 version: [url=http://coppermind.net/][img=http://i988.photobucket.com/albums/af5/Haelbarde/17thShard/CoppermindBannerSmall_1.png][/url] 1
Titan Arum Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 I'm just going to use this space for a test post. Edit: There we go! Someone let me know if that image in my sig is too big...I have no idea how to count pixels... Blaze, technically yours is 205x80. You are golden! Mine, on the other hand is 700x122 which means I need to trim the sides and top a bit. Off to do that now...
Blaze1616 he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 That version of the coppermind banner is 205 x 80 pixels. If necessary, here's a 200 x 45 version: [url=http://coppermind.net/][img=http://i988.photobucket.com/albums/af5/Haelbarde/17thShard/CoppermindBannerSmall_1.png][/url] Thanks for the edited image, but I think I prefer the "Do your part to help fill" versus the "Preserve Knowledge". I'll take the hit to my text length for it.
Haelbarde he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Believes my current array of banners fits the regulations: The top row is 166x50 and 200x45, and the second row is two banners of the size 200x35. So the rectangular area taken up would be 400x85. So plenty of space! I think...
Titan Arum Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Winter Cloud isn't going to be happy about this... ...I wouldn't be surprised if Winter Cloud's sig was one of the main culprits for this rule change. Her sig takes up an entire screen for a one line post. While I respect and like Winter Cloud, that sig is just a tad intense and noisy. 3
Redbird he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 (edited) Is that according to desktop or mobile versions? If mobile, I'm going to have to cut down on mine. Edited September 17, 2015 by Redbird
little wilson she/her Posted September 17, 2015 Posted September 17, 2015 Is that according to desktop or mobile versions? If mobile, I'm going to have to cut down on mine. The mobile site doesn't even show signatures currently.
Chaos he/him Posted September 17, 2015 Author Posted September 17, 2015 Is that according to desktop or mobile versions? If mobile, I'm going to have to cut down on mine. This is judging from desktop. The mobile versions even on the new site will not have sigs on posts, as vertical space is even more precious there.
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