Signature picture size

[Kayiaxo]

Is it possible to allow for bigger signature sizes ?
Most forums at least allow a picture of higher height.
I saw that in the profile users with low bandwich have the option to be unable to see others avatars and signatures.

[Kamaze]

No, this decision is made to keep the read-flow for all people,
like guests and people which don't wan't to disable all avatars/signatures just because they are maybe annoyed by a few ones.
I hope you that you have understanding for this

[lav_coyote25]

hmmm... if it was up to me - there would be no signature pics at all...  what use do they serve?  just one more thing to clog the bandwidth with.!  >:(

[Kayiaxo]

Bandwich shouldn't be an issue to anyone, and if it's the server bandwich you worry about, my signature isn't hosted on the forum and also has a very small footprint.
If you care about your personal bandwich, you can use firefox with adblock for exemple, I use it the get rid of ads and publicity but it also can get used to get rid of big signatures.
Signatures are usefull to express part of your character or to express what you like.

I understand however about the read-flow but I don't think it's an issue really as people on other forums don't complain about bigger signature sizes.
Me personally I find some signatures/avatars pretty and fun to watch or read, maybe that disturbs the read-flow of me reading the topic but that doesn't bother me at all.
And people can still be annoyed by avatars/signatures if they are small as well, it depends on the content.

[lav_coyote25]

your on dialup?  56k and making statements such as this....  lol... ;D

[Kayiaxo]

128kbits Here for the moment.
I have 4.6Mbits with a 12Gb download limit wich I exceed in less then 1 day, then I'm limited to 128kbits for the rest of the month.
128k is as fast for the internet as 4.6 Mbits for multiple reasons:
1. Cache, most pages I visits are already in my Firefox cache.
2. Adblock, gets me rid of about 80% of websites stuff I have to download to view the page.

128kbits gives me about 12ko/sec and I don't see a difference surfing at 12ko/sec and 512ko/sec unless I visist a new website heavy on publicity.
Browsing forums with a lot of signatures don't pose any problem as well since they are cached also.
What's annoying is watching/hearing videos/music on streams like internet radio and youtube for exemple, there I have to wait awhile before I can view the video/music.
Btw, I continue downloading at 12ko/sec which gives me almost a Go/day downloaded, average 25Go/month at 128kbits, theoretically I could do 40Go a month on 128kbits(16ko/sec) connection.

Edit: I saved this page and the whole page with signatures, text, avatars etc was only 322ko of space.
2Edit: Coyote, your avatar is 50% of the page roflmao, weighing in at 151kb !!!!
Blocking your avatar would make the forum twice as fast for everyone !

[Giel]

Signatures are usefull to express part of your character or to express what you like.

Erm, when in textual form, maybe... But as a picture I don't see the point at all.

I understand however about the read-flow but I don't think it's an issue really as people on other forums don't complain about bigger signature sizes.

Fact that people at other forums don't complain about this doesn't even mean that those other people who don't complain aren't annoyed/bothered by those pictures. Let alone that it would mean that people at this forum aren't bothered by them.

Me personally I find some signatures/avatars pretty and fun to watch or read, maybe that disturbs the read-flow of me reading the topic but that doesn't bother me at all.
And people can still be annoyed by avatars/signatures if they are small as well, it depends on the content.

Fact that you're not bothered by signature-pictures is no reason to make them larger than they are already. It's the absence of a reason (for you!) to limit their size. If you would want signature-pictures to be allowed to become larger you'll have to come with arguments/reasons for it, not an argument declaring there is no reason not to, that's just a fallacy.

PS Since quite a lot of people I know personally don't seem to know what a fallacy is, a link to a wikipedia article to be sure: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy

[Kayiaxo]

Good post Giel.

I wont argue agains't that since it would be to hard and pointless for me.

As for the signature size, everything is relative, what you see from a point I can see differently from another point.
For some people a color can be red while for another it can be reddish.

It's better to ask this: Is it the size of signature/avatars that bother people or the content ?
In these cases you have to think with a general assumption since there is no definite proof of what everyone is thinking.
I believe that if 90% of the forums go with a bigger signature size and nobody complains about it, the general assumption might be that a bigger signature size doesn't bother people.

[Giel]

It's better to ask this: Is it the size of signature/avatars that bother people or the content ?

Personally, it's the size, since I don't even care to look at the content. Which basically means that signatures eat up space from my display at the expense of being able to view the "real" content (i.e. the text of messages).

In these cases you have to think with a general assumption since there is no definite proof of what everyone is thinking.
I believe that if 90% of the forums go with a bigger signature size and nobody complains about it, the general assumption might be that a bigger signature size doesn't bother people.

Ah yes, statistics, probably the worst thing to draw conclusions from. Plus that 90% makes me think that you look at a very limited amount of forums. Of about 10 forums I visit, or have visited on a regular basis, only two forums allowed signature pictures at all. This forum is one of them, the other allowed larger signature-pictures (i.e. higher, I believe it was about 120px high max) than this forum, I hated it. This because it was _very_ difficult to actually find something.

So firstly you obviously base your statistics on a different source than I do. Then secondly, statistics don't prove anything but the raw numbers themselves. E.g. if 90% of the forums where to allow "large" signature-pictures and "nobody" publicly complains about that. The only reliable conclusion you can draw from that statistical fact is that 90% of the forums allows "large" pictures, and that "nobody" complains about that in public. You can draw no (meaningful) conclusions whatsoever from that statistical fact about people disliking or not disliking "large" signature pictures.

That was my very lengthy way of saying: statistics are useless (in a lot of fields of expertise).

[Kayiaxo]

Like I said, I can't proof what people are thinking, only draw conclusions and make a general assumption.
However on a forum it are the users who decide what they want (wouldn't want an empty forum).
And in this topic 3 people are agains't larger signature size and 1 is for.
So I will go with the majority and lay down, for the moment.
Again i'm making assumptions that the general majority of users browing this forums dislike having larger signatures based on the amount of people being agains't it in this thread.
However that doesn't mean that there are more people browing the forum that didn't post in this thread that prefer to see larger signatures.

I draw my statistics from the top forums on the internet:
http://www.big-boards.com/
Practically all of the big boards go with larger signatures sizes then this forum.