Signature Images

[Morphy]

Signatures are intended to be a *brief* statement, which could be an opinion, or anything that lets readers know a little more about the person making the post. It is NOT meant to be advertisement, or anything that takes attention from the post in which the signature follows.

There has been a growing thread on StarTrekVoyager.Com to have large banner like signatures. Some signatures have little more than just the user name. We already have avatars for that purpose. I want to cut down on the banner-like signatures images that are distracting to read posts, AND help our low bandwidth users load up pages. They really don't need to load up tons of images on every page of a topic thread.

Starting next week, I will turn off the option to defaultly display signatures in every users' profile. Users can still "attach signatures" when they make a post. Although I would like to support the creative minds of our users with their art work, I believe we should limit signature images to ONE per topic. There is a section in this forum for art work and person pics, and I ask that you post art work there and link it if you so desire.


With that said, here are some simple rules for signature images:

• Personal signature MUST be under 15kb in size (no one is going to check, but please try to make it small for our dial-up users)

• No animated images are allowed (too distracting and annoying)

• Image dimensions should not exceed 500 pixels in width x 100 pixels in height

• Images that distort the format of the forums are not allowed

• Only post your custom signature image ONCE per thread, [Updated 05-05-03] or if you really have to, ONCE every 250 posts (about 5 pages) (select "Attach Signature")




Thanks,
Morphy

[Updated 05-05-03]

New signature rules are now in effect. I have removed the option in the user profiles to defaultly attach signatures. Also, I have removed the last few thousand post of signatures. You can still re-add signatures by editing your post -- if you need.

Remember that normal text signatures do not have the same restrictions. If you are a user with just text signatures, please send me a PM with the subject title "Request to turn on automatic sig attachment," and I will turn it on for you. This is more work for me to do this for everyone, but right now, there's no good solutions. Once everyone gets used to the limited signature images, I will turn back on the profile option to defautly add your signatures.