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PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:04 pm
by Alex
Hi guys,

We would just like to gauge forum opinion on this issue - let us know what you think by voting or replying to this thread. ;)

Alex

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:10 pm
by ZK-KAG
I reckon they are fine... Only take a second to load and make the site look a bit more interesting and give a personal touch to posts... :)

My 2c worth ;)

~ZK-KAG~

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:12 pm
by Mattnz
I have no problems leaving them as they are, they don't take too long to load (on my computer anyway)

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:42 pm
by Airwolf
They are a pain in the butt for those on Dial up well at least on my pc they are, given up on looking at screenshots and then having the page that i am reading flicking when peoples sigs load.
Why do you have to have a big sig is it to make a statement?

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 6:51 pm
by Kelburn
(say in a Shakespearian-posh voice) I do not think there should be limits as a signature enable a person to show whop they really are

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 7:03 pm
by ZK-MAT
After nearly 10 weeks on a slower than dial up adsl connection I will say that browsing NZFF has been a lesson in patience and frustration. Pages time out, fail to load and jump all over the place till all the signatures show up.

I voted to limit the physical size and kb of signatures, and avatars. 300 x 75 seems ok, with maybe 25kb limit.

Some sigs here (especially the animated ones) are huge. KAG's is nearly 100kb and at 800 x 233 is really a bit of overkill. 10 posts per page means a meg to download, that takes 5 - 6 minutes...

ANYWAY, I typed all that and then discovered you can elect not to see people's signatures / avatars (in your Control Panel), so, I've done that and it's much better ...

In summary (in a very roundabout way!) if it affects NZFF's bandwidth and data limits, limit the sizes, if not then the users can elect to not see them.

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 7:15 pm
by ZK-KAG
ZK-MAT wrote: Some sigs here (especially the animated ones) are huge. KAG's is nearly 100kb and at 800 x 233 is really a bit of overkill. 10 posts per page means a meg to download, that takes 5 - 6 minutes...

I didnt realise it was that big...sorry guys. Maybe Ill make it a bit smaller :P

But I also didnt realise that you can turn them off...which will help people on Dial-up... :)

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 7:38 pm
by scon
Is mine to big, do you think



due for a change anyway

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 8:29 pm
by Zöltuger
I don't like images in signatures at all, especially as they're not regulated as to size. As a result, I've had signatures disabled for quite a while. I don't need a signature taking up 5 times more space than the post itself, it's frustrating to weed through the thread looking for posts obscured by massive signatures.
Having said that, I do find I'm missing out on messages in people's signatures.

Avatars do a nice enough job of showing personality, I don't think it's necessary to have both a generous sized avatar and an unlimited sized signature. Most internet forums that I've seen have images in sigs disabled. And the avatars can be quite big in size too, I've seen one on this forum which is 400k!

I say text only signatures, or at the very most 100px tall images.
p.s. I realise the irony of having an image in my signature, but you'll notice it's only 100px tall because I don't like to clog up your screen either B-) .

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 8:43 pm
by Jimmy
I wont vote for any of those options, I think we need a restriction of one image. That works well on other forums, size restrictions should jsut be comman sense, but a restriction to the size would be good, and people useing bmps for their sigs is not apreciated, I don't think I have seen that happen thow, would be nasty thow :ph43r: Im on dial up and once everything is chanced its fine, but I do think having mroe thean one picture, especialy stakced verticly, can be very messy looking.

But I very much encourage the little aviation sayings and jokes in a sig :P

James

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 9:54 pm
by ardypilot
I like sigs- as KAG said, it adds a personal touch to each user.

However, some of the larger ones can be a bit annoying, maybe we should limit the size. I'm thinking 500px by 250px?

Also- as ZK-MAT said, dial-up users can simply turn off the viewing of sigs if they wish ;)

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 10:13 pm
by brownbox
i reckon they should stay, aslong as they are kept within normal limits (nothing huge)

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 10:18 pm
by Airwolf
brownbox wrote: i reckon they should stay, aslong as they are kept within normal limits (nothing huge)


six hours later Brownbox sig loads :rolleyes:

Also- as ZK-MAT said, dial-up users can simply turn off the viewing of sigs if they wish


One problem, if you are viewing in guest mode then how do you do that? I do not stayed logged in because others can use my computer. :( Nothing worse than being blamed for someones else posting saying they are you.

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 11:39 pm
by VH-CC1
leave em as they are.

After all this is the first anyone has said anything...

PostPosted: Tue May 29, 2007 11:49 pm
by G-HEVN
I think there should be a limit - after all it's a signature not an "art" exhibition. My personal preference would be for a SINGLE image of no more than 100 pixels high, which is in line with many other fora. There's nothing worse than having scrolled through more than a screenful (especially when I'm using my smaller screened laptop) of so-called art to discover you missed the one word of content at the top.

Okay, now I know you can turn off signatures, but if people start doing that, is that act not itself sending a message saying the signatures are too big? (anyhow, some of them are actually rather good!)

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 12:09 am
by creator2003
I say 500X200-250 ,i mean thats all you really need to show your art work ,all the big ones could be just zip down to these sizes {ezy}and that would sort the ones that dont like them or think they are to big to nice neat and really good looking signatures.
there was a time when they where all about trolly or jimmy type sizes and all loaded sweet and looked good ,
i say bring back those times ,we will all be able to express ourselfs just not cloging up all the posts with them ...
avatars are i think ok and a good size limit that should stay the same
pictures posted here should be 800x600 for forum posts unless theres some detail you are trying to get across theres nothing worst than having to scroll across the screen to see part of the photo or screenshot ..
;)

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 1:47 am
by pois0n
ZK-MAT wrote: KAG's is nearly 100kb and at 800 x 233 is really a bit of overkill. 10 posts per page means a meg to download, that takes 5 - 6 minutes...

It'll only download it once, at least it will if you're using a half decent browser :P

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 12:56 pm
by steelsporran
The smaller the better.

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:32 pm
by brownbox
perhaps it is not the signatures that need resizing, but perhaps it is a time for us to reflect on our old technology internet, and small screen monitors and make some imrpovements? :lol:

After all this is not the middle ages, this is the 21st century, the time of quad core chips, dual core graphics cards, and FSX.....

Opps, got a bit carried away :P You get what i mean though...
As I said in my post before, aslong as its within reason, I dont see any problem

PostPosted: Wed May 30, 2007 4:35 pm
by Alex
I personally would like to see some sort of a limit set in place - something along the lines of what is above (500x200 etc). Of course I realise I am not the only person on this forum - so after a few days with the poll running, the admin will have a chat.

When it gets to the point that half of your scrolling through a thread is through signatures - I think something should change. But we'll see. ;)

Alex