Recent Signature Regulation

[AndreaBeaumont]

This is an issue that's affecting everyone on toonzone now and I figured this would be most relevant here in the "Feedback and Suggestions" forum. I was recently contacted by a mod saying I needed to trim down my signature. Which is a little upsetting to me because of the fact it took me a long time to figure out a creative and easy to read way of laying it out. I really love my signature and have gotten quite a few compliments on it and I really put a lot of effort into it. Silly? Maybe, but this is the whole reason I decided to bring this up here. As soon as I accomplished laying out my signature you guys posted a bulletin about signature length. Now I totally understand that a choice few of the members here have gone "hog wild" with their signatures, i.e. the one I came across just the other day containing what must have been 12 or 13 lines of Family Guy quotes. Which I agree it totally frivolous because anyone who actually cares about Family Guy has SEEN the show and is undoubtably aware that there is some masterfully written lines of dialogue within it. But there is no reason to showcase a whole script in you sig. I totally understand.

I've noticed some holes left within the new guidelines set for signature regulation.

• You say 5 lines is the limit but what about one line signatures in annoying florescent yellow or rainbow in size 7?
• I've seen sigs(some whose owners are Mods) over 5 lines but in super small font, is that acceptable?
• How strict really is this to be enforced? If someone has a sig that partially bleeds into a 6th line are you going to delete that 3 or 5 words on that line?
• Are the mods judging signatures on frivolousness?
• What about signatures that could very well be shrunk and squished onto 5 lines but for the sake of readability are spaced conservatively more apart.(See my sig)

To me it seems all to loose and open for dispute as I'm attempting to dispute mine being edited for the simple fact that I could SQUISH my signature onto 5 lines easily but for readability I've spaced it out in an aestetically pleasing manner?

So that was the feedback part and now here is my suggestion:

• What about a character limit in signatures instead?

That way this matter is automatically regulated, more concrete, no holes, nothing is up for dispute, and the mods can spend their time doing something more pertinent and less trivial?

Then simply tack on the giant text and florescent lettering guideline, which you already seem to be lacking from what I can recall from the bulletin which has disapeared now.

Thanks,
AndreaBeaumont
aka. Emily

[Patrick Bateman]

I've thought the signature limit was stupid in the first place. I remember being asked for the sigs to be "relevant" and not just "some quote from a buddy in a chat". Now, I thought a sig was whatever we wanted as long as it didn't cross language or content boundaries. Honestly, whether a sig is 5 lines or 10, who really cares? Is anyone forcing you to read them? Are 7 lines just too extreme for TZ? Whatever it is, I think it's another way to suck some fun out of something, which I've noticed more and more of in my 2+ years here.

[AceOfKnaves]

I agree with you here. I think it really should be a character limit, and it makes the most logical sense. The limit in lines does not work if, like you yourself did, have spaced it to make it easier to read and enjoy visually.


~Selena Kyle~

[Reirden]

Wonderful idea.

While I'm not what you would call an "active" member here at Toon Zone, I do lurk a lot. I notice all the time the sigs under five lines that are insanely annoying in color or font size. Then I see signatures that are classy and small, that are over five lines.

I think perhaps that the "5 line limit" is unfair to some. This idea, again, is great.

=Reirden=

[Bud 'n Lou]

Some signatures do seem excessively long, but that's rare. In fact, I rarely take note of peoples' signatures in general unless the font is obnoxiously large or colorful. I think Andrea's suggestion of a character limit is a reasonable compromise, because even though hers is more than 5 lines, it's not unsightly or obtrusive.

[Red]

This is an issue that's affecting everyone on toonzone now and I figured this would be most relevant here in the "Feedback and Suggestions" forum. I was recently contacted by a mod saying I needed to trim down my signature. Which is a little upsetting to me because of the fact it took me a long time to figure out a creative and easy to read way of laying it out. I really love my signature and have gotten quite a few compliments on it and I really put a lot of effort into it. Silly? Maybe, but this is the whole reason I decided to bring this up here. As soon as I accomplished laying out my signature you guys posted a bulletin about signature length. Now I totally understand that a choice few of the members here have gone "hog wild" with their signatures, i.e. the one I came across just the other day containing what must have been 12 or 13 lines of Family Guy quotes. Which I agree it totally frivolous because anyone who actually cares about Family Guy has SEEN the show and is undoubtably aware that there is some masterfully written lines of dialogue within it. But there is no reason to showcase a whole script in you sig. I totally understand.

I've noticed some holes left within the new guidelines set for signature regulation.

• You say 5 lines is the limit but what about one line signatures in annoying florescent yellow or rainbow in size 7? We'd take it out then.
• I've seen sigs(some whose owners are Mods) over 5 lines but in super small font, is that acceptable? As long as the small font does not exceed the size that normal font w/ 5 lines would take.
• How strict really is this to be enforced? If someone has a sig that partially bleeds into a 6th line are you going to delete that 3 or 5 words on that line?We usually let 6 lines slip
• Are the mods judging signatures on frivolousness? I'd answer if I knew what that meant.
• What about signatures that could very well be shrunk and squished onto 5 lines but for the sake of readability are spaced conservatively more apart.(See my sig) Sorry but a spacing is considered a line

To me it seems all to loose and open for dispute as I'm attempting to dispute mine being edited for the simple fact that I could SQUISH my signature onto 5 lines easily but for readability I've spaced it out in an aestetically pleasing manner?

So that was the feedback part and now here is my suggestion:

• What about a character limit in signatures instead? That could get a little crazy IMO.

That way this matter is automatically regulated, more concrete, no holes, nothing is up for dispute, and the mods can spend their time doing something more pertinent and less trivial?

Then simply tack on the giant text and florescent lettering guideline, which you already seem to be lacking from what I can recall from the bulletin which has disapeared now.

Thanks, Your Welcome
AndreaBeaumont
aka. Emily

My replies are in red.

[AndreaBeaumont]

Thanks RG for your replies as well as everyone else. I'm still looking for more opinions on it, from mod's and posters alike.

[James]

First off, this had been discussed and worked out by the staff as a whole. It wasn't a rule that just one of us decided to inforce, this is one that we've talked about a lot. You don't like it? Tough - Em, your sig is ridiculously big and unnecessary. The rule applies to all. Colin - one of the guys who owns this place is very much in favour of this. As Colin said in his statement - we don't anally go round checking EVERYONE's sig everyday, if we see a long sig, we deal with it.

Why am I a little angry? Em you know why. I asked you politely by PM to do something and you couldn't wait 5 hours for me to come back with a reply. I even did you the courtesy of dealing with it yourself rather that editing it down myself - something that was entirely in my rights to do. I thought rather that start hacking I would give you the opportunity to restructure, not simply drop the sig to a size 1 and leave it as it is.

Sigs shouldn't take up too much space. One a 1024x768 res - a fair size res - that sig is way too big.

In future, wait for staff to respond that simply just ignoring what they said, sending a couple of tantrums and then posting on the public forums look for personal support in your plight. It's rude and unneccessary.

You sig is still too long. Please cut it down.

[AndreaBeaumont]

I wasn't throwing a tantrum SJJ, I talked to a couple of people about it, including two other mods and they said why not post in the feedback and suggestion forum with your suggestion. Which I plainly state. I never mentioned names so this was in no way a personal attack. I'm simply making a suggestion because I'm partial to my signature. Anyway....

[Red]

See my sig? That's 5 lines. Look at your sig. It's nearly doubled. Please just shorten it. Or it could be removed.

[AndreaBeaumont]

I don't think I'm at all being unreasonable here. I actually had a mod proofread my initial thread starter. Nightwing actually was so kind to and was the person who initially suggested this. This was meant to be constructive and I don't know why you're all jumping down my throat about this. This is the Feedback and Suggestion thread, no? And I'm so glad this was gone over so carefully by mods because I count 11 who have signatures over the 5 line limit.

Kylewayne
The GuitarSlayer
redDragon
The Flash
Outlander00
zmanjz
Nightwing
Dub
Colin
JustJack
Duke
(That's including spaces)

..and I just skimmed the forums. But anyway, before this deteriorates into something even less constructive I'll stop defending myself.

[Red]

I don't think I'm at all being unreasonable here. I actually had a mod proofread my initial thread starter. Nightwing actually was so kind to and was the person who initially suggested this. This was meant to be constructive and I don't know why you're all jumping down my throat about this. This is the Feedback and Suggestion thread, no? And I'm so glad this was gone over so carefully by mods because I count 11 who have signatures over the 5 line limit.

Kylewayne- The Small Font is ok, and not figure than 5 normal lines.
The GuitarSlayer- 6 lines, we let it slip as I said before.
redDragon- Same as Kylewayne
The Flash 6 lines
Outlander00 Small Font
zmanjz Pretty Close, I'd consider it as 5-6 lines normal sized.
Nightwing 7 lines...ok you got me there
Dub Small Font
Colin 5 lines, uh yeah nothing at all misleading on this one. It's fine.
JustJack 8 lines, busted
Duke Same as Zmanjz
(That's including spaces)

..and I just skimmed the forums. But anyway, before this deteriorates into something even less constructive I'll stop defending myself.

Added in stuff next to each user. 2 Mods out of the 11. Still not a big problem. So you have yet to have a point.

[William C. Maune]

Added in stuff next to each user. 2 Mods out of the 11. Still not a big problem. So you have yet to have a point.

She doesn't even post on the board you moderate. Unless the mods of the forums she does post on don't have an issue with her signature, where's the problem?

[Red]

She doesn't even post on the board you moderate. Unless the mods of the forums she does post on don't have an issue with her signature, where's the problem?

I was just backing up SJJ and answering questions.

[Colin]

The regulations regarding signatures were put in place for a reason. We had a character limit in the past, but as part of the character limit, there was also a LINE LIMIT. The 5-line limit has, in actuality, been around for AGES! It was just lost during an upgrade that changed over the regulation from lines to chracters.

You want it by characters, say... 1000 characters, well then, what's to stop someone from taking advantage of it and just do something stupid and have a sig like:

"Hi
My
Name
Is
Bubba
And
I
Like
White
Cheese
Flavored
Cheez
Its.
They
Are
So
Great!
Don't
You
Agree?"

See, well within the limits of ANY character limitation, especially when line breaks are included as a character.

Anyhoo... that's really not the issue here. I think the issue at hand is that members are just taking advantage of things around here, and not having consideration for others lately.

Emily, I'm certain you could still make your sig work with the same layout and still only occupy maybe 6 or 7 lines, as it stands now you are using 12 lines... and look at how much of that is empty space. It makes no sense, and if we didn't make enforce the situation here, it's just as easy for the person with the Cheez-It signature above to argue that "Well, AndreaBeaumont's sig is more than 5 lines and you're letting HER keep it!" Yes, indeed, how hypocritical of us! Keep your love of Cheez-it Signature, Bubba!

The biggest thing about this was it really is at the discretion of the moderators on the boards you visit and deal with on a regualr basis. While it was mentioned in the Announcement that yes, we are mainly looking for people with ridiculously long signatures, there was nothing stopping us from also talking to those people who had Rainbow signatures. All mods who edit signatures have been instructed to PM the user first about their signature, no matter what the problem is and send them a copy... if you'd rather, I could just have everyone just go in and delete offensive signatures without giving the user a backup so, in a case like yours, the whole thing is gone.

Another thing is that this is all at the Mods discretion. We've had Mods at some boards say "Sigs haven't been a huge problem, so we're not gonna be as active looking for them." Whereas we've had others who've nearly jumped up and down for joy when they were able to control problematic signatures on their boards. As to what is being done with them, it's all up to the discretion of the mod. We'll often let 6 line sigs slide, unless they are being overly intrusive, but thats about it.

As a closing statement... it's just a SIGNATURE! There's no reason why anyone should be getting all bent out of shape about this. Signatures are NOT for you to be walking around showing stupid things your buddy said in chat. They are NOT a showplace for every single Family Guy quote you find funny. A Signature is something that identifies who you are, gives maybe an inspirational quote or two that you find great and helpful and a link or two to any pages that you find to be the coolest. All of that can easily be done on the confines of 4 or 5 lines. (plus, a line limit in this case is better than a character limit, because the characters involved in the URL would be taken into consideration and cut down on the length of your signature considerably)

Editting signatures to be more user friendly is a courtesy that members are having not for the mod staff, but for the other users who browse the board and don't have to deal with moving past a horrendous 18 line signature that's longer than the post the original person made themself.

Please let me know if there are any further concerns about it... but also, please look into respecting moderator wishes when they address Signatures with you. This was not put in place because we were tired of signatures, it was put into place because we had been getting complaints about signatures and how intrusive they had started to become.

[Ben]

Andrea, thanks for your input. You make some good points.

Whatever it is, I think it's another way to suck some fun out of something, which I've noticed more and more of in my 2+ years here.

Right, that's why I spend so much time modding and making friends on the forums and writing articles for the news page. To ruin your fun. Ya got me!

[AndreaBeaumont]

And yes William that's another thing I wondered about since I hadn't posted on either of SJJ's boards in over a month, and the topics I posted in or started had fallen off the board. No one from the other boards, I only frequent two had raised issue.

Regardless, I just wanted to thank Colin for the feedback and explaining it all. That's really ALL I was looking for. I'm really greatful that he took the time to explain it instead of just jumping down my throat, leaving curt 5 word responses, or yelling at me to just change it. Thanks truley for the explanation on why we don't use character limits. Thanks to WCM and Twage as well. I'll edit it soon I suppose.

[Stu]

I think the sig rule got out of hand. There's some which are too big, Emerald Archer's is probably the worst. I'll admit, I'll never edit one or ask someone to edit there's, because it doesn't annoy me in the slightest.

I just don't see the point in being anal about the length of sigs, I mean, if I don't wanna read it, I won't read it.

[Jedigreedo]

Normally, I would stay out of this but I feel I must intervene.

Ok first I'm going to point out mistakes in this thread:
1. Over biasedness
2. Lack of diplomacy

Alrighty..now both sides of the argument have good points and bad points however posting things like "I back so and so up" is not going to help this situation. Just pointing that out Red Giant, you may want to double think things you post in issues such as these.

Now, obviously Em's signature is a little large and could use some modification. But the way this whole thread is going the biasedness against her is really weakening the point of shrinking signatures, as it comes off more as personal vendetta. Definitely not something mods should be using if they want to resolve something.

Granted, you did warn her about her signature and she respected that. I was there when she ran it by other mods (particularly ones that mod the areas she mostly posts in) and they seemed ok with it. So why press it so personally? Diplomacy would've helped eminsely here. No reason to get bent out of shape- on both sides.

I'm sure you mods have had a hard time dealing with people taking their signatures very seriously and having to go through dramas, but it's not your duty to be overly-biased such as this.

Andrea, would you perhaps consider taking out some spaces so your signature perhaps looks like:


That takes up a total of three lines but still keeps the charm of your sig. You could even add in a couple lines and it would be within the 5-line regulation.

Andrea- I would suggest going with this solution if you really want to get the issue resolved. You may even be able to move your text up a size.

SJJ and Red Giant- I would suggest in the future that you overlook using just personal opinion and try to work on both sides to resolve an issue such as this. If you're tired of dealing with it, then leave it to other mods - such as the ones that oked her use of the signature.

[James]

Final notes on this.

First off, if you have a specific personal issue with TZ policy (eg; a request made by a mod) speak to the mod privately, or if no go, PM an admin. This whole thing was pretty pointless. If Andrea wanted an answer as to why she had been asked to take down her sig, she should have waited till I had the time to reply. We staff do sometimes have lives... I had 6 hours sleep and then had my family treat me to a day out at a seaside town, I certainly don't like to wake up and find out that after a short space of time this thing has gone global and everyone has an opinion on this while I've not had the time to say my piece...

To everyone: There have been 2 announcement on this issue. Staff have been asked to clean up overlong sigs at their descretion. No targetting. Personally, if I see a sig, I'll speak to that person, whether they are staff or a member. I will say the same to staff as I would to member. Andrea's sig was so bright and colourful it just leapt out.

No one is being "anal" about this. Personally, I'll occasionally spot a massive sig and PM the member to change it. That's all. It's what the staff were asked to do, and it's what we do do. No not everyone has been PM'd, we can't win. If we don't do everyone we get told that it's unfair cos "x" has their long sig, if we do try and do everyone we get called anal/Nazi/fun spoiler. I think like me, most mods just occasionally send a PM if it's too long. It's 6 lines, I'm not that bothered, it's extra effort to sort out, but 10 lines....

I know I'm not judging it by content of the sig. I have no issue as long as it's not offensive. Personally I find a smaller and tighter sig more aesthetic that a long colourful one, but that's just me. This was a staff call but it is one I agree with.

As for character length, mine is at the limit, I keep it at size 1 and can manage 2 1/2 lines. That's not a wholly large character limit we have there.

That's all I have to say on this, and will say no more. Colin pretty much said everything better than me anyhow, but since this thread came up due to my actions I wanted to clarify my standpoint now it's public and I have time.

There we go, done. Not the most fun ending to me day.