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Site Management => Site Support / Feedback => Topic started by: Mobius on November 28, 2008, 02:28:08 pm

Title: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on November 28, 2008, 02:28:08 pm
I see many flags around and I wonder why they're still there since someone in the top echelon didn't really like the use of flags in the forums. The same principle may be applied to the list of "fellow patriots", like "Italians of HLP: Me, X, Y, Z, etc. etc.".

I thought it was the case to discuss the subject, what's wrong with someone's attempt to put a flag or a list of HLPers who live in the same country? Does it violate any of the hints for good forum conduct?

IMO they're fine if they're not exaggerately big or racist, afterall they're only a way to make a certain member feel home in a forum whose only language is English.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Polpolion on November 28, 2008, 03:51:00 pm
I have an idea! Let's add more stuff to help segregate HLP and estrange its members from each other!
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Nuclear1 on November 28, 2008, 04:09:55 pm
I have an idea! Let's ban thesizzler! :p
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Titan on November 28, 2008, 04:12:50 pm
I have an idea! Let's ban thesizzler! :p
seconded  :p
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on November 28, 2008, 04:17:36 pm
*facepalm*

Please, discuss in a serious way...
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: karajorma on November 28, 2008, 04:40:00 pm
If your sig draws more attention than your post then you're doing it wrong.
If you spend more time worrying about the content of your sig than the content of your posts, you're doing it wrong.
If you believe that most of the people on this board give a stuff about anyone's sig unless it breaks the first rule, you've very mistaken.

As long as you understand those 3 things your sig can be anything you like.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Col. Fishguts on December 03, 2008, 11:22:36 am
Go to any forum that allows images in signatures, and you'll understand why HLP has a rather strict policy about how much irrelevant gobbledygook is tolerated in anyone's sig.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Colonol Dekker on December 04, 2008, 07:38:55 pm
I can appreciate the imposed limitations. Especially after the bunny / carl / boob war a few years back. My sig's a perfect example of toeing the line i think. I don't get the fanclubs either. (Even though i preside over, and have one) i just got caught up in the "hype" which kinda shows how things can go OTT. :)
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Fury on December 05, 2008, 04:28:58 am
boob war
You got my attention, tell me more.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Wobble73 on December 05, 2008, 07:42:04 am
Some people's signatures can be very useful though, take Lobo's for example, if I need any of the latest stuff for FSO, I just look him up and check out his signature.

I think some of the other's signature's can be amusing. I forget about my signature most of the time, it just comes in handy for spotting my own posts in a thread when scanning through it.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Rodo on December 05, 2008, 08:07:07 am
I find annoying some members "extensive" signatures... I can't find their post between it's abundant amount of quotes.
About flags and stuff... well that's up to the one responsible for the signature... if users do not realice that their signature is annoying or out of place, then I imagine that their posts will be as much annoying or out of place as their signatures, so restricting this feature in the forum will not help that much, and also it will provoke another useless debate such us "not permitted the welcome speech".

Well that's what I think but hell... don't listen to me, I'm at work right now and loosing my brain to some big problems we're having now.... and I'm pissed off also :P
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: karajorma on December 05, 2008, 10:27:28 am
if users do not realice that their signature is annoying or out of place, then I imagine that their posts will be as much annoying or out of place as their signatures, so restricting this feature in the forum will not help that much, and also it will provoke another useless debate such us "not permitted the welcome speech".

The problem is that restricting the feature results in a useless debate here. Allowing people to have long sigs and fake image sigs results in useless debates everywhere!

Which means it's more sensible to just tell people no officially than have every single debate where someone posts with an obnoxiously long sig.


As for sigs themselves the only reason I haven't turned them off for myself is that occasionally you do get people like Lobo or jr2 who do something useful with them.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: pecenipicek on December 08, 2008, 03:53:23 pm
i'd vote for a limit on the length of sigs tho 5-6 lines of text on 1024x768 is a sensible solution and a lot of forums use that one afaik.

i've seen some people on this forum have sigs upwards of 15-20 lines... fun times scrolling through a thread with most of its content being a signature :p
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Colonol Dekker on December 08, 2008, 04:33:22 pm
boob war
You got my attention, tell me more.

I think there may be a survivor in a sig somewhere you know the sort...


--<>-<>--  prevents (.)(.) from drooping etc...:)
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on January 17, 2009, 09:46:21 pm
/me yeah, whatever...

:bump:

There are still some of those around here, right?
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Droid803 on January 17, 2009, 10:39:26 pm
Uh...
Not that I've noticed.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: blackhole on January 18, 2009, 01:26:30 am
My sig is 2 words long. :p
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Dilmah G on January 18, 2009, 02:41:11 am
My sig is 2 words long. :p

745 Words

Ohhh yeahhh

Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: karajorma on January 18, 2009, 03:36:25 am
And now it's less. :p

Sigs around here have been getting far too long and in that case it was an especially bad example of taking up five lines to say what could be said in two. I'll probably be purging a few others as I come across them.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: pecenipicek on January 18, 2009, 06:06:34 am
purginate it all and let only people contributing to the community have them (aka, mod team members, freelancers like lobo, shadowgorrath, etc...)



you want a sig? earn it by being respectfull to all.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on January 18, 2009, 06:10:52 am
Restrictions for having signatures? Sounds a bit harsh but may work...I think limiting the length of signatures is the best option, anyway...
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on January 18, 2009, 07:33:33 am
I just hope that my signature doesn't get cut. I mean- it has the entire purpose of being me listed there ;)
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on January 18, 2009, 07:38:58 am
The only issue about your signature is that you should, IMO, sort everything in 1-2 lines. Also, instead of writing colored text and adding a link near it, you should rather use a colored text that also serves as link. :)
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Jeff Vader on January 18, 2009, 07:41:09 am
Agreed on limiting it vertically, but urling a piece of text overrides any and all colour settings.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on January 18, 2009, 07:46:57 am
I don't think so. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,58024.msg1191815.html#msg1191815)
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Shade on January 18, 2009, 07:48:33 am
I would also suggest dropping the glowy text and using coloured text instead, as glowy text makes the listing of the entire purpose for being you unreadable (and very annoying) to everyone who uses Firefox. Which I suspect is a fairly large percentage of this forum's regulars.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on January 18, 2009, 07:55:57 am
I know - mine was an example. My intent was to show that colors and glows can be mixed.

Also, Italics rule.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on January 18, 2009, 08:38:16 am
The reason they are so is cause there'd be multiple links :P
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on January 18, 2009, 08:56:46 am
The colors in the Lithuanian flag should be sorted this way: Li-etu-va.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: FreeSpaceFreak on January 18, 2009, 10:52:15 am
No, actually the yellow part is the biggest IIRC.

And :nervous: I think this thread has served its purpose, it's going just slightly off-topic now... I think...
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on January 18, 2009, 10:54:53 am
Actually, those flag colours shouldn't go from left to right, but from top to bottom.

And all colours should be of the same size, but you can't givide 7 by 3.

FSF, get on MSN. And that's not a request.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on January 18, 2009, 11:54:17 am
An order, then. :p
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: karajorma on January 18, 2009, 01:58:05 pm
That should stop the stupidity.....eventually.


And you people wonder why you can't have avatars. :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Shade on January 18, 2009, 02:07:23 pm
Ahh, much better. Finally my year-long crusade against that damn glow tag can come to an end :D
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Snail on January 18, 2009, 02:13:56 pm
That should stop the stupidity.....eventually.
You killed the glow tag... Hillarious. :D

I especially like SG's new signature.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on January 18, 2009, 02:17:48 pm
But now it's insanely long... :eek2:
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Shade on January 18, 2009, 02:20:22 pm
For now. Even so, I prefer that to the previous look though. At least it doesn't make my eyes bleed. And if it getting worse for a little while is what it takes for it to get better, than I'm fine with that.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: karajorma on January 18, 2009, 02:27:32 pm
But now it's insanely long... :eek2:

Which means that anyone stupid enough to stick them in their sig now has no excuse when their sig gets purged later. :p
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on January 18, 2009, 02:32:35 pm
Fine, removed my signature entirely. Happy now? Abusing your damn moderator/admin powers just cause you didn't like someone's signature? At least my signature wasn't annoying spam like that iamzack's posts and threads were. So at the first mention of my signature you edit it, while you let her spam everywhere just cause she was a woman? My signature was meant to show the most recent important events of the mods I am involved in.

Well, whatever, guess it's your kind of fun, huh? Thanks for acting like assholes.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Shade on January 18, 2009, 02:35:20 pm
Acting like assholes? You're the one who kept using a non-standard tag that was poison on the eyes of everyone not using IE, despite being informed of this. So half the forum has to suffer just for you to enjoy your IE-only glowiness? Much of your sig wasn't even readable to anyone not on IE, making it entirely pointless in the first place.

I strongly support the admins in having made this change, as that tag was insanely annoying and clearly people could not be trusted to not abuse it.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Snail on January 18, 2009, 02:35:59 pm
Jeez, all you needed to do was remove the glow tags.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on January 18, 2009, 02:38:10 pm
Right. Why were there glow tags there then in the first place, huh? You could have had them removed by default, not working in sigs.

If anyone was really suffering cause of it, you could have said so clearly when I first made the sig so. And it worked fine for me when on Opera or IE, so not my problem you can't read it.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Flipside on January 18, 2009, 02:38:59 pm
It was an oversight. Fixed now. :P
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Shade on January 18, 2009, 02:40:47 pm
Quote
And it worked fine for me when on Opera or IE, so not my problem you can't read it.
See, that's where you're wrong. When you post on a forum with an annoying sig, you make it everyone's problem. And when your sig is involved, everyone's problem becomes your problem... as you can see now. Remember that the forum is for everyone, not just for you. Further, the annoyance of glow tags has been brought up on many threads, including this one, yet you did not change your sig.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Jeff Vader on January 18, 2009, 02:44:39 pm
And it worked fine for me when on Opera or IE
Didn't work for me on Opera yesterday.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Flipside on January 18, 2009, 02:46:05 pm
As Shade says, signatures are your 'advert' for yourself to everyone on the forum, if you want an example of how bad things can get, try looking through things like the X3 Forums. As much as I love the modding work done on that game, the forum drives me mad with one line of post, an Avatar, A siggy, with pictures etc, sometimes you have to spend a good few seconds just trying to find the actual content of the post, and worse still, the thread keeps leaping around as it reformats itself around each new siggy picture loaded etc.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: ShadowGorrath on January 18, 2009, 02:48:28 pm
Works for me on Opera.

And I can think up of many other more annoying things in this forum than my signature supposedly was.

And, this is the first time I see someone complaining about glow tags.

Ok, fine, I won't post here again, I won't complain about you editing my signature without informing me via PM ( or telling me to do that via PM; I would have reacted normally and edited my signature myself, if an admin PMd me of that and officialy requested me to change my signature, instead of acting this way ).
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: karajorma on January 18, 2009, 02:50:45 pm
Fine, removed my signature entirely. Happy now? Abusing your damn moderator/admin powers just cause you didn't like someone's signature? At least my signature wasn't annoying spam like that iamzack's posts and threads were. So at the first mention of my signature you edit it, while you let her spam everywhere just cause she was a woman? My signature was meant to show the most recent important events of the mods I am involved in.

Well, whatever, guess it's your kind of fun, huh? Thanks for acting like assholes.

1) Iamzack is monkeyed. So that argument is completely threadbare.
2) You added a flag to your signature on a thread where someone asked if they could do so and was told no. You then added one anyway. Consider yourself lucky not to have gotten an insulting title instead.
3) You aren't the only person in the world. Your use of the glow tag does irritate other forum members, especially those on Firefox, it was a complete abuse of the feature (and lets face it, most uses of the glow tag are an abuse of the feature!) and finally your sig WAS annoying spam. As I said in my first post it drew more attention than the content of your post and therefore was wrong.
4) We have turned off images in signatures with good reason. They are a feature that is frequently abused. We did not turn them off so people could then abuse coloured or glowing tags to do the same thing
5) No one forced you to remove your sig completely. You decided to do that.
6) You should have been well aware of all of this. You decided to ignore it and abuse the glow tag anyway. So yes I changed the way the tag works to make you and anyone else using that ridiculous thing look like a fool. But all I did was put up a sign pointing at you, you'd already dressed yourself up in a clown costume already.

Right. Why were there glow tags there then in the first place, huh? You could have had them removed by default, not working in sigs.

They're on by default in SMF. That's another reason I changed them to something insulting. People need to remember not to use them. Or this will all come back again next time we upgrade. :p
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Shade on January 18, 2009, 02:51:02 pm
Quote
And, this is the first time I see someone complaining about glow tags
First time? Quote from me, earlier in this thread:

Quote
as glowy text makes the listing of the entire purpose for being you unreadable (and very annoying) to everyone who uses Firefox. Which I suspect is a fairly large percentage of this forum's regulars.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Jeff Vader on January 18, 2009, 02:51:41 pm
As Shade says, signatures are your 'advert' for yourself to everyone on the forum, if you want an example of how bad things can get, try looking through things like the X3 Forums. As much as I love the modding work done on that game, the forum drives me mad with one line of post, an Avatar, A siggy, with pictures etc, sometimes you have to spend a good few seconds just trying to find the actual content of the post, and worse still, the thread keeps leaping around as it reformats itself around each new siggy picture loaded etc.
There was this weird German Naruto forum (http://www.razyboard.com/system/morethread-geschichteinarbeithilflesergesucht-sasusaku-1707566-4496337-0.html) that was also excellent in terms of signatures. Hosi123 ftw.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on January 18, 2009, 02:57:07 pm
I have been using Firefox for a while but I don't complain about the glows, at least not in a "Change that NOW!" way. By the way, I've just edited my Birthday PM example to fit the requirements people talked about in this thread.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: karajorma on January 18, 2009, 03:02:07 pm
I have been using Firefox for a while but I don't complain about the glows, at least not in a "Change that NOW!" way.

And?

You were the person asking for flags in sigs in the first place, remember? :p
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Mobius on January 18, 2009, 03:07:13 pm
I'm simply trying to dissipate the feelings of anger spreading here...nevermind. :nervous:
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Droid803 on January 18, 2009, 03:32:31 pm
Honestly, I don't see what's so bad about the glow tag.
Its just like the text is highlighted...
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Snail on January 18, 2009, 03:43:46 pm
Honestly, I don't see what's so bad about the glow tag.
Its just like the text is highlighted...
Yeah I agree.

That said, highlighting CAN be annoying in cases where the highlight is the same color as the text.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Droid803 on January 18, 2009, 03:57:13 pm
That said, highlighting CAN be annoying in cases where the highlight is the same color as the text.
True, that.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 18, 2009, 04:35:45 pm
Great now look at the TBP DVD release thread.   :ick:
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Shade on January 18, 2009, 04:37:40 pm
First time I'm actually able to read the coloured text there... which should in an of itself prove the idiocy of glowing text. Instead of highlighting the text, it made it unreadable.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Jeff Vader on January 18, 2009, 04:38:20 pm
 :lol: Good ****.
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Angelus on January 18, 2009, 09:01:27 pm
Great now look at the TBP DVD release thread.   :ick:

Yeah, someone should edit that.

For Firefox users it's painful to look at glowy text.

I always wondered why people around here have colored bars/ beams in their signatures, i thought it's somehow FS2 related 'till i accidently marked an entire post with sig, as i tried to copy paste a term that i haven't heard before and saw there is something written.

While it can look good in IE, it's ugly/ unreadable in Firefox.
I personally don't care what people do in their Signatures, but if you want to "pimp" your mod/ campaign or have something to say in/ with your Sig, it would be better to make it readable by everyone, not only by the minority that uses IE.

Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 18, 2009, 09:04:22 pm
I'll get it fixed after the game is over. 
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Androgeos Exeunt on January 19, 2009, 03:35:14 am
/me interest level explodes.

What game?
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Wanderer on January 19, 2009, 03:54:04 am
One good thing in signatures is that you do not have view them ( Profile -> Look and Layout Preferences -> Don't show users' signatures. ).
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Bob-san on January 19, 2009, 11:53:43 pm
I don't think so. (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,58024.msg1191815.html#msg1191815)
Happy Birthday to you too! That's an exact quote from me......... :wtf: and I was wondering why it was in someone else's signature!

Anyways--glow tags are useless. I don't use Internet Explorer, and I've even removed it from Winblows with vLite/nLite on more than one occasion. By the way, admins, can you change or remove my title?
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 20, 2009, 12:00:12 am
/me interest level explodes.

What game?

AFC championship game? 

Anyway I hope I got the DVD release cleaned up.  It was only in there about 25 times.  I use Firefox and just assumed it was supposed to look like that. 
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: Bob-san on January 20, 2009, 12:01:40 am
YOU LOST THE GAME. :nervous:

Anyways--who won the AFC championship game?  :lol:
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: blackhole on January 20, 2009, 12:05:04 am
YOU LOST THE GAME. :nervous:

If I knew where you lived I would be on my way over there with a shotgun.

EDIT: My friend thinks your name is dumb :D
Title: Re: Flags in signatures, what about them?
Post by: FUBAR-BDHR on January 20, 2009, 12:09:26 am
Steelers won so this year I get to watch the SuperBowl and the commercials.    :pimp: