Signatures

Meta
1

Is there a reason that signatures appear to be nonexistant?

The only reasons I can come up with are

  1. Discourse is more “discussion” oriented than a forum
  2. Clutters up the page.

How correct is that assumption?

Phroa :3

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2

Having signatures was decided against being in Discourse’s core. A plugin would need to be developed in order to have the feature.

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3

What are the advantages of signatures?

I see only the disadvantages …
more space to scroll …
more work for mods …
redundant informations every post …
no significant useful information xD …

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4

I always did dislike signatures on forums, some people take them too far with massive banner sized ones that make the page huge just from a couple posts.

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5

While most see them for spam reasons, I did like them for their use in advertising your projects.

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6

I suppose that could be good or bad depending on your viewpoint.

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7

I agree, as annoying as it would be to see it sure would be good advertising esp if the person posts multiple times and all you see as you scroll down the page is that banner again and again -_-

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8

I never had this problem as most forums I’ve been to has regulated signatures(ie only appearing on first post, limited size for signatures, no content violating rules, ext.)

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9

Personally, I prefer this setup. No flashy banners, big awkward images, or having to worry about inappropriate content that moderators have to worry about. Plus, less bandwidth is used but I don’t know if that is a big deal to others or not.

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10

The only issues Signatures really have is if boards have no signature rules(i.e pictures can only be x pixels high and wide and only 2 pictures max, it’s a staff member’s final word if it’s too long). A signature can do a lot:

  • Advertise a product, service, or project you’re working on/own.
  • Explain yourself or make yourself basically a nametag everywhere you go.
  • Show off your artwork.
  • Humor purposes
  • Links to websites that may help or improve user experience(i.e if they have a personal blog about development)

If rules are set in place then it can’t be abused if it’s handled in the correct manner and the rules are enforced. I don’t see an issue with signatures if they aren’t 5000px width and height.

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11

Maybe we can discuss signature rules and implementation. Maybe developers can have signatures to advertise their projects, but not just any random person who might be spamming the boards. That would contribute to conversation by saying, “hey check out this plugin”. Dunno.

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12

Agreed. I like the option to have one, but not the bad things that happen when you get a bunch of immature people flooding in with pictures of phallic objects.

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13

If someone wrote a forum plugin, a certain trust-level could be required for signatures.

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14

Which is why we can’t have them. That’s usually way too much work for a moderation team to handle. Again, maybe exception can be made for known and trusted people based on a certain guideline. Discourse has this concept of trust levels. Maybe elders can do it.

15

There is a huge blank space on the left and right, maybe it can be put there to not increase scroll.

16

Would just like to point out the difference of blank space in aspect ratios(16:9 & 4:3).

17

Still got huge space on the right. And it seems to only be used by the “+ Reply as new Topic” which is only on first line of the post.

18

I agree with those same reasons as well.

As they are very frequently misused I think we would be better not having them. I am not against letting it be known the projects you are involved with, but we can always make that a specific part of the forum. This would add in moderation and keep the information in one central location.

19

I did like signatures - They allowed you to tell others a little about you, what you do, and advertise your plugins or projects. While large banners are annoying, no images, or a limit on images would resolve this in my opinion.

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20

I like using the about me text for this. It shows up as soon as you click/tap on someone’s avatar, so it’s only ever one click away and its not obtrusive.

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