Important: Please Read! Changes Are Coming!

[Fifth Element]

If doing this is made "against the rules," I don't think it would remain a problem for long. God knows, I already wish I could report some .sigs.

Not trying to speak for the mods, but it seems to me that would be a heck of a thing to police.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

Not trying to speak for the mods, but it seems to me that would be a heck of a thing to police.

I think the hardest part would be the flood of reported posts. And, like I said, it wouldn't take long for people to catch on and stop being tools.

 

[Dice4Hire]

One odd thing I noticed today, when I signed off to read a couple posts on my ignore list.

When you are not signed in, you can see the comment, but the person who made the comment is a green box with no name.

Is that intentional?

 

[airwalkrr]

Apparently CTRL-C/CTRL-V is very cost effective.

You read my mind. I have also seen this and it is far more annoying than signatures which can be turned off if the user so desired.

The whole reason signatures were created in the first place as a forum feature is because people were doing this for years before!

It doesn't matter if you make it against the rules or not. Like or not, not everyone reads the forum rules before they post, especially if they are like me and usually just assume that avoiding flames and rude language will conform with the majority of forum rules. If I were a newcomer to a forum and saw that I couldn't post a sig with a free account, but wanted a sig anyway, CTRL-C/CTRL-V is EXACTLY what I would do. And if I got warned or banned for doing so, I doubt I would ever visit that forum again. Even if this is just an experiment, you will chase away people like me who haven't been posting on this forum for eight years while you are doing it. And if CTRL-C/CTRL-V isn't moderated, those of us who have to quote such posts are all going to be irritated each and every time it happens, which will be a lot.

Maybe this is just doom and gloom. I doubt it will affect existing users much. But doing away with sigs for free accounts is already making me question whether I want to hang out in EN World when there are plenty of other forums that talk about the same stuff that will let me post a sig. Heck, the main reason I like to use it is so people can easily link to the games I am running. And there are other places I could run my campaigns, which I am already thinking about doing.

And although I may not have a "supporter" account, that doesn't mean I don't support EN World with my money. Not only have I bought stuff through banner ads with stuff I like before (increasing the value of EN World to its advertisers), I also buy EN World Publishing pdfs, which is direct money straight to them. Heck, I pre-ordered the entire War of the Burning Sky saga before it was even published.

Do you think I'm happy about the sig thing? I'm not. I really think it needs to be reconsidered.

 

[Fifth Element]

Morrus mentioned upthread that he has revised his position on sigs, and that they would be limited in some way for non-subscribers (no images, only a few lines presumably) rather than eliminated.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Morrus mentioned upthread that he has revised his position on sigs, and that they would be limited in some way for non-subscribers (no images, only a few lines presumably) rather than eliminated.

One line, no links, from what I can tell. I just tried to drastically reduce my .sig, and was disallowed "RCFG" with a link.

Funny, every .sig on this page would be disallowed, unless a shorter one with no links comes after mine. All of you who hope to keep track of your games in a discreet .sig better pony up the dough or do so on another forum.

This leaves a bad taste in my mouth.


RC

 

[CleverNickName]

I guess sigs aren't really all that important to me. Usually, my sigs are just dorky little quips and sarcastic comments...if I bother to use one at all. If folks have something particularly important to say, I assume they will put it in the body of the post. (shrug)

But I can see the problem. A lot of people have links to larger bodies of work here on the ENWorld forum stored in their sigs, and in the past I have found them incredibly useful for finding large amounts of material quickly (Nifft, I'm looking at you.)

I have read a few of the arguments back and forth. I have to wonder...what does ENWorld really gain by restricting sigs?

 

[Morrus]

For those who use sigs as a storage mechanism for links, I have an alternative solution in mind. Part of the long term goal is to bring profiles a little more front-and-center, and such links will be a perfect fit there (in fact there will be room for far more).

There's some work to be done in that area, though, as right now profiles are not really very useful or functional.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That makes sense, and removes the sour taste. Thanks, Morrus!

 

[CleverNickName]

For those who use sigs as a storage mechanism for links, I have an alternative solution in mind. Part of the long term goal is to bring profiles a little more front-and-center, and such links will be a perfect fit there (in fact there will be room for far more).

There's some work to be done in that area, though, as right now profiles are not really very useful or functional.

Now why didn't I think of that? That's a brilliant idea. Our user profiles would be the perfect place to keep a library of one's own work, as well as lists of favorite posts and so forth. It's a little cumbersome right now in its current state, but that would be a great feature to incorporate in the future.

Another idea for trimming those sigs would be to disable images/links, and impose a 100-character limit for sigs of non-registered users. Not sure if that has been brought up or not; this thread is enormous.

Edit: You know, I really am an idiot.