Signature Length Limit Changed?? - Diesel Forum

Rick M · 10-12-2001, 09:23 PM

Have noticed some signatures several lines past what I thought was the 3 line limit. Has that changed? [img]images/icons/crazy.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/shrug.gif[/img]

mhardin · 10-12-2001, 09:29 PM

Rick:

Yes, the limit has changed. We are no longer limited to three lines. I forget the exact number, but the new limit is defined by the number of characters in your sig line. My memory, which is none too good, tells me it is 500 characters. The software takes care of the limit now. Type too much, and it won't appear.

Mike

spepin · 10-13-2001, 12:21 AM

I noticed the change quite a while back. I was contacted to shorten my sig (it was three lines on my 1024x768 screen) so it would be within regulation at 800x600. Somebody must have thought that this was the "standard" internet resolution. There is no "standard". Today, entry level resolution is easily 1024x768, so this "standard" is obsolete at best. As you can see, I changed my sig to fall within the moderator's limits -- just before they eliminated the three line limit.

My question is this -- does the 500 character limit apply to the displayed length, or the length as entered in the profile? That is -- if I enter URLs, do they count (including UBB), or does the link count?

Steve.

SmokeyWren · 10-13-2001, 07:17 PM

Steve, as I understand it, the WebMaster would appreciate it if everyone limited their sigs so that on the screen they show up at 3 or less lines when viewed at 800x600 pixels resolution.

But the moderators were spending an inordiante amount of time reminding folks of the rule. So he put in a program limit of 200 characters, including spaces and everything else, which is 3 lines on a standard PICA typewriter font (66 or 67 characters and spaces per line).

But then the folks that were using UBB code to show 3 URLs that were each 100 characters long but displayed only "My Truck", "My boat", and "My dogs" complained their displayed sig was all screwed up because of the 200-character limit, even though it was displaying much less than 3 lines on the screen. (The software counts the number of characters/spaces in your profile sig - not what is displayed on the screen)

Jason agreed with those few folks, so he changed the limit to something like 500 characters, assuming that folks would not use all 500 unless they had two or three very-long URLs in their sig.

But he guessed wrong. Lots of folks didn't have any URLs in their sig so they posted almost 8 lines of other stuff.

What to do? I certainly don't want the job of sending e-mails to the Steve Pepins on the site to tell them to shape up. 200 characters wasn't enough for some of our favorite members, but 500 characters is obviously too much.

What would you do if you were Jason?

spepin · 10-13-2001, 09:09 PM

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Smokey Wren:
What would you do if you were Jason?<hr></blockquote>

Well, since I don't know the limitations of UBB, I can only assume that while it is smart enough to be able to impose a pre-display character limit, it is too stupid to impose any form of line limits (ie to limit to 500 characters as opposed to three lines). I guess the best of both worlds would be to have the ability to impose a character length limit as well as a displayed line limit, so the guy who doesn't include limks can still only post three lines. I can see where the limitation made sense on the "old" system, but the new one has so much more storage space, does the hundred or so characters really bog things down so much?

As you can see, I have stuck with the shortened sig line, not imposing strains on the system due to high character counts so the moderators can send emails to the other Steve Pepins and not worry about me [img]images/icons/crazy.gif[/img]

Steve.

Rick M · 10-13-2001, 09:39 PM

My whole point to bringing this up is that on my dial up all some of these long *ss lists of every little thing that has ever been done to the trucks just means I have to wait that much longer to get to read the pertinent information of the given thread.

Smokey, I think I posted this subject thread just after I had read one of those with 8 lines of stuff in the signature that you mentioned. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img] They posted a comment that was only one or two lines long but the signature took another Pg Dn to get to the next poster's comments. Oh well!!!

mhardin · 10-19-2001, 09:43 PM

Robyn:

I don't know what's up with that, but it seems normal now. I just checked your recent posts, and it shows you as #6 in this thread. That would be correct. Strange......... [img]graemlins/shrug.gif[/img]

Mike

JLester · 10-20-2001, 12:26 AM

Signature Length was never a storage issue. Your signature is only stored once on the server. All the messages just have pointers to your signature file.

The issue was signal to noise ratio of the forums. It was getting so that people were posting messages with 4 lines and attaching a 10 line signature. No one really cares about every single little thing you modified, every club you belong to, your favorite motto, etc. etc. etc. At a certain point, it just becomes too distracting.

Jason

Rick M · 10-21-2001, 10:45 PM

Bingo Jason!! That is the very point I was trying to make. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]