a bit off topic : signature size?

[yellow15]

Hi all, i've joined the AF modeling forum since March this year and i've to say it's one of the best forum in the internet. The FAQS is very good and comprehensive, there are so many experts here with heaps of advices and suggestions.. also the models you guy built gave me lots of ideas of what i can do (and i should not do) for my future projects. I've learned so much from here so i would like to say thank you to everyone of you. However i notice there is one thing that annoys me quite a bit. I'm not sure if this is a common thing to all the AF forums because this is the only AF forum i visit (very) frequently. It's about the signature attached to the bottom of each post...
I know most of us would like to put some useful info there, maybe some quick info about ourself or the models we built and we may want to show off some models we built by attaching a small pic there. I did the same thing as well.. but then i notice some members seems go a bit too far and attach a large number of pictures or a really big pictures (or the worse case, a large number of large pictures) to the signature so taking almost half page of space. So If there is only one or two ppl doing this it's still ok, but i notice it seems getting worse and worse now sometimes i go into a msg thread.. takes me 45 sec to 1 mins to load the page completely... and find that the actualy reply was like less than 10 lines altogther on that page but the signatures on the page are like 6-7 pages long!!! It's not only making it a bit harder to read but it's also a waste of bandwidth and time. I wonder if anyone else notice the same problem or is it just me?

I don't want to start a war or anything and i agree a signature is good too.. i just feel we should have some limitations and want to know what everyone thinks?


peace
Richard

[primera man]

Most people are told to make them smaller if they are to big....or you can go to your profile and click the no button if you want to see peoples sigs.

Thanks for the kind words about the forum...we try and make this one of the best there is.
Cheers
PMan

[yellow15]

thanks Pman .. i didn't know there is such a feature!
ok turned sign off.. it's a much better world now

Thanks

[Marco_Wrc]

I know what you're talking about. I like to see signatures, so I won't turn them off. Instead I ask people to make their signatures smaller, and it works fine.
As long as you tell them why they should make them smaller it's ok.

[flyonthewall]

Very valid point Richard. It sometimes cripples us people who have 56K modems. People should take note of this and just be aware of others and the download time involved. The other day I noticed that someone had jpegs in their sig which were around 80k each and they were only small pics. There is no need for the sig pics to be of a good quality so please use as much compression as poss when you resize pics. I too don't want to have to turn the sigs off, i like to see them!

[T\/\/iN-Tu|2Bo]

Is mine ok???
| | | |
V V V V

[bah humbug]

Originally posted by T\/\/iN-Tu|2Bo
Is mine ok???
| | | |
V V V V

For some it is. It's ok for me. But for others it may not be?

[Vric]

Originally posted by T\/\/iN-Tu|2Bo
Is mine ok???
| | | |
V V V V

it's the limit for me.. it's ok...

but sure, I have seen much more ppl using 640*480 picture in there sing ! those piss me off and no, I don'T want to turn off the sing.. I want to see other progress and model that i miss.

[RyanGiorgio]

Good point. I suppose a solution to the problem is do what P-Man had suggested. My signature is big, IMO, but I don't think its ridiculously large.

Later.

[Marco_Wrc]

Originally posted by RyanGiorgio
Good point. I suppose a solution to the problem is do what P-Man had suggested. My signature is big, IMO, but I don't think its ridiculously large.

Later.

It is.

Take this whole page without signatures, it loads in 49 seconds on a 56k connection.

Now let's take a look at your signature alone. It takes 31 seconds on a 56k connection to only load your signature.

Not only look at signatures in means of loading time. Also take a look at the dimensions (height) of pictures in signatures.

[008]

One of the main problems in loading times here isn't necessarily pic sizes, but where the sig info is hosted from. If you want a pic in your sig, upload it to AF and link it there!

I was reading a thread earlier and I could never see all the model pics posted because my browser would hang at "46 items remaining." It pissed me off that I couldn't see the rest of his work so just for kicks I opened up a real-time HTTP log and guess what? It was hanging up trying to load a sig that was linked to another site. So I added that site to my "Ad" list so that it bypasses it for good, and sure enough the page loaded up completely. The page load would also slow down when retrieving someone's signature pic which was linked from Hobbylink Japan!

I always thought it was just the server being crappy most of the time, but the main problem was externally-linked items in someone's sig.

[rhmatt]

I have a "high speed" connection, so load times aren't a concern. But, when your sig is larger than your post, it kinda looks STUPID to me.

Giving a link to a finished or current project is one thing...but some of you guys have your life history down there!

I mean dayum...how much sheot do you guys want to put down there anyway?!?

I pulled my sig pics months ago because I tought they 1. looked out of place when I made quick replies like this one and 2. Might be hogging bandwidth for our fellow AF brothers on slower connections.

Guess it's all up to the user, but I'll keep mine simple.

-Rick

[TheSyndicate]

I remember about a year back one guy on here had a 640x480 pic of his Accord in his sig. I was on 56k back then and the picture never fully loaded before I surfed back a few pages.