Ladies, Using 3/4 Of Your Signature Space For Ads Makes You Look Stupid And Desperate

[pfunk]

But, speaking of "inconsequential trivialities" and "worthless bullshit", perhaps you would like to post some more insults and derision or maybe a thread about how much you like titties.

From the guy who has a quote from a fictional "Star Wars" character in his signature.

I like graphics, and ads, and titties, and girls. Apparently, you, 2Big, and Ira, not so much.

[MrReindeer-9515]

I've ALWAYS "visually cluttered" my signature line. It was never an issue until it was advertising.

Hmmm, I wouldn't say it was never an issue, but when signatures became giant billboards, it became an addressable issue.

From the guy who has a quote from a fictional "Star Wars" character in his signature.

I like graphics, and ads, and titties, and girls. Apparently, you, 2Big, and Ira, not so much.

So derision it is!

Since you like graphics, ads, titties, and girls maybe you should put Destiny's ad up as your sig as well...

[2Big]

You NEVER complained about anything in the signature line, be it big or small, until we were aloud to link our information in there.

No, I started complaining when I noticed that your banner ad became larger and larger.

I prefer the old way -- NO ADVERTISING in the main body of the board

This

I've ALWAYS "visually cluttered" my signature line. It was never an issue until it was advertising.

No, it became an issue when your advertising banner grew relative to the size of the posting space.

From the guy who has a quote from a fictional "Star Wars" character in his signature.

I like graphics, and ads, and titties, and girls. Apparently, you, 2Big, and Ira, not so much.

Pfunk grasping at straws, business as usual.

[Guest]

Since you like graphics, ads, titties, and girls maybe you should put Destiny's ad up as your sig as well...

Oh! Good idea!

[Guest]

No, it became an issue when your advertising banner grew relative to the size of the posting space.

Yeah right. My banner was not bigger than the GIFs that I had in my signature. Just admit it, it's because you LOVE to complain and you HATE to see us advertising here.

[2Big]

If you want to advertise, buy ad space and put some money into the site owner's pocket.

[boink36]

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.

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It's obvious the four of you have no further relevant information for this

thread. continue the bickering in private.

[Guest]

It's obvious the four of you have no further relevant information for this

thread. continue the bickering in private.

Wait. I DO have a relevent question for 2big.

2big (and others claming that the size is what's the problem), If it's about the size, why haven't you ever complained about about Boink's signature or Nusa's signature?

[Velvet Valentine]

I agree with Destiny. Some guys here are using the same amount of space. As Bit stated, I'd like to see the rules across the board for all signatures if size is the issue.

[2Big]

Wait. I DO have a relevent question for 2big.

2big (and others claming that the size is what's the problem), If it's about the size, why haven't you ever complained about about Boink's signature or Nusa's signature?

Because neither Nusa nor Boink are advertising a service

[Beverly Fisher]

I am spending Easter with my family and will address some of this when I come back.

But I'd like to point out that I, destiny, and velvet are basically beta testing a new concept in the forum. Experimenting, working out bugs, trying new things, helping Gina determine what works and what doesn't.

Posters here get to help with that too.

So instead of an angry, adversarial relationship, why can't we all work together with some constructive, understanding, thoughtful, KIND thoughts?

I find the level of anger and vitriol interesting. What are we afraid of?

I'm off to hide eggs for my nieces now.

Xxxooo

Beverly ;-*

[Nusa]

I absolutely agree.

The reason I want to allow contact info in signatures is because I want providers to utilize the board more, which in turn brings in more clients, which brings in more providers, and so on... and so on. My idea of a vibrant community is one that grows and evolves through time, and I'm going to do what I can to encourage everyone's participation.

However, I'm also of the opinion that while some graphics can be done very tastefully done and in a size that isn't irritating, too often it's done in a way that the AD overtakes the contribution to the discussion.

For that reason, we're going to implement some more stringent guidelines:

Provider Signature Rules

Your signature may contain a text link to your website, a link to your reviews, and/or a link to your P411 page or similar. Contact information such as phone number or E-mail address is also permitted in your signature. Size must not be greater than 4 using the forum editing tools.

If you would like to use a graphic for your signature, it must not be larger than 650x120 in total. It may NOT be animated. It may NOT include an image of a human body part. It may only contain text links to your website, a links to your reviews, and/or a link to your P411 page or similar. Contact information such as phone number or E-mail address is also permitted in your signature. Size of text must not be greater than what would be comparable to 4, using the forum editing tools.

Signatures may not be overly gaudy (colors, all caps, etc), determined only by the forum moderators' collected opinion.

No other information that could be considered advertising is ever permitted in your signature or in posts.

You may upload your picture to use as your avatar only.

How does this sound? I'm open to feedback from both sides and hope that we can find middle ground. I won't be updating the rules until final word on this has been decided, and would like to see a good example of an acceptable graphic to direct people to (I'm thinking Beverly's is a good current example?).

Always,

Gina

Bandwidth question data.

Destiny's current profile(Lipstick Tube) is 650x120 has 34k in the signiture. It only renders 650 pixels wide.

Velvet Valentine's current signiture(Hearts and lace) is 512x174 and has 55k in data. The picture banner is 498x120, however her signiture is more than just the banner and will not render smaller than 498 wide.

Beverly Fisher's current signiture(Flowers) is 1042x203 and has 48k in data. The picture banner is 498x120, however her signiture is more than just the banner and the signiture section. She has a standard signiture that she enters in manually at the bottom of the vast majority of her posts.

xxxooo

Beverly ;-*

My profile has 14k in the signiture. The text rendering can change with a browser, but the big center section with the dancing clown is 690x166. However, because it is mostly text it will render as small as 104 pixels wide.

A 650x120 full color still image without compression will run about 235k in bandwidth.

This gif is 1.4 megabytes. 41 times the size of Destiny's current signiture and 100 times the size of my signiture. And it is not as large as the the one Destiny just had on her profile.

The board already has built in limits on the size and bandwidth for signitures. A Signiture pic is 500 by 100 pixels and 19.5 KB. The signiture itself has a built in limit around 1k chars. My entire signiture is constrained to the limits already built in to the board software. It's serving graphics from third party servers that allow the board constraints to be ignored.

My point is that it's not simply the fact that an animated gif's are used that causes the bandwith issue it's using the large video based ones. Clip art, vector, and sprite animations use a small fraction of the bandwidth of a video based gif. A restriction on bandwidth will allow flexability in the design and perhaps a 100k bandwith limitation which is less than 1/10th the loading time of the video type gifs and gets cached in the user's browser. Many of the pictures used in the picture threads are 100k(we even have video gif threads). These threads and some of the animations are very popular with the userbase and having a little bandwith will keep them around without making the board slowdown loading the page.

Putting in some whitespace and fonts on purpose here to start this sentance because I know that boring, monotonus text does not get read.

[Bit Banger]

Thank you, Nusa, for crunching the numbers. Yes, bandwidth is one of my main concerns. Loading multiple copies through 3G (I'm not sure what caching Safari does) can be a real drag.

[2small]

Myself personally I dont like all that stuff nat the bottom of the post but I will deal with it if thats what Gina allows. I personally dont care if your beta testing, alpha dog testing or just shooting the breeze, Gina should have made an announcement to that effect.. Im not mad I just dont like change solely for changes sake. We used to get infractions if a lady even mentioned her web site in an ad and then one morning we wake up and its balls to the wall banners. You think a thread is getting some good posting and then when you check it its half banners. Oh wll im just and old geezer who will probably get bashed but I dont care.

[lilithia]

I believe the men are having a hard time adjusting to having a women run what was suppose to be a man's board. That was the purpose of TOB Thats what made TOB different. Now the board looks and feels more like a woman's board

There its been said.

For the ladies its just another place to put thier info.

Being that EB P411 has always been an extendtion of TOB, it will be interesting to see how many new ladies will actually contribute to the board.

Or yes, since the new changes have taken place I have not read any comments on what the ladies think of the changes.

Lilithia

[Velvet Valentine]

I believe the men are having a hard time adjusting to having a women run what was suppose to be a man's board. Lilithia

That's what it's looking like to me too.

I hope the ugliness doesn't run all the girls away.

[boink36]

I believe the men are having a hard time adjusting to having a women run what was suppose to be a man's board. That was the purpose of TOB Thats what made TOB different. Now the board looks and feels more like a woman's board

There its been said.

For the ladies its just another place to put thier info.

Being that EB P411 has always been an extendtion of TOB, it will be interesting to see how many new ladies will actually contribute to the board.

Or yes, since the new changes have taken place I have not read any comments on what the ladies think of the changes.

Lilithia

That's what it's looking like to me too.

I hope the ugliness doesn't run all the girls away.

We are talking about advertising in signatures and allowing boob pictures. not exactly earth shattering change. I'm not sure what the big deal is. then again, if we go out of our way to make it a big deal it just might be.

[Guest bigberd]

Personally, I like the changes. I’ve been working on my “must see” list and having the links to websites, reviews, and p411 is really handy. If somebody doesn’t like the advertising, they don’t have to click on the links!

[Beverly Fisher]

We are talking about advertising in signatures and allowing boob pictures. not exactly earth shattering change. I'm not sure what the big deal is. then again, if we go out of our way to make it a big deal it just might be.

+1

Here's the thing. Any time there are changes in a board, any board, people freak out. It happened recently on TER, and the folks there are only just now finally coping with it -- and some who couldn't cope with it are trying to get things happening over at Provider Report. (Have you seen Provider Report? It's quite fun.)

People don't like change much. They like what they're used to. I recently bought a new phone. Hated it so much, I switched back to my old ancient phone. I also still use Windows XP.

So I get it -- change sucks.

But here's the thing -- in one form or another, these sigs will continue to exist. Bandwidth concerns -- you can turn off the ability to see sigs. Easy-peasy. In your User CP, click on "edit options", then scroll down to "Visible Post Elements" and unclick the box marked "Show Signatures."

In other words, if you don't like it, it's okay. You don't have to like it, or look at it.

The whole point of this was so that providers would be more interested in posting more often on these forums, and generating a bigger, better community. At this point, I'm ready to leave again, and I just came back.

Constructive discussion is great. Anger and hating and exaggeration (wall to wall ads? Three banners? really?) and general silliness (the size of the sig referred to was not the entire sig, but the actual banner which has the contact data. Though the effort at number crunching did not go unnoticed, thank you. BTW, the length is based on your screen size. So if you had an old 800 monitor, my quote would stretch that far).

I think the other providers, and the other hobbyists, have been munching popcorn and watching this thread, laughing at the whole thing, and waiting to see how it turns out.

Seriously, I'm walking away from this board for a few days. I suggest anyone who is that upset about this whole issue join me for a restful break. Go for a walk. Kiss a baby. Smell some f*cking flowers. Have a life.

xxxooo

Beverly ;-*

[MrReindeer-9515]

We are talking about advertising in signatures and allowing boob pictures. not exactly earth shattering change. I'm not sure what the big deal is. then again, if we go out of our way to make it a big deal it just might be.

You've been around long enough to never underestimate the ability of TOB to make something from nothing.

Having said that, the changed size in some of the signatures(yours included), would seem to indicate the OP had some merit.

If the rules now say sigs can have contact info, that is fine with me; but it seems that at least some(myself included) don't want to see a version of BP with every thread an ASP posts in.

[Nusa]

+1

Here's the thing. Any time there are changes in a board, any board, people freak out. It happened recently on TER, and the folks there are only just now finally coping with it -- and some who couldn't cope with it are trying to get things happening over at Provider Report. (Have you seen Provider Report? It's quite fun.)

People don't like change much. They like what they're used to. I recently bought a new phone. Hated it so much, I switched back to my old ancient phone. I also still use Windows XP.

So I get it -- change sucks.

But here's the thing -- in one form or another, these sigs will continue to exist. Bandwidth concerns -- you can turn off the ability to see sigs. Easy-peasy. In your User CP, click on "edit options", then scroll down to "Visible Post Elements" and unclick the box marked "Show Signatures."

In other words, if you don't like it, it's okay. You don't have to like it, or look at it.

The whole point of this was so that providers would be more interested in posting more often on these forums, and generating a bigger, better community. At this point, I'm ready to leave again, and I just came back.

Constructive discussion is great. Anger and hating and exaggeration (wall to wall ads? Three banners? really?) and general silliness (the size of the sig referred to was not the entire sig, but the actual banner which has the contact data. Though the effort at number crunching did not go unnoticed, thank you. BTW, the length is based on your screen size. So if you had an old 800 monitor, my quote would stretch that far).

I think the other providers, and the other hobbyists, have been munching popcorn and watching this thread, laughing at the whole thing, and waiting to see how it turns out.

Seriously, I'm walking away from this board for a few days. I suggest anyone who is that upset about this whole issue join me for a restful break. Go for a walk. Kiss a baby. Smell some f*cking flowers. Have a life.

xxxooo

Beverly ;-*

The text in your signiture will wrap down to the width of the picture. So, will render as small as 498 pixels wide. It's the same situation as my signiture and Velvet's new signiture the text will wrap down to the size of the picture elements. When the wrapping occurs the signiture will be rendered longer with the text using more lines.

I wasn't trying to single your signiture out to get it changed (Gina had already said she liked it). I was trying to bring up the difficulty of using the arbitrally imposed limits in size and structure to determine how much impact a signiture has. The P411 ad at the top of the board is a 10 frame animation, but it doesn't move that fast and it's only 20k in size, so it doesn't impact the loading of the page. That's what I think is a more important measure of the signiture's impact. A signiture that is 400x200 loads up the same as a 650x120. If it's designed well it won't impact the board negatively.

Glitter animations, fade in/fade out, mild rotations don't distract as much as some of the people on this thread are claiming they do. We live in a world of ads and we are all accustomed to tuning them out, so these things are not as distracting as people are making them out to be in this thread. My argument is that bandwidth is a more flexible way to limit the signiture size and I collected some data to get an idea of what kind of bandwidth limitation to propose.

[Crazy Horse]

It's a new policy, so we're all still learning, trying new things.

Part of what we're doing is that girls like to make stuff pretty. We do that in our homes, on our websites, on our bodies, and yes, in our sigs.

Xxxxoooo

Beverly ;-*

I'm open to thoughts and suggestions which are constructive.

Let me combine the lines from this post with one from another of your posts in this thread and then give you my thoughts.

I'll start by asking who it is you are trying to attract with the advertisements in your signature lines. Is it other women that like pretty flashy, glittery gal stuff. Or are you trying to attract the simple straight forward men that may constitute the majority of your potential client base.

While one group may be impressed with both your non sterotypical programing abilities in producing a flashy, glittery girly ad; at least part of the group you're actually trying to reach out to might be turned off by viewing the person behind a complicated ad as being too complicated to see.

Of course thats all a pure black and white accessment of the much more subtle topic of how ads draw in a buyer but I'm sure you get the gist of my meaning. An ad should be targeted towards the simple needs of the market place and not be weighed down by all the bells and whistles you can add just because you can add them.

...Happy Hobbying...

...Crazy Horse...

[Nusa]

I'm open to thoughts and suggestions which are constructive.

Let me combine the lines from this post with one from another of your posts in this thread and then give you my thoughts.

I'll start by asking who it is you are trying to attract with the advertisements in your signature lines. Is it other women that like pretty flashy, glittery gal stuff. Or are you trying to attract the simple straight forward men that may constitute the majority of your potential client base.

While one group may be impressed with both your non sterotypical programing abilities in producing a flashy, glittery girly ad; at least part of the group you're actually trying to reach out to might be turned off by viewing the person behind a complicated ad as being too complicated to see.

Of course thats all a pure black and white accessment of the much more subtle topic of how ads draw in a buyer but I'm sure you get the gist of my meaning. An ad should be targeted towards the simple needs of the market place and not be weighed down by all the bells and whistles you can add just because you can add them.

...Happy Hobbying...

...Crazy Horse...

Crazy Horse, just drop the nickname, the avitar, the two quotes and the youtube video in your signiture. You don't actually need that stuff to post, however without that stuff you don't have a personality on the board and your posts won't influence the crowd as much. Even 2Big and Mr. Reindeer have avitar's and signitures that are chosen to set a tone for thier posts even if the only thing they get from thier avitar's is the fact that the crowd remember's it's them.

The provider's who are working on these signitures are trying to create a "posting identity" for themselves and at the same time they are longing for a presence on the board that is considered positive and beneficial by thier standards. This thead is a good example of the uphill battle they are going through on the board right now as it's apparently okay to classify the provider's as "stupid and desperate" because they simply want to make the most of a new board rule.

[2Big]

Kind of funny how some of you girls try to shift the argument away from the main point I made here to some imagined big philosophical drama about the "direction of the board".

The fact is a simple one:

Garish, over the top banner ads that scream cheap and tasteless have no place on this discussion board.

Girls are trying to one-up each other on seeing who can stretch the rules as far as possible.

Restrictions on size and appearance are needed and will make for a better reading experience for everyone, especially those with small screens and limited bandwith.

This is primarily a discussion forum not an ad forum.

Buy banner ads, if you wish, from the owner of the site.

No big philosophy here.

[2Big]

So I get it -- change sucks.

This is not about change; it's about providers flaunting and stretching - literally - the rules.

In other words, if you don't like it, it's okay. You don't have to like it, or look at it.

That's like me going over to my neighbor and complaining about him noisily screwing his fat wife every night him saying: If you don't like it, don't listen to it. Well, I'm living next door to him, so I have to listen to him "Captain Ahab" his wife.

The whole point of this was so that providers would be more interested in posting more often on these forums, and generating a bigger, better community. At this point, I'm ready to leave again, and I just came back.

Sorry, don't see how an ugly banner ad generates a bigger, better community.

[Guest]

Restrictions on size and appearance are needed and will make for a better reading experience for everyone, especially those with small screens and limited bandwith.

I would once again like to point out that when I used a GIF of 2 girls making out or titties bouncing, which used WAY WAY WAY more bandwidth (which nusa pointed out with exact numbers) NOBODY, and I repeat NOBODY complained. So, once again, it's not about the size and bandwidth being used, so please retire this tired ass argument already, would you. Spanks!

[Rex Block]

I remain strangely unperturbed by this whole faux and manufactured issue. What on earth is wrong is me?

The original owner of the board, for whatever reason, rarely interacted with the members, and slowly let it go to pot. I think the new administrator is doing a good job of cleaning the place up, and I for one welcome the more adult direction the forum is going.

That said, a few posters persist in continuing to test the limits of civility, or appear to being testing the patience of the mods...simply to stir the pot or garner attention. The negative tone of their posts is much more bothersome than the size of some stupid banner or whatever. I couldn't care less if there is a tad of advertising on a discussion page...I leave that up to the administrator to deal with or limit if necessary.

And that is my Monday morning coffee thoughts.

[2Big]

it's not about the size and bandwidth being used

No, it's not.

It's about size, bandwith, and advertising

[FatDog]

there's a simple solution to this, if you dont like signatures, just block them.

[Bit Banger]

... Bandwidth concerns -- you can turn off the ability to see sigs. Easy-peasy. In your User CP, ...

Done - Thank you for pointing this out. You learn something every day.