Get rid of them.
Yeah, toss my vote in with the “if it speeds things up, toss 'em” camp. I used to change mine often and post it often, now I’m just too lazy to bother. Though I do often get a chuckle out of a clever sig here and there.
Same goes for post count. Can’t you stick that in a person’s profile? If you’re really that interested in how many posts a person has, you could check their profile.
If it speeds up the boards, then please do away with them, ASAP.
Some of the sigs have become mini-posts, repeated over and over again, and they only really amke sense to but a few.
Banish the sigs, send them off to sig heaven, give them a wake and go on with life.
Your post should be your statement to the world, not some silly sig.
If you haven’t guessed it, I’m all for removing the sig option.
Deep six the sigs, the post count, the smileys. I was thinking of starting a thread on this very issue. I always considered that stuff nothing but detritus.
Um, me too.
And, to further justify my posting:
A heartfelt plea.
Sigs are irritatin’
sigs are noisome
sigs don’t solve delays
they probably cause’ em.
Sigs and smilies
should bite the dust
along with flirting
and cyberlust
Explode those cats,
drive on the park way
end words with -gry
but give the sigs away.
Master R. Boss (aged 9 years, 2 months)
I always forget to use mine. If it helps, toss 'em or put 'em in the profile.
Having just read the thread on smilies in About This Notice Board, here
I have to take it back about smilies.
And I must admit that sometimes they are amusing, especially the horrified one when used judiciously.
Unlike flirting which is NEVER amusing or attractive to others
RedBoss
Yeah, lose the sigs.
I used mine for a while, but not any more. Leave the smilies alone while you can, though. Used right, they add to the message.
I’d be delighted to see the sigs go! I hate scrolling past the huge ones all the time. I stopped using mine a few days after I started posting here, when I realized how annoying a sig can be to others.
I think that putting the sigs in our profiles is a great idea. That way folks don’t have to give them up completely. It would be a shame to lose the Wally sigs, but they’d be a short click away.
If getting rid of the sigs will make threads load faster, go for it!
Sure, scrap the sig’s.
And the “Registered: XXXXXX” line
And the “Posts: XXX” line
Keep the time and date of posts, and the “profile” and “quote” buttons (and the “edit/delete” button for the Mods)
The “mail”, “www”, and “search” buttons… gone! (get this info off the “profile”)
Old posts (about a month old, maybe two) on “About This Message Board”, “General Questions”, “In My Humble Opinion”, “MPSIMS”, and “The BBQ Pit”…zzzzzippp! outta here! (Giving people plenty of time to “archive” their favorite threads first.)
“Smilies”- Adios!
Clean house. Pare down to the bone to improve speed. Take no prisoners!
Well…
Um…
I could live without the sig function.
Folks, you could still HAVE a sig line.
You’d just enter it manually if it’s that important to you, like this.
How 'bout we just breathe the life back into an old one?
To save time and stuff. 
And, in case you people wanted my two pennies on the OP, get rid of them. I use mine all the time (almost never twice in the same thread (on the same page anyway) though) but that doesn’t mean I’d jump off a bridge if I had to actually type it in. And I’d vote for getting rid of smilies, too. If I type 
, whoever happens to be reading my post will know that I’m really saying :p.
Umm, yeah. Well you know I’m getting at anyway, right?
Last post, I swear!! Hehe. Anyway, if we didn’t have smilies, I wouldn’t have to look like an idiot when I
::pout::
or
::Dump water on someone’s head::
or
::open a soda/beer/bag of chips, whatever::
Save me from looking like a moron, people!! (I’m kidding. I’ll always look like a moron.)
Well, I used to use my sig once a thread if it was appropriate (a fun MPSIMS or IMHO thread, or something like that). But for the last while, I haven’t been using my sig that much. So if it speeds things up that much, then get rid of 'em. Like several people have said, you can still tag on your own sig.
As was discussed in an ATMB thread, smilies really don’t make much of a difference. They’re loaded into your cache after seeing them and thus it doesn’t have to get them from the server every time (at least, I think that’s what was said). I used to used them quite a bit, but I’ve been cutting down on them, too. I suppose I wouldn’t mind seeing them go, but there are times when it’s just easier to use them then to add “I’m joking” and explain at the end. IMHO, anyways.
Yes, but such a cute moron. 
I’ve always wondered if they could be abused? For instance, if I wanted to flame someone, couldn’t I put the flame in my sig, post, then change my sig back to something innocuous in a little while? Does the overtaxed server maintain a sig history?
Well, I suppose you could, but it wouldn’t be that practical (and would be abusing sig lines). When you change your sig, it changes it in all of your posts, not just that one. So there could be a lot of sig lines out there in places where flaming is not allowed (and where possible profanity is not allowed). Also, there’d be a good chance that the person you’d want to flame wouldn’t see it in the short time you’re on, and an even better chance that a mod would see it or hear about it. Hence, I’d wager it’s a bad idea to try such a thing.
Yeah but…
Sure it’s no good if you want to call a certain poster a certain something to their face, but it’s effective if you want to be a propagandist. It also works if you know the person you are flaming is actively posting while you are.
You could limit the extent of those viewing the flame by not using your sig much. Lay off it for a week and very few threads containing your sig will be active.
And sure people will hear about it, but will the only evidence be people’s say so?