Alright to link to my blog?

[Ed_Zotti]

@Oakminster

I assume the current “use sigs 1 time per thread” policy remains in effect?

Yes.

Also–I tried to attach my sig to this post twice. Checked the box as normal, but no sig is displayed…

We just switched off sigs for non-members. You can enter your sig manually, or you can enjoy the ease and comfort of autosigs by paying the low annual fee of $14.95.

[Oakminster]

@Colibri

Checking your profile, I don’t see that you have a sig entered.

That’s what I don’t understand. I used to have a signature. I use it infrequently, but I definitely had one. It was a quote from Lemur about how I’m not a tame human. I liked it. Did it get deleted when the sig file change was made? I really woulda liked some warning before that happened…

[Oakminster]

@Ed_Zotti

Yes.

We just switched off sigs for non-members. You can enter your sig manually, or you can enjoy the ease and comfort of autosigs by paying the low annual fee of $14.95.

Well, your board, you get to do that. Really wish there would have been more notice though. Now my sig is gone, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the thread/post from whence it came again. I really liked that quote. I would have written it down, or cut and pasted it somewhere to preserve it for my own amusement. Now I can’t.

I’m not gonna go all ranty on ya…but this is pretty heavy handed. You take away sigs, and say pay up if you want it back, with no notice? I do not negotiate at gunpoint. With anybody. That’s just…not good business, IMHO.

[TubaDiva]

Just sent you your quote. Check your email.

[Sage_Rat]

@Ed_Zotti

Members, and only members, may post in their signatures links to other sites, including commercial sites, without prior permission from us, subject to the following guidelines:

Well I wasn’t expecting that, nor really even asking for it (even in my previous thread). If links to sites that are selling something become an annoyance, I hope that you’ll try downgrading the rule to just blogs and other incidental things rather than a full-blown ban. (And then if it’s still causing problems, finally banning it again.)

Thank you for considering the topic, at any rate. I go to re-sigify my blog once more!

[Oakminster]

@TubaDiva

Just sent you your quote. Check your email.

Thanks, Tuba.

[Ed_Zotti]

@Oakminster

Well, your board, you get to do that. Really wish there would have been more notice though. Now my sig is gone, and I’m not sure I’ll be able to find the thread/post from whence it came again. I really liked that quote. I would have written it down, or cut and pasted it somewhere to preserve it for my own amusement. Now I can’t.

I’m not gonna go all ranty on ya…but this is pretty heavy handed. You take away sigs, and say pay up if you want it back, with no notice? I do not negotiate at gunpoint. With anybody. That’s just…not good business, IMHO.

My apologies. If any other guests would like their sigs e-mailed to them, let us know.

[Oakminster]

Thanks, Ed.

[twickster]

@choie

True, but “Forum Leaders” is neither easy to find (it’s all the way at the bottom of the page) and not very intuitively named – it sounds like a list of people with the highest number of posts or something similar. It’s quite easy to change this link text language in vB to something more obvious, like “View SDMB Mods/Admins.” (And it’s not a dreaded file modification, so there’s no worries there about upgrading!)

But I have to agree that it’d be extremely helpful both to newcomers and everyone else here to create a sticky in ATMB that’s titled “How to contact the mods/admin” containing at least a link to the Forum Leaders showgroups.php page. Easy to find and much more user-friendly – and really, people would expect to find this info in a forum called “About This Message Board.”

Okay, I just added this info to the Technical Issues FAQ.

I also added summariesof what’s in which FAQ thread.

Hopefully this will make it easier for people to find the information they need.

[Erasmus_Darwin]

@Ed_Zotti

While we’re at it we’re going to make sig files a member benefit and disable them for non-members. That doesn’t mean non-members can’t have signatures, but they must enter them manually. Non-members can’t post links in sigs, though.

The problem with this is that some people have signatures turned off via the options in the control panel. Manually entered signatures are going to seen by everyone – even those who don’t want to see sigs. I’d suggest just banning signatures for guests period, including manually typed ones.

[Ed_Zotti]

@Erasmus_Darwin

The problem with this is that some people have signatures turned off via the options in the control panel. Manually entered signatures are going to seen by everyone – even those who don’t want to see sigs. I’d suggest just banning signatures for guests period, including manually typed ones.

This gets us into some real nitpicky arguments. Suppose you customarily put “Erasmus” at the end of your posts. Do you want me telling you you can’t do that? Do I want to spend time enforcing such a rule? And yes, I know we’ve had a few arguments along those lines in the past. I’d just as soon not go there again.

Incidentally, it occurred to me I was hasty in shutting off autosigs for guests without notice, in case somebody had something they wanted to save. So they’ve been (or soon will be) restored. Once we get squared away on what we’re going to do, we’ll post an announcement.

[Irishman]

Erasmus Darwin said:

The problem with this is that some people have signatures turned off via the options in the control panel. Manually entered signatures are going to seen by everyone – even those who don’t want to see sigs. I’d suggest just banning signatures for guests period, including manually typed ones.

How do you tell the difference between a manually entered signature and other manually entered content? Especially with signatures only allowed once per thread?

Thanks to twickster for posting the appropriate content to the FAQ. Thanks to Ed for trying to smooth out the sig policy implementation.

[Oakminster]

@Ed_Zotti

Incidentally, it occurred to me I was hasty in shutting off autosigs for guests without notice, in case somebody had something they wanted to save. So they’ve been (or soon will be) restored. Once we get squared away on what we’re going to do, we’ll post an announcement.

Cool deal. It being Friday night, and me having no intention of driving anywhere, consider a glass raised in your general direction. To your health, Sir. <drinks><would throw glass in the fireplace like they do at Callahan’s, but this ain’t Callahan’s, it’s my house, and I’d have to clean the glass out of the fireplace.>

[samclem]

@Oakminster

To your health, Sir. <drinks><would throw glass in the fireplace like they do at Callahan’s, but this ain’t Callahan’s, it’s my house, and I’d have to clean the glass out of the fireplace.>

Sheesh! You have a fireplace? I don’t even have a fake one. We just drew one on the wall behind the tv with a magic marker.

[Oakminster]

@samclem

Sheesh! You have a fireplace? I don’t even have a fake one. We just drew one on the wall behind the tv with a magic marker.

Well, sorta. It’s gas logs that don’t currently work. Replacing them is on my list of “gotta get around to seeing about that one of these days”. In theory, I think it used to be a regular wood burning fireplace, and could possibly be restored to that role. I’m not sure I want to deal with buying/chopping wood and associated hassles.

[Erasmus_Darwin]

@Ed_Zotti

This gets us into some real nitpicky arguments. Suppose you customarily put “Erasmus” at the end of your posts. Do you want me telling you you can’t do that? Do I want to spend time enforcing such a rule? And yes, I know we’ve had a few arguments along those lines in the past. I’d just as soon not go there again.

Honestly, I’m not a big fan of those, either. But I do think manually inserted, full-blown sigs will be even worse.

@Irishman

How do you tell the difference between a manually entered signature and other manually entered content? Especially with signatures only allowed once per thread?

That’s my point. If there were an easy way to tell the difference, I could filter it out on my end, and I wouldn’t care what the board policy was.

Still, for a human moderator enforcing the rules, I’m sure it would be clear enough.

[nocojoe]

This is interesting, but seeing as I just registered I wonder if I am a member or not. I think I should be.

[Sage_Rat]

@nocojoe

This is interesting, but seeing as I just registered I wonder if I am a member or not. I think I should be.

You’re a registered guest. (It says “Guest” under your name when you post.) You need to buy a membership to become a member.