Except that signatures as used in the rule you partially quoted aren’t the same thing as putting your name at the end of your post. The SDMB uses the word “Signature” in this context to mean “Epigraph”.
The bit you omitted from Dex’s rules supports this:
Bolding mine.
Signing your name to the end of your post is NOT what’s meant by the rule–It certainly doesn’t make a statement. And I’ve never seen it enforced that way since I started here. Hell, I usually stick my name on the end of my post and I’ve never been warned or hell, even had a mod mention it.
I disagree. I think putting your name at the end of a message is the very prime example of a signature. Not to mention that neither Vox Populi or Regards Shodan are their names.
In any case, I still think Regards Shodan is an idiot for sticking Regards Shodan at the end of argumentative posts. I do not need his regards and I know what idiot posted that.
The worst part about this particular jerk is that he says you can just skip the signature but then he adds relevant information below the signature and is surprised when I miss it.
If the signature is a repetition of the user name it is repetitive clutter and unneeded. If it is anything else then once per thread is enough.
Don’t blame your vision problems on me, oh third-place finisher in the “Can You Get Your Thumb Up Your Ass With Both Hands and a Flashlight” Contest. And I am not surprised to find that you missed anything - the fact that you can work the zipper on your fly is wonder enough for me.
Fuck, practically every word you post is unneeded clutter. Once a thread is once too many.
Incorrect. While it’s true that the rule hasn’t been enforced a lot over the years, signing one’s name at the end of every post is a signature and needs to follow the same rules as every other signature on the board. Posting it once per thread is sufficient for any signature, whether a quote, cute phrase, or the same valediction posted over and over again.
Whether it’s “repetitive clutter” or not, it seems to be allowed by the rules. You might have a point with “Vox Populi” as it might be considered a statement, but “regards”? That’s like putting the word “Dear” at the beginning of a letter or “Yours, sincerely” at the end. It’s a formality, not a statement.
As long as we’re talking rules, you’re calling him Regards, Shodan outside the pit. Per the Liberal/Libertarian rule, messing with other posters names outside the Pit is a strict no-no. And that one IS written in stone. (I see Tom addressed that.)
Finally,
I saw you were complaining about the alleged misuse of putting one’s name at the end of one’s post and you posted that complaint several times in Great Debates.
You also appeared to break the “don’t call people liars in GD rule” with the
bit.
Junior Modding is a no-no as well. Several people have been suspended and or banned IIRC) for the mere appearance of Junior Modding. So while I’m emphatically not telling you to modify your behavior, I am pointing out that if you’re gonna be a rules lawyer, you should be squeaky clean yourself.
I don’t care about the pissing match between you and Shodan but in that thread in particular, you (and not him) made it really tough to read the content of the thread. Pit him if you want, but in GD, personally, I’d rather see debate than pissing matches. Why not just report him if you think he’s broken the rules?
What about JUST a name? If that’s the interpretation of the rules nowdays, I’ll abide by it, but it’s (to the best of my knowledge) never been the rule in the past.
I’ve got like 6000 posts, with more than 3/4ths of them (at a guess) with my name at the end. And I’ve never been warned or even had it mentioned to me…
As a matter of fact, I recall a Pit thread about this several years back where the concensus of the Admins was the opposite of what you’re saying–that statments, cute phrases, etc were no-nos, but your name was fine. I’ll see if I can find it.
I’d be interested in discussing this further–should a new thread be opened (as I don’t want to break the “Don’t debate mod rulings in the same thread” rule)?
May I ask why it is not being enforced when the obvious ones are flouting it openly?
I started and ended a post to Shodan with the salutation “Regards Shodan” and got warned for “coming too close to harassment” whereas he ends every post with that same condescending BS and has not got told to stop it.
Shit, just wait till we get to the really important issues, like the “designated hitter” rule, and whether ice spiders should be on the endangered species list.
My guess (and I could be completely wrong) is that this has never been interpreted as the way the “no sig in your post” rule was meant before and yours (and Skip’s) interpretation isn’t the one that’s been used up until now. I recall people being warned about epigraph-like sigs (IIRC, there was someone who had a “George Bush LOST in 2000!” type sig who was told “Once per thread”) but there’s never been any statement that you can’t sign your post–or even a hint that it’s not allowed.
I looked back through my posts and stopped counting at several hundred where I put my name at the end of my post–multiple times in a single thread and in threads where Mods, admins, and in one thread Cecil himself participated. To my knowledge no-one was ever warned for this. I certainly wasn’t.
I know others disagree with me, but I came from a UseNet environment where it was standard to do so. Frankly I prefer names at the bottom. And in the ~9 years that the SDMB has been a stand-along entity (once it left AOL), it’s been accepted that some posters sign their posts.
Again, if this is a new interpretation of this rule I’ll follow it, but I don’t see it in the rules (again, Dex’s message is clearly talking about epigraphs, IMO–and the lack of warnings or even admonishments in the last 9 years supports this) and it seems a silly bit of overkill–in Shodan’s case it’s something like 11 extra characters and isn’t making any sort of statement (since he does it on every post regardless of context, it doesn’t strike me as sarcastic or condescending, just polite–as ending this post with “Yours sincerly, Fenris” would be.)–I’m not sure why it bothers you so much.