On the contrary, Arnold, copy-and-pasted text at the end of each post is very distinguishable from profile signatures. First, copy-and-pasted text will show up when a followup poster uses the “quote” button to reply to the post, while a profile signature would not. Second, a copy-and-pasted signature is immune to editing by a normal user after the fact, while a profile signature can be changed to remove controversial content, in the same way that the ability of normal users to edit their own posts might be abused. vBulletin’s inability to support non-global signature changes thus leads to a potential for abuse similar to that which is associated with allowing normal users to edit their posts.
Is this argument a valid line of reasoning? Is vBulletin’s design inconsistent in allowing restrictions on post editing, but not supporting non-global signature change? Please discuss.
This is the wierdest argument against turning off post editing I’ve ever heard.
Signatures, sure, can be changed after the fact. So, I could post all kinds of offensive things in my sig, then remove them later. And yes, if someone commented on what was in my sig, it would be confusing once the thread was changed.
That’s why, in general, sig content isn’t used as dicussion in a thread. Sigs are more of a decoration than actual content on the boards. They’re fun, but the reason you’re posting is to say what’s in your post, not to display your sig.
I someone wanted to, they could post “Wolfstu kicks puppies and is a Commie-Nazi” in their sig, and then take it out. And no one would be the wiser. Then they could change it to “Wolfstu wears old man clothes! And he’s a moron, too!”, and change it back again. But, this might be construed as being a jerk. And if someone abuses any board feature in this way, they risk banning.
Surely, the possibility of sig abuse doesn’t necessitate reinstatement of post-editing. And just becasue we can’t edit posts doesn’t mean we should turn sigs off (since, vB can’t, that I know, allow us to have old sigs stay as they were). If enough people abuse the sig feature, maybe they’ll turn it off. In the mean time, let’s hope we don’t attract that kind of idiot to the board.
The OP is not an argument against turning off post editing. The question I have is whether two features of the vBulletin software (global signature updates and restriction of post editing) can be considered evidence of an inconsistent design philosophy, one which allows retractions in one part of the post (the signature) but permits restrictions on editing capabilities for the main part of the post.
Oh, okay. Maybe I misread. Sorry.
So, then you’d like to argue the philosophy of vBulletin? That’s… probably a first.
Nah. It’s not inconsistent. The SDMB staff can turn off signatures, can’t they? And they can turn off post editing. The two are independent, so it’s just vB corp giving its customers a choice. Those customers can apply the many vBulletin features as they feel is consistent with their own board philosophy.
You could argue, I suppose, that the SDMB’s philosophy is inconsistent, but I see it as a sort of common-law style construction:
“Post Editing Prohibited” is in the Constitution Act, 1999, becasue it was felt that the new society would run most smoothly with this provision in place, and there was no disproportionate injustice created by the implemetation of this policy at the outset.
On the other hand, signatures were allowed as one of those things that people may do in everyday life, like own a car. As people misuse them, case law may come into being through which a new, semi-official policy may come into being (ex, the ‘Don’t post in invisible colours’ edict that came out of an ATMB thread) or, legislators may draft a rule to cover this area of board activity (like, the “Don’t change your status from ‘Member’ to something else”, as many people did when the board got a software upgrade that allowed it – They disabled that feature.)
So, Post Editing is turned off because the Fathers of ConNeteration thought it was a good idea. And Sigs are still on because they didn’t think they needed to be off, and becasue they haven’t been proven wrong yet.
All I know is that the board I run is hosted on Ezboard, and their format is completely non-retroactive. Sigs, heck even post counts, are fixed as they were at the time of posting. And the general consensus is that it’s mildly annoying that way, and we’d prefer the vBulletin system. Go figure.
The same thing can be said for Location. I can see your argument, but IMHO the best solution is if you want to comment on somebody’s signature, quote it. Also, if you think, “Gee, my signature would be appropriate to the thread content right now,” maybe you should say what it says in your post.
The way vB handles sigs is not a bug. It is an intentional design feature to save space in the database. Instead of the database needing to store your sig line for every single post you make, it needs only store a single byte that determines whether or not to show the sig when the thread is displayed. The sig line itself need only be stored in the database once, in your profile.
Perhaps “bug” was too strong a word. On the other hand, a compromise might be reached that saves space in the database, yet allows non-global signature updates. Suppose the profile database kept records of all previous signatures, locations, and member statuses, with a timestamp marker that indicates the date/time when the entry was updated. When loading an old thread, the timestamp on each post would be read and used as input for the profile database, whereupon the sig/location/member status that was current at the time of posting would be retrieved and displayed. The thread database would retain the space-saving advantage of not having to store the sig line for every single post, but the advantages of non-global signature updates expressed by DrMatrix and others would be realized as well, at the small cost of increased storage requirements for the profile database.
TheLoadedDog, would such a system still be favored over Ezboard by your message board’s readers? Would there be enough enthusiasm for such a system that a feature request could be made to vBulletin’s authors?
amore ac studio, since what you are suggesting is a change to the vBulletin software, it probably makes more sense to take it to them directly at http://www.vbulletin.com/ .
IMO, from a design standpoint, your suggestion seems to add more complexity than it’s worth.
You have to admit, Jeff, that I would not get much of an audience from vBulletin’s authors if I did not have support from webmasters who actually use their software. So in addition to discussing possible inconsistencies in vBulletin’s design, we could also use this thread to discuss the advantages/disadvantages of possible changes in the vBulletin software. If my suggestion stands up to scrutiny, I will have a stronger case to present to vBulletin’s authors.
This statement is the kind of criticism I was looking for. Could you elaborate on your estimation of the worth of the changes I suggested? How much do you value viewing old threads where comments about posters’ sigs are relevant rather than downright baffling? How much do you value being able to find insightful quotations that you remember seeing in a particular poster’s sig, before it was changed to something more pedestrian? How much do you value being able to substantiate a claim that a poster’s sig is offensive, when the poster has changed it before a mod had the chance to view the thread? Do you value all of these still less than you value simplicity in message board software design?
Dammit! I had a reply all ready when the board crapped out on me. I’ll try to reconstruct it. I guess this just emphasizes my point at the end.
This is slightly annoying, but since I don’t regulary go back and read old threads, it’s not much of an issue.
If I really like a quotation in a sig (or a good line in a post), I’ll copy it to a Notepad file I have. If it’s a quote from outside the board, I wouldn’t search the board to find it; I’d go elsewhere.
Slight value. If a sig is that offensive, quote it in the thread. Although sigs don’t aren’t automatically included with the “quote” option, you can still copy-and-paste. (This is probably also a good idea if you are going to discuss a sig in a thread, which also addresses your first point.) You can also take it a step further and take a screen shot to email to a mod.
In short, yes. As a user, I think static sigs would be a nice plus, but little true value. As a database designer, I would say they are not worth the effort. As a SDMB member, any design changes that add to the overhead (as this would) without adding significant value (which I don’t think this does) should be avoided.
I did not realize that sigs in old posts changed if you change your sig now. A long time ago my sig was “Designated Optional Signature at Bottom of Post” and I’ve seen it that way when I’ve gone back to old posts…
::considers::
Hmmph. Is that because those posts (&sigs) date back to ubb days?
After reading a discussion of the option in this forum many months ago, I turned off sigs entirely. Makes pages cleaner and supposedly reduces loading time (although I haven’t personally tried to verify this). I don’t miss them at all. Very rarely, someone will reference a sig that I can’t see, but I just skip over that part of the post and move on. Time and effort to change the current sig update system would be entirely wasted on me and others like me, and from the complete irrelevance of sigs to my board reading enjoyment, it seems that it would be unlikely to make much of a difference to those with sigs enabled either.
I also hate the global sig changing thing and when we switched from ubb to vb at fathom.org, the first thing on the agenda was to have UndeadDude write a hack that would allow static sigs. Actually, we not only have static sigs but we have rotating sigs, so you can specify a whole mess of them in your profile and they show up randomly in your posts. This has led to the practice of sacrificing shrubs (not the POTUS) to the “sig gods” when a signature goes particularly well with the post.
While I can understand the rationale behind having a global sig, it is, to me, very annoying.
