How much space to sigs take up on the board?
Is the sig copied with each post, or is it stored in a db file and relicated only on the browser?
Sig withheld to save space?
The latter. Sigs are stored serverside, flagged on the message, and pulled up from the server when a page is loaded. As a result, when you change your sig, it changes globally, on all your previously sigged posts.
Sometimes you don’t get a sig. I think there must be a limit, like once per thread.
OI io, there isn’t a limit. It is the choice of the poster. Instead of cluttering the thread with a long sig over and over, many posters add their sig once per thread then don’t use it afterwards.
Jim
Also I will mention that the staff of the SDMB may request you to change your signature if in our estimation the signature is so long that it’s distracting. There is no hard and fast rule on the length of the signature, so, as in many other cases, the decisions may not be perfectly consistent.
I can guarantee this however: if your signature includes the full text of War and Peace, you will be asked to change it.[sup]1[/sup]
[sup]1[/sup] And if some joker reads my post and decides to try putting the full text of a long novel in their signature for comic effect, rest assured that I personally will go over to their house and wash their keyboard out with soap.
moderator, «Straight Dope Message Board»
Sigh…