I can understand only two uses for signatures - you come across a witty/thought provoking saying and wish to temporarily share it so use it as a sig for a short while, or to permanently provide a link to another resource.
Things I don’t understand are:
people as changeless as the Sphinx. They can capture their essence in 2 lines and it will be the same next year thank you very much.
people who think the same joke is funny no matter how many times it has been told. I hope they don’t start each day at work with the same joke.
people who think that we need to see their signature every time they post. I can scroll back up to a prior post if I want to read your Python quote again.
people with really studied try-hard sigs that smack of the “casually” left out books/CDs that catch your eye when you visit a certain class of wanker.
ever growing sigs that consist of new quotes made about the poster by other posters, thus validating their “membership”.
Now maybe I’m a grumpy bastard and no-one else thinks like this but the primary reason I complain is that I find many of these failings so irksome that I think less of the poster. Some posters have sigs that are like a flashing light saying “ignore my opinion”. I wish it wasn’t so but it is like unusual sights on the street, I want to look away but I am drawn to the vile sig.
Sig users tell me which failing you are guilty of and why I should ignore it.
What’s the point of sigs, profiles, or usernames? They all let people express themselves a bit. The opposite question would be: Why don’t we just give everyone a number and take away all other forms of personality?
#14776, I bet at least one other person likes the sigs that you deemed stupid. And vice versa. The system can’t know ahead of time which sigs you’ll find witty or useful… (besides, you can always turn them all off).
I have started thread about fictional characters, and been rebuked **so many freakin’ times ** for caring so much for people who aren’t real. I think these people should take a chill pill themselves, but if I had the sig:
Yes, I know it is just a story.
that would take care of it.
I changed my sig several times in the first few months of my membership. Then I settled on the current little ditty - some months later, adding the auxiliary witticism. I only include it once per thread, and always in my first post to that thread, if I remember to check the little box.
Not allowed to have avatars, so sigs kind of tell you about people. I always forget to add mine, except on this post. haha. And yeah, that was my sig line before a few weeks ago.
Well, it seems that all is now well, as you’ve learned how to avoid them entirely.
It’s a shame, really, because this thread finally reminded me that I never remember to check the little box and therefore share my wisdom with the world.
And now I have, and you can’t see it.
<Mr. Burns Voice>
Exxxxx-cellent!
</MBV>
Mine’s a tribute to the late great Hunter S. - I came across it after I started re-reading his books after his death, it made me laugh out loud, and I felt like sharing it. I’ll probably change it in a couple of months after I come across another cool quote - I read a lot, so most of my sigs are literary: not for “coffee table” value, just because something {admittedly often obscure - my last sig was from William Hazlitt} will amuse me and seem to encapsulate part of my philosophy. It’s a way of personalising an otherwise anonymous name among many others, I guess.