An Old Debate

[Anubis]

I figure its about time that your new administration dragged up some contraversy

Signature Images.

Something was mentioned in IRC recently that made me think on this topic once again. It has been a good while since we last addressed this issue and I feel enough time has passed for us to talk through it again, see where we get. This will not be a debate on whether or not signature pics will be allowed or banned henceforth, nor their potential dimensions, potential for moving images or anything else. We are talking here about the principle of them being allowed in some form in the future. I want to gather opinion on the matter before I go chasing anything up.

Now before I start I think it only fair to say publically that I was and remain one of the people who spoke out loudly in favour of allowing sig pics in the past, so my view is naturally biased on the issue. Having said that though I am not in favour of forcing them upon anyone, as I am aware that some people have justified reasons against them. I am in favour of choice, a choice which hasn't been available to us before now.

A while back Fahd was in the process of developing a forum modification to give us just that, the choice ( http://www.shatteredstar.org/forums/vie ... php?t=4234), but it never got finished. I've been thinking a lot about chasing this up since the whole issue was brought to my mind again a week or so ago, but I've decided it wouldn't really be fair for me to do so as the Arbiter without garnering current opinion of the membership for such an action first.

Now the first thing I should say that the entire notion of sig pics being introduced would rely solely upon either Fahd completing his mod or us finding a very good pre-written one that we could install (to date I have found none). If we cannot have the choice we cannot have them at all.
But that works vice-versa in my mind - if we CAN have the choice and it checks out when tested then people can't complain. Its very unfair to demand something one way when you can have it both ways. I would like to hope that people will approach this with the mindset that 'if we can make it a win situation for both sides then lets do it'.

Naturally should we obtain a mod to make the use of sig pics possible we would have the necessary debates and votes over dimensions (and size constraints of the overall signature to prevent people from having 100px of image and seven lines of text), potential for moving images being included, appropriate content, etc, before the mod were brought into operation.
I would also want at least three members of the Administration/Global Moderation team to volunteer to have sig pics turned on to help monitor their content and keep them clean. Note that no-one would be forced to have the option turned on just to moderate them, we would gather volunteers or appoint appropriate volunteers specifically for that task.
Thirdly, any guests/new accounts on the forum would automatically have the option turned off. I recall that one of the points raised during the last debate was that the forums still needed to look tasteful, and that is a fair point. That way there would be no reason to complain as no-one who ever found them distasteful/offensive need ever turn them on.

Overall, I would like to see it happen if we can get hold of the mod. I always felt somewhat hard done by in the camp for sig pics considering how close the votes eventually came to being, though I suppose that is natural with me being a supporter. The question I therefore want to ask is do people agree with the principle of the choice provided we can provide and enforce it.
I would like people to give reasons whether they agree or disagree with this to help garner exactly why opinion lies as it does. Obviously reasons must be sensible - any 'I dont like them' with no other reason provided would be ignored, as the provisions would be there for them to never see them should they wish not to

Discuss (and potentailly flame away at me I am sure ).

[M.Steiner]

If we're going to give people the choice of whether or not they want to display signature images then i personally see no harm in implementing such a feature, either by looking further to see if we can find a pre-written mod to do just that or Fahd finishing the mod he was working on if that's possible.
I've never been against the idea of sig images so i'm all for this, afterall if people are given the choice then both sides of the argument can view the forums as they wish, everyone's happy.

Of course we'd have to set out some sizing rules like you say, but that stuff can be discussed later if needs be.

I don't know whether i'd use one myself (probably if i made a nice one hehe) but I'm happy to volunteer to have have them turned on for moderating if we're to go ahead with this.

[Inquisitor]

I'll let BD link to my arguments against

[Isileth]

As long as there is an option to disable them then deffinately.

As you said anny, its win win for both sides if people can choose.

[Futile Resistance]

^^

Same as above. If we can choose to enable/disable viewing, then go ahead.

Personally I don't see a need for it (what, having an avatar and signature text isn't enough for your advertise whatever you need?)

[BlackDove]

If you put it in, every moderator has to keep them on because they will need to be regulated if someone puts a giant wang into theirs.

I'm against this forever.

And ever.

[Isileth]

Does it really require every moderator to spot a giant wang?

Im sure there will be enough to spot something like that, besides we have a sensible memberbase so I find it hard to imagine that anything against the rules would stay for long.

[Padishar]

Dangit, there goes my giant wang sig surprise

[BlackDove]

Here's my new sig.



BUT SHE'S NOT NAKED!

Why don't we have a big long discussion what's appropriate for a sig image and what isn't?

...just. No.

No.

[Anubis]

Naturally, provided I end up chasing this up and us getting a mod to enable it to be possible, there would be debates and votes over rules. It would not be a free for all 'who can include the biggest wang/pair of breasts in their image', and if people tried that they would lose the privilage

As for moderation, I don't agree. It doesn't take the entire moderation team to keep an eye on the signatures of roughly half the membership. Provided we get three active admins/Global mods willing to keep eyes open and do the job I believe thats enough. If testing proved otherwise then we'd have to have a think about moderation - but regardless of this no-one would be forced to have the option on if they didn't want to, even mods, thats what I will aim for. As I said, we either give everyone the choice or don't have it at all.

Opinion is noted though

[BlackDove]

It doesn't take the entire moderation team to keep an eye on the signatures of roughly half the membership.

Yeah, it does.

If we have any dignitiy, which, last I checked we have. I didn't take the moderator spot to do a half assed job.

[M.Steiner]

Forgetting the content of that pic for a moment, that image is animated for a start. Since we don't allow animated avatars i don't see why we'd suddenly allow animated sigs so that example isn't so good really. - As Anny has said before though, rules on those would be discussed later, i happen to think the image is far too tall as well.

Just because peeps could add that as their sig doesn't mean they will, how often have any of us had to moderate an avatar image like that?, even a non animated one? Or an avatar with a giant wang in them? Off the top of my head i don't recall many cases (if any?).. not even from a bot advertising porn. [Edit: Come to think of it, we've had far worse written content in porn bot profiles before today and the only people that can edit that are the admins. We've never had the entire board moderating those bits have we?] I agree with Isi.

[BlackDove]

Avatar represents you, sig image is batshit whatever. It opens at least 50% more can of worms on addage of a useless image.

Avatar is there to identify you. Sig image is there to look pretty. Useless.

A thousand times - no.

[Inquisitor]

You could have just linked to the previous argument BD

[esd]

It'd require at least one moderator from each group, and at least one global moderator, to have sigpics turned on in order to effectively moderate them. It's not as doom-and-gloom as BD would have you believe, but it's not as simple as some may have suggested.

Moderators and admins? We're here to serve. If it's decided that sigpics are a go, it's a moderator's responsibility to moderate them too. Being against sigpics yourself is neither here nor there - it's not your individual decision and you can't cherrypick which bits of the job you're willing to do (as far as I'm concerned). Sure, you're perfectly entitled to an opinion as a member, but that decision mustn't impede on your duty as a moderator. That includes having sigpics turned on when you're personally against them.

Without trying to sound dramatic, if they were to come in and a moderator is that against them, it's not for the community to say "oh ok we won't have them", it's for the moderator to decide if they're willing to carry on with the job by forsaking their personal preference.

This is, of course, simply my opinion.

Why don't we have a big long discussion what's appropriate for a sig image and what isn't?

...just. No.

No need, it'd come under the standard decency clauses of posts. I'm pretty sure here the T&C ask for this to be a fairly family-friendly forum? Well, that pic's not "family friendly" (well, it is to my family, no issue with that here - however I understand it would be an issue to some...).

(Note: I currently moderate several fora, including corporate ones, which allow sigpics and have very little trouble doing so. The Doom And Gloom some are predicting simply doesn't happen on the level they may think it does)

[Inquisitor]

http://www.shatteredstar.org/forums/vie ... php?t=2345

My reasoning stands.

I'd personally be ok with a pilot program, as I stated last time.

[Inquisitor]

So, this is what mine would look like, for better or for worse.

[BlackDove]

Et tu Inquisitor?

Dissapointing.

[Anubis]

I am going to look into finding a forum mod that allows people to disable signatures for themselves so that we can think about perhaps running a pilot program to see how things would go.

For now, no-one else start testing image sigs please. There'll be a post of some sort if/when you can. For now, keep discussing

[Inquisitor]

BD: meh, figured the "debate" needed context. Now we know what threads on this forum look like with images intertwined.

[Padishar]

As with most things, am flexible with or without sig pics.
I can see how it creates more work for mods,
but is also another way for people to comm and express themselves (Ed's game tracker box is a good example).
Either or is fine with meh.

[SSX Fahd]

A while back Fahd was in the process of developing a forum modification to give us just that, the choice ( http://www.shatteredstar.org/forums/vie ... php?t=4234), but it never got finished.

The basic "see sig images or don't see them" mod was finished. When Blackdove's crit. came up (i.e. moderators who don't want to view sig images would be forced to turn them on) I started re-writing the mod so that when a user adds an image to their sig, it wouldn't show up until an admin allows the image (from the control panel).

It's a bit more complex than that since the forum has to check whether the image has changed, i.e. the user uploads a new image to their webhost with the same filename (which might then be indecent, over the max filesize or animated). I finished all the "image checking code", it's simply a matter of the interface side of things to finish.

Anyways Anny, catch me on IRC on Sunday, and I'll give a more detailed explanation - I'm about 5000 miles from home (on holiday), and the fastest connection out here is 40 Kbits/sec .

[esd]

arted re-writing the mod so that when a user adds an image to their sig, it wouldn't show up until an admin allows the image (from the control panel).

It's a bit more complex than that since the forum has to check whether the image has changed, i.e. the user uploads a new image to their webhost with the same filename (which might then be indecent, over the max filesize or animated). I finished all the "image checking code", it's simply a matter of the interface side of things to finish.

Isn't that a touch over-complicated? It also creates far too much work for the administrator(s), in my opinion. It means all images would need moderating rather than moderating offending images.

K.I.S.S

[Anubis]

Ok, I think in that case I'll wait until I've spoken with Fahd on Sunday before deciding whether we'll run a trial or not in the near future (didn't realise you were on holiday Fahd, you could have waited till you got back if you would have liked heh).

For now, just keep dropping opinions if you haven't done so already and I'll update on what will be happening this weekend/early next week.

And thanks for dropping in with an update Fahd, tis appreciated

[Anubis]

Ok, to update everyone. I've spoken to Fahd today and he's gone through his mod with me, how it works and how much there is left to do. Suffice to say I am impressed, it does more than I was anticipating and looking for from the mod.

Once implemented it should provide us with the choice of having them on or not *and* solve BD's issues. Should everything work as intended no Moderators will be required to leave them on should they not wish to, though one or more admins will. Moderation has been escalated to the admin level and will nip any offensive signatures in the bud before they ever display (even in profiles) and provide measures to prevent users being clever and switching files to an offensive image instead once the signature is displaying.

I am anticipating that we will be installing the finished mod and beginning trials within the next six weeks (to allow for the completing of the mod, bug testing, and a full run through to ensure all works as intended). When that time comes I will naturally announce the beginning of trials and will open a new discussion thread after several days to allow people to leave their thoughts having had time to experience how the mod works. For now, sit tight.

My thanks also go to Fahd for electing to finish the mod. Tis much appreciated