hmmm didn't work..... well crap gotta shrinky dinky it some more..... I will assume that the moderators will let me know if this image is too big....
I don't know if that's a correct assumption. I mean... no one will say anything for now, but many forums don't allow graphics. It slows page-loading and can be very distracting. This forum's avatar feature is turned off for a reason. I hate to see this get started. And I hate even more disagreeing with Jack... but I think both Jimmy's graphic, and this one, should not be allowed. Neither should the DegreeTracker graphic be allowed. It, too, slows page loading (though not as much as a .JPG or .GIF graphic of the type shown above and/or in Jimmy's signature). But the biggest problem with the DegreeTracker thing is that when there's something wrong with that site and it can't feed the image information to this one, page loading stops for each occurance of the graphic and waits for the timeout period to expire. When the DegreeTracker site is having troubles (which is actually kinda' often); and if someone with the DegreeTracker graphic in their signature posts, say, five times on the same pageful of posts, one can almost throw on one's jacket and go get coffee at Starbucks in the time it takes for the page to load. I repeat: This forum's avatar feature is turned off for a reason. I'd hate to see the IMG tagged have to be turned off, too, to stop graphics in signatures.
you can blame Jimmy My Punk, which used tobe on the front of my moped, is my response to his bush.....
See, that's what I'm talking about. Now someone's gonna' want to best yours. I repeat: This forum's avatar feature is turned off for a reason. Other forums that have experimented with this have ended-up disallowing both avatars, and graphics in signatures (not in the body of posts, but just in signatures) for a reason.
well - I can't get my tag to work. I figure if we all have to put up with Jimmy's portrait of our Liar in Chief, we should be able to put up with anything!
But they're not graphics. They don't slow page-loading. And the vast majority of it is intended to be helpful to the reader. I'm not talking about scrollability, here. I'm talking about how long it takes a pageful of posts at DI to paint, completely, on the screen. With avatars and/or graphics in the signature line, it starts to become onerous... and visually distracting. Right now, pages here paint in a relative snap. For DSL and cable modem users, it's more like a fraction of a snap. But most Internet users remain dialup users... who are lucky if they can achieve a consistent 42Kbps connection over time. For them, graphics in vBulletin have been optimized so they'll be tiny in size and, therefore, fast-loading. If any ol' graphic that any ol' user gets inflicted on these pagesful of posts, this place will become, for dialup users, intolerable. I just looked at the .JPG you tried to put in your signature by copying-and-pasting its URL into my browser's "Address:" field. It's a monster... and slow-loading on a dialup connection as could possibly be. If that image had worked in your signature, any page on which you had posted more than once would paint so slowly for dialup users that they could almost watch an entire re-run of Cheers. This is a serious matter, everyone. It's about clutter and efficiency... and maybe even dignity. Other fora have tackled this problem. We are not blazing new trails, here. The vast majority of the ones who value the words more than the frills -- and who decide to show a little respect to dialup users who must endure all those graphics being downloaded with every page paint -- have banned graphics in signatures for the same reasons that this very forum has the avatar feature turned off.
Gregg's right I'm with Gregg on this one. Images that serve a purpose in a thread are one thing. Images that slow up dial-up users time after time are another. -=Steve=-
I second Gregg’s stance on graphics. For those of us who are high-speed Internet impaired, graphics really slow down Web page download time. The DI graphic at the top of every DI page is bad enough to have to download.
Good thing there is the option to disable signatures in the user options page. Time to start using it. Please let me know if it clears up again.
I'll just post my favorite LINK to Bush: http://www.house8.net/weblog/archives/005090.php Maybe we should name the turkey Monica? Cheers, Mark
DesElms: Thankyouthankyouthankyou... I was about to grind my molars to little nubbins over seeing J.C.'s pix of El Presidente over and over and over and over but I couldn't do anything about it! I didn't want to stop reading J.C.'s comments because they tend to be interesting and well reasoned. On the OTHER hand, I KNEW that if I protested, I'd just be "rising to the bait" and he'd have jumped on my "left wing bias."
