[PLEASE READ ME] GUIDELINES FOR SIGNATURES - UPDATE 2008.05.22

[JFC]

Be prepared for a change here at HJU. That change will take place this coming Wednesday, on 2007.08.01 (August 1st).

We've been going without images/pics in our Signatures for a long time, and while the stability this has provided is nice (in case no one noticed, ever since we did away with pics in Signatures, HJU has never crashed), it gets rather dull after a while. With that in mind, fire up your PhotoShop because we're going to bring back the Sigs! :buttrock:

HOWEVER!

For the time being, we're only going to be doing this on a temporary/trial basis. It does NOT yet mean that the Signatures are back permanently. We're still working out some bugs in the servers, and if it looks like they're not going to work, then we'll have little choice but to disable them again (*me hopes that won't be the case).

Therefore, in order to try and minimize the strain on our servers (which was what caused us to crash the board so often) we're going to be implementing guidelines on how large your Signature can be. Remember, a Signature is supposed to be a SMALL thing at the end of your post. A Signature does NOT dominate your post, rather, it is more like an afterthought.


ENFORCEMENT OF GUIDELINES - UPDATE 2008.03.02

• Because members here are ignorning the Guidelines regarding Sig Sizes, as well as ignoring the PMs that have been sent to them by the staff, warning PMs will NO LONGER be issued for Sigs that exceed the specifications in the Guidelines. From now on these Sigs will be automatically removed at the discretion of the staff as this appears to be the only way to get the attention of many of these members.
• If anyone here who is NOT a Staff member sees another forum member who's Signature exceeds the given guidelines, PLEASE do NOT harass or flame them. Just PM a Staff member to let us know about it, and we'll take it from there.

1) PICTURES/IMAGES IN SIGNATURES
The maximum size/dimensions for Sig pics will be a TOTAL of 500x165 pixels. If, instead of one single banner, you wish to post several smaller pics, that's fine, so long as the TOTAL height & width does not exceed 500x165 pixels.

Sample -

EDIT 1: PLEASE host your Signature banners/images off of a public image hosting service like PhotoBucket or ImageShack. Please do NOT host them directly off off HJUs own servers. This is, again, to help reduce the strain on our servers so that we don't risk crashing the board.

EDIT 2: Just to clarify things, no nudity (frontal or rear) and no sexually graphic/explicit pictures or GIFs will be allowed. While some pervy pics are (like kissing pics) are ok, let's keep things as kid friendly as we can.

EDIT 3: The Staff has provided a "Signature Review" thread. If you're not sure if your Sig is okay and you would like it to be "reviewed" to be sure, feel free to post it there and one of us staff members will let you know if it's "thumbs up" or "thumbs down":

HJU Signature Review Thread

EDIT 4: To have animated GIFs in your sig, host them on Photobucket or ImageShack, and then link it here. If you try to upload animated GIFs directly to our server they will not work. We have disabled that feature to lessen the strain on the forum servers.

EDIT 5: Had to fix IMG link to banner size sample.

EDIT 6: Because members here are ignorning the Guidelines regarding Sig Sizes, as well as ignoring the PMs that have been sent to them by the staff, warning PMs will NO LONGER be issued for Sigs that exceed the specifications in the Guidelines. From now on these Sigs will be automatically removed at the discretion of the staff.


2) ANIMATED GIFS IN SIGNATURES (FILESIZE LIMIT)

• Animated GIFs can be used as part of your Signature, as long as the filesize of the GIF does NOT exceed 1.5MB (the smaller, the better :anime. We need everyone who plans on having Animated GIFs in their Signature to respect and to follow this rule in particular. Remember that there are members here that are on dail-up connections and/or who otherwise have unreliable/slow internet connections. Extremely large GIFs will cause significant lag for these members as they can cause the loading time of a screen to be frustratingly slow. Large animated GIFs also use up a lot of bandwidth, which we do not want.
• As with regular pics, the height of the GIF cannot exceed 165 pixels.
• The height and width of a GIF will be INCLUDED in the prescribed Signature limits of 500x165. For example, if you have a GIF you wish to use that is 200x165 pixels, then the remainder of the pictures in your Signature CANNOT exceed 300x165 pixels.
• To have animated GIFs in your sig, host them on Photobucket or ImageShack, and then link it here. If you try to upload animated GIFs directly to our server they will not work. We have disabled that feature to lessen the strain on the forum servers.

3) TEXT IN SIGS
How much text a Signature will be allowed to have will depend on if the member will also have images/pictures in their Signatures or not. There will be TWO options available:

OPTION 1 - SIGNATURE THAT IS ALL TEXT, NO PICTURES/IMAGES

• Max characters = 500 (not including BBCode markups). The text can be contained within a maximum of 5 separate lines, "stacked" one on top of the other.
• Maximum size of text allowed: "BOLD", SIZE 3

Option 1 Sample: (Maximum Signature allowed under Option 1)
THIS IS A SAMPLE OF BOLD SIZE 3
THIS IS A SAMPLE OF BOLD SIZE 3
THIS IS A SAMPLE OF BOLD SIZE 3
THIS IS A SAMPLE OF BOLD SIZE 3
THIS IS A SAMPLE OF BOLD SIZE 3



OPTION 2 - SIGNATURE WITH BOTH TEXT AND PICTURES/IMAGES

• Max characters = 250 (not including BBCode markups). The text can be contained within a maximum of 2 separate lines, "stacked" one on top of the other.
• Maximum size of text allowed: "BOLD", SIZE 2 (standard forum text size)

Option 2 Sample: (Maximum Signature allowed under Option 2)

THIS IS A SAMPLE OF BOLD SIZE 2
THIS IS A SAMPLE OF BOLD SIZE 2

If the staff feels that your text is too long, you will be sent a PM asking that you be more concise (i.e. "please shorten it"). Providing links to other sites or to your blogs should be fine, just please do your best to keep the actual links as concise as possible.

ABOVE ALL ELSE, PLEASE REMEMBER THAT PEOPLE COME HERE TO READ YOUR POSTS, NOT YOUR SIGNATURES. WHEN THE SIZE YOUR SIGNATURE OCCUPIES/DOMINATES THE BULK OF POSTS, THEN IT'S TOO BIG!

Remember, the Sigs will be fully enabled this coming WEDNESDAY! That should give everyone here plenty of time to come up with a sig that fits within the Guidelines that have been laid out here. Resizing old sigs is easy, and for those of you with PhotoShop, it gives you a chance to be creative again! :thumbs:


As previously stated, we might still have a few bugs to work out when we fire these things up again so in advance we on the HJU staff wish to thank everyone for your patience and understanding.

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/me goes looking for new GAM pics. :buttrock: