Things to Keep in Mind
When you create your signature, these are a few important things to remember:
Just ask! Whenever you want to use someone else's image (either from a website, a friend or someone else's sig), you need to ask permission to copy that image. While you may not realize it, when you take an image from another website without permission, you're actually "stealing" that site's bandwidth.
Bandwidth (for those of you who don't know) is the data that is transferred from one site to another--and it's limited. It also costs the hosting site (the site you take an image or file from) MONEY, and stealing bandwidth is considered a crime. If you would like to use a file from another site, you can either: ask the site if you can borrow the image or download the image (by saving the file) onto your own computer.
Less is more. Signatures that have 20 billion images usually result in truncated messages, skipped posts and create a general sense of annoyance. In addition, members who have dial-up or slower connections have to wait for a longer period of time for the page to load. Another important and related thing to note is that signatures appear on every post. Once you create a sig, it will automatically appear in every new message you post.
We recommend that you keep your sigs around two or three lines long, including images. If you get bored with the images, you can switch them around as often as you'd like, using the steps we discussed in the previous sections.
Board rules apply to sigs. When you became a member of gURL, you agreed to a set of rules. Therefore, it's important to remember that you can't post racist or inappropriate images, images that contain inappropriate language, harmful images or porn images on your sigs (or posts, in general).
On the other side, if you see someone who has an inappropriate image or message on their sigs, you can let the gURL staff know. To do this, simply click on the "options" button on the bottom left-hand corner of any post and click the "report violation" link.
If you are warned about your sig, please go into board settings and change it--otherwise you will receive another warning the next time you post. If you change it only in the individual post where you were warned, the inappropriate image or text will still show up on any new posts you create.
Keep your personal information, well, personal. This may seem obvious, but many gURLs may not realize that if they post their address, phone number, IM name or other personal information in their signatures, they are giving out their information to the WHOLE WORLD. Signatures, just like message board posts are public, and it's important to remember that ANYONE can read the info you post. If you'd like to keep in touch with another gURL user in a space other than the boards, you can use the emailing system set up for you in your profiles (or rooms).
For more info about internet safety, check out this page.
Testing your sig. Once you've spent all this time building or editing your signature, it's only natural that you want to make sure it looks right on the boards. To make a test post, you can go to the siggy testing folder.
It's important to remember not to test your siggy in any random board. This throws off the conversation and can irritate other members. Another helpful tip is that if you test in the siggy testing folder and have problems, many gURLs in this folder can help if you have questions.
