# A reminder about signatures



## p1ngpong (Jan 25, 2013)

Lately we have been getting tons of people who have absolutely massive images as their sigs. It seems many people are unaware that we do have rules regarding how large an image you are allowed to have as a signature.

Signatures should not be larger than 500 x 150 pixels in dimension.







And they should not be larger than 80kb in size.

If your sig breaks either of these size restrictions please do the staff a favor and change it so that we don't have to remove it for you.

As always if you are unsure about anything please refer to our forum rules which can be found here http://gbatemp.net/help/terms or PM a member of staff.


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## ComeTurismO (Jan 25, 2013)

I am so sorry, Pingy. I've made a mistake, I won't do it again. I have done this. I have hurt you! I apologize


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## p1ngpong (Jan 25, 2013)

No more tears just bans now.


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## Jayro (Jan 25, 2013)

Mine is just text, so it should be ok, right?


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## p1ngpong (Jan 25, 2013)

JayRo said:


> Mine is just text, so it should be ok, right?


 
Yep!


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## pwsincd (Jan 25, 2013)

Cant xonoforos admin section control this ? most other forum software i have used has had filesize and image dimension restriction facilities .


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## Jayro (Jan 25, 2013)

p1ngpong said:


> Yep!


 
Okay, good. I tried using the smallest possible font, and a good non-distracting grey color, so it's easy on the eyes, and small enough not to be very annoying. Yet it's there for people if they are interested.


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## Yepi69 (Jan 25, 2013)

I got warned about the sigs 6 times now, but it looks this time I finally settled it (had to reduce the quality of this awesome image to put it on my sig tho -_-)


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## Jayro (Jan 25, 2013)

Yepi69 said:


> I got warned about the sigs 6 times now, but it looks this time I finally settled it (had to reduce the quality of this awesome image to put it on my sig tho -_-)


Still looks good bro.


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## Yepi69 (Jan 25, 2013)

JayRo said:


> Still looks good bro.


Awww thanks bro


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## pasc (Jan 25, 2013)

pingpong and a sane thread ? WOW ! kudos.


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## Deleted User (Jan 25, 2013)

hmm okay...


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## iFish (Jan 25, 2013)

p1ngpong said:


> No more tears just bans now.


I like this idea.


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## Satangel (Jan 25, 2013)

I've got a question, about my avatar. 
Can I have a .gif avatar?
Can I put something in it like 'Need a Steam game? Contact me for the best prices!' in my avatar?

OT: I've always tried to make my sig not too big, especially for GBAtemp use. Sometimes a bit of a hassle, especially the filesize! That's annoying IMHO


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## p1ngpong (Jan 25, 2013)

Satangel said:


> I've got a question, about my avatar.
> Can I have a .gif avatar?
> Can I put something in it like 'Need a Steam game? Contact me for the best prices!' in my avatar?
> 
> OT: I've always tried to make my sig not too big, especially for GBAtemp use. Sometimes a bit of a hassle, especially the filesize! That's annoying IMHO


 
Wow that is a lot of information to fit in an avatar! 

I guess you mean your sig right? Just to clarify the rules on advertising are more relaxed for your sigs than they are for the rest of the forum. As many of you know we do not allow threads and posts dedicated to advertising things like referral links, your own forums, twitter, facebook etc but you can do so in a sig. That doesn't mean you can link to ROM/porn/etc sites though, your advertisements still have to adhere to the rest of the rules.

Can you have a gif for a sig? Yes you can if it is withing the 80kb size limit. Will we increase the 80kb limit any time soon? Maybe in the future but for now it remains 80kb.


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## Satangel (Jan 25, 2013)

p1ngpong said:


> Wow that is a lot of information to fit in an avatar!
> 
> I guess you mean your sig right? Just to clarify the rules on advertising are more relaxed for your sigs than they are for the rest of the forum. As many of you know we do not allow threads and posts dedicated to advertising things like referral links, your own forums, twitter, facebook etc but you can do so in a sig. That doesn't mean you can link to ROM/porn/etc sites though, your advertisements still have to adhere to the rest of the rules.
> 
> Can you have a gif for a sig? Yes you can if it is withing the 80kb size limit. Will we increase the 80kb limit any time soon? Maybe in the future but for now it remains 80kb.


Well I'd make it a .gif to fit all that information in of course 
But, are there avatar rules? I thought there were, 30kb size limit or so?


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## tj_cool (Jan 25, 2013)

The limit is 80kb avatars and sigs combined. 30kb ava + 50kb sig is just an example.

Also animated (gif) avatars are not possible. We don't have the correct PHP extensions installed apparently.


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## Rydian (Jan 25, 2013)

pwsincd said:


> Cant xonoforos admin section control this ? most other forum software i have used has had filesize and image dimension restriction facilities .


That depends on what you mean, because there's three ways to go about it.

1 - Use CSS to limit a user's signature to the specific dimensions.
This makes sure that a user's sig will never stretch the page, but does nothing against large-filesize sigs and doesn't actually stop users from putting them in.  This is the least bandwidth-intensive, so it's the most common.

2 - Use cURL or something else when the user changes their sig to grab the headers of any image and make sure it's below a certain filesize and dimensions.  This is bandwidth and CPU-intensive per-change, and users can bypass it by simply uploading a different file to the same URL.

3 - Use cURL or something else to check sig images on every load.  This stops users from bypassing the limits by changing the file at a specific URL, but is way too bandwidth and CPU intensive for anybody to even consider using.


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## Rydian (Jan 25, 2013)

tj_cool said:


> Also animated (gif) avatars are not possible. We don't have the correct PHP extensions installed apparently.


Well since GD's been bundled since the dark ages I assume it wants imagemagick+gifsicle or whatever for the resize?


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## TyBlood13 (Jan 25, 2013)

I know the feeling p1ng, noticed this too


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## p1ngpong (Jan 25, 2013)

Lately we have been getting tons of people who have absolutely massive images as their sigs. It seems many people are unaware that we do have rules regarding how large an image you are allowed to have as a signature.

Signatures should not be larger than 500 x 150 pixels in dimension.







And they should not be larger than 80kb in size.

If your sig breaks either of these size restrictions please do the staff a favor and change it so that we don't have to remove it for you.

As always if you are unsure about anything please refer to our forum rules which can be found here http://gbatemp.net/help/terms or PM a member of staff.


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## broitsak (Jan 25, 2013)

Mine good?


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## Black-Ice (Jan 25, 2013)

Nxenz said:


> Mine good?


I made yours the same size as mine. The size i've used since i signed up.
416x144
Just under the limits.


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## Xenirina (Jan 25, 2013)

Loving this thread.
Most of the people have signatures.


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## Rydian (Jan 25, 2013)

Black-Ice said:


> I made yours the same size as mine. The size i've used since i signed up.
> 416x144
> Just under the limits.


Well it's under the dimensional limit, but over the filesize limit.  Try 8-bit PNG.


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## Black-Ice (Jan 25, 2013)

Rydian said:


> Well it's under the dimensional limit, but over the filesize limit. Try 8-bit PNG.


Swear? *sigh*
where are all these measurements.


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## Rydian (Jan 25, 2013)

Save a copy and check the filesize, it's over 100KB.  If, when saving it in your image editor, you tell it to use 8-bit PNGs (or PNGs without an alpha layer, or whatever) it should be smaller.  If that's not an option and it only makes one kind of PNG, tell it GIF (8-bit color as well).


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## Arras (Jan 25, 2013)

The funny thing is everyone on this page except Rydian (and me, I have no sig) is over the filesize limit.


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## Deleted member 318366 (Jan 25, 2013)

Xenirina said:


> Loving this thread.
> Most of the people have signatures.


 



Your sig is the best  been waiting to compliment on it for some time now, i love zelda!


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## pyromaniac123 (Jan 25, 2013)

Avatar and sig combined only 80kb? Why the such paltry amount?


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## pwsincd (Jan 25, 2013)

Rydian said:


> That depends on what you mean, because there's three ways to go about it.
> 
> 1 - Use CSS to limit a user's signature to the specific dimensions.
> This makes sure that a user's sig will never stretch the page, but does nothing against large-filesize sigs and doesn't actually stop users from putting them in. This is the least bandwidth-intensive, so it's the most common.
> ...


 

Well the technical specifics aside, the admin can choose the file size limit in kB and/or choose the image dimensions. Now how this is done in php im not wholy sure but i am fully aware it can be done even with free nuke sites and their deriviatives it is possible out of the box , now reading the xonoforo forums it seems currently it isnt and there is a little development from one of the add on devs to allow some siggy control and the suggestions i have made are in review to be added to his WIP .  As for your suggestions 2 and 3 simply not allowing URL images stops this , and instead allowing users up upload the image in question and therefore controlling the image size in kB . Of course it is nice to have the feature of URL images and im sure that can be controlled also , i just dont know enough technically to script the feature , but im well aware from adding pre written scripts to other forums that it is easily possible.


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## BORTZ (Jan 25, 2013)

I still like the old 100X400 limit back from V3.


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## pwsincd (Jan 25, 2013)

The script could always force a resize if it exceeds parameters , ugly i know but possibly forcing a user to alter it .


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## Rydian (Jan 25, 2013)

pwsincd said:


> Well the technical specifics aside, the admin can choose the file size limit in kB and/or choose the image dimensions. Now how this is done in php im not wholy sure but i am fully aware it can be done even with free nuke sites and their deriviatives it is possible out of the box , now reading the xonoforo forums it seems currently it isnt and there is a little development from one of the add on devs to allow some siggy control and the suggestions i have made are in review to be added to his WIP .  As for your suggestions 2 and 3 simply not allowing URL images stops this , and instead allowing users up upload the image in question and therefore controlling the image size in kB . Of course it is nice to have the feature of URL images and im sure that can be controlled also , i just dont know enough technically to script the feature , but im well aware from adding pre written scripts to other forums that it is easily possible.


Having the images uploaded to the site would stop the users from bypassing restrictions, but would also stop users from using dynamic sigs like those wii game cards, steam cards, etc...

Also it'd be even more bandwidth-intensive than checking the stats of the images each time, since the forum's feeding/hosting them...


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## Rydian (Jan 25, 2013)

pwsincd said:


> The script could always force a resize if it exceeds parameters , ugly i know but possibly forcing a user to alter it .


A visual resize would still have the whole filesize issue, and if it's resizing the actual image then that'd be even MORE CPU intensive as the server would need to resize them.

The cheapest thing to do (by far) is simply have the server NOT do anything to the images themselves.


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## pwsincd (Jan 25, 2013)

it has to be quicker to host them than to out source them .


http://php.net/manual/en/function.getimagesize.php

A relatively simple procedure to check images comply.


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## Rydian (Jan 25, 2013)

pwsincd said:


> it has to be quicker to host them than to out source them .


No, why would it be.



pwsincd said:


> http://php.net/manual/en/function.getimagesize.php
> 
> A relatively simple procedure to check images comply.


That relies on being able to access the image, meaning it either must already exist on the server (and thus the site is hosting it, paying for the bandwidth and space), or the script needs to download the image to the server in order to check it.  A download for a server is no problem, but if it needs to download and check every sig image every time, it'll easily become an unreasonable burden.

*I wrote a signature checking script for another forum...* I'll even give you the source if you want, since I had to use cURL to follow redirects and other stuff people would try to pull to fool checks.


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## pwsincd (Jan 25, 2013)

Yeah i get your whole streamlining issue , i was trying to suggest the obvious control measure rather than just banging a drum and hoping ppl will listen.

Maybe then seperate the download and checking procedure. Use something like fopen to read the image info a bit at a time , dumping info to a temporary file , monitoring how much you have read , and once you cross a predetermined filesize limit and havent yet stopped reading , simply dump that image as non compliant , having also read the file dimesions for those parameters .  Either way its not beyond doing to force simple rules upon users.  God forbid you  dont want p1ngp0ng checking every siggy for compliance


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## Snailface (Jan 26, 2013)

Nxenz said:


> Mine good?





Xenirina said:


> snip





Black-Ice said:


> snip





Satangel said:


> snip





riyaz said:


> snip


I attached a fixed jpeg for all your sigs. It was as simple as re-saving in msPaint. You guys avatar's are fine (6K) so you're all now under 80K.


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## Minox (Jan 26, 2013)

Snailface said:


> I attached a fixed jpeg for all your sigs. It was as simple as re-saving in msPaint. You guys avatar's are fine (6K) so you're all now under 80K.


I hope that you're aware that you've introduced quite a lot of JPEG artifacts as well as somewhat washed out colors into these "fixed" signatures.

JPEG is a lossy image format. Every time you re-save something it loses quality and it is therefore recommended to work with files that have been re-saved as little as possible.


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## Rydian (Jan 26, 2013)

Well to be more nitpicky JPEG artifacting at 80%+ is not visible without close inspection to most people, modern paint doesn't save at 50% quality anymore (thank god), and the quality only lessens when it's recompressed again, which uploading and downloading repeatedly shouldn't do (only if it passes through an image editor of some sort).


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## p1ngpong (Jan 25, 2013)

Lately we have been getting tons of people who have absolutely massive images as their sigs. It seems many people are unaware that we do have rules regarding how large an image you are allowed to have as a signature.

Signatures should not be larger than 500 x 150 pixels in dimension.







And they should not be larger than 80kb in size.

If your sig breaks either of these size restrictions please do the staff a favor and change it so that we don't have to remove it for you.

As always if you are unsure about anything please refer to our forum rules which can be found here http://gbatemp.net/help/terms or PM a member of staff.


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## Snailface (Jan 26, 2013)

Minox said:


> I hope that you're aware that you've introduced quite a lot of JPEG artifacts as well as somewhat washed out colors into these "fixed" signatures.
> 
> JPEG is a lossy image format. Every time you re-save something it loses quality and it is therefore recommended to work with files that have been re-saved as little as possible.


Why not just try to help them out and let them decide for themselves if the quality is sufficient?

Compression damages images, I know that, but some of them were _way_ over 80K.


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## ComeTurismO (Jan 26, 2013)

p1ngpong said:


> No more tears just bans now.


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## Xenirina (Jan 26, 2013)

dj4uk6cjm said:


> Your sig is the best  been waiting to compliment on it for some time now, i love zelda!


 
Thanks.
Didn't make it though. Credits to a good friend for that.


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## Xenirina (Jan 26, 2013)

Snailface said:


> I attached a fixed jpeg for all your sigs. It was as simple as re-saving in msPaint. You guys avatar's are fine (6K) so you're all now under 80K.


 
Meh. Mine was 125KB.
I'll use the new one. My old one was a bit glossier, but there isn't much difference between the two.


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## TyBlood13 (Feb 6, 2013)

did my pic have to big of a file size?
I know the dimensions are the exact limit, so that can't be it
Just noticed it got removed


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## nukeboy95 (Feb 6, 2013)

am i good?


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