Signature Lines 13

[XR250]

@Dik and others who have signature lines...

For me, it makes it annoying to follow posts sometimes - especially when the responses are short as I incorporate the sentence into the response I am reading. Are these really necessary?

See the attached thread...

Anyhow, maybe I am just easily annoyed

 

[phamENG]

I'll change my vote and toss in with jayrod for 1, 2, and 3. Good compromise given the other considerations everyone has brought up.

 

[jayrod12]

I'll change my vote and toss in with jayrod for 1, 2, and 3.

I put on my building owner's hat and chose to ask for everything I want. Once it actually gets to detailed design the available features will likely be only one or two of the expected features.

 

[XR250]

Fine!, I'll go 1,2,3

 

[phamENG]

Hey, XR - how does that peer pressure feel?

 

[XR250]

STFU

 

[flight7]

2 and 3. Just something to make signatures visually distinct and unobtrusive.

I don't see #1 as being very important, and #4 isn't necessary.

 

[KootK]

Thank you all, for the continued assistance. I'm going to focus this discussion a bit where it seems appropriate.

OPTION 1) Make it so that a person's signature only appears once per thread.

Much to my / our chagrin, this is unlikely to happen.

OPTION 2) Restrict members to signatures of one line or less. Or whatever number of lines we like.

The odds of the this panning out are also low. Some feel that limiting things to one line would be "Draconian". A saleable limit to the number of lines seems as though it might on the order of four of five lines. Since that's basically a goddam paragraph, and longer than most people's responses, it pretty much neuters the concept.

IMPORTANT FOR THE SOFTWARE GUYS

A pretty likely outcome is starting to look like this combination:

OPTION 3) Force signatures to be visually distinct from regular comment text. Small font and hyperlink blue maybe.

OPTION 5) Individuals can turn off the display of signatures in their profile settings.

When these things are combined with signatures that can be up to five lines, I suspect that it will functionally amount to Option #4, no signatures at all except for the folks that are unable to figure out how to turn them off. This will be bad news for the software guys, obviously.

If I were a software guy at this point in time, I would be voicing my VERY strong opinion that signatures ought to be limited to a single line.

Without pulling any punches, the only reason that we're even talking about signatures is that they have not been used responsibly by some in the past. Nobody was ever going to go bonkers over "Check out www.kootk.com for some free tools!".

 

[dik]

Yup... just old, wobbly, and cranky... and resourceful... just looking to see if I can programme my keyboard to insert a line of text (it's programmable, and I have to see if I can add a signature line to the message, directly.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[dauwerda]

I know I won't be one that turns them off (given that becomes an option). They don't bother me at all - when they are easily differentiated from the actual comment. I do like them, both to see some personality and to see the cool stuff people have developed or shared (and maybe even to affirm the idea that my wrong opinion is respected enough to try changing it ;-))

As for limiting the number of lines, that would be pretty tough, right? Are you viewing on a 36" monitor where *everything* shows up as a single line or on your iPhone SE with a 4.7" screen where 3 words causes it to wrap to the next line? Maybe number of characters - give (oldschool) Twitter the nod and use 140 characters as the limit.

 

[hokie66]

Option 4 would be my choice, but Option 5 would work, as it would allow me to turn off the annoying things without bothering others.

 

[KootK]

As for limiting the number of lines, that would be pretty tough, right?

Yeah, that would probably have to be implemented as a character limit. That could be the "stick" in the carrot and stick approach. Let your signature get stupid long and accept that it's going to look like baked ass on most people's phones.

Another thing that would be weird is that one would have to run a query through all of the existing signatures and force their compliance programmatically. That could be un-pretty initially. That said, one cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good. So I say rip through those offending signatures like so much extraneous butter. I guess one solution would be to force multiline signatures to be single line by by simply removing the carriage returns from the signature definition. This would make multi line signatures look like paragraphs without deleting anything. Then, over time, I presume the owners of such signatures would choose to clean them up for selfish reasons if nothing else.

 

[Denial]

A possible problem with the "appear only once" option (1).[ ] Consider the longer threads in which some contributors make multiple comments.[ ] Fifteen screenfuls down you notice that member WhoTheHellAmI might actually be making some sense at last, but would like some confirmation.[ ] So what does they say about themself*?[ ] You now face the prospect of going back to the top of the thread and searching down to find his/her* first entry.[ ] A bit of a PIA.

* It's ugly either way.

 

[JohnRBaker]

If this is going to the 'official' response thread for this issue, then I'm going to repeat what I've already expressed in another forum...

**************************************

I basically agree with Pete when it comes to #1. Some people choose to include clear information about themselves in their signature. For example, I joined ET in 2006 based on a request by a customer to look at posts which were being written in the forums for our software product(s). This was how I first learned about ET, from one of our customers. Since my role in the company was to interface with customers when it came to their needs and requirements as well as to provide insight into why we were making certain investments and enhancements, it was felt that participating in ET should be part of my job as my title at the time was 'Product Evangelist' (at least this is how it was put to me by that customer).

After spending some time 'lurking' in the forums, I came to the conclusion that the customer was probably right, that it would be beneficial to both our company and our customers if I became a member of ET and acted as a representative of the company in the relevant forums. When I brought this idea to my boss, she insisted that I NOT post using an anonymous ID as she felt that this was critical to both my credibility, to say nothing of the company's, and to meet our corporate policies involving employees use of 'social media' during their daily tasks. Therefore I used my name as my ID and created a signature which identified me as an employee of Siemens along with my title (I changed my signature when I retired in 2016 since I no longer represented Siemens, but I left my name and location intact, as well as the link to Siemens' website). And before anyone asks, I had a personal discussion at the time with Dave Murphy (the founder of ET) where I explained what I was going to be doing and what restrictions I was going to be operating under (to comply with Siemens corporate policy). We came to an agreement which included his concurrence that my signature clearly indicate that I was a Siemens employee. He also had some 'rules' of his own which he asked me to comply with, which I presented to my boss and to which she agreed. Only then did I start to regularly login to ET and post in the relevant forums.

The point I'm trying to make is that having an explicit and verbose enough signature to get the job done was critical to both my management and that of ET, at least at the time. Note that there are other individuals who post here who have very clear signatures which makes it known who they are and what they do (while complying with the rules covering personal contact information). To take that option away, by disallowing signatures or by limiting them to a single line, would diminish the value that both the poster and the reader gains from knowing who they're dealing with. Now, please do NOT take this as a request that ALL members of ET must have a signature, I would never advocate that as I know that there are many reasons why some people want or need to remain anonymous (for both personal and professional reasons).

So in conclusion, this is why I'm opposed to only having a signature appear with an individual's first post in a thread. If they've taken the time to define a signature and have given thought to what to include and why, that information should be visible to the readers. Besides, they may be here operating under the same sort of rules that I did for 10 years, where I had been told that I must not try to hide who I was and who I worked for.

*******************

As for the five proposals, my votes are

#1 = NO

#2 = NO, not a single line. I suggest that it be limited to 4 or 5 lines.

#3 = YES, but I wouldn't want the use a smaller font, that's just inane.

#4 = NO

#5 = This is just making things even more complicated.

There, you now have my votes and my opinions.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[phamENG]

John's is an example of a signature that, while larger than I like, is clearly defined and separable from his posts. As a bare minimum, that's what I'd want. A clear delineation between content and signatures.

 

[KootK]

If this is going to the 'official' response thread for this issue...

Just so. I now mean for this to be the public engagement portion of this exercise. Frankly, I'd like to handle most site issues exactly this way but that's surely a maniacal fight to the death best left for another day. As you've probably noticed, I've also attempted to solicit some opinions from members outside of Structure-Land. Hopefully some show up to have their voices heard.

 

[hokie66]

JRB,

Just curious. Why do you think Option 5 would complicate things? To me, it would simplify. I wouldn't have to be subjected to signatures which are really just personal agenda. Not yours, but ones like dik's.

 

[KootK]

...then I'm going to repeat what I've already expressed in another forum...

Ditto.

I think that I understand. There are situations where more information = more value.

That said, I wonder if I might still be able to persuade you guys to consider the single line approach that a lot of members seem to favor.

Imagine a signature taking this form;

_{John R Baker, Rockstar at Siemens. Check out my detailed profile at www.iRock.com}.

I feel as though this solution would:

1) Provide ample information about you, particularly given a web link to more detailed information (potentially much more) and;

2) Cleans things up nicely by restricting your signature to a single line.

Would this, or something like it, be palatable to you?

 

[XR250]

John's is an example of a signature that, while larger than I like, is clearly defined and separable from his posts

It also provides zero useful information and, IMHO, has no business cluttering up the posts. Same as Dik's etc.

 

[phamENG]

I'm with you, XR - it's more than I like. There are many forums out there formatted in a way that makes signatures easier to differentiate. A lot of them put them in boxes under the user's name off to the left side with the content over the right. That would be great. But this forum doesn't have that kind of formatting. Since there's a lot of desire to keep the signature lines (or at least a vocal minority), I'm just saying that as long as they don't blend in and I can skip over them without having to think about it then it's better than the status quo.

 

[JohnRBaker]

Why do you think Option 5 would complicate things? To me, it would simplify. I wouldn't have to be subjected to signatures which are really just personal agenda. Not yours, but ones like dik's.

If you're suggesting that even if someone opted out of seeing signatures, that this would only apply to what would be considered as "signatures which are really just personal". If this is what you were trying to say, then this would INDEED add significant complexity to the code.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without