Forums / Maintenance / Suggest Ideas

Like they title says, add the option for users to create a signature to accompany their posts.
KYM is about the only forum I've been on that doesn't have this feature.
Maybe limit the number of characters that can be used to prevent abuses like the Navy Seal Copypasta, and prevent the use of images or gifs to lower the strain on the site.

This would also be restricted to forums, because from what I've heard the comment system as it is pushes the site's capabilities.

Imagine the KYM forum system exactly how it is. No new improvements, no new content, every flaw and nuisance that you can think of. Now make every post longer and add a random image from the anime gallery to the bottom it. This is why we don't have signatures.

Everything you need to know about a user is in their title or profile anyways. Calling signatures a "feature" is questionable because it doesn't really add anything to the site as a whole (meaning nobody would want to implement it anyways). We're not missing anything by not having signatures, it just makes the forums easier to read and peruse. What would be the point?

tl;dr: Why?

So long as there's a character limit, I don't see the big deal. I wouldn't use it myself, but if it were easy to implement, I don't see why not.

Doeoeod said:

…doesn’t really add anything to the site as a whole…

Neither does karma, avatars, or user titles. A new feature doesn't have to drastically improve the site or user expereince. Sometimes it's the little things that can make a website a little nicer. It's there to give users a little extra personalization to their posts. I also don't think adding an extra sentence to the end of posts would over strain the servers. The site's not that unstable.

I remember seeing an old forum post about why the KYM forums wouldn't have forum signatures. It was a while ago, but I'd have to imagine it had to do with forum signatures making the forums drift away with the original intent of meme research. Of course, the forums today aren't as meme research lead.

I wouldn't use it, but if other users think it's something they want in the forums, then maybe we could get the admins to implement it. Doesn't sound too hard to implement, anyways.

I would really mind if they did or didn't add it either, but if they did, would it mess with the efficiency of the website in any way? I heard that upvotes and downvotes were problematic at some point, so would having more images to render do anything to the site?

Imagine Riff Raff with signatures…

Okay, so, To be honest, this is the forum I visit the most and I have to say, I really hate looking at signature when I go to other sites. I used to like them when I was younger, but now they just seem to get in the way. Plus people will use images from other sites that will undoubtedly turn into red "x"s. Signatures also increase loading times of pages, which I know won't affect many users (maybe a few extra tenths of a second) but some users this could make the difference on if a page will actually load for them or not, even if we limit their size.

People use user page walls here more to show themselves off. I'm not saying that this is an all bad idea, but I really don't want to see this feature implemented.

You could solve all the problems with signatures by just giving every user an option to turn them off. People who want signatures can see them, and people who don't want signatures for whatever reason don't have to see them or deal with increased load times. (You might could do that with avatars, too, if anyone has a problem with them.)

Plus, it gives visitors an incentive to create an account (and thus possibly contribute) if they want to get rid of signatures.

Like various others here against the signatures I'm also one who loathes them. If I ever would add a signature to my post, the only thing I would add to it would be something along the lines that people who take signatures serious should be shot on sight.

KYM is about the only forum I’ve been on that doesn’t have this feature. This would also be restricted to forums, because from what I’ve heard the comment system as it is pushes the site’s capabilities.

Signatures are a common addition to forums that are just that: Forums. Or at least sites that focus on the forums a lot.

Here on KYM on the other hand, forums are the least visited portion of the site. Users on forum-orientated sites can benefit from the signatures as their forum posts are what defines them. For KYM on the other hand most people get to know each other through comment sections, media uploads, and profile walls. Our forum community is a closer bunch, but comments are still larger in quantity and wall comments are still the best way to contact someone.

Profile walls offer more customization and information than most forum-orientated sites, so it's not like you can't turn that into an extended signature (as many have done). Comment sections, image comments, and wall comments, all run on comments which won't feature signatures as those are something for forum posts.

Basically only a bare minimal portion of users would actually get good use out of signatures. It's hardly worth adding if you look at it that way. If we had an insanely big forum or were a site which basically ran on a forum, I'd find it something worth discusing, but KYM is no such site.

Plus, it gives visitors an incentive to create an account (and thus possibly contribute) if they want to get rid of signatures.

Signatures are only present on the forum, the area which, as I said before, is the least visited area of the site. I highly doubt people would make an account to get rid of signatures.

Alongside that idea brings a big issue with how the site is coded. James explained it a while ago but basically these profile options that decide how the site is viewed based on your account settings (such as making NSFW spoilers related to profile settings) require the site to have a different cache for each and every user. We don't have that space. Now I don't know if that applies here as well, but it's something to take in mind.

I just hate forum signatures personally I probably wouldn't use it out of courtesy if it was implemented and I could see abuse easily even with a character limit. I'm glad this site doesn't have it.

I do agree that not all functions have to be integral to the site though this site does well from its minor aesthetic additions and could use more, it's just this would be a bad one in my opinion.