2/7/14 TC Signature TeaDay

[Chip]

Nay. We can already personalize with our images, and anyone who is moved to add a quote to a particular post is welcome to do so, but I prefer not to add extra scrolling for the same message over and over again, especially when I am accessing TC via my phone.

Enjoying some thermos-brewed Lao Cha Tou puerh from Norbu today, a mellow sweet plummy always-favorite of the office tea gang.

The Sig is currently limited to 255 characters, I could increase it for additional scrolling satisfaction.

While I could be fine with the signatures existing...I definitely prefer the look and feel of the forum without them. I am not yet finding how the signatures really contribute anything to the space; they seem rather superfluous to me. I voted "no" but I am open to where the group goes with it.

Blessings!

Just think, you could have "Blessings!" as your Sig.

[AdamMY]

Interestingly enough, the signatures only appear on posts made after you added your signature, but removing your signature out right, removes it from all posts.... Peculiar....

[Jspigs]

I say yay so long as signatures remain relatively unobtrusive and spam free.

[Devoted135]

Testing a theory that a shorter post makes for more space in the sig... unfortunately.

[Drax]

I voted 'other,' with the idea the display of signatures could be a forum setting/option (so I could go to my control panel and select whether or not the signatures from other people were displayed). That way, people could have their signatures, but if I chose, I would not have to view them.

Other than other, I would lean to 'nay.'

[thirst]

Nay. I think they’re distracting. Besides, if you really want to, you could just manually add text (please don’t ).

[Running for Tea]

I say nay. They interrupt the flow of my lurking, errr... reading.

[chrl42]

testing.

more functions on this forum are pretty ok, even Chinese forums offer more images, functions etc


*looks like it doesn't appear *

[Drax]

Oh just imagine all the things that I could start shoving into the signature that you find on other forums:

Currently drinking -- lists of teas.
Currently drinking FROM -- lists of teaware.
Currently seeking -- lists of items looking to buy.

Oh, the mind titillates!

[Chip]

I voted 'other,' with the idea the display of signatures could be a forum setting/option (so I could go to my control panel and select whether or not the signatures from other people were displayed). That way, people could have their signatures, but if I chose, I would not have to view them.

Other than other, I would lean to 'nay.'

<waves magic mod WANd>

Go to User Control Panel>Board Preferences>Edit Display Options>turn off signature display for your account ... >submit!

[Chip]

I say yay so long as signatures remain relatively unobtrusive and spam free.

Unobtrusive is subjective, clear limits would have to be set with interpretation at the discretion of the Moderator ... it is not always black and white. Certain features can be turned off so they would not appear such as images, BBCode, links.

Spam free, they only way to totally accomplish this is by constant monitoring. And spammer wannabes can always go in and edit the sig whenever. As stated above, certain features can be turned off, thus spamming is more challenging and less fruitful.

It is challenging to regulate, control. And if not monitored, I have seen other forums that looked like sig advertising heaven. It was not pleasant to view, read, etc.

[Chip]

Nay. I think they’re distracting. Besides, if you really want to, you could just manually add text (please don’t ).

Agreed. Personally, I feel they break up the peace and serenity of a "usually peaceful" forum. Kind of like having a billboard where you enjoy tea, etc. Most of us are in a society seemingly run by advertising ... it is everywhere, online, offline. It is seemingly impossible to avoid.

They can distract the reader from the point of a particular posting.

It is pleasant to have a place to go and read without being hammered by advertising. Even here, there is the Adagio advertising ... but this is more easily overlooked especially if you have your "scrolling" setting on scrolling versus "dynamic" or "fixed" ... if you have not already done so, you should set to "scrolling" imho.

[debunix]

<waves magic mod WANd>

Go to User Control Panel>Board Preferences>Edit Display Options>turn off signature display for your account ... >submit!

thank you

[Chip]

testing.

*looks like it doesn't appear *

Hmm, not sure why your sig is not displaying, I checked your account and the sig should display. Please do some posting so I can see what happens. I will be keeping an eye on your posts to see what happens.

Ah, fixed it. In the post window, you unchecked the add signature below the post box. If you leave it checked (or check it) your sig will display.

[Chip]

more functions on this forum are pretty ok, even Chinese forums offer more images, functions etc

Not sure what you mean by "more images"?

This forum is run on phpbb, which they claim is the largest forum platform in use ... not sure how they come to this conclusion. But limitations are at the source, generally.

TeaChat is an odd forum, it is not really run by its owner, Adagio. They do some basic stuff to keep the forum running (for which we are very grateful), beyond this they are pretty much, "hands off" as they go about their business of selling tea over the internet

There are many more pros than cons to this approach for the types of members TeaChat attracts most. But the one con is that they are not going to pour tons of money into the forum to make it ideal to our standards, not even to my standards ... especially when we are not going to spend all our TeaBucks at Adagio. They cater to a sector of the tea market very effectively, but most of us are not in that sector.

However, I have asked ownership for certain improvements to make TeaChat more functional with more features.

Steepster comes to my mind ... they have added a lot of features, and to do this, it needs to be funded. Thus they "sell" and "market" (see my email inbox) and you sometimes get the feeling that Steepster is generally not as objective. Members are sometimes privately contacted and asked not to post certain things. especially against a contributing vendor.

TeaChat does have its OTTI, NOTTI and SO programs ... but these seem to have much different objectives in mind.

Still, I admire the work they have done there ... but I have not been personally motivated to jump in.