People who were using forums 20+ years ago were using them on a computer or laptop, and had more screen real estate. They could make a small signature image line and still not take up much space relative to the rest of the page.
I am looking at this on a phone right now, as you (probably) are. These screens are so much better than those, but also much smaller. Sigs would take up a significant portion of the page.
There were some valid reasons to have them, if you go far enough back in history, but those reasons haven’t applied for a long time. Meanwhile, signatures gradually evolved into a plague. They often took up more space than the posts and they were often brightly colored or animated. Sigs made reading the actual text harder while serving as a distraction.
As you might guess, I am glad to see them gone. What used to go into sig blocks can now go into your profile. Anyone who’s interested can just click. It’s a much better setup all around.
The better forums would only show the first post from a user having their signature, and any other posts by them on that thread it would be absent. That’s the biggest problem with such things, they end up cluttering the actual discussion.
I debated adding a picture of my dog, but that felt like a bit much. Also, I never spent time on forums that allowed images in .sigs . They looked nightmarish.
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Back in the day when forums were mostly listservs, they made sense as the sig was where you stuck your finger info, so others could look you up.
But once things switched to real forums with user profiles, the original purpose was redundant as that information could be found linked to the username. So people started cluttering them with little digital billboards instead.
At that point, it served no real purpose and wasted data and (with the advent of mobile browsing) screen real estate.
I think it just made more sense to make a user’s username link back to a profile containing their bio rather than appending that bio to the bottom of every post. More economical in terms of space utilization and leads to higher signal-to-noise ratio in the thread.
Long answer: internet services became easier to use for non-technically savvy people. It’s no coincidence that as internet access broadened, sites like Facebook gained popularity because they gave people premade, customisable pages that could allow them to express themselves to others and engage in discussion.
Early facebook was so different. It had all these weird customisable mini apps that embedded in your page. Like “hatching eggs” where someone would “give” you an egg and you had to wait to see what hatched out of it.
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People who were using forums 20+ years ago were using them on a computer or laptop, and had more screen real estate. They could make a small signature image line and still not take up much space relative to the rest of the page.
I am looking at this on a phone right now, as you (probably) are. These screens are so much better than those, but also much smaller. Sigs would take up a significant portion of the page.
There were some valid reasons to have them, if you go far enough back in history, but those reasons haven’t applied for a long time. Meanwhile, signatures gradually evolved into a plague. They often took up more space than the posts and they were often brightly colored or animated. Sigs made reading the actual text harder while serving as a distraction.
As you might guess, I am glad to see them gone. What used to go into sig blocks can now go into your profile. Anyone who’s interested can just click. It’s a much better setup all around.
I’m glad about them in AAR forums for Paradox games.
Yeah lot of space taken up with signatures. Profile Pic is enough. Even places that allowed them had size limits to keep them from being obnoxious.
comment: lol
signature: 183 eye cancer animated emojis, API call showing your IP address and user-agent back to you, misaligned ASCII art and a grainy cat gif
Lmao
When ye olde Eternal September hit, many new users did not realize B1FF was satire, and thus chose to emulate the coolest dude on the internet.
This brings back fond memories.
BIFF|@|AOL.DELPHI.PRODIGY.COMPU$ERVE.NETCOM.WORLD.MSN.B1FF.EDU DUDE!
The better forums would only show the first post from a user having their signature, and any other posts by them on that thread it would be absent. That’s the biggest problem with such things, they end up cluttering the actual discussion.
Specialized forums still have them, like if you are on ASpecificOldTruck.com forum thing. but I personally find them annoying.
Because people got tired of scrolling past the same giant dog image at the end of every other post
They get really repetitive and don’t add much to the conversation.
–
See the community I started at [email protected] !
Lemmy member since 2023.
That’s a clever thing you did there 😉
I debated adding a picture of my dog, but that felt like a bit much. Also, I never spent time on forums that allowed images in .sigs . They looked nightmarish.
–
See the community I started at [email protected] !
Lemmy member since 2023. ₍ᐢ•ᴥ•ᐢ₎
Because they’re redundant.
Because they’re redundant
I guess I’m the weirdo because I liked them. So long as they had size limits.
Cause they were annoying as shit, and only a small class of users even liked them in the first place.
Back in the 90s, a lot of forums would also ban your ass if you had an obnoxious signature to boot.
I always found them annoying in the first place.
Back in the day when forums were mostly listservs, they made sense as the sig was where you stuck your finger info, so others could look you up.
But once things switched to real forums with user profiles, the original purpose was redundant as that information could be found linked to the username. So people started cluttering them with little digital billboards instead.
At that point, it served no real purpose and wasted data and (with the advent of mobile browsing) screen real estate.
But what if I want to brag about my computer components or car mods that I’ve done?? Where do I put that so people can see it on every post?!
You mean the JDM tow hook, and limo window tint? Yeah. Totally need to brag about that shit. lol. I totally don’t miss that shit.
I’ve got something even better: An edgy yearbook quote from high school! Everybody MUST see it!
I think honestly you couldn’t make people happy
If people hated sigs, you needed restrictions so they didn’t get out of hand
Those restrictions were usually hated by people who liked sigs
and overall it was a distracting feature from the main purpose.
I think it just made more sense to make a user’s username link back to a profile containing their bio rather than appending that bio to the bottom of every post. More economical in terms of space utilization and leads to higher signal-to-noise ratio in the thread.
They were ever in favour?
I guess so people had them on their signature. There are even communities dedicated to creating one.
Because forums fell out of favour.
Long answer: internet services became easier to use for non-technically savvy people. It’s no coincidence that as internet access broadened, sites like Facebook gained popularity because they gave people premade, customisable pages that could allow them to express themselves to others and engage in discussion.
Early facebook was so different. It had all these weird customisable mini apps that embedded in your page. Like “hatching eggs” where someone would “give” you an egg and you had to wait to see what hatched out of it.
MySpace was much cooler. Its where I started learning html/ CSS lol
For me it was Geocities. That was where my hideous early attempts at css got full reign, it was full of novelty cursors, etc.
I tried to get my MySpace back recently but it’s tied to a hotmail account I no longer have access to.
It’s sad really, I still appreciate phpbb boards, but there’s really no reason to hang out on one if you don’t have any activity there anyway.