Looks cleaner already so I'm sure I'll get used to them not being around and shortly forget they even exist.

I didn't even notice Haha.

A bit boring and now you can't get messages across via sig, not to mention some beautiful sets are lost to the big audience, but by now I know that bitching about changes doesn't work anyway And I guess it's not that big a change...

I've had signatures turned off for quite some time now, and I can't say I've missed them. I agree with the points that Andres is making. Sure, a creative space might be lost, but there are many (in my opinion superior) alternatives anyway.

They always worked fine for me and I always thought this was a pretty nice feature of GDC.. Let's see.

I didn't even notice. Shows how much I care about sigs and how little negative impact it will have. Great idea!

er, why can't sigs be the default and if people are having trouble they can disable them, not the other way around? i'm pretty sure most people don't have issues with them.

I agree, why can't people just disable them if they don't like them? They're a really nice way to express yourself on here and now new members won't be aware of it. Never heard anyone other than Matt complain about them before.

Not liking this change at all as a graphic designer, but whatever.

I don't think signatures serve a useful purpose inside a thread. Yes, people can use them to be creative and express themselves, but to me it feels like being bombarded with 30 ads on every single page. They're not relevant to what's being discussed and take up a lot of resources for something most people end up skipping by.

If we see that many users are going back and prefer sigs, we'll change the default behavior again. But if we find most people aren't bothered by it then they'll stay this way.

I haven't had then enabled for over a year and to enable them to help a user it made it so much harder to go through threads, as they overtake the content in the threads and are beyond annoying. Thinking back, it is likely why I avoided the actual forum for the first 5 and half years on GDC as I wasn't aware I could turn them off.

So there is no change to me.

I understand that some signatures are really annoying, especially massive ones with 100 lines of lyrics or videos. Surely it'd be better to put something in place that prevents people from doing that or is that not possible? It's easy to block them if you dislike them but this might as well remove the option of having one altogether. I had individual ones blocked which is easy to do too.

Not that my opinion matters but might as well post it anyway. It seems like quite a few people aren't happy with it though.

I'll switch back because now I can't see whenever FLO COMES BACK WITH SOMETHING NEW!

I disabled sigs as soon as I realized I could.

When I lurked on here as a guest a few months ago, one of the first things I liked about this forum was that it looked cleaned and well organized, then when I signed in the sigs appeared and it was a bit hard to read the threads.

I think people could post their sigs, banners, shows they have been to, links to their twitter on their About Me page.

If they want to show their crativity there's the Brink of Your Vision forum, with some good threads in.

I disabled sigs as soon as I realized I could.

When I lurked on here as a guest a few months ago, one of the first things I liked about this forum was that it looked cleaned and well organized, then when I signed in the sigs appeared and it was a bit hard to read the threads.

I think people could post their sigs, banners, shows they have been to, links to their twitter on their About Me page.

If they want to show their crativity there's the Brink of Your Vision forum, with some good threads in.

This is exactly my reasoning. There's a profile page for people to customize and let other users get an idea of your personality.

And I really knew this had to happen because it's a bit jarring to go from a guest reading a topic, to signing in and seeing random blocks of text and images all over a page.

I used to think I was easily distracted, but sigs never distracted me, I'm finding out. They're fun little diversions every once in a while, but I've never found them a bother unless they're obnoxious, and on that end, we have guidelines for a reason. I always tried to make my signature say something about me...which hasn't worked yet, but meh, I'm an optimist and I still think it looks cool. So I'm leaving them on.

I've had sigs turned off for years. It makes browsing the forum faster and far more enjoyable.

At least have a poll or something to see what the majority of members would prefer.

If we see that many users are going back and prefer sigs, we'll change the default behavior again. But if we find most people aren't bothered by it then they'll stay this way.

I will point what Andres has already said.

Yep, I read that, cheers.

Personally I'm not a massive lover of sigs, but it seems to make more sense for people who don't like them to turn them off. There wouldn't be so many users with all those colourful sigs, if most of them didn't like them.

NOOOOOOOOOOO! NOT THE SIGNATURES

I'll switch back because now I can't see whenever FLO COMES BACK WITH SOMETHING NEW!

:wub:

2 cents more: what about the GDC award banners? Or any other banners made for contest winners? Where do they go if most members have sigs disabled? What's the point of these prizes if they can't be shown off?

I was also thinking about that. And I don't know about anyone else, but I rarely visit profiles. So I'm not so sure if profiles would be the best place for that stuff.

For what it's worth, I've turned the sig display back on for myself. It's where everyone's personality really gets a chance to show off (or not) in the middle of otherwise "blah" text and, well, the joint jes don't look right without 'em.

I agree, Michael. Turned them back on too. Creativity over cleanliness any day.