h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Seperate from the question of whether sigs are a good idea (I'm undecided), Apprentice's proposed implementation is... non-ideal.

Better would be, when you press 'post message', the edit box opens with the cursor on the first line, and any signature automatically appended to the bottom of the post. This allows for easy modification of sigs, so "-Martin" can be easily changed to "-Martin (tired and emotional) and "a girl called Ben" can be easily changed to "a ressurected phoenix from the ashes of civilisation called Ben" and so on. It also allows for easy adding of "PS" comments after-sig.

It also ensures that people don't forget what their sigs are. One can imagine a sig reading "AlabasterMan (don't fire till you see the whites of their eyes)" which would be fine normally - but perhaps inappropriate in a thread about the Columbine sniper. By including the sig inside the edit box, posters may be less likely to place feet inside mouths. Finally, having sig inside edit box reduces chances of double-sigs.

-Martin
-Martin (just kidding)

Different colour? Oh no. That leads to too much of an issue with people who are spectroptically challenged (or whatever name is PM appropriate for the colour blind).

I think the signature concept is more generally useful than simply allowing volunteers to not have to type their 'job' on the site.

The Apprentice

How about setting up to turn into the user's signature?

Now, THAT'S a good idea

Is it?

That's six characters to type - tedious. Wouldn't save any time for Pastey, who might as well type directly. Compare with typing nothing to include a sig, and just highlighting+deleting to remove
Problem of ="Fred the Unworthy" and Fred ends post with "is going to bed", and gets "Fred the Unworthyis going to bed" - an error that can't occur with other methods.
Same problem occurs with users forgetting what their sigs are, as above.

Don't like that idea either. I like learning from others and doing sigs the same way as every other program. Why do things differently for no reason?

-Martin (a big fan of not re-inventing the circular transport facilitation device)

not reinventing the circular transportaion device, merely improving on it

I like the idea of the tag.

For those who use Brunel it could be added to the smiley short-cuts for ease of use. If the short-cut works in the same way they do right now, the text would then get pasted directly into the Reply window and a researcher could then edit it.

This way its only added when you explicitly press the button or type it in. I admit under the current system researchers who use Goo and Alabaster would have to type in "" for each post, but how hard would it be to add the extra button to both of the older skins?

Hmm, Menza are you saying that typing should automatically expand to (say) "Fred the Unworthy" as soon as you type it - IE, *before* the "Post Message" / "Preview" button is pressed?

-Martin (now thoroughly confused )

No, when you click on a smiley short-cut in Brunel the GuideML tag for the smiley gets pasted in the Reply window. If TPTB can make it paste one XML tag, then it must be possible to paste someones signature.

Its just that Brunel is the only skin with the short-cut buttons, and I don't know if the BBC want lots of Javascripty stuff on all the h2g2 pages. So an easy way round that is to have a tag that will work in all skins, but it would only be expanded when you hit either submit button.

(I'm assuming the short-cuts are done with javascript cos I can't think of any other way its possible, but I might be wrong)

I like the idea of just having the signature text appear in the text box when I hit 'reply' or 'discuss'. Like what hotmail has. Then I can edit it, either adding or deleting bits. With a tag, I couldn't do that; I could only add bits.


GTB

How are smileys stored in the database? Does the parser change < rose > to everytime you load the page, or does it change to a tag when you post? The importance of this is, if you use it would change when you change your signature if the former is true, and stay constant if the latter is true. Which is better?

Tango

Good point.

Yep. But I'm here too to lend my support to the idea of a definable signature.

Whoami?

Is a signature really necessary as we have Personal Spaces, and space in our names for messages?

Most other Community sites don't have this facility, or they offer a basic 'profile', which is possibly the reason why they have a space for signatures. We've already come across Postings with signatures that are longer than the actual message, which detracts from the meaning. It's also likely to be annoying in the cases where people post to bookmark, or even just a simple , and other Researchers end up reading the signature, thinking it's the message? Wouldn't that be frustrating?

You could always limit the signature to a certain amount of characters.

I agree, i don't think sigs are a good idea, i will try and find the conversation we had about it before.

Tango

However, as I mentioned, there is a call for volunteers to make their presence more obvious and informative - i.e. saying:

The Apprentice
Sub-Editor

And making my name:

The Apprentice

...in the title of the message to show I'm a volunteer ISN'T going to do the BBC any favours in providing an accessible site (as I mentioned previously in relation to colour blindness).

Expecting researchers to click every link they see to check out Personal Space is a lot to ask (yes, my badge is there, but I seem to recall is being far less ideally placed in Brunel... or is that just my vague recollection fooling me).

And I feel expecting every volunteer to type their signature or keep it in a Notepad file on their desktop is a bit too much to ask.

I believe that having the original checkbox signature is ideal - and it is used as a feature on pretty much every bulletin board and out-of-the-box community site I have ever come across - and people will have the presence of mind to use it appropriately. Some people will not have it checked and continue to use copy-&-paste.

Of titles... I ignore them. My current 'Chief Scientist, Bottle-Washer, Sub and Keeper of Nonsense' is a personal joke on my part about the often insane names people gives themselves on this site. I have to say h2g2 (and its spawn) is the only place I have EVER seen this going on.

The Apprentice
[ x ] Include Signature

Sub-Editor

I think the concept is that while names and personal spaces change, signatures don't, which makes them different beasts. Also, sigs can be personalised on a per-post basis, where names can't. But I'm still undecided...

Here's another suggestion to throw into the ring.
Each user gets a name and "advert/signature" (adsig) field. Name is up to twenty chars, adsig is up to a hundred chars. So far, so what's already on the feature list.

The difference would be that:
* updating the adsig in personal prefs would effect future posts, all entries, and things like "Who's Online", but would not effect past posts.
* You'd be able to modify the adsig on a per-post basis
* There's basic parsing on an adsig, so A123456 becomes a link, and smilies can be included, and so forth

That'd have a lot of the flexibility of a signature system, but it'd integrate with the use of names as adverts, and with other places where names are displayed. People could use their adsigs however they liked, and make them as customised as they want to.

-Martin (custom-built)

Or what about 3 sections, a name, an adsig that changes past msgs and one that doesn't. More people will see important anouncements if all posts are changed, and names like "Tango - on holiday for a week" are pointless if it only changes future posts, you are on holiday so you are not making any posts.

Tango

Calm down, guys! It was only my opinion!