Posted by jane d on March 7, 2010, at 2:05:54
In reply to Re: signature lines, posted by Dr. Bob on March 7, 2010, at 0:23:58
> The potentially problematic cookie is the one with your password. This one would just say "show" or "hide".
Taking cookies violates my security protocols. And your workaround is too complicated anyway. If you can do the above you can just as easily set it up so that it shows the extra text only if the "show" cookie is found.
> I could, but showing signatures is standard, and better too much information than too little, IMO.
It may be common but I'm not sure it's standard. And even if it is that doesn't make it a good thing.
I agree that information is good. The question is whether the signatures contain information or "noise". I'd guess about half of the forums I visit use signatures. I'd also say that NONE Of those signatures contain useful information. They generally contain bad jokes, political statements, poems the poster thought were cute 5 years ago and the like. Rarely they contain the equivalent of a babble medication list and even those are almost never relevant to the immediate post. And I've often seen people focusing on signature lines and missing the info in the post itself.
How is it a good thing to make it easier for people to post anything they haven't thought about? People think about a signature once and then automatically post it over and over again without rereading it or thinking about whether it matters in the current context. This isn't information. It's just a waste of both human and computer bandwidth. I don't have enough of either to waste on junk.
Jane
Who'd like to note that the above paragraph is about 200 characters! Longer than many posts. This is definitely going to be a bandwidth problem for me.
poster:jane d
thread:443316
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20091103/msgs/938787.html