It Would Be Nice If Everyone Linked Their Profile In Sig.

[Armitage Apolithymius]

Hello all,

New face here and something that is making my cruise of the board a bit difficult at times is finding the origin story of a topic poster that I'm considering joining. A lot of times this is a simple matter of searching through that users post to find their first or searching the entire board for a topic of their name but these are extra and, at least in my mind, entirely unnecessary steps. Something included in the character creation topic could be a quick note to be sure to add your character profile to your signature once you are accepted. I've seen a handful of people do it on the site already and it is infinitely helpful to me, as a new member especially. Could even be something as simple as:

"Hey! Don't forget after you're accepted to put a link to your character in your signature for easy tracking. The ways to do this are many, simple, and won't even interrupt if you had a plan for a banner image or quote. There are three main ways to do this, each as simple as the next.
First is just the link (using my link as an example):
http://fewotw.proboards.com/thread/4601/armitage-apolithymius
Second is a quote. I chose to just use my character name but it can be any measure of complicated you'd like:
[a href="http://fewotw.proboards.com/thread/4601/armitage-apolithymius"]Armitage Apolithymius[/a]
Last but not least is the image. This will be especially useful for those of you that like to have those FE sprites in your signature:"
[a href="http://fewotw.proboards.com/thread/4601/armitage-apolithymius"][img src="http://i.imgur.com/rm9BMuh.jpg" style="max-width:100%;"][/a]

So, just my idea. Probably my only hurdle in acclimating myself to your lovely site here. I suppose it's more of a pet peeve than anything. Thank you for your time in looking over my suggestion.

[Cyril Schweitzer]

I've done this with my signature images. I agree it's tedious to click on a profile, go to posts by user, and then go all the way to the back to see their application post.

So yeah, if you ever want to read up on one of my characters, you can always click on my signatures. I'll probably add in a link to Landrik's journal as well and any other ones I may work on in my applications.

[Edrick]

Actually I've noticed that some characters don't have their profiles anymore, while others have changed so much that the profiles are almost irrelevant. It sounds a bit goofy to require it, but I see where you are coming from, although I've never really had any trouble finding profiles. I just click their name, click created topics and go to the last page, it is usually the first topic they made. Or some people just don't like how their profiles turned out.

[Cyril Schweitzer]

"It says in the rules you can't edit your application at all." - No one ever

I plan on editing quite a few of my applications to add in a timeline for the threads my characters have participated in and general notes for them.

[Armitage Apolithymius]

Maybe it's just me but I feel like if your profile has changed so much that it's irrelevant than like...it should be updated at some point! I'll concede that it isn't impossible to find someone's profile by any means, but the amount of steps something like this would eliminate is great. It makes it easier to fact check in the heat of posting too. Only good things could come of this.

[Tamaya]

Aug 23, 2014 18:57:01 GMT -6 Armitage Apolithymius said:

Only good things could come of this.

Except if your signature is already large and contains many things... Links to themes, statsheets, support data... I'm not denying that it's a helpful idea, but it will increase the size of the signature. And it's not entirely essential. It's not hard to pull up a profile.

I like the simplifying effect, but I think it's a matter of personal preference and style. I don't know if I'll be doing it, but I may.

[Armitage Apolithymius]

That's the thing though, a link could be contained in nearly anything. Text, pictures, spreadsheets, themes. Even your stats in your signature would suffice and could be used as a link to your profile without using any more space.

[Alaric Kyyneltya]

There are people with large signatures because they put all their supports in there and such... honestly it's not a big deal. Also, I agree with Armitage about the linking being discreet.

[Aidan Lowell]

People put what they want in their signatures, and that's what it's there for. Their supports, their character sheets, links to things, sprites and images, or nothing. There's no rules of what you can and can't put, outside of making it obviously disruptive, and it really should stay that way.

[Hal]

Having a rule for what should go in the signature area would be silly IMO. As someone pointed out, some are cluttered as is, so instead I added something to the profile field for those who wish to have a link can add it without clutter. Only downside is there's no active link so you're going to have to copy and paste it.

[Armitage Apolithymius]

I'm sure it's a moot point by now as everyone seems surprisingly against this very simple and helpful idea, but just so you're aware; it would literally not add any more clutter to your signatures.

Your signature now:



Your signature if you went by this suggestion:




The only difference is the bottom one looking pretty AND being helpful. If you do not like the suggestion, that's fine, really. But please do not brush it off with a nonsensical excuse.

[Hal]

Aug 25, 2014 23:44:22 GMT -6 Armitage Apolithymius said:

I'm sure it's a moot point by now as everyone seems surprisingly against this very simple and helpful idea, but just so you're aware; it would literally not add any more clutter to your signatures.

Your signature now:



Your signature if you went by this suggestion:




The only difference is the bottom one looking pretty AND being helpful. If you do not like the suggestion, that's fine, really. But please do not brush it off with a nonsensical excuse.

How would you know that the picture links to my profile unless you randomly scrolled over it? Please actually read my post before claiming I "brushed it off with a nonsensical excuse". I only stated what others had said and tried to make a compromise just for you.

[Armitage Apolithymius]

It wasn't my intention to come off as hostile as I clearly have. I apologize for that. I just...I just fail to see how this is a bad idea. You would know that was a link to your profile because, as per the suggestion as a whole, it would be part of the rules. I appreciate what you've done with the profile field.

It may be best to close this topic.

[Emil Aurion]

Signatures has a 500 character limit, that takes away from your personal space to "spice up" your profile. I wouldn't want a rule to take away from that, playing around with the custom profile settings I was able to make it were it's a click-able link. Going to play around with it to see if I can get it where you can put {url=LINKHERE}Profile{/url} in it. No promises there.


EDIT: And I figured it out, and it's done.

[Saturos Prox]

I think it's a great suggestion, but I'd say we leave it at that: a suggestion. If it's a rule, that means it can be broken, and there would need to be consequences for breaking it. I don't think that's necessary.

Just like editing an out of date profile, it's something that's definitely nice for others, or even yourself really, but it doesn't need to be mandatory.

Lead by example, and if it's a good idea it'll catch on.