But I do agree with your point. It’s the sparklies and smilies that get me.

It doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers you, but I often wonder if the people with the long sigs realize how ineffective they are. I mean, when I see one with 12 lines and blinking graphics I speed right past it. I read the short ones and even check out the URL after the name. By giving me all that info in their sig, they are making me care even less.

Dani in NC

This one actually drives me up the wall on forums and other discussion groups where each post is automatically marked as being made by you. Your (general your) username and avatar are attached to every freaking post! You don’t need to add it again! I think it’s weird when people put their name in their signature; or worse, something like “Love, TheirName”, or even worse, have “Love, TheirName” as a signature and also write it as the last line of their post.

I do, however, think it’s appropriate when they put their RL name in the signature – that way it’s at least a different name from their username. The way you demonstrated above is great.

I also don’t mind cute sayings as much, as long as they are short. Relevant ones are even better.

I hate graphics in signatures, and I hate random huge lists.

I also appreciate it when signatures are relevant to the forum. For example, on Cosplay.com most people have a costume To Do list, or an In Progress list of costumes they are actively working on. This works well, except when people go overboard and make it huge (and rainbow coloured, and double-spaced, and…)

No more than four lines, no images, and properly .sig delimited so that email/newsgroup software can remove it automatically.

Let me edit my rant a bit.