Welcome to Gaia! ::

What is a signature?

When you're online, presentation is considered important by users in most online communities. Avatars, usernames, profiles and signatures all exist to construct your online identity. Your signature is a limited customisable space which appears below your forum posts, and you can customise it by
heading to My Gaia > Account and clicking on the 5th link in the little menu on the right of that screen; it should read 'Signature'.

So what can go inside a signature?

Many things! Text, funny quotes, artwork, cool images, animated pictures, links to your favourite threads or quests . . . the list is pretty huge. There are lots of things your signature can be used for on Gaia. Some people like to have quest information in there; others commission or draw avatar artwork for themselves; some like to post banner images for their guilds or roleplays. The possibilities are numerous!

Cool! So I can just put loads of these things in my signature?

Your enthusiasm is wondrous, but slow down, cowboy! Don't forget, there are limits in place on the content you can include in your signature, and how much you can fit in there as well.

Why does it have limits?

The limits can be broken down into two main areas:

Firstly, when you signed up to Gaia, you agreed to the Terms of Service, or ToS as it is commonly abbreviated to. The ToS applies even in signatures, and so ALL content included in signatures must comply with the rules you're expected to follow anywhere else on site.

Secondly, signatures take up space. Images require time to load onto other users' computers, and they also take up a certain amount of screen space. Images which are too big result in slow-loading pages or distorted screens which are difficult to read, so there are limits in place to ensure the viewing experience of other users on Gaia Online is not disrupted by a sudden huge signature.

There is ample space for posting lots and lots of images and other content on your profile page.

What happens if my signature doesn't fit the limits?

In the past, a moderator would disable your signature, and you would have to change it to be suitable and then PM a moderator to re-enable it. Not only was this time-consuming, but you had a maximum number of chances to get your signature within the limits, or your signature would be permanently disabled.

In the current system, your signature will still be disabled if it violates the signature limits. However, you can now re-enable it yourself! You should be aware that re-enabling your signature costs gold, therefore it is to your benefit to learn and stick to the signature limits! Re-enabling is cheap enough to begin with, but if your signature keeps being disabled, you'll soon find the cost of re-enabling it will bite a huge chunk out of your savings or be downright unaffordable! Taken from Lanzer's announcement:

Which is all the more reason for you to recognise the limits and make sure your signature conforms to them. Remember, oversized signatures, and signatures with Terms of Service-violating content, have a negative impact on the other users of the site.

Bytes? Pixels? What you say! D:

Understandably, a lot of people use the internet without ever really needing to understand terms like bytes, characters and pixels in any detail. This section will explain the concepts behind them.

Bytes

Bytes are essentially a unit of measurement for pieces of information. An image, for example, will be made up of lots of pieces of information, which will allow a computer to display them on a monitor by reading that information. High quality or large-sized images will be made up of a lot more pieces of information than a smaller or low quality image.

Now, consider that the internet is not a static place. When a picture appears on a webpage you're looking at, it's not already on your computer. All the pieces of information, or bytes, which make up that image will be transferred automatically to your computer over your internet connection from the source so that you can view it. This is true for every aspect of a webpage - and if there's a lot of information to download, then it will take longer to load the page.

That is why there is a limit on how many bytes your signature can contain. If it contains too many bytes, it will take a long time to load, particularly for users with a slower or dial-up internet connection.

Pixels

You can think of pixels as dots. A picture on the internet may be made up of hundreds or thousands of these little dots, which you don't actually notice when you're looking at the whole image because they're so small. The diagram gratefully borrowed from the Wikipedia article on pixels below illustrates:



See? When you zoom in on an image, you begin to see the individual pixels which make up that image. It's like a tapestry of different-coloured pixels which, when woven together, form a recognisable image.

The impact this has on signatures is as follows - an image which is 500 pixels wide takes up at least 500 pixels of space on your computer monitor. Your monitor can only display so many pixels at a time, which means that if a picture is too large, it will "stretch" the screen of your internet browser, either taking up too much room vertically (up and down), or stretching it horizontally (sideways). This is very disruptive as it can result in needing to do a lot of scrolling to be able to see the full webpage you're looking at.

The total 'screen space' you get for your signature with a 500 by 500 pixel allowance thus looks like this, with the purple square indicating signature space:



The square is 500 pixels wide and 500 pixels high. This is plenty of room for some nice sig content, without running the risk of stretching the page for yourself and other users.

Characters

You can think of characters as letters or symbols. The word "cat" is made up of 3 characters - "c", "a" and "t". Characters don't always have to be letters; numbers, ordinary punctuation, spaces and special symbols like "@" or non-English letters are also characters. Text can be thought of as being made up of a "string" of different, numerous characters.

Characters themselves are just like images - they're made up of pieces of information, like bytes, and take up space on screen. For this reason, they are limited to 255 characters per signature maximum.

All of that is Really Interesting, but . . .

Let me guess! You haven't the first clue how to figure out how many bytes a picture is made up of, or how many pixels wide it is, and don't want to count the characters in your sig text individually? No problem! Now we're getting to the good stuff.

I can't just post anything I want?

I'm afraid not! Signing up to Gaia means you agreed to Gaia Online's Terms of Service:

Think about how, if you post something inappropriate on the forums, like spam or flames, you might get your post deleted or a warning from a moderator. Signatures have the same restrictions on content!

In this post, I'll outline some of the major content No-Nos you should consider when setting up your signature. This is not a comprehensive list and may be generalised in places.

Gaia is for users 13 and up!!

All content posted to signatures must be suitable for users in this age bracket.

I know this one! Porn, right? It's not allowed!

You clever minx, you. Images of a sexual nature, whether they're depicting sex or very sexually suggestive, are certainly above the site limits. Don't forget, though - this includes nudity. As the Rules and Guidelines state:

'Explicit content' doesn't just include images, though; it includes text. Which means no written depictions of sex, no sexually explicit text, no requests, offers or pleas for cybering! Linking to adult sites is also likely to get you into trouble.

One other aspect of explicit content which people forget more often is that graphic violence is not appropriate, either. If images or text in your signature are deemed too gory or violent, a moderator might disable it!

But what if I don't know if my image/text is ~too~ violent or ~too~ sexual?

The safest option is of course, don't use it! Chances are, if you're not sure whether it crosses the line or not, it's likely to at least be pushing the limits. But if you really really really want to use an image and think it's okay but want to check, you can PM a Site Moderator to ask them. However, this is NOT an excuse for you to spam moderators with obvious porn, claiming you weren't sure if it was obvious or not! gonk

Gaia doesn't allow abusive content!

Well, this one is pretty straightforward, huh? Flaming, trolling and harassment aren't allowed anywhere else on site, and signatures are quite rightly included. In the Terms of Service, you agree not to:

Most obviously, avoid any signature content which perpetuate discrimination, such as racist remarks. On a more local scale, a signature is not the right place to air your personal grievances with that user who you hate and want everyone else to hate too - if your signature is being used to harass, flame or otherwise attack other users, you may be punished. Basically, any hateful or discriminatory content may get your sig disabled, or even a warning gonk

Gaia doesn't permit referral links!

Here's a content limitation people often forget, though it's been around as a limit for a veeeery long time now.

Referral link? I don't even know what one of those is D:

A referral link is a link which allows you to gain something, offsite, each time someone clicks on it. You know those sites where it's funny because you tell people "Click this link!", and they do, and they get told "Cleveruser ate your brain! Cleveruser has eaten 23 brains in total!". You know those kind, right? The format might change - maybe clicking on it steals the link-clicker's soul instead of their brain, or something. But the concept is the same. A click on the link results in offsite point/benefit gain for the account associated with the link.

It turns out it's really not that clever after all. Gaia considers it unsolicited advertisement, and you are not allowed to post links like that in the forums or anywhere else - so yes, this includes your signature!

But why? They're not doing any harm! D:

Gaia shouldn't be used as a means to profit off-site. What's more, referral links are usually disguised with some deceptive message, like "Click here for free gold!", which is just not cool. So, avoid referral links! If you're not sure if something counts as a referral link, feel free to PM a Site Moderator for confirmation before putting it in your signature ^^

Gaia respects copyright law!

Sometimes you might see a cool picture when you're searching Google or deviantArt or somewhere else you want to use as your roleplay character or just want to put in your signature because you think it looks nice. Or you find some great writing you want to include.

And that's okay, right?

Well, it depends. Technically, it's not okay. You see, most images and text online have a creator, and that creator holds the copyright to the content, which allows them complete control over how, why and where it is used. If you just take an image or piece of writing and use it without permission, that's infringing copyright, and if an artist or creator contacts Gaia about their work being used without their permission, Gaia will almost certainly work with them to enforce their copyright protection. If their work is in your signature and they don't like it, they're within their rights to request it be removed, which may result in your signature being disabled!

You can avoid this very easily. If you know who the artist/writer/creator is, contact them for permission first :3 It's courteous, and legal. And if they say no, respect their wishes! That goes for if they have any rules anywhere on their website saying they don't want their work being used, either.

If you don't know who the creator is, well, it's worthwhile trying to find out who they are. Essentially, be warned that if an artist complains about their work being used in your signature, it may be disabled. The artist's rights will prevail over your right to have a signature.

Oh, and I'm sure it doesn't really need to be said, but never claim artwork or writing you didn't create as your own! That's art theft/plagiarism!

Gaia doesn't allow harmful images!

There are some medical conditions, such as epilepsy, which can be triggered by certain types of images. Gaia reserves the right to remove these types of images from the site:

The types of images that are usually considered harmful are those with flashing colours/lights, as you might find in an animated image, or disruptive optical illusions/effects. Please be considerate of users with epilepsy and other conditions which might be triggered by images of this nature, and avoid using them in your posts and signatures. If an image in your signature is considered 'harmful' in the ways described above, your signature may be disabled.

If you want to check with a Site Moderator that a flashing image you have is okay before putting it in your signature, it's also a good idea to link to it and explain what you're asking, rather than just post it in the PM, just in case the moderator you're contacting is one of those people who react to harmful images.