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Signing posts - an irrational irritation

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08:48 / 12.05.02

OK. I'm just going to vent, because it's been driving me mad for ages and there's no real reason why it should drive me mad, and I'm just being really micro-managing, uber-controlling, but I just wanted to register a mew of complaint against the signing of posts. What I'm talking about is when you're reading a thread and someone does something like:

Yeah, I think that's true. Completely.

Darkly Badger

I know it's a really dumb thing to get all stroppy about, but I just don't understand why people do it. I mean - if it was an e-mail it would be fine - like at the bottom of a letter, once you've glanced down to see who it's from or registered that they called themselves 'Darkly' rather than 'Mr Badger' (a nice change from the formal to the informal) then you can ignore it. But on a message board it seems to me that you almost inevitably find yourself reading it - time and time again. You actually have to register it in your mind.

And it makes no sense! If people want to know who posted something they can look to the left! I don't get it! Plus it really upsets me when you have one little word on its own on a line. It makes the place look all scruffy....

[RANT OVER]

Ok. I have absolutely no right to complain about this one, and unlike the many other times I've ranted about stuff, I don't expect anyone to actually stop doing anything. I know I'm being irrational. I don't even really want people to discuss the subject particularly. I just had to get it off my chest...

08:52 / 12.05.02

Oh and you know what else drives me mad? Bad drivers. And people who sign their posts and then change their names. And my mother.

09:40 / 12.05.02

ok. new girl alert.
i think its ok if ppl sign posts with their real name rather than screen name. sometimes after ppl have been on a board awhile they feel it is more personal to do so...

so, xxx cherie

10:07 / 12.05.02

i don't understand it either, tom. i've often wanted to shout at the screen - your name's there already!! but there's worse - people on other message boards have a quote or lyric (usually inane) as their signature and it can make the post very confusing.

but none of that is as irritating as people who put umbrellas up when it's not raining.

welcome, cakemix, by the way.

10:10 / 12.05.02

I totally agree with everyone. Also annoying: people that don't replace the empty toilet paper roll.

-BioK9

10:13 / 12.05.02

Basically, I agree. Captain Zoom, however, doesn't irritate me - possibly because his somewhat minimalist 'Zoom' comes across more as a 'Zap! Pow!' style expression of sudden action. Having said his piece, he's zooming off elsewhere.

10:13 / 12.05.02

People that eat with their mouths open.
I think you can sign your posts if it says something clever.

10:27 / 12.05.02

Big G wrote: Captain Zoom, however, doesn't irritate me - possibly because his somewhat minimalist 'Zoom' comes across more as a 'Zap! Pow!' style expression of sudden action. Having said his piece, he's zooming off elsewhere.

(sigh)

Look!NickWaddam!

(wonders where the extemporaneous one is nowadays)

10:31 / 12.05.02

At least there isn't a signature option on this board. Nice one for not putting that in. Sigs on posts irritate me beyond belief, since there's always someone who has a fifty line sig (with links to their site, pictures etc) and does one-line posts.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

11:11 / 12.05.02

The only person I see doing it is the Captain, and his is fun. I also like the idea of signing with your real name if you want to peek out from your fiction suit.

And for things that annoy me, just look around you. If you see anything, it annoys me it some way, shape or form.

11:34 / 12.05.02

Oh is this where we bitch about messageboards and signatures?

Ok, well it really pisses me off when somebody writes something like, "Oh yeah, that's cool" and then they have like 40 fucking pages of pictures, quotes, and other silly shit. Look, nobody cares how long you've spent playing pokemon or that you think He-man is the greatest philosopher of our day. Fuck you, you stupid little shits!

I think the lack of signatures is one of the things I like best about this board. You click on the topic and most of the time you've got a nice little flow going. Someone asks a question, other people answer it, and signatures don't get in the way.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:00 / 12.05.02

Can't in all honesty say it's ever bothered me. But the question"why? It's gotta be more effort!!?" does keep popping up. I figure- your name's visible. Why waste time and effort putting it up again?

But also must heartily concur with Ganesh's point about the good Captain... I LIKE seeing that "Zoom". Ze seems naked without it.

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

12:22 / 12.05.02

I agree that it is one of the Good things about this board. Every so often when I go over to Newsarama, I am just baffled by the people whose signature is over 15 lines...and half the time they are just saying, "Me too...and Marvel RULES!"

Piffle.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

12:53 / 12.05.02

I guess I don't mind little inoffensive Zoom-esque sigs or the odd gif, but I second the whole one-line-post-followed-by-six-pages-of-animated-Dragonball-characters thing, especially since if it crashes my browser.

13:13 / 12.05.02

Klondike Red wrote: and half the time they are just saying, "Me too...and Marvel RULES!"

WhuT r U bioTCheZZ fROntIN a-BoUt? MarViL +T000dALLY+ RooLLZZ!!! Y R U aLL SucH A bUNch oV fAGGit PLAYA HATeERZZ?!?!

Y'know, I think this calls for another "We Love Tom!" thread....

Tryphena Absent

14:33 / 12.05.02

Well what if it just stopped raining and you haven't noticed so your umbrella's still up? Hmmm?

Janina

- it's pronounced with a 'Y' not a J you know!

14:39 / 12.05.02

oh no - i mean specifically people who think it's about to rain and put the brolly up as an act of severe over-caution. should be a law against it.

15:03 / 12.05.02

Anyone read Crimens Ejemplares from Max Aub?

wembley can change in 28 days

15:46 / 12.05.02

Can I add to the umbrella pile those people who are shorter than myself and insist on an umbrella with a radius of three feet, for the sole purpose of poking my eyes out?

19:18 / 12.05.02

*Zoom creeps about, feeling somewhat loved, but a little self-conscious*

Zoom.

19:59 / 12.05.02

As a short person with umbrella, I apologise to Wenbley - but what about the tall people with big bags who turn around and biff us short people on the head. Happens practically every day on the tube....

20:10 / 12.05.02

i should've said that i *do* like the zoom thing.

20:16 / 12.05.02

Me too.

20:19 / 12.05.02

I like the zoom thing as well, but it's an idiosyncrasy not a signature. Signatures, I don't like.

20:20 / 12.05.02

i agree. *i* can hardly 'shortfatdyke' in and out of a thread.

Murray Hamhandler

20:38 / 12.05.02

I dunno. I do it out of habit and I've never really thought about it or thought about why I do it. And I'll probably keep doing it out of habit. Except now I'll just feel really self-conscious about it. Is this a subtle way of asking me to shut up?
Arthur Sudnam, II

Less searchable M0rd4nt

20:59 / 12.05.02

Yeah. This thread was brought to you by the committee for making Sudnam feel awkward and paraniod.

But your name is different to your sig. And your sig is not a huge picture of Pikachu. I think there is some flexibility to be had, no?

Murray Hamhandler

21:13 / 12.05.02

Ah HA! My suspicions confirmed! Such an organization does exist after all. Does this mean I get to stop being paranoid now? :P

Yeah, good point, Mordant. The sig is useful for when one wants to toy around w/a new suit name now and then and still be somewhat recognizable...
Arthur Sudnam, II

23:36 / 12.05.02

FROM NIGHTGUARD'S LOGBOOK :

Well, I'm on the side of Zoom and Arthur ... I like the signatures. It gives the post a personal touch.

Now a header, that's a different story ....

06:46 / 13.05.02

i think we should make it an "ok policy" that if anyone ever does come here with the 15 line blade runner quote sigs they get battery acid in the eyes and a concussive, brain-damaging blow with a hammer, cuz that's what it feels like to have to read through those kinds of posts.

07:01 / 13.05.02

that sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

08:35 / 13.05.02

I was going to say that arthur's signature was fine too, but obviously came too late. I don't mind DBC either, just in case he's waiting for exoneration..

I like arthur's point that "The sig is useful for when one wants to toy around w/a new suit name now and then and still be somewhat recognizable". When i first started posting I called myself MC Lentil and changed the name each week (keeping the M and C capitalised somewhere. I also managed to resist the temptation to call myself Mordant Carnival Lentil, or I didn't have the hubris, or wasn't stupid enough, or something), but because I was new I think a lot of people didn't realise I was the same person.

I'm assuming that this: "And why does it drive me so systematically insane....?" from the abstract was rhetorical, as nobody (myself included) has attempted to answer it

09:31 / 13.05.02

it drives me systematically insane because it intervenes in the natural flow of reading. not much of a problem with the "sig-offenders" sited here, but on other boards you get halfway through someone's sig thinking that it is part of a meaningful post and the whole experience becomes cognitively jarring. and once you've read the same sig more than once, it is beyond annoying.

given all this, it sort of makes you quietly question the sig-using poster's intelligence, to be perfectly honest.

09:49 / 13.05.02

Thanks, Lentil. I was beginning to feel a little like a badguy…

Tom, does your loathing come more from the fact that it breaks up the flow when you’re reading, or that it’s taking up space on the board ? If the latter, then ahhhh (nods)…

DBC

The Natural Way

11:14 / 13.05.02

I'll tell you what I hate: fucking bar threads. Virtual booze pisses me off no end - there's nothing funny or clever about it. It's boring and...well...

Doesn't anyone else around here find them a little bit fucking embarrassing?

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