"Sig Police"
Q: What's a "Sig"?
A: A sig (or Signature) is something which goes at the end of your posts, should you enable that option. It's a unique and personal trademark of your posts. You can make your own here.
Q: What can I put in my sig?
A: Anything you want! Some funny quotes, a short poem, shout outs to your friends, a link to your web page (this is the ONLY place on TPM that you're allowed to advertise, so feel free to do it), your Pokémon teams, a banner... Go wild. Just please be reasonable. Nothing that would make any other members feel uncomfortable like porn or excessive gore, no huge images and try not to over do it with your small images.
Q: Is there a limit to the size of image, number of images or number of lines I can have?
A: Yes, yes and oh yes! Any large images must be less than one full browser window by my monitor which is currently on a resolution of 1024 x 768, a limit on file size has not yet been decided, but should be soon. The current number of smaller images (icons or smilies) allowed is 20 (although this is subject to change). The number of lines you are allowed is 20, these include lines with text, blank lines and lines containing only smilies. Larger font sizes may count as more than one line, it depends how evil I'm feeling. Even if your sig doesn't look large to you, it might to me and if I think it's too big, it's gone.
Q: What happens if I exceed the limit?
A: Your sig will be "owned.".
Q: What does this mean?
A: This means I have deleted your sig and everything in it and replaced all the contents with one word.
Q: Can I get it back?
A: Nope. When I take out your sig it will be a 'select all - delete' process with no saving and no looking back. If you think your sig may be getting dangerously large (though why it should be after reading this, I have no idea) you should make a copy of it yourself so you can edit it down to size, should it be found to be too big.
Q: I survived for weeks with a large sig and no one said anything, now all of a sudden it's gone... Why?
A: Because I didn't see it until now. Contrary to popular belief I do not spend every waking hour looking for people with oversized sigs, maybe you post in a forum that I don't frequently work in and I hadn't noticed it on my brief visits. Your sig may have been brought to my attention by another member or a mod.
Q: What is the "Sigs Owned" count in your sig?
A: This is the number of large and inappropriate sigs I have removed since about September 2002.
Q: Why don't you give any warning?
A: Quote from a conversation prior to the start of my sig owning...
Suzie: Do I have to put up a warning?
Kevin: It would be nice.
Suzie: I'm not nice...
Q: Why are you doing this? Aren't we allowed to have fun anymore?!
A: Of course you're allowed to have fun, but so is everyone else, and I don't think scrolling past thousands of lines of quotes, smilies and friend shout outs to get to the main points of the topic is very fun. I joined TPM in the middle of the sig era, where every other topic in Misc was "Sig contest" and because of this, 90% of the sigs on TPM contained 151 Pokémon smilies, every slightly funny quote from every TV show, the name of every person ever spoken to AND MORE. This was when the first sig limits were introduced and sig contests were banned. I'm just doing my bit to make sure when you want to read a topic about the state of the world, you get to read a topic about the state of the world and not about "MI FAVRIT POKEYMENS!!!!!!1111oneoneone".
Q: Are you ever gonna stop owning sigs?
A: When I'm deadmined or dead, which ever comes first.
Q: I saw something which offended me or was blatantly too big. What should I do?
A: PM me and I'll deal with it as soon as I can!
Q: What happens if someone breaks the sig rules more than once?
A: One or two lines over the limit a few times isn't a problem, your sig will simply be deleted, but repeat offenders with inappropriate images or very large sigs will be sent a PM warning and then be temp banned if they can't control themselves.
Q: I don't like you, can't I talk to Kevin?
A: Sure, try a PM. Good luck with that :) He's mostly more involved with the day to day running of the site and vB more than the personal problems of members.
Q: I have a question/ comment about this, what should I do?
A: PM me at TPM, or get in touch on AIM, I'm LittlePikachuTPM.
Thanks for making my job easier :)
Little_Pikachu
"Sig Police"