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  1. #1

    WHT Signature rules need to be updated

    Signatures:
    Must be setup in your profile, and not manually added to your messages.
    May not contain any pricing, plan, sales, etc. details.
    May contain a maximum of two smilies. Or one animated smiley.
    May include two clickable links.
    May include two colors, plus black.
    Maximum font size cannot be larger than normal.
    Must be kept to a maximum of four lines (at 1024x768 resolution).
    May not contain links to other threads or posts.
    Please keep special characters to a minimum.
    Your signature is your signature. It is not for sale or rent.
    Any signature that is offensive or insulting to WHT, its members, or its staff, is prohibited.
    We reserve the right to ask you to change and/or remove your signature at any time, for any reason.
    You guys need to add the following

    - No Affliate links
    - No Links to free hosts

    Are there any other rules missing?

  2. #2
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    Personally, I believe that the 2 clickable links rule is a pain in the butt. If we can keep our signature at 4 lines or less and still have more links, I really don't see the big concern. But, I'm not the rule makers, just the rule follower
    Big things coming soon

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by perpetual
    - No Affliate links
    You may not post commission, referral or affiliate links anywhere on the forum.
    - No Links to free hosts
    May not contain any pricing, plan, sales, etc. details.


  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nick H
    Personally, I believe that the 2 clickable links rule is a pain in the butt. If we can keep our signature at 4 lines or less and still have more links, I really don't see the big concern. But, I'm not the rule makers, just the rule follower
    i agree

  5. #5
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    Links to free hosts shouldn't be banned. The word "Free" shouldn't be allowed, but if there's no mention of price, it should be just fine.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by ub3r
    Links to free hosts shouldn't be banned. The word "Free" shouldn't be allowed, but if there's no mention of price, it should be just fine.
    Yup, they can have a link to their free hosting so long as they don't mention free

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nick H
    Personally, I believe that the 2 clickable links rule is a pain in the butt. If we can keep our signature at 4 lines or less and still have more links, I really don't see the big concern. But, I'm not the rule makers, just the rule follower
    Umm no. This would invite people to use WHT to increase their link popularity in search engines by linking to all their sites:

    A B C D E F G H I ... you get the point

    And personally, I think using Arial Black as the font in your signature (like you did) SHOULD violate the rule: Maximum font size cannot be larger than normal.
    InterNich LLC
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    Bringing you PicResize.com (More than 95 million pictures resized since 2005)

  8. #8
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    I think the rules are strict enough

    Like anon said, they do already ban affiliate links and the word free so both of your suggestions are already in place

    I don't see a reason for not allowing links to free hosts though...the word free and pricing is banned, but why ban all links to free hosts?
    John Diver
    CanaryHotspot.com - Canary Island forum and information
    InternationalChatForum.com - International Travel Chat Forum and information

  9. #9
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    IF you are saying that "Free" isnt allowed at all in sigs, there are gonna be a flood of tickets. I have seen quite a few sigs that have "Free" in them.

  10. #10
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    Can robots even see links in sigs? I thought I had seen this brought up here before and remember somebody saying they cant see them.
    Dave

  11. #11
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    Why would bots not be able to see signatures? Bots simply see the page output. They don't care whether it's a signature or not. If the rest of the page's text is indexed, so is the sig
    Studio1337___̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.__Web Design

  12. #12
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    I think the showing of signatures for logged-out users was once turned off. I could be wrong though.

  13. #13
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    It is totally blocked for spiders on SP (Sitepoint), but WHT doesn't block it at all
    John Diver
    CanaryHotspot.com - Canary Island forum and information
    InternationalChatForum.com - International Travel Chat Forum and information

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nich
    And personally, I think using Arial Black as the font in your signature (like you did) SHOULD violate the rule: Maximum font size cannot be larger than normal.
    The font size didn't change in my sig -- just the font
    Big things coming soon

  15. #15
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    Rules are Rules.. !

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by markov
    Rules are Rules.. !
    You mean like the "No Fluff" rule that you are close to violating
    Big things coming soon

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by the_pm
    Why would bots not be able to see signatures? Bots simply see the page output. They don't care whether it's a signature or not. If the rest of the page's text is indexed, so is the sig
    They could be referring to the archive where, in fact, no signature is shown.

    I was under the impression, as well, that signatures weren't shown to bots. It's not that hard to distinguish between bot and real person and put conditionals in there
    Tom Whiting, WHMCS Guru extraordinaire
    Linux problems? WHMCS Problems? Give me a shout
    Check out my WHMCS Addons

  18. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by the_pm
    Why would bots not be able to see signatures? Bots simply see the page output. They don't care whether it's a signature or not. If the rest of the page's text is indexed, so is the sig
    Like I say, I thought this was something that had been brought up before. Look at what ub3r said then look what linux-tech had said. Not something I would of mentioned if I knew were impossible to make sigs invisible for the bots.
    With your known background in web-design you should know if something like this is impossible or possible before throwing your question "Why would bots not be able to see signatures?" by an answer or fact to you that is not entirely true.
    Dave

  19. #19
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    You can add rel="nofollow" to links in the signature to stop Google from counting them towards the page's ranking.

  20. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by namelayer
    Like I say, I thought this was something that had been brought up before. Look at what ub3r said then look what linux-tech had said. Not something I would of mentioned if I knew were impossible to make sigs invisible for the bots.
    With your known background in web-design you should know if something like this is impossible or possible before throwing your question "Why would bots not be able to see signatures?" by an answer or fact to you that is not entirely true.
    But...signatures are right there. I suppose we could have a theoretical discussion about what would happen if signatures weren't shown to guests...but they are...so...that's what we have to talk about

    How do you distinguish between a bot and a real person and insert a conditional? Oh, some bots are kind enough to identify themselves and allow you to do this, but the majority do not. How do you identify a bot that doesn't identify itself? Or I should say, how do you do it in a practical sense? I have sites that may get a dozen search engine bots visit in a day, along with a couple thousand unidentified bots, which I can only distinguish later because they drop spam into my logs. If you have a solution for how to distinguish those visitors as bots and only offer up a portion of the page's content, I'd love to hear it. Seriously, I would! I could fight back pretty hard on the log spammers if there was a way to do this. I would set up spider traps, but I'm a little leery about making an .htaccess file 777.
    Studio1337___̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.__Web Design

  21. #21
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    I am pretty sure that just about every member here knows that you cant block every bot but just bots in general.

    Please rethink your reply to my statement just made.

    Again, we all know you cant block every bot but that has nothing to do with what I am talking about.
    I am talking about something that I had thought At One Time that sigs were blocked from bots/spiders. Never said Every Spider.
    Quote of the day
    "At one time......"
    Dave

  22. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by namelayer
    Can robots even see links in sigs? I thought I had seen this brought up here before and remember somebody saying they cant see them.
    I was just reacting to this statement, about whether bots can see links in signatures. If someone said bots can't, they're wrong, unless neither bots not human visitors can see the signatures at all. My statement is accurate, and it's not directed against you. It's directed toward whoever first said bots were prevented from seeing links for whatever reason.
    Studio1337___̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.__Web Design

  23. #23
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    Quote Originally Posted by the_pm
    If someone said bots can't, they're wrong, unless neither bots not human visitors can see the signatures at all. My statement is accurate...
    Ok it may not be towards me but I still am in question about your assumption. I dont want to put words in your mouth but are you saying that there could never be a hack or code to disallow a majority of SE bots prevented from seeing certain parts or links of a page?
    Dave

  24. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by namelayer
    Ok it may not be towards me but I still am in question about your assumption. I dont want to put words in your mouth but are you saying that there could never be a hack or code to disallow a majority of SE bots prevented from seeing certain parts or links of a page?
    Nope. I'm not saying that at all. You can program a site to treat distinguished UAs, such as those used by SE bots a certain way. I'm saying the vast majority of UAs, I'd reckon 90-95%, are not distinguishable from human visitor UAs (many are spoofed), and therefore, the vast majority of bots cannot be served up content that differs from what human visitors are supposed to see.

    Furthermore, you, as the programmer, are at the mercy of the bot creator, SE or otherwise, in terms of how you program your site to recognize a string. And lastly, most SEs will ban sites that serve up content to their bots that differs from what regular visitors see, if the infraction is reported. This is a big no-no. So, you can alter your site's contents to suit a small number of bots, and because of the nature and importance of that small number, it is a bad idea to attempt it
    Studio1337___̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.__Web Design

  25. #25
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    Quote Originally Posted by the_pm
    Nope. I'm not saying that at all. You can program a site to treat distinguished UAs, such as those used by SE bots a certain way. I'm saying the vast majority of UAs, I'd reckon 90-95%, are not distinguishable from human visitor UAs (many are spoofed), and therefore, the vast majority of bots cannot be served up content that differs from what human visitors are supposed to see.

    Furthermore, you, as the programmer, are at the mercy of the bot creator, SE or otherwise, in terms of how you program your site to recognize a string. And lastly, most SEs will ban sites that serve up content to their bots that differs from what regular visitors see, if the infraction is reported. This is a big no-no. So, you can alter your site's contents to suit a small number of bots, and because of the nature and importance of that small number, it is a bad idea to attempt it
    I am 100% sure I can do this in vB Without getting banned by the big SE's And its a very simple mod to do. Will I do this to my forums? No, Have no need to. Its just a hint to you that it could be done properly.

    -Enjoy
    Dave

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