I was recently asked by a number of mods to remove a "Kevin 07" signature. Kevin Rudd is the Labor leader hoping to win the forthcoming Australian Federal election. I did as I was told but I've received a number of PM's noting that a large number of FT members have political statements as part or encompassing their signature. I also know that is the case.

My signature was simply thus and in no way directed via link or other association to the Australian Labor Party - I could also argue that I posted it as a jibe!

I would like greater clarification on this for both us members and moderators so that a clearer and definite policy is made aware to all. I think it is unfair to be singled out for possible suspension whilst so many over members have had their political statements "overlooked" for so long.

If the T&C's are to be revised, and currently I do not believe they exclude such as I had been requested to delete, then I believe it should be advised to all members and thus, any signatures outside of the re-defined or clarified T&C's should be withdrawn.

Previous thread on this subject has been locked, but here's the link. Seems like something must have changed since March.

Thanks GoldFlyer:
I did a little research and it appears that you were contacted by the Moderator regarding your signature with this note:
"Your signature was drawn to my attention on the SYD do thread on CommunityBuzz! We do actually have some guidelines on formatting of signatures to try and ensure that they are not too intrusive for other FTers - you might like to take a look at these at http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#q79"

The key to your signature removal was not the idea of a political signature as you seem to refer to, but rather "Use the normal posting font size." It seems that your signature was something like this:
Kevin '07

which as one can visually see, violates the general advice we have (so we don't have members get into signature wars). As some of our other members may not be aware, a number of posters in the Qantas Forum started to add political signatures in reference to a n upcoming national election in Australia that (initially) were innocuous. Then the ante was "upped" when one poster decided that another line was warranted and within about 2 days we had a "signature war" and the RBPs started coming in. Had you followed the posted guidelines and limited your signature to the suggested normal posting font size, there would be no question that your signature would be allowed. As well, other members involved in the "signature wars" and all were asked to remove their signatures, not just you

As for signatures in general, i've asked the Moderators to not go looking for exceptions but if they come across them to contact the member and try to reason with them on what the general advice is for signatures. As a Moderator myself, i don't do a 21-point inspection of every post i come across and try not to be that picky in the hopes that our members are the best part of our Moderating efforts.

I hope this clears this up, we do not have a ban on political signatures, but we do have general policies for how they should appear. As well, we do not have signature police and only try to enforce these exceptions if and when they are brought to our attention.

Thanks for understanding.

I would expect this quoted passage from a email or PM to the OP was included here with their permission, otherwise sharing it here would violate TOS:

http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#q84

Posting Private Emails and Messages Without the Author's Permission

This is an invasion of privacy, possibly unlawful, and members who violate this will be subject to the disciplinary process.

Possibly the problem is Randy that the policy is selectively enforced?

I personally do not feel ANY political party (or religious) signatures should be used on FT - by ANYONE, but that is just my personal POV.

If you are saying all political signatures for the Australian election have now been removed I am rather surprised, if the written policy says they are OK. I never used one, but those that did seem to have not breached any guidelines by doing so?

As the guidelines clearly say - anyone who does NOT want to see any signatures can readily turn them off:

Should you wish not to view signatures, you may shut them off. To do so, go to MyFlyerTalk and click on Edit Options on the left-hand side of the page. Scroll down to Thread Display Options and remove the check from the Show Signatures box.

Even Moderators flout the guidelines you outline. For example this one has been on show for many months, and was created well after the signature policy was published.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/member.php?u=47352

It does not bother me at all, but it seems curious that political party slogans - which do not in themselves breach guidelines have been over-zealously removed some may feel, when certain signature lines that clearly do breach simple guidelines appear immune.



Follow these rules when creating your signature:

Use the normal posting font size.

• Limit your signature to two lines.
  
• Text should comply with our regular posting rules. No all-caps, no alternating caps, etc.
  
• Do not make your signature too long or obtrusive through overly creative use of punctuation, color, etc.

Glen

Glen, excuse me here, but i think you are aware that the TalkBoard of which you are a member introduced these general guidelines for signatures and that they did not specifically say that political signatures should be excluded. While i understand you may have a personal opinion on this, and so may i, the facts are that the member-elected TalkBoard did introduce these guidelines and whether i agree or disagree, it doesn't matter, i'm fine to follow those guidelines.

I did not say that all Australian political signatures were removed. In this single situation, several were removed or asked to be removed because of what members themselves created - a signature wart - all trying to out do the other in size and other features of their signature which was brought to the Moderators attention and at that moment, they could not ignore them as they had created a disruption. As for others, really, do we want Moderators to be forcefully out there handing out signature penalties? Is it that serious of a crime on FT? Sure, at least three members on FT will point out that this is proof that Mods are not enforcing the TOS consistently. I will not stand to change the general operating policy of trying to assist members to one that is trying to penalize members.

Some of this will become rather moot as we move to a more automated signature policy program. News of that will be announced shortly in the TalkMail newsletter.

But it does seem we agree - don't like signatures from other members, turn them off.

Hope this clarifies any misunderstanding there might be.

i think we know our policies, thank you. And the permission would come from the Mods not the member. The member was on the receiving end of this. The point trying to be made here is that it is not that big a deal to ask or remove a signature that is in violation of an existing policy. Thank you.

Randy, just a technical point here but one which could have avoided this entire controversy.

When TalkBoard voted to re-instate signatures two years ago, it passed the following resolution: 'recommend that Randy bring back the signature lines...without specific topic prohibitions, but rather a strongly worded message to the membership that controversial or offensive signature lines will be removed at his discretion."

If you read through the debate on the private TB forum you will see that we specifically restricted this to be at your discretion because signatures appear throughout FlyerTalk and we wanted to avoid the conflict where a signature could be acceptable in one forum and removed from another.

During that debate, I posted the following (and no TB members at the time had any objection to what I said):

I still think this is the procedure which should be followed. If a moderator removes a signature it is much more likely to cause a flame up than if it was known that you, personally, removed it.

So it's a controversy now? And here I thought it was just an example of a member not fully aware of the guidelines for signature style. As for the technical point, actually other technical points come to mind as well - that the TalkBoard was asked to review and accept and provide input on the current TOS which contains those guidelines for signatures. You were a TalkBoard member during this period I believe so you would have been aware of the rules as they were.

As for the TalkBoard assigning me the responsibility "that controversial or offensive signature lines will be removed at his discretion" sort of reminds me of an upcoming Broadway play "Barney Fife, Signature Policeman." This laugh-a-minute play opens Wednesday at the Crying Shame Autotorium. Against an attractive backdrop of travel-related scenes, the courageous and often ridiculous Barney Fife, portrayed by the affable Randy Petersen, knocks down set furniture, goofs up his lines and revert to his non-acting self with disconcerting regularity as seeks to enforce a �controversy.�

It is immediately obvious that the story of Barney Fife and his mind-changing alteration from an affable and generous man to a bumbling police officer of sorts is not the purpose the playwrights had in mind. We must accept the play as a wild romp and suspend disbelief. Absurdities abound as the plot allows interaction between the character and members of FlyerTalk in the front row.

His basic prop is a seemingly simple TOS which always clues us to what the madcap rules are, even when it fails to spell out that Kevin 07� in billboard type size is hardly non-obtrusive.

Petersen stands out in his role and helps us to laugh heartily while wondering what on earth is happening. Some of Petersen�s funniest moments come when he reacts with irritation to the mistakes of others and reverts to being a Signature Policeman venting his annoyance.

�Barney Fife, Signature Policeman� gives audiences a unique perspective and a chuckle at the exposed life (both literally and figuratively) of a benevolent dictator that becomes a dysfunctional policeman by the end of the play. The comedy, written by Talk Board, takes place in a large forum in the virtual world of the Internet.

The time and effort put into the production is visible in the coordination of Barney�s numerous entries and exits. Complicating matters further, several members of FlyerTalk disguise, change and otherwise seek to hide their signatures as Barney bumbles around absent-mindedly seeking to standardize them. Later in the play when the members are faced with each other in the larger forum, they all discover that there are far more people in the forum than they had thought.

The last act brings the play full circle and leaves the production in shambles. Nothing is going right but the slap stick humor incorporated into the last two acts is more than entertaining. Though Randy in his role as Barney Fife might be putting on a play gone wrong, he nails his performance and keep the audience laughing.

The performance runs from now until Dec. 31.

Randy, I was, indeed, a member when the revision to the TOS was approved by TalkBoard -- but that does not mean that exceptional cases can not be handled in an exceptional manner, especially when TalkBoard has decided on that procedure.

Signatures are exceptional for the simple reason that they do not appear in one forum (or post) and thus become the responsibility of a particular forum's moderators. They require handling in a mannner which would be consistent throughout FlyerTalk.

I (and I imagine the other TB members who voted for this motion) believed that we were not handing the task over to Barney Fife but rather to Sheriff Andy Taylor. I still feel that way and have complete faith in your ability to keep Mayberry's streets safe from Signature Crime without having to either take your gun out from your safe or even tasering any of the locals.

Please give my best to Aunt Bea.

OK, perhaps this isn't the right thread to bring this up, but I was just editing my signature and I noticed the following error message:I am guessing that [SIZE] in the sigs was disabled as a direct result of the issue mentioned in post #2. However, I think disabling [SIZE] is not the correct action.

I agree that having a huge font in the sig is severely distracting and should be discouraged or perhaps disallowed. However, what about smaller fonts? That's what I'd like to use, but the current policy has apparently disallowed all use of the [SIZE] modifier.

Is there no way to simply limit the value of SIZE that is allowed in signatures, e.g. allowing a max size of 3 (the "regular" font size), but still allowing lower values? Many signatures are still rather intrusive and/or just visually unappealing in the regular font size, while they look perfectly good in a smaller size.

I can see the point of disallowing SIZE=5, but doing that through a blanket prohibition of the SIZE modifier is just the wrong action, IMHO. Small sizes should (perhaps must, if we are to maintain proper visual aesthetics) still be allowed.

What say you?

cepheid,

per Milepost #3 above:

Normal post font size is 2. I believe, per the new guidelines TBA shortly, sizes 1 and 2 will be allowed.

Stay tuned.

----------
essxjay
TS/S moderator

Thanks for the clarification. I looked in TalkMail and didn't see any mention of the signature issue, so I guess "shortly" wasn't quite as shortly as I'd imagined; I guess you can understand why I got worried, then.

Normal post font size appears to be 2.5, actually, and therefore not selectable... Size 3 is bigger, while size 2 is smaller. Making sizes 1 and 2 available is therefore the best solution, and I appreciate it.

I think my signature is smaller than the normal font. I needed it that way to get it all on one line.

But do you have to have it in bold and blue?