Links In Signatures

[kgroneman]

There have been way too many spammers coming to the forums and posting messages just to have a spam link in their signatures. The problem is that allowing bbcode allows URLs to be parsed as links. As a test, we've turned bbcode off for signatures. This may or may not be permanent depending on the reaction of the community here. It would let us stop a lot of spammers.

[caf4926]

This seems like a plan to me, I just sorted another one of those this evening.

[swerdna]

Originally Posted by kgroneman

There have been way too many spammers coming to the forums and posting messages just to have a spam link in their signatures. The problem is that allowing bbcode allows URLs to be parsed as links. As a test, we've turned bbcode off for signatures. This may or may not be permanent depending on the reaction of the community here. It would let us stop a lot of spammers.

I've got two points:

1. I recall a long-ish discussion of signatures and their content (before the three-board merger). About links, images, text quantity, size and so on. It was decided IIRC that we would give latitude where practical (for sake of not restricting freedoms). And so we determined the current arrangement. It took us quite some energy to agree on the configurations so I don't think you should unilaterally alter them (and I say this in the nicest possible way).
2. I don't think spammers will lose much from not being able to spam their sigs because they can still spam in their posts. Would it be more useful to prevent links in sigs until a new member had made xyz number of posts?

If you see great merit in preventing links in sigs, then maybe we should trial it, but I would like to have a discussion of the mods first.

[kgroneman]

I *think* I have it sorted now. Users have to be registered for a certain period of time AND they have to have a certain number of posts before they are granted rights to use links and formatting in signatures.

[swerdna]

Originally Posted by kgroneman

I *think* I have it sorted now. Users have to be registered for a certain period of time AND they have to have a certain number of posts before they are granted rights to use links and formatting in signatures.

That nicely accommodates my concerns.