Important message-Banners

[Witfull]

Signature Banners

In a continuing effort to improve RS, we have unfortunately found a small problem. I know many of us love Signature banners, including our own RS banners, but they are causing an issue...including:

1) Pulling banners from other sites causing slower page loads

2) Banners hosted here draining resources

3) Clutter on the page taking away from the content

1-Recently I have noticed slow page loading on pages, at first I thought it was from photos having to load, but many of the threads had no attachments or IMG tags. One thing they all had in common were banners. One thing that in this age of broadband is speed, those with it will notice slowness and (speaking for myself here) hate slow loading. Many users still use dial-up and this slowness must be multiplied exponentially with the # of banners per thread. We must try to remain friendly to all users.

2-Banners are causing a bandwidth issue, each one takes its piece, not only for us but the site that is hosting them. Also if the hosting site is slow, that compounds the issue. another related issue, our own RS banners, when each one is loaded, we basically steal our own bandwidth. This in turn costs us $$ to advertise ourselves here. I personally would rather see beautiful pictures of tanks or ID pics to help someone, I hope you can understand.

3-This is a minor thing, but figured id add it. when scrolling down a page reading, sometimes I get distracted because my eyes get drawn to the banner, knowing ive seen it over and over, I still look. maybe its just me~

So, to get to the gist of this thread, signature banners on RS are going to be eliminated. Users are free to post hotlinks to places in their signature but no banner will appear. I apologise for this, but it's one of those neccesary steps that comes with growth. I wanted to let everyone know in advance so that there is no wondering as to what happened to their sig.

I would like to hear your thoughts or concerns on this. You may post here or PM me, whichever you prefer. The overall experience for you, our members, is our primary concern.

Sponsors will still be allowed banners as part of the sponsorship package

[BoomerD]

OK, I removed my Reef-Visions banner to comply.

[Barcochris]

wit I think that is a great idea. Why do we want to sell ourselves to the people who are already here

[Woodstock]

Aye Aye Captian Witfull~

[Rougiem]

Sounds fine and reasonable to me Witty....Good Point Barcochris...

[Gina]

It's ok with me. I hate slow loading pages also.

[XBwlr]

Originally Posted by BoomerD

OK, I removed my Reef-Visions banner to comply.

Ditto.

[Travis]

One point to clarify- you guys can still add text links there in your sigs if you like...


Travis

[coraldynamics]

Assuming this would affect sponsors as well, done- and a good idea!

[XBwlr]

coraldynamics, you're allowed to have them.

Originally Posted by Witfull

Sponsors will still be allowed banners as part of the sponsorship package

[coraldynamics]

Originally Posted by Bwlr

coraldynamics, you're allowed to have them.

So us sponsors are going to be the ones that bring the site to it's knees and get all the blame huh? I see where this is going!

[oldsaint]

Is this better?

[Travis]

That's perfectly fine Oldsaint.

Steve (CoralDynamics), the number of posts made by sponsors in a day is about 1% of those made by the rest of us. So no worries!

[Frankie]

hmmm. I never had a banner but i find them helpful in my quest for knowledge. Its the silly ones that dont have links that i find to be pesty

[BigAl07]

*Drags an OLD thread up*

For the life of me I can't find this answer here.. not sure if it's My terminology or if it's my search skills...

What I'm trying to locate and experiment with is the small sign that goes into your signature that tells some things about your tank... it's like a "Banner" but it's NOT a banner. Or maybe it is.

what IS this called?

Is it available?

Does it hurt?

*LOL*

Allen