© WhizGidget/AMS
Other Bloggers
...This is a little matter that's been bugging me for awhile, and I hope I don't offend anyone with it, but I'll even be taking a shot at myself while I'm at it. And I'm not pointing fingers at any individual either - I'm talking in general terms.
Personal advertising - anyone on a BB does it, right? With a carefully crafted profile, or a sigline that shows up with every post. It's all about *us*, right? After all, it's our personal signature that makes us stand out from the rest.
It's like vanity plates on a car - it's a nice thing to have, but it's not necessary for the operation of the vehicle. Any generic license plate would do. Or bumper stickers placed all over the rear of the car - you don't *have* to have so many of them, but you do, and they assault the eyesight of everyone who follows behind you with your opinions on things. I'm not saying that siglines are bad - just... not totally necessary.
That's why I always exercise NOT using them in all of my posts - I deselect that little checkbox before posting, except for Friday Confessions. Heck, you can make it an option to *not* post your sig as a default and then click the little checkbox to show your sigline when you feel like it.
I know in a perfect world that's what everyone would do, but this isn't a perfect world - and sig lines are personal - they're personal identification to the individual that has it, and everyone has different tastes in them.
Some of them are very simple - just a name and a quote.
Some are very well crafted, with a small graphic and the text gracefully flowing around it, or pleasingly stacked next to it.
Some of them are a little more elaborate - with a name, a graphic, a WIP list... (like mine below), while others are... well... HUGE with way too much information - maybe mine falls into that same category as well...
Proud Co-Founder of the Stashinites and the WhizTigs
On the Wagon Until Feb 2005!
| It's Ornament October! Current Wips: WhizGidget Wonders... in her blog! If they called them game shows (which they are) would reality shows still be around? | 2004 Finishes:MH Teddy Snow Charmer (1/8), Because Nice Matters (2/28),Queen Bumblebee (4/8), Blackwork Acorns (5/25), Butterfly Lace (5/26), California Ladybug (7/12), FutureCast (8/23) ...because nice *does* matter... | Cute, but psycho. *shrug* Things even out. Minds are for people who think... |
*looks around the room at all the people looking at her* I meant besides me.
Our sig lines are ours, but we inflict them (for lack of a better word) on everyone else that encounters them online. Folks show off a 'doll' or their kids, or their pets, or a carefully designed graphic of their name (I'm not pointing fingers at any one person, just using general examples). They advertise other websites, other BBs, blogs, and other little things that may be very important to each of us.
There are the out of date sig lines - the ones that still show projects in process that were 'happy danced' months earlier. Or ones that still refer to 2003 as a current year. There are animations of things that shouldn't be animated, and others that are just perfect.
Same goes for some 'dolls' - some are just perfect - not too big, too detailed, or in your face. And some sigs with quotes and updates - some are just right: right size of font, right amount of text - not overwhelming with information.
Some of them have WIP lists that go on and on... heck, mine's 12 WIPs long, but I condensed them into a pulldown box, and am thinking about doing the same with my finishes so that they're not so annoying to everyone. Just imagine what it would look like with all those WIPs spelled out, one by one!
The newest fad in sig lines seems to be the endless counters: for pregnancy, for birthdays, anniversaries, countdowns to vacations... I'm just waiting to see stacked ones in the same sig for two children's birthdays, the third child's due date, and the date for the husband's vasectomy. Oh, and the vacation that's surely to follow the vasectomy...
Someday will come the day that we have a sig that's not only vertically huge, but horizontally issue-bringing as well - so that you have to scroll waaaaay over to the right to see the ends of sentences that folks post because someone's sig line went too far over to the right because they enabled some creative HTML....
...I should be careful what I wish for, right? *thinks 'uh-oh' and wanders off before someone gets any bright idears*
