I am definitely in the 35% of “no sigs allowed.” I would expect the comment sections to start looking like some forums do where somebody makes a single sentence post, but their auto-sig is 800 pixels high. I have stopped visiting certain forums simply for that reason alone.

“Darren (http://www.problogger.net/) Says:”

The way I wrote it originally suggested that you’d have some way of diving the site name. Rather, just put the raw url in parentheses. This makes it painfully clear that it’s a link, and it totally takes away that excuse for including a signature. And I say this as someone who used to include a link-sig in my comments.

cheers, nickel

“Darren (ProBlogger.net) Says:”

(or something like that)

That way people who complain that it’s not clear that commenter names are links won’t have a leg to stand on. Short of that, I’ve just started using my sitename as my name when I comment. I think that using ‘fivecentnickel.com’ instead of ‘nickel’ makes it more clear that it’s a link.

On an unrelated note, you really should uncapitalize the word ‘Says’ in your comment template.

cheers, nickel

p.s. Darren, I love the new Weekly Newsletter subscription positioning! Maybe consider adding a subscribe via email plugin for posts and comments people post on too.

But the point is we should be putting our readers first and signatures make it easier for them to find out more about a subject and other blogs that might be of interest to them.

Just because a blog is personal publishing platform it doesn’t mean it’s all about you. Always put your readers first.

In the future, I might be a little more reluctant to put signatures on my posts in the future, because I didn’t realize that a lot of people associate them with comment spam. Why alienate people needlessly.

On a side note related to signatures, what do you think about BA codes people place at the end of their post for traffic credits? Should they restrict those to only those sites they read while using Blogadvance? The administrators of that site say they keep an eye out to prevent comment spam, such as comments that only say “great site,” and will suspend users who engage in that kind of commenting.

As Bill The Cat would say, ” pppp-hhhhhh-lllll-fffffff-ttttt ! ”

Kiddin’, of course ;-)

Thanks for publishing the results, Darren.

Although they don’t bother me, YET, I don’t believe you have to put up with them. It’s still your store, I mean blog, and you can run it as you see fit.

If they get out of hand, like Paul ;-), put some parameters on them.

Otherwise, let’s hope this doesn’t open a wound we can’t close. I HATE those.

I don’t need the hits, but you never know who might stop by, read what I have to say, and become a regular.

So I’ll have the website box filled in, but you won’t ever see me using a signature.

I’ve had people use signatures on my blog, and it’s rare that they aren’t thinly veiled attempts at comment spam.

And speaking of comment spam, you still haven’t tried Bad Behaviour, have you? :)

I’m all for networking but I can easily see “me too” comments flooding in just to get the sig views. It could easily devalue the effectiveness of comments. I read most comments here beacuse I know that 99% of them add to the topic. With sigs, people might start getting lazy and off-topic.

Why would people be worried about publicly disagreeing with you Darren? You’re not that big ugly monster that will bite anyone with differing views … or are you ;-)

I think I’ll still stick to no sigs in my comments – I believe the vast majority know where the link is.

Also, Darren, you didn’t answer my question (at the original post) on your views about having my blog name after my name in the name field: ie Martin (HomeOfficeVoice).

Would like to know your view on this tactic (it’s obviously a little branding tactic).

Here’s my sig:

Paul Short – Blogger
Comment Spam Sucks!

I am still not keen about the “user name” being the link to my blog/site etc.