I would appreciate if the admin turned on BBCode in signatures.
Thanks in advance.
Hello, Gikgik, and thanks for your note. Here’s some insight on the policy:
BBCode for forum signatures is problematic; there are good reasons why it’s intentionally unavailable. It allows active hyperlinks in sigs, which are almost always used by spammer accounts (we’ve been getting A LOT of spammers trying that attack vector). I am not enthusiastic about doing anything which allows spammers to craft a more attractive payload.
Hyperlinks can also be abused far too easily by forum members who wish to advertise some commerical item for sale. Positech is not a clearinghouse for steering buyers to other products.
Also, too many game players on sites across the web seem to have zero restraint about not dumping absurdly large banners, badges, or crazy animated content in their forum signatures, which is distracting as well as annoying when one is attempting to follow a thread’s flow of conversation. That also increases the vertical whitespace of the page, but to no useful gain; yes, it’s entertaining for the person who created the signature, but it’s unnecessary and requires much more vertical scrolling while trying to read a conversation. That harms the readability of a page for anyone trying to use it.
Positech prides itself on the quality of the discourse that this site offers – BBCode in signatures is not necessarily a positive innovation for our webforum. I don’t think it’s likely that this policy will change.
There are many other ways to guard against spam bots. Another forum I go to requires the first post of every user to be approved by an admin.
There are also many positive reasons for BBCode to be turned on, but I can see you have your reasons, and I understand their intent, though personally, I don’t see the problem with a fellow indie developer advertising their company via their sig.