Signature Rules
 

Signatures are a wonderful way to personalize your posts with a remark, quote, or saying that truly represents you or your current state of mind. I've always enjoyed the way our members express themselves with their signatures, but we have a few long-standing guidelines that I feel now need to be enforced.

Starting now (or very soon), signatures with political or religious statements or sentiments will incur the negative attention of myself. Those statements that I deem to belong to either category will result in a PM from me or my ever-vigilant moderators requesting, no, requiring, that the offending remarks be removed.

Political and religious opinions are freely discussed on almost every Tolkien forum out there, but not this one. We stick to Middle-earth. So, change your sigs now or I will be calling.

This is not an effort to censure opinions. It is a strategy to diffuse the situations that such potentially inflammatory remarks may create. No one comes to the Downs to talk about their deity or choice for political office, so I see no reason for us to share our opinions on those subjects here.

Thanks for your support.

religious statements or sentiments.
 

Would that include a statement actually made by Tolkien? Tolkien was, as we all know, very religious himself, and many would argue that it played a large role in the inspiration for the mythology. InklingElf has this as a signature;

Would that be benned?

slightly off to the side, but is the 3-line restriction still on?

Yes, it is, HI. I don't always notice all signatures that are longer than three lines, but when I do, I PM the members, asking them to reduce the length.

Would quotes from religious scripture or concerning religious scripture be allowed? There are a fair number of Downers who have Bible passages in their signatures - some just poetic ones. Would they not be allowed, even if they didn't specifically mention God?

There is nothing wrong with a moral message in a signature, but I'm not wanting to see any Jesuses, Allahs, Kerrys, or Bushes.

What about us canadians eh? but seriously, some people may take there ethical group very serious, but i myself will refrain from any religous sig, wait is Trogdor a religion?

Well quite a number of people recorded their religion as Jedi Knight in the 2001 UK census ... enought o register as a percentage - albeit a fractional one....
So maybe........

If you're wondering whether your sig would be against the rule, chances are it is (unless you're the cautious type, of course). Before worrying too much or trying to fight a battle for saving your sig, why not try to come up with a new sig that is definitely ok?
If you feel you can't part with your sig, or are really concerned about such things, try to message one of the admins, I'd say that's better than asking on this thread.

Just don't think of this as a big deal; it certainly isn't. :cool:

Oh, and that Jedi thing is an urban legend .

I didn't even know that you were allowed to edit your sig to longer than three lines...

If a member has a question/concern about his/her signature (whether current or prospective) after reading the guidelines and giving it considerable thought, the best thing to do is to private message an administrator. This thread is just a reannouncement of the guidelines - not a thread for the discussion of individual cases or general what-if's that the interrogator will never encounter personally.

Edit: Mm, yeah. What Sharku said. :cool:

Monsieur, does that also mean that I can't wear my headscarf at the computer anymore?

:D

Seriously, I think this new rule might save us from a lot of off-topic head-bashi...discussions. Especially this fall.

Exception: Lush may wear her headscarf..... ONLY her headscarf.

Just came up with a nice signature idea:

That was kidding. If seriously, don't count the above cynical. I just want to make a point, that, if properly chosen and properly read, religious signature can underline our unity, not stress the differences between us.

cheers

Ah... I haven't been here for a long, long time. My how things have changed... in appearance at least. Will scrub the siggy if it is offensive then... can we link to political sites or webgames though?

It also seemed like there was a lot more people here last time I came here.

In light of recent events ...
 

... it's probably worth *bumping* this up.