A right is a just claim to entitlement or the interest one has in a piece of property one possesses. A privilege is a right or immunity GRANTED as a special benefit, advantage, or favor by another. Rights are innate and privileges are not. If you own and operate a website, for instance, you have certain rights within the boundaries of its operation. You, as the owner, may also grant privileges to others to do things within those boundaries.
This said, Gilby has the RIGHT to do whatever he wants with his website. He owns it; it is his possession. As such he may chose to grant us PRIVILEGES to possess long signature lines, avatars, pictoral signatures or other features and he may choose to take those privileges away. The idea that members of these fora have the RIGHT to any of these benefits is patently absurd.
“When in the course of human events…” is the way one famous document begins that outlines innate rights. Another document that outlines innate rights is the Bill of Rights in the US constitution. Privileges are granted by governing bodies to their citizens. The privilege to drive an automobile by one of the states is an example of this.
The idea of a “right” to a long signature line or a pictorial signature or an avatar in these fora isn’t even arguable. The “rebellion” and “dissention” expressed in these related threads is pathetic, immature, and sophomoric. Let these threads die quick deaths with minimum embarrassment.
Let’s see if that’s true. I am a member of “everyone” in its usage here. I have not anywhere in my post suggested that you, TheObieOne3226, have claimed “rights” to anything. One of my claims is that some people have declared signatures of some form in these fora to be a right that has been taken away from them.
I read your posts (what text there was other than the excessive signature essay) before I made my initial post in this thread and all I saw was that you are protesting having pictorial signatures removed from the site and that long essays as signatures might even be worse. I saw no claim to a right to have such a signature line. Gilby has granted you the privilege to have an essay-like signature line AND has granted you the privilege to publicly protest his decision to remove pictorial signatures on his website. He has graciously granted these privileges, I will add, because that’s the kind of guy he is.
Your use of an excessively long signature line uses excessive bandwidth on the site and forces other members to wade through frivolous text unnecessarily each time you post. My other claim is that the rebellion and dissention expressed in these signature threads is pathetic, immature, and sophomoric. Where am I wrong and where have I wrongly accused you?
In text, incidentally, you get tired of explaining to “illiterate” idiots (myself, supposedly included) not “deaf” idiots. Wasting bandwidth is a bizarre way to “explain” something. Stating a protest to an action or starting a poll to gather support for your position is a rational way to do it.
Technically, the huge amount of text in Obie’s signature still takes way less bandwidth than a much smaller image would.
But that’s not the point. The point is that excessive signatures, or any form of “junk” in posts is annoying. You are being annoying on purpose. If you are trying to make a point, why not spell it out? That form of protest only gets you labeled as annoying. If you want something to change (or unchange) there are much more effective ways to do it.
We shouldn’t need to have a rule that says signatures should only be “x” lines long. People should just be more considerate that they are using a community site. It’s like a public place. Some people use public places just fine, while others pee on them. Your choice.
Not in the long term… his signature is 5.6K; his avatar is only 2.1K. Avatars and any signature images will also only be downloaded once before being cached; not so for the inline text of the signature which must be fetched repeatedly.
Of course this is all a bit moot because it’s having to scroll past two screens of rubbish for a single line post that gets me.
