Images and netiquette

Not wanting to be a whinging old windbag but...

I can't help but notice the amount of redundant images on the forums.

Now I appreciate the importance of images to this hobby - it after all a primarily visual one - and I as much as anyone else enjoy seeing people post their models and would whole-heartedly encourage them to do so.

I also love the Group Build icons that people proudly display like badges of honour, and the image links that many post to their own clubs, interest groups etc.

However, there is also the issue of "signature" images that get included every time someone posts. Many of these are the aforementioned GB and SIG icons, fine, almost all are small GIFs and JPGs. But there are many, of whatever nature, that are HUGE! Several hundred KB! Often tagged onto a message of a few bytes like "wow! that looks great!".

Maybe we're spoiled by broadband, and fooled by the forum software that shrinks images so they look small but retain their filesize for when they are blown up. But when irrelevant sig images suck bandwidth and crowd out someone's pics of their lovingly crafted model in their own threads, I just think it's a bit, well... rude.

So I suppose my request would be, for fellow posters to be more considerate when designing their sigs.

Thanks,

U-96

/rant