re: the images in siggies, what is 1/4th of the screen size on one monitor can be more or less on another's monitor. It is also possible to make a small image that is still huge in size in terms of bytes. Why not say your signature cannot be over x pixels wide and y pixels high and x bytes in size?
re: the personal blogs. Well...that one makes no sense. It takes away from the sense of community, and it punishes those who have blogs without ads on them. Talk about adults--the entire group being punished for the actions of a few should have stopped in high school.
But whatever. Rules are rules.
Regarding the blogs I have the following solutions:
1. You have your blog here. This is convenient but your blog is not public so if you want to share it with people that are not members of this site, then you cannot. Although this is a good solution it restricts members a lot.
2. If you want to reference/quote some content you have in your blog you can copy it and paste it here. Since you are the author there is no copyright infringement.
Both the above are within the rules but admittedly they are restrictive towards the members. This community is all about information and choice and we do not want to remove the choice that our members have.
Yes it is not fair for those that have blogs without ads but how do you suggest we go about it? We cannot possibly check every blog can we?
I think we will get to the bottom of this soon enough. Our rules have always been there but you will admit we have been very relaxed about it. Lately though we have seen such an abuse towards the signatures that we had to do something.
I am investigating the option of offering more user friendly blogs and galleries to our members so that the LHCF can be a one stop shop for everyone. If your blog is nice and customizable plus public then it might be a good option for some.