To those of DU who have multiple hyperactive GIFs in your sig line: WHY?

[japple]

Last edited Fri Mar 17, 2017, 05:22 PM - Edit history (2)

Why? These things a real irritant to those of us who have visual issues. Why do you feel the need to distract from discussing political issues? In isolation, they might be funny or an enhancement, but when there are several in one thread, or multiple ones in one post, I just go right on past them without reading the post because they create such a visual distraction for me. Is that your intention?

EDIT TO ADD THIS: For those of you who are unaware the flashing/strobing light can trigger epileptic seizures (and, in my case, ocular or ophthalmic migraines), here's a http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141730872 a current topic of discussion that might shed some light, so to speak (apologies for the pun.)

[royable]

1. One hundred recs! n/t

[teach1st]

2. I've turned off sig lines

As you point out, some are too distracting to me.

My Account >> Account Tab (first on left) >> User signature lines on posts >> Remove

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Well, dayum....been here forever and had no idea you could do that

for some reason I thought that only applied to your own sig line....

thank you.....now I don't have to turn Ad Blocker on for this site.

[Leith]

16. Thanks for Letting Me Know

The downside is that I won't be able to see Dixiegrrrrl's sig. It gives me a smile every time.

[littlemissmartypants]

18. I too, am delighted every time I see that sign line.

Bears repeating:

"Gonna Carpe the fuck out of this Diem" dixiegrrrrl

♡ lmsp

[PufPuf23]

20. The gifs are really distracting and tax my eyes. Thank you so much for this trick.

I think that some DUers are rude because those that include the gifs (or large images) in their sig lines have to know that it taxes poor internet connections and messes with some of us in other physical ways.

[LAS14]

3. I like them. Can you describe what sort of visual issues cause them to be difficult?

[japple]

21. I have ocular migraines. Bright light, flashing lights, or strobe effects can cause

flashing patterns in my eyes similar to pinwheels. Fortunately, I don't have migraine headaches, but some with ocular migraines do and these flashing images can result in headaches.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

22. I know exactly what you are talking about - I used to get those too. It's very weird to describe

to people. I never got the headache part either - but would feel generally lousy after. Fluorescent lights in department stores were a really bad trigger for me.

[LAS14]

29. Huh. Then you'd think the techies would come up with a way to disable such stuff.

Hopefully that's in the future.

Edit: Oh, I see from the next post that it's possible to turn off the signature lines. That seems like a good solution to me. It seems to address all sides of this issue. No?

[lunatica]

31. I've always described it as a spreading blind spot with fuzzy edges

But I only get them when I'm very stressed for a prolonged time. The first time I got them I thought I had an after image from loolking directly into a very bright light

[Ms. Toad]

33. Lots of motion

Last edited Fri Mar 17, 2017, 08:44 PM - Edit history (1)

The stupid phone video frame (where the right and left of the actual video is blurred version of the actual video).

Rotating images or waves are bad - especially ones designed as optical illusions.

(I had vertigo for 11 months. There were times during that period that I literally had to look out of the corner of my eye to locate the "X" to close out of a page that triggered my vertigo.)

[LAS14]

35. Wow! Thanks. Who knew? Not enough people, I guess. nt

[japple]

37. Yes, eye problems tend to happen in certain populations. My family has many.

Most of my father's siblings had retinal detachment. My bother and I both had it, too. I had 5 surgeries for re-attachment (retinopexy 3 x left eye and 2 x right eye.) That plus cataract/lens replacement surgery (which most people will have at some point) has created visual issues that most folks will never have.

My mother's family has a history of glaucoma. Fortunately, I don't have those symptoms. But my mother also had ophthalmic herpes which, coupled with glaucoma, caused loss of vision in one eye.

[johnp3907]

4. I turned off sig lines for this reason.

I remember one person had 5 or six animated gifs of the same person!

[Crunchy Frog]

5. I turned my sig lines off ages ago.

My computer is too old and cranky to load them properly. I think it improves the DU experience.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

23. how do you turn them off?

[Crunchy Frog]

25. Go to My Account-Preferences-User signature lines on posts. Select "Remove".

Last edited Fri Mar 17, 2017, 10:13 AM - Edit history (2)

[chillfactor]

27. Thank you....

I am so glad you posted how to remove the signature line.

[Crunchy Frog]

28. Sorry it was hard to read. I put arrows in but they didn't show up. Only just noticed it.

[CountAllVotes]

6. it does slow things down

I'm still using a 9 year old computer with Windows XP Pro on it and she's still going but is slowed greatly by ads/etc.

[Princess Turandot]

7. I use an animated gif blocker extension..

on chrome based browsers, I use this one:
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/gif-jam-animation-stopper/bclnijbemellankmoaafepibbboobalb

It works fairly well. The image is still there but it will be stopped on one of its frames. Although specifically on my chromebook (Google's chromium OS) a long DU thread page occasionally crashes the extension as it loads.. (I just relaunch the extension if that happens, which is easy to do on the chromebook.) I haven't had that problem on windows. I occasionally block a frequently appearing GIF altogether using an ad blocker. (On DU, I block the flashing 'hot post' icon that way, as well as the wandering flea.)

Eons ago, people who made gifs sometimes limited the repetition to a few cycles. The endless blinking distraction drives me nuts.

[MrScorpio]

8. In my avatar, because I'm MrScorpio, that's why.

[UTUSN]

9. Bwah-HAH!1 That's the second time you made me laugh today!1

[SticksnStones]

24. Hazaah!

[cwydro]

10. I turned off sig lines a while ago.

DU is more pleasant that way.

[sheshe2]

11. Disable your sig line. You can do that from your profile page.

[Mr.Bill]

12. I enjoy most of them. n/t

[True Dough]

19. You should consider this one...

[canetoad]

13. Agree

Don't need to see the same cute/witty/bombastic/annoying thing several hundred times over.

Some posters have even tried Sig by Stealth, pasting the same lines over and over at the bottom of their posts. Very annoying for those of us who wish to view DU sig-free.

[Denzil_DC]

14. I'm another who turned off sig lines because of them.

It's not that they annoyed me (though I certainly sympathize with your visual issues), but some of the bigger ones hosted on slow servers meant pages took far too long to load, so they had to go.

[keithbvadu2]

17. Some of them are too complicated for such small images.

[chillfactor]

26. I do not get headaches or anything from signature lines...

but they are very distracting and I just whiz by those posts.

[japple]

30. Many thanks to all who responded and esp. those who gave us the info about turning

off the sig line. I have done that and won't have those visual disturbances on DU again!!!

[lunatica]

32. The gnat flying around makes me crazy!

[Ms. Toad]

34. Thank you!

I don't have issues anymore, but I lived with vertigo for 11 months. For me, it is not just the signature GIFS - but any repetitive motion - particularly rotatinal, wave-like, or that creates the illusion that the stationary viewer is moving (like when you pull into a parking space and the car beside you starts moving just as you stop - or the frame on phone videos created from a blurred copy of the video being framed).

It's a real access issue. There were times I was barely able to close out of a web page because I couldn't tolerate looking at the page long enough to find the "X."

[NCTraveler]

36. I like many of them and don't have a problem.

It's nice the administrators thought of your concern.