Our users are clamoring for signatures. It’s the one thing that has become the most consistent issue brought up so far. We cannot just ignore our audience, so I wanted to see what could be done.
While I understand the drawback of them, if there were an option that they were off by default, and users had the option to turn them on, I don’t see what the harm could be.
I hope that this is taken into consideration.
You are going to want to go into more detail than that.
One point of confusion:
So users can turn whether they see them on or off? Or they can enable/disable their own signature?
Also, if you can mockup screenshots of where you think these settings should exist, how the signature should be shown on a post, how the signature gets entered, etc. That would go a long way.
Will migrate to Discourse soon, I am curious to find out how much they will miss them 
Thanks. Will try to draft something more visual.
User Signature (in preferences)
Show user signatures at the bottom of messages
User signature (image) *Similar to the selection for User Card Background
Signature images will be shown below all messages, a max width of Xpx and max height of 200px
User signature (text)
[ ]
You need
I don’t think this should be on core, but a somewhat complex plugin.
This is a topic on our community showcasing the signatures (firmas) made by another user for many of the members.
http://www.helloforos.com/t/varias-firmas-que-marta-nos-hizo/8625/31
As far as appearance, I’m not really sure it has to be anything special. The idea is just that for users who have signatures actively being displayed, it would appear as if a user had posted a message at the bottom of their topic.
One thing to keep in mind is that they are often animated GIFs, so we would not want the system to automatically import as PNGs and resize them.
Yeah, I’ve edited the post, the validation should probably be customized by admin.
OTOH, that will be complex as hell.
Thx @falco for typing the requirements. I’m going to make some adjustments…
Priority 1
an image upload (or URL field) to place a single image (.png, .jpg or .gif). Max file size and dimensions to be checked.
a site wide option to enable this text area and signatures in general
a per user option on profile to see signatures below posts.
Priority 2
a text area on user profile that accepts and compiles the same markdown of posts. Max characters and no images allowed.
This may seem like a low important feature, BUT, the alternative is that users manually place these animated GIFs in the body of their messages, meaning that more users have to see these images that actually don’t want to. They start embedding links to external images that get placed in our messages.
By creating this feature, we end up keeping our message content much cleaner and creating a distinction between message and signature.
“We are the essence of what we DO! The part we each play in the cosmos. Doing good deeds for others is leaving our signature on the world.” ― Angie Karan
That would be waaaaaaaaaay better handled on signature save. Think of the data-caped users! They may want signatures while @ home and let the option turned on, but when on mobile I have lost my datacap to a single page filled with gifs.
You can either find a size that is good enough for both (200kb maybe?) or remove all on mobile version.
Just didn’t know how easy it was to resize animated GIFs. We could ask the users to responsible for file size cap.
I think users would understand if we only made the option available for desktop. Or again made the option dual…
Display user signatures
Desktop
Mobile
Again, I want to remind people when looking at this feature not to just think about the users who are asking for it, but the users who don’t want to be forced to see it by users placing signatures manually in their posts.
“We are the essence of what we DO! The part we each play in the cosmos. Doing good deeds for others is leaving our signature on the world.” ― Angie Karan
We had a number of users ask for these until we pointed out the User Cards.
Signatures are pretty disruptive to the overall process of reading and participating in forums, so I was really glad that profile cards sufficed for our group.
As @sam once put it:
Plugin seems like the right place for this, I would be quite disheartened if core development time was spent on something like Signatures.
Is there a place to find developers who can develop Discourse plugins? 
@sam. I respect your thoughts on this. I just want you to keep in mind that our audience is very passionate about this. Meaning they will insert their signatures (animated GIFs) manually in the meantime. So, by not putting the signature in a separate field where it can be handled properly, we are forcing the rest of our community to see them.
“We are the essence of what we DO! The part we each play in the cosmos. Doing good deeds for others is leaving our signature on the world.” ― Angie Karan
This would be a very cool plugin to make, but I not 100% I can handle it alone. 
@eviltrout we have a outlet inside the post that we can use to achieve signatures?
Sure, I can add that. Where would you want it to be?
Other than the one that’s already in post.hbs?
</article>
{{post-gap post=this postStream=controller.model.postStream before="false"}}
{{plugin-outlet "post-bottom"}}
I agree. I think signatures are old-fashioned, just create clutter and don’t contribute to a conversation in any way. If someone says something interesting, I’ll view their card or click through to their profile to find out more about them.
I’m glad Discourse doesn’t have signatures.
@holden, if users started manually pasting signatures in their posts, wouldn’t you want the ability to turn those off? By not having a signature field, users in our community are looking to start pasting them into the body of their messages. My suggestion is to make displaying the signatures a user preference (default to not display)
“We are the essence of what we DO! The part we each play in the cosmos. Doing good deeds for others is leaving our signature on the world.” ― Angie Karan
I think the one we have right now is good to show ads but for sigs it’s kinda strange for then to be after the post controls.
What about after the .cooked and before the .post-menu-area ?