Possible rework for signature max length limit system

[clarinetJWD]

I've run into trouble on a few occasions with the max character limit on my signature. It's not that it's overly enormous, but with an image and link to my personal site, and image and link to Fight Club, and a link to relevant fight club threads, it can add up quickly.

I have two proposals. One of them is less work up front, but a bigger change to the limit. The other is harder to implement, but requires no implicit change.

Right now, the limit includes markup. This means that even though a link that says "Clicky" really only takes up 6 characters, it counts as 6 plus the url plus the tags. Images are even worse, because they have 2 urls, one for the link, and one to the image itself.

Proposal 1: Do not count any invisible text towards the length. If it isn't visible in the signature, why limit it?

Proposal 2: Implement automatic URL shortening with a script that calls bit.ly or similar on submitting changes or posts. My twitter client already does this, so I know there's an open API, which means it should be possible to add.