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Propose banning non-standard / raw signatures.

I would like to see the funcionality to customise signatures in any way banned (yes, I realise my own sig is currently customised, this has no bearing on this discussion). I would like to see all signatures as just a standard-formatted link to the user's page. I don't think user's should be able to edit this at all, by changing colours, adding other links, swapping in a name other than their username, nothing. Non-standard signatures are confusing, often garish, with indecipherahle single-character links to separate pages, all sorts. But my main beef with them is that signatures (and user pages too) and becoming increasingly more "myspace.com" than anything and detracting from wikipedia as a serious scholarly enterprise. I would like to start a big discussion on this. Are there any arguments whatsoever for allowing customised signatures? - PocklingtonDan 19:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

This proposal is fine with me. It certainly cuts to the heart of the issue and avoids protracted discussions about where to draw various lines on acceptability. We are here after all to write an encycplopedia, and the custom sigs do seem like they are more of a distraction than a benefit at this point. —Doug Bell talk 19:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I find a link directly to the user talk page to be usefull, add that to the default signature and we would be set as far as I'm concerned. I'd support this, but only if it was implemented on a technical level, otherwise it would cause 10 times more red tape and drama than the removal of some flashy signatures are worth. --Sherool (talk) 19:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
I actully do not mind custom sigs but what I really dislike are the ones with backgrounds and a different color for each letter. That is distracting, also sigs with wiki links that take you out of the users userspace is annoying and is very confusing to newcomers. — Seadog 19:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Sounds like instruction creep to me. We already have admonitions against overly embellished or disruptive signatures; most people, I feel, either know where the line is or are willing to back off with their sigs if questioned. Signatures shouldn't show up in articlespace anyway, so they shouldn't affect the encyclopedia's scholarly appearance much. This, by the way, is coming from someone without a customized sig. Crystallina 19:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Um how is cutting away most of this guideline and just say "No custum signatures. Period. Full stop." amount to instruction creep? I'd say it's more like the polar opposite of instruction creep. It just doesn't get any simpler than that. --Sherool (talk) 19:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to clarify I am proposing this as being implemented at a technical level, so there is no longer any ability to customise a signature. We would agree on a standard template for signature (probably something simple, useful and uncontroversial like "USERNAME (TALK) - TIMESTAMP") and that's all that happens ever for anyone when they sign a post, with no option in preferences to have anything else. As pointed out, this is the opposite of instruction creep, it simplifies everything for everyone and gets rid of a feature that doesn't really add anything to wikipedia. This would be trivial to implement for the coding teamt oo. - PocklingtonDan 19:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I highly doubt a complete ban on custom signatures will ever get implemented. There are too many useful exceptions and there will be too much dissent. The question, then, would be to figure out where to draw the line. The problem with this is that everyone has a different idea of where this line should be. You could either use a common-sense approach or you could meticulously lay out guidelines - X is disruptive, T isn't, Z is disruptive but only if X and Y are also included. The latter would be problematic and it is what I was referring to. Crystallina 20:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Sorry if I came across that way. — Seadog 20:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Wasn't referring to you, or anyone in particular, don't worry. Sorry if my comment gave you the impression that I was. Crystallina 20:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see this as likely to be implemented, nor necessary. While over-formatting is obnoxious, it's only rarely actually disruptive. Sigs aren't in articles, so it's not like they're hurting the readers any. Additionally, anything particularly harmful (like putting a category in your sig, or using it to canvass AfD votes) would be easily dealt with on a case by case basis. --tjstrf talk 21:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Letting people put little pictures of daisies in their signature or external links to their favourite death metal band isn't really disruptive either, but the point is that these things (as with signature customization) don't add anything either, I don't see their worth and as you point out yourself a lot are obonxious. Others mention "useful exceptions" to a standardised signature, but no-one has listed an example. A signature is a note on who placed the edit and when, that is its sole goal. Anything else is irrelevant. Crystallina mentions "dissent" but I don't think the issue of support or lack of it for this measure is actually relevant either - wikipedia isn't really a democracy and the fact that lots of people might want custom signatures doesn't really argue for their use. I'd rather have a discussion here than some form of vote, which is after all the general operating principle of wikipedia. At the risk of labouring the point, what if any benefits are there of having this hideous array of customisable signatures? What are the "useful exceptions" where a custom signature would be of genuine use? Getting rid of custom signatures would:
  • Stop chasing over individuals breaking rules
  • stop need for maintenance of elaborate set of rules over what was allowed
  • reduce serverload by not having to look up signature preference
  • reduce clutter
  • increase readability of discussions
  • make image of discussion pages more scholarly and less like myspace.com
What reasons are there for keeping them? - PocklingtonDan 21:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Re: dissent - Wikipedia, although not a democracy, works by building consensus. If there are several reasonable objections, there isn't really consensus. I'm not asking for a vote nor am I voting. I'm merely stating my opinion on this proposal.
Little pictures of daisies and external links to death metal or other bands are already covered in the text as written (images and external links are both frowned upon already). There are plenty of useful exceptions to a standardized signature: talk page, user contributions, link to a user's email, etc. I'm pulling all of these from users' signatures from the archive of this talk page. There are probably more. Some people may find it useful for people to save a few clicks by offering a small, inconspicuous link to contribs or email in their signature. Their argument would be that it facilitates communication and makes it easier for newer users to locate talk pages, etc.
Out of all the customized signatures I've seen, I've run across maybe a handful that I felt were disruptive enough to decrease readability or make Wikipedia look like Myspace. I don't find that this amount of incidents merits a complete removal of the custom signature feature. Crystallina 22:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Heavily customised sigs do give me a belly ache, but I don't think campaigning for complete change is feasible right now, considering how many people do have colourful signatures. It would be nice if we could limit the links in the signatures to the user page and the user talk page, perhaps the users' contributions as well. No external links, no links to any space outside userspace. Canvassing votes in sigs should definitely be stopped. But setting out hard and fast guidelines is a bit like instruction creep. riana_dzasta 01:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

As you say, ruling out more and more new things people add to their sigs equals instruction creep, and patrolligng them all leads to unnecessary admin work. The more things that are explicitly ruled against, the closer you approach an equivalence with not allowing custom signatures in any case. It just seems to me this is something wikipedia should just bite the bullet and do. - PocklingtonDan 08:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
You all seem to pass lightly on "sigs don't help, and we are here to write an encyclopedia". Well, people, no. Sigs do help. They help in many things:
  • Chiefly to make the editor feel human even in an artificial environment such as WP. I find this highly productive towards "writing an encyclopedia".
  • To distinguish someone's comment within a lengthy debate.
  • To help in spotting double votes
Just go ahead and check WP:RfA, which is one of the most serious processes here in WP that involve polls/signatures. From a quick look, I would say that not more than 5% of the voters have normal sigs. I find all these efforts WP:CREEP and agree to Crystallina. NikoSilver 02:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I do however agree with that, There are just way to many users who don't use the normal sig. — Seadog 02:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I find it useful when people put contributions links in their signatures (it makes it much easier to figure out what they're talking about when they don't give context, which happens quite a lot at the Help Desk). If there is to be a mandatory signature (which I don't think would be a good thing, although I'd comply with the rule if it gained consensus), it should probably have a contribs link too, more or less like {{user}}. (If you do want to ban complicated sigs, it'll need to be done on a policy as well as a technical level; it would be pretty easy to write a user script that expanded ~~~~ to anything at all upon saving a page, before the software even saw what was being submitted.) --ais523 15:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree the sig like a user template might not be a bad idea, but I do not see why a link to their contribs is needed since they can be found on the user page in the toolbox, but it is just an opinion. — Seadog 20:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
I don't see the need for a prohibition. Like ais523 says, you'd end up with more users "violating" the policy by writing templates, javascript, or the like, and for what great purpose? The current policy works most of the time, and the egregious cases aren't going to respond to a more stringent policy in any case, so what have you gained? A bunch of angry users/editors who can't personalize their links. When you've got a volunteer effort like this, there's a fine line between self-expression and professionalism. -- nae'blis 20:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
No. Just... no. This would get messed up and a lot of server resources would be wasted. Anyways, I used a signature template once, and guess what everyone said. "No, don't use a signature template, WP:SIG says..." etc. So, no. ♥ Fredil 22:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC) P.S. I really don't like to use Fredil Yupigo on any talk page. ♥ Fredil 22:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I like this idea, even though it would reduce me to being nearly Cyde. The amount of over-formatting we're seeing is getting quite ridiculous. Or I would definitely support some hard-coded limitations on sigs, e.g. setting a maximum length, the kind of tags that can be used, etc. --Cyde Weys 00:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I still feel that one's signature (btw check definition), is the depiction of one's personality, and therefore every extreme attempt to limit it constitutes a violation of the rights to free expression and self-identification. Signatures actually help in spotting ones comments in lengthy debates, and -most importantly- make us all feel human, rather than article-writing robots. I'll try to make a list of the points below. Please comment:

Argumentation on formatted signatures

I have an answer to all arguments in 'Against':

  1. Hit <enter> in-between comments and encourage short sigs (e.g. mine: --NS) in long bulletted lists (like e.g. here).
  2. Hah, I actually think it has come to be the opposite!
  3. Never happened to me, helps me spot them.
  4. Never seen that due to a sig (or anything for that matter) in both ie6 and FireFox.

Can I please have some comments from those contesting the arguments in 'For'? Are there any more arguments? NikoSilver 17:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I've added one reason to each column. --ais523 11:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
My comments on some of the for arguments: 1 and 2 are irrelevant, Wikipedia is not a tool for self expression or a entertainment site, I fail to see how adding tonnes of formating to your signature will make you more productive. If you have trouble finding your comments hit F3 (or Ctrl + F or whatever) and search for your name. If anyting custum sigs make it harder to spot double votes as people can just change it and sign again. How exactly does custum sigs confuse vandals? If your sig is misleading it will confuse everyone else too, and why do you need to link to all your subpages every time you sign a page, that's just spamming. --Sherool (talk) 18:07, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Look, Sherool. This whole debate is subjective. There are things you will not understand in the For position, as there are things I don't understand in the Against position. Let's assume that each side speaks for itself, and then we see how we sort it out. To give you an example, I personally don't understand how the code annoys some people in the edit window coz I have the ability to filter it out instantly with my brain. I do respect others though when they say they have trouble with it.

Same with the colors. I like seeing people being people like in real life (wearing clothes) and signing with different colors, and I find it practical in certain occasions (spotting comments etc coz I hate ctrl+F since I want to be able to look both above and below what I'm searching for, while ctrl-F highlights just the bottom word on your scrolling screen -which is largely irrelevant as a talk altogether, so let's both drop it). I also don't understand why some people dislike them, but then again, I respect that too.

Same I understand people who want links, or people who argue they clutter. Same I understand that a vandal will also have to modify a sig to impersonate you (and that many will). Same I understand that spamming your talkpage/contribs links is as bad as spamming your userpage (so don't sign at all?) :-) I also understand the ones who find this helpful in accessing those links.

Same (and most important of all) I understand users when they say that they contribute better because they don't feel deprived of their fundamental human rights of self-identification and diversification. Who don't feel like article-writing-workers of the Outer Party, and who can crack a smile once in a while with certain perceptive sigs. I find this euphoria very inspiring, and very productive. And I expect you from your side to please respect that too. NikoSilver 01:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

E9

And for Number 6... Why should we care about Bots?
E9 | TALK | ROCKER!! | ROCKAB00M | TALK

-- Though I am getting very scared looking at mine... How did I make all that? There is a solution to all that though: They could leave {{template links}} in. Then mine would say {{User:E9/Template:Signature}} instead of all that virtually uneditable stuff. Despite the fact that my signature is on this page, I will proceed to add three tildes on the next line: ~~~

E9 | TALK | ROCKER!! | ROCKAB00M | TALK

Reducing signature length

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Reduce the size limit for sigs? for the most recent raising of this issue, and vote for Bug 8458 if you have a bugzilla account. —Quiddity 22:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice signatures

I think we should have galleries for nice signatures. I'm the only person I know who puts any effort into theirs.

E9 | TALK | ROCKER!! | ROCKAB00M | TALK
No -- just no. That monster violate pretty much all the points of the guideline as it is. Please tone it down a few dozen notches ASAP. As a bare minimum you need to get rid of all the linebreaks, tables and div tags, that thing will cause a royal mess in a debate that have acumulated a few levels of indentation. --Sherool (talk) 18:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
That is quite possibly the most horrible thing I've ever seen on Wikipedia. True, there are probably worse out there (feel free to drop me a link to the worst thing you've ever seen on Wikipedia on my talk page), but for now, I'm going to have to go with "E9 / Rockaboom's crenellated signatures" for the win, Alex. --Snicker|¥°€| 15:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
No, no, no. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a place where we have sig collections of the best sigs...as this would take away from the encyclopedia. Also you shouldn't be working on your sig too much and please lighten up on the coding, please read WP:SIG as your sig takes up most of the edit box! — Arjun 15:22, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
It's very distracting and it burns my eyes. Please remove the long signature.++aviper2k7++ 02:13, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with all above. ~Crazytales 22:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
If there was a page for nice signatures, that one wouldn't be on it. That is possibly the most garish, ugly, unreadable signature I've seen, although there have been a lot of contenders for "the worst signature" award. —Doug Bell talk 22:31, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Obviously you didn't put enough effort into yours to compress the unneeded code. Your coding has 980 characters. I can cut it down to 451. In my humble opinion, that's... bad coding on your part :( So much for unintentional (?) WP:POINT violations. A sig of that length may be forbidden in the future. Sorry.

Just for the record, I cut it down to

{|cellspacing="0" style="background:red;font-size:8pt;margin:1px;border:dashed red 5px;line-height:1.25em;color:#FFF;padding-right:8px"
|[[User:E9|E9]] | [[User Talk:E9|TALK]] <span style="word-spacing:-1px;"><font color="#90EE90">|</font> R<font color="#DDD">O</font><font color="#BBB">C</font><font color="#999">K</font><font color="#777">E</font><font color="#555">R</font>!! |</span> [[User:ROCKAB00M|ROCKAB00M]] | [[User Talk:ROCKAB00M|TALK]]
|}

The line-break problem still exists; for that, you would need to use a span. Please study this code, and see http://www.w3schools.com/css/ if you need help. I hope that you will choose to go with something more conventional, and less hard on one's eyes (less noise on the both the page and into the edit box), like mine (152 characters). I would appreciate *so* much if you don't use a background for your whole sig, and read Color theory. Thank you! GracenotesT § 01:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

As for bad signatures... I found one even further outside this guideline added to my talk page ages ago (see this diff). Not only is it 17 paragraphs long, it contains div markup, template parameters, fair-use images, and CSS floats. --ais523 17:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, it is long, but I've still got to go with Rockaboom's. His is eye-burningly painful, whereas David's (from your talk page) is just a bunch of userboxes. Thanks for the heads-up, though, David's is still ouchy on the Wiki-servers. --Snicker|¥°€| 18:50, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

See a Gallery of the most extreme signatures. Making it almost competitive to have the most eye-catching (and hence annoying) sigs possible. --Quiddity 18:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I think your signature is completely weird, and that It has too much in it. Hey guys, what about my signature? ♥Smartie960♥ (Chatter Box) 22:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)


Reducing signature length

See Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Reduce the size limit for sigs?] for the most recent raising of this issue, and vote for Bug 8458 if you have a bugzilla account. —Quiddity 22:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Since signing posts is a guideline, why not make it automatic with submit button

where the signature is defined in preferences?Lakinekaki 10:59, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Just under your email address, two boxes below your internal user ID number. --ais523 18:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
As for the question in the section heading, because the software can't figure out what needs signing and what doesn't (for instance, I've added two lines here in one edit, and it would be quite hard for the software to figure out where to sign this comment!). --ais523 18:25, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the answer! Lakinekaki 17:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Somebody named Hagerman (????) has figured out how to make it automatic - I neglected to type my four tildas and found this following my post:

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fourtildas (talk • contribs) 05:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC). Fourtildas 05:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC) To see the "HagermanBot" you need to look at the source of this page. Fourtildas 05:57, 4 January 2007 (UTC) Yes I remember reading that if a diff is a single line (as in no line breaks) and it doesn't contain the string (UTC) or a link to the User namespace then it auto {{unsigned}}s it --frothT C 06:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there's a new bot that's looking for unsigned comments (see User:HagermanBot for details). It errs towards not signing if it isn't sure, so it's still a good idea to sign normally. --ais523 08:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Also, if users wish to opt out of this bot's attentions, they can do so at User:HagermanBot/OptOut. -- nae'blis 00:52, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Image use

What happens to users that use an image in their signature? While this occurence is rare, I have seen a few users who are either unaware or ignore this policy. Is there some recourse for those who keep the image if advised of the policy and choose to ignore it? Lima Golf 17:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Subst

I know that using a template in a sig causes it to subst - the problem is that it doesn't subst if the template itself uses templates's - I keep a copy of my sig at User:Random832/sig and would like to use this so I only have to maintain it in one place, but since it uses the parser function #time, since that doesn't get subst'ed I can't use it. Or are parser functions [or, at least, specifically, #time with an argument] exempt from the technical reasons that make templates in sigs a bad idea? [subst-ing the #time's still makes the markup shorter, though] —Random832TC2007/01/22 14:59:11 UTC (09:59 EST)

It is possible: see this revision of my sandbox. --ais523 16:55, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you - testing now —Random8322007-01-23T14:42:26UTC(01/23 09:42EST)
This doesn't work, BTW. The date updates to the current date and time each time the page is reloaded. I've tried this before. The only way to get UTC to work with formatting is to leave your syntax open, enter four tildes and close it manually. —Malber (talk • contribs • game) 16:09, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
Had to close the previous signature with </small> —Malber (talk • contribs • game) 16:11, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
You're wrong; look at the date on Random832's sig above, or my sig now (which uses a {{subst:CURRENTMINUTE}}-based trick. It works as long as you include substs in the signature markup itself, and don't try to do anything with noinclude. The time would only keep changing if someone left out subst. I'm typing three tildes at the end of this line, so that the special markup in the UTC at the end of my sig triggers, but the date/time will be properly substed without any further action or markup closing from me, so I know it works! --ais523 16:37, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Help request removed

Removed this sentence: "the game rapper name was changed to gayme fix it guys dont know where to write it". That page has already been reverted and semi-protected and the help request doesn't belong here anyway. Tekkaman 11:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Proposed rename

I think the title of this guideline is a problem. For example, it's not obvious that this guideline would discuss customizing one's signature. Renaming it to Wikipedia:Signatures would be easier to remember, fit better with its shortcut, WP:SIG, and match its content, present and future, better. Thoughts? -- John Broughton ☎☎ 04:22, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed and done. --Ligulem 10:30, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. -- John Broughton (☎☎) 17:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Overwrought signatures

Given the explosion in use of signatures that go against the recommendations of these guidelines (see, for example, Voyagerfan5761's signature, which is virtually unreadable for many users), is there any chance of them being toughened up a little? Also, should the use of template-signatures be allowed? What are the views on (and chances of) getting them forbidden? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:14, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I've recently had an issue with User:JHMM13 (JHMM13 ) who insists he will include images in his sig until this is an official policy, a couple other editors have also expressed concern with his signature. I feel that excessive signatures are pointless, distract from the project and clog up pages when editing. I'd be all for beefing up the guideline and making it policy. Aren't template signatures already forbidden? John Reaves (talk) 18:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I thought that they were, but I can't find that anywhere. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, this might just be a personal issue, but I find signatures that link to multiple place with no warning annoying, such as one word linking to the userpage, talk page, and contributions. For example: John Reaves. Although sigs that use 't', 'c' and other means of identification are alright by me. John Reaves (talk) 18:53, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh dear, I'm guilty of that. I've sometimes thought about changing it, but no-one's ever said that they found it a problem, and I've been using it since January 2005. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd support toughening the signature standards for several reasons, such as unreadability, distractiveness, space consumed in editing windows, self-promotion, and general aesthetics. Perhaps dropping the use of most HTML in signatures would be sufficient. -Will Beback · † · 19:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

What's the first step in achieving something like this? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:36, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Consensus. ~ Arjun 19:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Er yes — but consensus where? We seem to have consensus here. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps you could propose some change in the language of the guideline here. Then we could post notices at the Policy village pump, etc. -Will Beback · † · 20:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Once the changes are implemented, what would need to be done to make this an official policy? Just consensus? John Reaves (talk) 21:59, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
It's official policy when it's in the guideline. (Well, it's a guideline, which is considered to be an official rule.) Then it comes down to (a) publicizing it, and (b) editors asking other editors to change their signatures. And if they don't, well, then it gets interesting. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:04, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, no — if it's only a guideline, then it's not policy, by definition. The guidelines are there, edtors go against them, and nothing can be done about it. That's fine in many (most?) cases, but I think that the signatures problem is getting out of hand. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 00:27, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Some suggestions

  1. Unless template signatures are already forbidden (and I can't find anywhere that says so), they should be.
  2. Backgrounds, coloured or otherwise shouldn't be allowed (they're responsible for most of the unreadable signatures).
  3. The use of images shouldn't be allowed.
  4. The number of colours used should be limited (I'm not sure what the maximum should be; two? three?).
  5. Size changes shouldn't be allowed (another major cause of illegibility, and of disruption of surrounding text).
  6. Links to Talk pages, etc., should be labelled as such. (As per John Reaves' suggestion)

Any comments? Too draconian, or not draconian enough? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

I've clarified the guideline regarding templates in sigs. These are forbidden. --Ligulem 23:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for that. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 00:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Per the usage of images, the guideline is quite clear already: Consider these as forbidden as well. We are here to write an encyclopedia. We don't need to burn image server resources for sigs in order to write an encyclopedia. --Ligulem 00:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Something like "it should be clearly stated where the parts of your signature link, e.g. talk, contribs, user page" (with better wording) should be included. Also, something like "correct username must appear in signature" (take from above).

John Reaves (talk) 00:03, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

  1. Agree
  2. Agree
  3. Agree
  4. Two or three colors sounds good to me.
  5. I'm not sure I agree with the size issue. Are you referring to signatures like mine?
  6. Agree (especially if the no background color is mandatory) —Doug Bell talk 10:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I dont agree with number two or four. ♥Smartie960♥ (Chatter Box) 23:06, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Um, sorry, yes. Size changes are already deprecated. Legibility is generally a problem for "small", though "large" is the one that can disrupt text (and can be distracting). Still as your clause would make me change mine, shall we make a deal? I'll change the second part of mine and you'll change the size of yours? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 00:11, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure, lets do that and meet back here. What did you think of the other comments I had? John Reaves (talk) 00:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Done. I've added your other suggestion to my list. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 00:24, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
I think supplementary links (like for example in my sig) should be allowed. The text is no smaller than the footnote references in articles and serves a similar purpose. —Doug Bell talk 10:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
If there is not some basis/rationale for these changes, consensus may not be reachable. Forbidding templates and images is easy to justify - these are dynamic, which means that signatures, which should be permanent, are not. Font sizes and font size changes that disrupt line spacing should not be allowed. As for background and multiple colors, I really think the standard should be illegibility, not some arbitrary number, or a complete ban. (With regards to legibility, even that is arguable - what is needed is the ability to distinguish one signature from another, for easy identification when looking at a back-and-fro conversation on a talk page. And keep in mind that someone can just put their cursor on the signature to see who it "really" is.)
And you've left off a huge issue - the length of signatures in their raw form - some take up three lines on a page, when viewing in edit mode, which a lot of editors have complained interferes with editing. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:13, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
The rationale is that signatures are there to enable editors to see who's talking; if formatting makes them illegible (or distracting), the purpose is defeated. With regard to the legibility issue, I think that that's too subjective; a limit on colours and backgrounds is objective, and easily enforced. With regard to length, I quite agree; the current guideline isn't really working (the editor I mentioned above has now stopped using a template for his signature, and it's six lines long... He's being good about changing it though). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 00:23, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree raw length is a big issue that should definitely be addressed. Maybe we could find someway to discourage "showboating" with signatures rather than arbitrary color bans. We should start referring questionable signatures to WP:RFC/NAME. John Reaves (talk) 00:25, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem with items that are already "forbidden" is that this is a guideline, not a policy, so there not enforceable. May I assume that once the additions are finalized, we all want to push this to become a policy? John Reaves (talk) 01:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

That seems best to me; I don't know what objections there might be, though. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 11:29, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

For starters, everyone whose signature violates one of these points is going to fight it. John Reaves (talk) 21:43, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

That's who the objectors will be, yes — but what their objections will be is another matter... --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Their objections will be loud and numerous, unfortuneately. It's probably best to break out the criteria and have each one !voted on individually. Determine an acceptable length, yes/no on background colors, acceptable sizes, acceptable font color, but do each one individually or it will never have a chance of reaching consensus. —Doug Bell talk

Language and Alphabet

Requiring Latin only, or worse ASCII only is unfortunately not acceptable, as wikipedia is part of a larger international community. We have had huge trouble with this in the recent past. --Kim Bruning 23:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, that seems pointless. —Doug Bell talk 12:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I haven't been involved in the reverts here, but... The major problems with non-Latin names is trying to tell apart the users involved. I'm on a badly-configured browser, with no way to fix it (I don't have admin access here), and I can't tell the difference between special characters unless they're in {{Unicode}} tags. If I had to distinguish between users called ɸ and ʃ (to take two characters from IPA, for instance, which have much the same problems as many non-Latin characters), I couldn't do that without copying them into the Search box and seeing what came up, or putting them into urlencodes in the sandbox. So a situation in which non-Latin characters are the only things in usernames and signatures is not really a satisfactory solution. On the other hand, forcing people to use a different language for their signatures and/or usernames because some people with defective browsers can't read them is not a satisfactory solution either. (Even with working browsers, there are some very similar characters around, but nowadays we have AntiSpoof to solve that problem.) So we're left with the problem of having a choice of two unsatisfactory solutions (depending on whether we leave the disputed paragraph in or not). What's really needed is a third solution, but at the moment I don't have a clue as to what it might be. --ais523 15:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This has been discussed extensively in various places, including Wikipedia talk:Username#Non-latin characters and Unified Login (in which Kim Bruning participated) and [[Wikipedia talk:Username#Latin character transliterations. The rationale is simple and obvious: many user names that aren't in Latin characters are difficult for most English-speakers to type in, and difficult for them to distinguish one from another (this arose in particular with regard to Arabic names, but the same applies to many other scripts). There was disagreement in those discussions, of course, but the consensus was in favour of asking for a Latin-alphabet transliteration.

Incidentally, unilaterally deleting a chunk of the text on the basis that no-one has commented within twenty-four hours is more than a little high-handed. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 15:15, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I think Kim Bruning was trying to use bold, revert, discuss; after the bold deletion and its reversion, I can understand frustration that nobody wanted to discuss the issue any further (although I'm aware of the previous discussions). --ais523 15:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
[after edit conflict that caused my comment to appear in an odd place...]
Previous exhaustive discussions, still continuing. Saying that the section can be unilaterally deleted simply on the grounds of a day's inactivity here (after all, editors don't have anything else to do) when there's such a huge amount of discussion elsewhere of which he's perfectly well aware... well, it doesn't give a good impression. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 16:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


Thanks. No unilateralism or frustration though. So far my actions have been a strict interpretation of WP:BRD, and no more than that. The 24 hour limit before re-revert is a typical time limit.
I'm always open to comments on how to improve my personal procedure-set. --Kim Bruning 16:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


Arguments so far

Here's the problematic text:

Signatures with non-latin script should also include latin script.

If your preferred signature consists of characters not in the latin alphabet (hànzì, for example), you should include latin characters also. This is because characters not within the ASCII character set may not display properly for everyone. This is a particular problem for people who use screen readers. This also makes it easier to search for your user name using the search function.


First I thought I could simply fix this, but there are many problems:

Argument based on text as written

The reason given wrt ASCII is incorrect. ASCII is a subset of the latin alphabet. The latin alphabet is more properly represented by a (subset of) the ISO 8859 character sets, if you really want to know.

The actual current standard for character encoding is UTF-8, which is supported by all current browsers and internet software, including (not surprisingly therefore) mediawiki.

If your system cannot correctly display UTF-8, it might be severely out of date, but this is unlikely, and is becoming increasingly unlikely with each passing year . It is more likely that the system is misconfigured, incompletely configured, or somehow broken. You will find that many websites will fail to display correctly on your system, not just wikipedia.

I do not believe that screen readers constitute a problem, and mentioning them here is a red herring.

This text is therefore confusing, wrong, and doesn't actually tell us much about the reasons currently being brought forth by the community.

Compromise?

Sure:

Based on this argument, we could perhaps politely request people to include a number of characters from the basic 7-bit ascii set, out of deference and politeness to people who haven't quite gotten their systems fixed yet might be ok. But this should be seen as a gesture of politeness on the side of people with working systems. In the long term, people who have failing systems should naturally see to it that their systems are fixed as soon as possible.

Argument based on current local and cross community discussions

I think some people local to en.wikipedia can't quite read every single script on the planet. I guess that's probably true for everyone. However, this does not mean we can go around blocking people from other wikis, just because of our own ignorance, of course.

Compromise?

I think politely asking people to also include some latin alphabet characters in their signatures is a good compromise for now. I would stop short of making it a requirement, however. Making it a requirement would start the entire wikimedia circus again, which is something I think we all want to avoid.


Possibly we can stick to just the arguments from local discussions, and formulate a better text. Anyone willing to give it a shot? --Kim Bruning 16:19, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

discussion

The lengthy discussions elsewhere went against your position; I don't see that as being a good enough reason for ignoring them and concentrating just on what's said at this page. I mean, it's a bit blatant, don't you think? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 16:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

This is not my original position. As far as I'm aware, the compromise position I've summarized here is fairly close to the consensus found in discussions elsewhere. I am only human however. If there is something missing in this formulation, please point it out, and lets correct it.--Kim Bruning 16:36, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

The consensus elsewhere was that people with non-Latin-alphanet usernames should (not should be recommended to or should be politely requested to) use a Latin-alphabet equivalent in their signatures.

You've referred obliquely to some sort of fuss at Wikimedia; what was it? Given that editors are required to write in English here, why should they not be required to make their signatures readable and distinguishable to other editors (and the same, mutatis mutandis, for Latin-alphabet usernames at other Wikipedias)? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 17:34, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

That cannot be a correct representation of consensus, as that position is quite unacceptable to the wider wikimedia community, as they have made abundantly clear on foundation-l. Usernames on any wiki are permitted to be written using any characterset (for example using latin here: ja:利用者:Kim Bruning). I think pschemp's compromise proposal is currently the closest to consensus? --Kim Bruning 17:49, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
This isn't wikimedia; consensus regarding Wikipedia means consensus among Wikipedia editors. It's surely not acceptable to arrive at a discussion here where consensus has been reached, and say: "no it hasn't because a bunch of other people not involved in this discussion have, in a dicussion in which you haven't been involved, say otherwise". --Mel Etitis (Talk) 19:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
The wikis are operated by the wikimedia community in general. I don't think we should have island formation, which is what this would cause. --Kim Bruning 19:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Briefly, the wikimedia fuss was caused by a ja.wikipedia admin (who also had accounts on many other wikis) getting blocked on en.wikipedia for creating an account with the same username as elsewhere. In complying, he placed a username change request on meta for all other wikis as well, so that his username could still be the same everywhere.
This drew some rather unpleasant attention from a number of stewards and bureaucrats, and from their communities. Relevant threads can be found on foundation-l. --Kim Bruning 19:31, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
But it's irrelevant to the current discussion; we're not talking about which usernames are permitted, but about the policy for signatures. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 19:38, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Yup. pschemp | talk 19:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
They are closely related, due to Pschemps compromise proposal. I am provisionally willing to accept that compromise, but only at this point in time, and only if such signatures are not mandatory.
Failing that, I would like to see a requirement that the default signature provided by software is de facto *always* considered valid.
--Kim Bruning 19:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Okay, as far as I can tell from discussions with Pschemp, the consensus is that people are recommended to provide transliterations alongside their username, as is now stated at Wikipedia:Username.
Making that change here. Please provide additional input, as necessary. --Kim Bruning 22:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry? Consensus means what you've hammered out with pschemp? That's a new notion of consensus, and not one that I thought that Wikipedia recognised.

From your comments above about what you're willing to accept and what you want to see, perhaps I've misunderstood your position in Wikipedia; do you have some sort of position that overrides consensus of editors? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 22:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Okay, after getting a step closer to consensus with pschemp... then ... following on, (I'm still strictly applying WP:BRD, and nothing else), I continue discussion with yourself.
Asking per WP:BRD, can you indicate why you personally disagree with the particular wording you reverted? --Kim Bruning 22:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

For all the reasons that I and other editors gave at the discussions linked to above, in at least one of which you were directly involved. This is the English-language Wikipedia, and it's not unreasonable to say that editors here should use signatures that can be easily read, distinguished, and typed by English speakers. I should expect the same at, for example, the Arabic Wikipedia (mutatis mutandis). As any editor who's here in good faith would surely be happy to do so, as it's a matter of simple courtesy, I can't see what the objection is to the current wording.

Sure. My objection to the current wording is merely that it doesn't say that, at least not correctly. I would like to modify it so that it does say that. --Kim Bruning 23:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC) (This excluding the mutatis mutandis, the arabic wikipedia chooses to be more permissive, as far as I'm aware, see: ar:نقاش المستخدم:Kim Bruning)

What, incidentally, is the status of Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle? It's clearly not policy, and appears not even to be a guideline; is it merely an essay? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I see — it's something that you started, and have been active in writing. Is it appropriate to appeal to it in the way that you do, as if it had some independent force? --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
It is a known-to-work procedure. Quoting it here shows which procedure I am using, and that I am acting in good faith according to some plan, and not merely taking random actions. --Kim Bruning 23:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
The BRD procedure is based on an application of existing guidelines. I am quoting that page as a form of politeness to indicate which procedure I am using. I link to the page because linking costs less time than writing out which guidelines I am applying verbatim each time. The project namespace is intended in large part for pages of that nature. --Kim Bruning 23:41, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

[after edit conflict] Yes but, forgive me, I already knew that it was your plan. All I see is that pretty clear consensus was reached in a couple of long discussions of this issue, involving quite a few editors including you; the consensus didn't go your way, and the next thing I see is that you're deleting the passage here over which consensus was reached. When that was reverted, you started trying to bulldoze a change here by insisting that the consensus didn't really count, and we should keep it "local"; then you made the change on the basis that you'd reached an understanding of consensus based on private discussion with one other editor. Now you're appealing for authority to a page that's neither policy nor guideline, and for whose content you're largely responsible. That this shows that you're acting in good faith is a difficult move for me to follow, but doubtless I'm missing something.

Even if I forgot all that, WP:BRD says: "it is particularly useful for breaking deadlocks, keeping discussion moving forward, and will still work where standard dispute resolution has failed". There was no deadlock, the discussion had reached consensus, and no dispute resolution was called for. By the way, could you stop inserting comments in the middle of mine or before mine? It makes who says what, and in response to whom rather difficult to work out. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:46, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

We perceive existing consensus differently, else neither of us would still be making edits (As per Wikipedia:Consensus). I removed the passage as per WP:BRD as stated, strictly following that procedure. Each of the steps you mention is as per WP:BRD. I am not appealing to any authority. I am using WP:BRD as strictly as possible in the hope that that way there is no doubt as to what I am trying to achieve, and so that I am completely accountable. I'm not sure as to how I can do better than that as far as visibly acting in good faith goes.
As per WP:BRD (since that is the procedure I am using) "There is no such thing as a consensus version: Your own major edit, by definition, differs significantly from the existing version, meaning the existing version is no longer a consensus version. If you successfully complete this cycle, then you will have a new consensus version. If you fail, you will have a different kind of consensus version".
To continue discussion, the last question you asked is at what point do I disaree with the current text. I stated that I agreed with your wording, but that the current text is not worded the way that you state.
here's that statement:
Sure. My objection to the current wording is merely that it doesn't say that, at least not correctly. I would like to modify it so that it does say that. --Kim Bruning 23:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC) (This excluding the mutatis mutandis, the arabic wikipedia chooses to be more permissive, as far as I'm aware, see: ar:نقاش المستخدم:Kim Bruning):
Do you think we can modify the text so that both our concerns are met? --Kim Bruning 00:20, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
I've added 2 bits from Kim's version, to prevent future wikilawyering, and to aid in understanding. I also added an additional rationale -- I do have to agree with Mel's version, that some sort of ascii characters are required, because otherwise people who see only boxes (ie {{ChineseText}}), in place of characters, won't have any way to refer to the editor. But only required if one is a "frequent contributor" should be a good IAR compromise? (I haven't read the prior discussions, I'm just attempting common sense.)
(Less relevantly, BRD is a very valid process. Kim has been here since 2001, and has a hand in most of the pages hereabouts ;) --Quiddity 02:14, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure about the compromise (what is "freqent"?), but if consensus vcan be gained for it, then fine.

My point about WP:BRD stands, whatever Kim Bruning's longevity here(and note that in all that time he's only actually made 9,328 edits, of which only 1,209 have been to articles). I have to say also that I dislike the document — it's a recipe for bullying conduct as part of a concerted attempt to evade or overturn consensus. It looks, in fact, exactly like the standard approach adopted by PoV warriors — you make a major change without consesnsus, and then try to wear down those who disagree with extensive argument. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 22:53, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way, Mel Etitis. I have a lot of respect for your editing, so I'd welcome your input on the WP:BRD talk page if you want to open a discussion.
So consensus has now been reached at Wikipedia:Username, it looks like. I guess all we need to do now is take a look at this page and see if the wording on both pages is now in line with each other?
I'm also still wondering a bit about ascii versus latin, we should pick one or the other. --Kim Bruning 00:50, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
I left "frequent" purposefully vague/ambiguous in an attempt to prevent future wikilawyering (I'm delusional, I know!) Hypothetically, it then can be applied to only those who are causing actual problems. Otherwise some fool will code a bot to leave a "You don't have english in your sig. You must add some now!" message, at every new useraccount created without ascii/latin. Or something.
I don't know about ascii vs latin - Whichever is most commonly available for users worldwide, would obviously be preferable? --Quiddity 02:43, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
Good points. Just beware of folks adding a time limit. As for ASCII vs Latin, I'd go for latin then. :-) --Kim Bruning 03:21, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I'd go for Latin, too, as it fits better with the reason for the requirement. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 23:10, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

My Signature

Hi,

I am just wondering, can someone tell me if my signature is okay?

 Smcafirst | Chit-Chat  posted at 20:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

It's just-about within the maximum limits that some people are suggesting on WP:VPT, but it's still near the edge of what's acceptable. Perhaps you could try to shorten it? This looks almost the same, but is shorter: Smcafirst | Chit-Chat . (You'd better copy the code for that from the edit screen, because I wrote some literal non-breaking spaces into it to cut down the length, among other changes.) --ais523 09:56, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I can't read it without running my cursor over it — so I'd say that it isn't acceptable, no. It's also rather too long, even in the shortened version (well over two lines). --Mel Etitis (Talk) 15:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Here, try this one: Smcafirst|Chit-Chat
That one easily fits on a line—problem solved. Move on and create an encyclopedia. —Doug Bell talk 15:54, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
WP:SARCASM is not helpful, and "move on and create an encyclopedia" could be expanded to include "...and feel a decent self-identifying human being while at it". Smcafirst can visit my talkpage to make his signature compatible with the WP:SIG guideline, where his personality will not be battered by insensitive WP:ABF comments. NikoSilver 16:08, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Why is a person's own personality, not to mention her choice of user name, not enough to make feel like a "decent self-identifying human being"? This peculiar idea that users have to flaunt the euivalent of whole-body tattoos in day-glo colours in order to be individuals is peculiar. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 16:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

We don't go around mocking Angelina Jolie for her tattoos, nor do we tell her "now go and have a career or something". NikoSilver 18:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Don't we? We obviously move in different circles. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 18:47, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
LOL. Exactly what I was thinking as I read Niko's statement, at least in regards to the tattoos. —Doug Bell talk 18:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
LOL me too I hate her tattoos (only I might add) but unfortunately she doesn't mingle with my circles, so I don't tell her in her face. It's uncivil. NikoSilver 22:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Plus, most people editing Wikipedia are anonymous users who have no self-identity in the first place. John Reaves (talk) 18:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
The name they choose represents them. WP is a virtual environment, and your name and sig in WP are as important for the WP environment as the real ones in real life. NikoSilver 18:22, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Nor do we admire her as an actress. Sure, some people may think sigs are important, but the reality of it is time spent on customizing the result of typing four tildes is wasted time when you consider that it could be put towards that little thing called the encyclopedia (which we seem to forget about sometimes). John Reaves (talk) 18:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Feeling nice with your self may be very inspiring for contributing to the encyclopedia. NikoSilver 22:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
A User's userspace is for self-expression. 'Expressive' sigs in article-talkspace are visual clutter, wikicode clutter, and can cause various visibility, technical, and social problems (See Wikipedia talk:Signatures#Argumentation on formatted signatures).
As for the original question, I have to agree with Doug's code suggestion. The "small" code makes it illegible to some people, and the border/background makes it illegible/distracting/annoying to others. The color used in Mel's sig is about the limit of my personal tolerance; maybe use that as a guide. --Quiddity 19:26, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Nobody said the sig is acceptable as is. That doesn't mean we mock the guy who had what it takes to ask in good faith here. NikoSilver 22:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, to be honest, if you hadn't gone overboard on this, with all the stuff about individualism etc., there'd have been one (very) mildly twitting comment, and it would have been dropped. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 22:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, indeed, it was my (probable over-)respect for those individualism issues that sparked my unduely harsh response. Apologies for that to Doug. However, I stand by my firm belief that individualism may work very positively for the project. You are free to disagree, but you yourself have chosen to individualize your presence using other means (username). Why is the sig any less important? I'm open for discussion, and I can be convinced otherwise! :-) NikoSilver 23:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
And, to tell you the truth, we don't have to agree in this particular case! What works for boosting my WP constructive ego, may not work for you, and vice versa. Just search this page above for Crystallina's and Seadog's positions on the issue ("instruction creep" parts especially). As long as there are people who feel better (hence produce more) by little things like the sig, we should respect them. I'm a fan of minimalism some three months now, but I refuse to enforce that to others (within reason). We two just draw the line differently. NikoSilver 23:16, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Risking being the meany again, I have to say that I think being overly concerned with your signature is a sign of immaturity and quite possibly insecurity—not in all cases, but in many. Changing the policy to greatly curtail the amount of freedom allowed in signatures might have the same positive effect that school uniforms has—by removing a venue for competitive displays and making everyone essentially equal with regards to appearance, a lot of wasted time, effort and energy that goes into judging and being judged by your appearance is suddenly freed up for more constuctive pursuits. That and the whole atmosphere is less cliquish since people are now judged more on their substance than their appearance. So maybe a restrictive policy would be most beneficial for exactly the people it would curtail most. —Doug Bell talk 23:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

How long exactly do you think it takes for someone to build a nice sig? NikoSilver 01:00, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh gee I don't know. Long enough that there was a recent MfD to delete a handful of "signature shops". And the people that fit my description above probably change their signature with the weather. —Doug Bell talk 02:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

So you argue that users concerned with minor issues like what the self-identification through a signature of another user will be like, are losing more time argueing than they should? :-) I haven't met any weather-man, as you describe above. The worst I've seen is people making a couple of non-time-consuming tweaks in their sigs (like changing the adjacent green Greek transliteration of their username that links to their talk-page, to the single word "talk", for instance). :-)

Look, actually I'm the expert here in responding to my rhetoric question above. I've dealt with the signatures of some 30 users, and yet the edits I've consumed for all of them put together were some 300 of my 8,500 total edits (i.e. 3.5%). So I devoted a thirtieth of that time (0.12% or 10 edits) for each, while I also had to ask in every step, think of what to say, think of what these users may prefer etc (which wouldn't happen if the users created their sig for themselves, so the edits would be at least half). Therefore, we can't seriously argue that 0.06% of their time (at worst) would be more important than the encouragement gained from their better self-identification now, can we?

I can't see how Nishkid64 or ProhibitOnions or Jorcoga or Radiant or Grandmasterka or Coredesat or Xaosflux or Wizardman or Majorly or Piotrus or Starblind or or or can be described as mere ...trolls! Can you? Do check their sigs, you may decide putting some color in your life too.

And, yes, it can be abused. Like almost anything here in WP... (e.g. creepy rules? :-)) NikoSilver 13:59, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Trolls? Interesting rant, but how in the world did you extrapolate anything I said into "trolls"? —Doug Bell talk 16:11, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
I did not remotely imply that you called them as such. You did say, though, that you regard "the time, effort and energy" those people devoted for their sigs as "wasted", a "result of immaturity and quite possibly insecurity" aiming into "judging and being judged by their appearance" which should be "freed up for more constuctive pursuits" (plus this). That is quite close to the definition of "trollish behavior", which says:
"The basic mindset of a troll is that they are far more interested in how others react to their edits, than in the usual concerns of Wikipedians: accuracy, veracity, comprehensiveness, and overall quality"
So I asked for clarification. Glad you don't think so, though.
PS. Please don't use "rant"; I would never call e.g. this a "rant", it may be judged as offensive. NikoSilver 16:52, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
"react to their edits" is the same as what I said how? My whole point is people should be putting more emphasis on the content of what they have to contribute instead of the appearance of their signature. I'm sorry, but there is a disconnect in your logic—nothing in my statements connects to "troll". —Doug Bell talk 17:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Oh, and P.S.: you can call my previous post a rant if you'd like—no offense would be taken for an accurate portrayal, just as you should take none for my portrayal. —Doug Bell talk 17:54, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
"time, effort and energy that goes into judging and being judged by their appearance" is the same as "they are far more interested in how others react to their edits". I'm sure you didn't mean it that strongly. And, as I said, I agree with you: Sigs can be abused, we just draw the line between use and abuse differently. There may be users who abuse signatures, but the broad picture is people who use them. NikoSilver 17:27, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
No, your comparison is illogical: appearance != edits. In fact, they are almost opposites. —Doug Bell talk 17:29, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Of course it is illogical after your clarification. You clarified you didn't think that users as those that I listed with formatted sigs are trolls. Some others may be, but then again, we have trolls with normal sigs too. :-) NikoSilver 17:40, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Not to be pedantic here, but you still haven't connected the dots between anything I said and calling people—any people—trolls. Your statements' illogic stands on its own—I haven't clarified my statements, merely attempted to unravel yours. —Doug Bell talk 17:47, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. I feel so exposed. NikoSilver 22:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
No need to thank me—that would be misplacing the credit. —Doug Bell talk 22:48, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
Exactly. For both sentences. NikoSilver 23:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

is this kinda creepy

I agree too —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jinx-fox (talk • contribs) 01:14, 18 February 2007 (UTC).

Underwrought signatures? (i.e., Linkless)

There was some discussion earlier about adding some sort of wording about having a link in one's sig (to one's own user: or user_talk: page), but there doesn't seem to have been any follow-up action on this. Any objections to adding such a proviso now? Alai 03:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

The cases I've seen have been due to people messing up their preferences settings, rather than deliberately avoiding a link, but this wouldn't strike me as being an unreasonable requirement. --ais523 09:49, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure that's indeed correct, in the majority of cases. I suggest making it explicit to a) provide an indication of the community norm and a "how-to" for the mildly befuddled, b) discourage those who are (possibly, one might be given to suspect...) using it as a means of discouraging talk-page communication, and c) to avoid the possibility of someone, whether through accident or design, both using a sig with non-standard form of their user name (or bearing no relation at all to their user id, indeed), and with no link, which would be a recipe for untold consternation. (I've not yet seen any instances of the third, but I can imagine it's only a matter of time, absent any clear injunction against either separately.) Alai 13:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Problem

I want my sig to be this: J-stan Talk. However, whenever I put it in my preferences, I get a message saying to check my HTML tags. This is what comes out: [[User:J-stan|<font color="Black>'''''J''-</font><font color="Red>stan'''</font> <sup>[[User talk:J-stan|<font color=808080>Talk</font>]]</sup>]] 02:38, 30 June 2007 (UTC) (also, I want those brackets on either end gone.)

Nevermind. I took care of it. Check it out! J-stan Talk 03:09, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

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