Wikipedia talk:Signatures/Archive 7

This is an archive of past discussions on Wikipedia:Signatures. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

←

Archive 5

Replacing IP with signature

This was reported in Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-08-25/In the news. Do we want to add it here?

Occasionally, an editor will be logged out without recognizing it and post to a discussion, thus their IP shows as their signature. After the editor realizes this, they may log in and replace the signature. This may not be a good thing, as WikiScanner now trawls the database looking for these replacements and logs them at Poor Man's Checkuser. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 17:17, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how easy it would be to fool such a scanner, but I think it might be worth doing. SHEFFIELDSTEEL^TALK 21:09, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Policy?

I have reverted a change to this guideline page which put a policy banner at the top of the linking section. I can see that there is a wide agreement that people should link to their user or user talk pages in their signatures, and that it is a good practice. But what I'm not seeing - here or on AN/I - is an agreement that it should actually be considered a hard-and-fast policy of Wikipedia. What I instead see is several people on ANI going "meh" and questioning why something so minor needs to be dragged to ANI. Which in my opinion says "this is not an important enough issue to warrant strict enforcement along with Wikipedia's other policies". Discuss. - Mark 07:08, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I think that had the user in question been newer, i.e. not "grandfathered' in, people would have been more disapproving. John Reaves 07:43, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, and I believe making that policy (again, given that it is so widely followed) will avoid debates about this in the future. Probably a form of instruction creep, but I don't imagine this is the last time we'll deal with a situation like this. —Locke Cole • t • c 19:03, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Revisited

The policy statements concerning this are widely spread throughout this and other pages. There is no practical point to marking one section as policy; the other sections (templates, categories...) are equally vital; as guideline material or whatever. --NewbyG (talk) 21:14, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem with the current formulation of this guideline is that it the formulation exceeds the objectives for which it was written. Unfortunately the discussion of this further up in this thread got sidetracked. -- User:Docu

If you think you can get consensus for the rest to be policy/guideline, by all means. But I think it's obvious that, at least as far as internal links are concerned for user or user talk pages, there's wide support for this (people both follow this and seem to expect it). —Locke Cole • t • c 22:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Nothing in this page should be construed as anything more than guideline. If there has been some actual discussion regarding making this page or any section of it into enforceable policy -- please link to it here. older ≠ wiser 22:58, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

So the fact that this is the widely accepted norm doesn't hold any weight for you, whatsoever? How many users does this change affect and how is it not supported by the actions of the community at large? Widespread support through actions, not words, is as good as any discussion we might have. —Locke Cole • t • c 00:02, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Being a widely accepted norm does not make this a policy. It does make it a behavioral guideline. I do not understand your second question. What change are you referring to that might have any effect whatsoever on any users? I'm not aware that there is any widespread support for this being elevated to policy, which would imply that not following it might result in sanctions of some sort. Are you saying that there is some explicit widespread consensus that editors who do not observe the prescriptions of this page or section should be subject to sanctions? older ≠ wiser 02:38, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines— "Policies have wide acceptance among editors and are considered a standard that, with rare exceptions, all users should follow." Note that a policy need not be discussed and acquire consensus to be created, and that's the mistake I think you're making. Not everything needs to be discussed in a committee or voted on, especially when we have clear consensus by action that this is what the community expects. As for the issue at hand, it's clear that people consider it disturbing (perhaps rising to the level of being disruptive), so yes, I believe it's safe to say the community would expect sanctions on those who refuse to comply. —Locke Cole • t • c 03:04, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

You're excerpting selectively. The very next sentence states: They [policies] are often closely linked to the five pillars of Wikipedia. There is no clear connection between this page and the five pillars. The entire nature of this page is advisory in nature (i.e., guideline). There are some people who think a lot of things are disruptive that are not necessarily policy. Just because some people don't like something is not a very good basis for establishing policy. Where is the evidence for your claim that the community would expect sanctions on those who refuse to comply? Your claim that a policy need not be discussed and acquire consensus to be created is patently false. Please show me a policy that has been accepted without discussion? older ≠ wiser 14:40, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

(de-indent) SIG doesn't need to be a policy because not following it doesn't inherently damage anything. Between User:SineBot and people who'll get pissed if you vehemently avoid signing your posts, most people will end up signing their posts. Those that intentionally don't are almost certainly exhibiting other disruptive behavior and will end up getting blocked anyway.

During talk page discussion, if someone brings up the point that "the link on the reference to the article about Mountain Dew is 404," it doesn't, in the grand scheme of things, really matter who said it— just whether the concern that the person brings up is valid. This is in contrast to policies like WP:NPOV, WP:V, and WP:CIVIL, where serious damage to an article and/or the community as a whole can result by them intentionally not being followed by even so much as a handful of users.

In a nutshell: although it's annoying if someone doesn't sign their posts, it's doesn't harm content— it's just an annoying pain in the ass. Therefore, it's a guideline. --slakr^\ talk / 22:06, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Timestamps

At Wikipedia:Signatures#Internal links, it says that either the user page or the user talk page must be linked in the signature of a user, which makes sense to me. What I couldn't find, tho, was a requirement to include a timestamp in one's signature. Shouldn't that be mentioned somewhere in the guideline, too? --Conti|✉ 14:53, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Technically speaking, I think the timestamp isn't part of the signature; ~~~~ adds a signature with a timestamp following it. (In some cases, I think people are asked to sign a list without timestamps.) The de-facto requirement (which I'm not sure I've seen written down anywhere) is to sign and date comments, though, rather than just signing them. --ais523 15:52, 27 September 2008 (U T C)

Please sign and date your posts by typing four tildes (~~~~) appears in just about every talk page. Sign and date is recommended at Wikipedia:Etiquette and other places. Making undated comments on a talk page is confusing and unhelpful in most cases. /NewbyG (talk) 21:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

It may be worth specifying contexts in which it's worth dating and signing comments. -- User:Docu

I'd say you should sign and date a comment when you make a comment? --Conti|✉ 21:30, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

See this discussion at Template talk:Undated --NewbyG (talk) 21:46, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

To answer Docu's suggestion: Comments should always be dated, unless otherwise specified (e.g. in wikiproject membership lists). I'd suggest adding that to the guideline, if it's not already implicit/obvious. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:57, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

In almost every case, you'll want to use a datestamp (as is the guideline). Archiving bots look for datestamps so that they know when to archive inactive talk page threads. Thus the times when you'd want to avoid a timestamp might be in using {{Unresolved}} or similar templates to avoid letting the bot prematurely archive something. --slakr^\ talk / 21:51, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Non-default anon. signatures

The default anon. signature is 255.255.255.255 (talk) 12:00, 15 July 2002 (UTC). What about anons using nicknames like this Joe (talk) 12:00, 15 July 2002 (UTC), or this Shirley/255.255.255.255 (talk) 12:00, 15 July 2002 (UTC). Clark89 (talk) 00:32, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Err, that's why you create an account. John Reaves 23:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

A lot of the time, they do not want to create an account, some keep editing and refuse to create an account. There are always users that complain about IPs being impersonal and having to refer to 255 dot yadayadayada.... A nick for a person behind an IP, particulary a dynamic IP, might work. Clark89 (talk) 03:23, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Well if they don't like it, they can create an account. IPs have no way of creating a custom signature other than saving the page and editing the sig, this would be disruptive and misleading (especially because they might end up copying a pre-existing username. John Reaves 05:11, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean use ~~~~, apply it directly. Clark89 (talk) 17:18, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

If anon's really wanted they could do something incredibly complicated like:

[[User:255.255.255.255|Joe]] ([[User talk:255.255.255.255|talk]]) ~~~~~

but it would be a heck of a lot easier to just create an account named Joe. especially seeing as how there is no email required to create an account. –xeno (talk) 17:53, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

External links and signatures

At Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/User:Supuhstar/Simpedia we had a case where it had been noted that external links in signatures are forbidden (by Wikipedia:Signatures#External links), but the question was whether it is OK to have a signature link to a user subpage that serves little purpose other than to host an external link. I have little opinion on this small question, other than that I think it should be discussed here, and that in the absense of guidance there is no case for an MfD.

Is it OK to link to a subpage that does little other than host an external link? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

No, per Wikipedia:Gaming the system. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:22, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

With respect, I don't think that is good enough. If Wikipedia:Signatures can't be understood without reference to Wikipedia:Gaming the system, then Wikipedia:Signatures is faulty. This is a precise question, and the answer shouldn't depend on whether the user was previously warned about something else, even if similar. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

We try not to make adamant statements on every single potential loophole of every single guideline and policy, because that would, 1) be a waste of time, 2) be an impediment to understanding the important parts of those pages.

Teenagers hack and abuse everything (themselves, their worlds). Hence the purposefully-ambiguous and widely-applicable WP:GAME. The way that you apply the guideline is up to you... I'd repeat to him what you asked in the MFD, why isn't it simply at his userpage?

Or just think of it as an immaturity-warning sticker, and ignore it. -- Quiddity (talk) 02:03, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Transclusion of signatures

Wikipedia:Signature#Transclusion_of_templates says that transclusion of signatures are forbidden. Is this still consensus? This signature was transcluded into about 1,000 pages and then deleted. This signature is transcluded into more than 1,000 pages. There is plenty of other transcluded signatures. In view of the strong words "forbidden", shouldn't something be done about this? Thanks. -- Suntag ☼ 03:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

We can do any of the following:

Modify the tasks of an existing bot to do it for us
Or manually replace it.

I hope it helps. Alexius08 (talk) 14:17, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I was under the impression that any code you enter in the nickname box that contains an element to be transcluded automatically has "subst" added to it. That would make insert the entire code when saved. Over at my wiki we worked around this to trick the software to just leave a transclusion link. Of course, my wiki is tiny compared to here and vandalism is a rare occurrence over there. If only custom sigs like at my wiki can be a built-in feature to the MediaWiki software. And only the user himself/herself or a sysop could edit the sig page, just like the personal monobook.css and similar. That would make things easier to read in edit mode. Back to the point. Is the section on the project page correct? To the best of my knowledge it is not, or at least incomplete. It does not address the difference between adding transcluded signatures manually or by the nickname box. As far as I know, the nickname box does not add permanent transclusions to pages. Without using my wiki's little trick of course. But I have not seen that anywhere else.Matt (talk) 08:11, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

No, there aren't "plenty of transcluded signatures." People that use them are politely told to stop, and if they don't, they will be troutted and the problem will be forcibly fixed for them. Transcluded signatures will not happen. Please see brion's message if you're in doubt. --slakr^\ talk / 21:48, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

No offense intended, but Brion's message seems a little biased. What is so bad about transclusions in signatures? The server load is negligible. They make the edit view less messy. They reduce the page size considerably. They allow larger signatures than the nickname box allows. it is easier to edit them since you can change the page they are on and see the result instantly without having to edit some other page by copying it over. The only real downside is that they can be vandalized. And that can easily be averted by simple semi-protection.--Matt (talk) 19:29, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

As far as I understand it, one of the reasons for the 255 character limit is to encourage less "flashy" signatures so users don't go overboard as some like to do. A single transclusion isn't that big of a deal, but if everyone and their uncle started transcluding signatures, performance issues could come into play. –xeno (talk) 19:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Some of the higher up members at Zelda Wiki.org, myself included, either tranclude signatures or manually use signature templates. Mine is here. It is not particularly flashy or anything. But the code to so long that it would be a nightmare in the edit view. Our policy there is basically the reverse of how it is here. If someone has a really long signature, we request to them to make it transcluded. We have been doing this for several months with no ill side effects. Transcluded sigantures has far less server load than pictures. Considerably less in fact. If every single one of our users had a transcluded signature, it still would have less impact on our server than even a small number of our pictures.--Matt (talk) 20:00, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

No offense, but it does look pretty flashy to me. A little over the top. And en.wiki gets a heck of a lot more traffic than zeldawiki... –xeno (talk) 20:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Well that version is less flashy than this one. I've seen a lot far flashier ones like: [[User:Username|Username]] Come give me a message at [[User talk:Username|my talk page]]. But it was in a lot of bright colors. That seems way to over the top.--Matt (talk) 20:16, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Anyhow, Brion's word is pretty much law around here when it comes to performance issues... –xeno (talk) 20:19, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

^{[citation needed]} ... I haven't seen a developer talking about that in the archive? --Amalthea^Talk 20:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

See the diff linked above my slakr... Wasn't said here... –xeno (talk) 20:52, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I guess I shouldn't have only searched the archives, thanks. :) --Amalthea^Talk 21:03, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I assume that the actual load problem starts when people change their signatures often, and thousands of talk pages have to be updated. For example, xeno, only #1000 on the List of Wikipedians by number of edits, has left up to 14,000 signatures, judging by his edits. That's probably not much compared to how often {{citation needed}} or {{reflist}} is transcluded, but if people started tweaking their signatures regularly we'd end up with a considerably longer job queue.
I'd welcome transcluded signatures for the visual clarity, and the other problems listed at WP:Signatures could be overcome by changing the archive bots and using a page like Special:Mypage/.js that can only be edited by the user himself, but I'm not sure the additional load is worth it. --Amalthea^Talk 20:44, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

What Brion basically said was that he hates transcluded signatures. He exaggerated the downsides and said that they have no useul purpose at all. This is quite clearly not true. As I said before, they make the edit view on pages less cluttered. They save on page size. That saves much more server load than it can take. They make it easy for users to revert to an older version of their signatures if they would like. They make editing signatures far easier. The only real arguments against this is server load and vandalism. Vandalism is easily prevented with semi-protection. And the server load it takes does not exceed the server load it saves in page sizes. Larger pages take longer and more computing power to update. There is no contest. It is much better to have transcluded signatures than a mess of code.--Matt (talk) 23:08, 30 October 2008 (UTC)
P.S. I think I'll coin a term here. I'll call a signature with transcluded content a transig.

Brion is always right, and that's why we're happy to have him as our head nerd when it comes to all things server-y. When he's not right, one must surely have an incorrect definition of "right." :P

...but seriously, brion is always right. --slakr^\ talk / 07:47, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

There are also other drawbacks of transcluded signatures. First, some people might not appreciate your ability to change old signatures, it's almost like changing your message afterwards. Second, I do not want to see the whole mess of all transcluded signatures at the bottom when I need to edit the whole discussion page. Third, with transcluded signatures you could create a very complex and long signature which other people then would have to load as HTML at their expense. —AlexSm 14:46, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Wait, so...

Say I've got a sig page and I substitute it into my preferences, e.g. {{subst:User:Master of Puppets/Signature}}. How is that any different than just using the raw code? Master of Puppets _{Call me MoP! :D} 08:28, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes I would like to know the same thing... Vandalism Destroyer | Need to complain to me? 08:31, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Your sig is 454 characters long (the raw code box purposefully has a 255 character limit), thereby demonstrating one of the problems with using subst'd sigs. (You are forcing me to read/ignore almost 5 lines of unnecessary html code in the edit-window...).

I could subtly vandalize User:Vandalism destroyer/signature to show you the other danger, but I won't. -- Quiddity (talk) 22:39, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh really? How about now? Moving the signature to a .css page protects anybody but me and administrators from editing it in any way. :) UntilItSleeps PublicPC 19:39, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Replace talk pages and signatures with forums-style discussion pages

Talk pages could be replaced with forums-style discussion pages where posts are automatically signed.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Foober (talk • contribs) 16:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Why? Amalthea 19:00, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

That is a constant request. It is under development at mw:Extension:LiquidThreads. Coming soon.... (has been for years now) -- Quiddity (talk) 20:24, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Template for timestamp only

Is there a template for adding only the timestamp for comments where the poster has mentioned his username only? I tried by giving the username field blank but it turned up like this: "—Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:|User:]] ([[User talk:|talk]] • contribs) 12:55, 11 November 2006". Jay (talk) 09:21, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

{{Undated}} has what you're looking for, if you haven't found it already. I saw it on the "Unsigned Templates" on the right of {{Unsigned}}. Revelian (talk) 14:21, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I had not found it, thanks! The template has a problem though - I've mentioned it on the talk page. Jay (talk) 10:17, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Talk page vandalism and SineBot exclusion

For some reason, this talk page is attracting plenty of irrelevant posts, which are thankfully being immediately reverted. The unfortunate part is SineBot is signing them before it can be reverted. I suggest to exclude SineBot from this talk page. Jay (talk) 11:13, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Aside from using {{nobots}}, I'm not sure how we would do that. Perhaps speak to slakr? Enigma^msg 01:14, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

That template works very well. I'm going to put an instance of it at the top of this page, so when this section is archived, the problem doesn't reappear. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 23:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Signature substitution

Xeno, Garden changed the policy a while ago since one use of substituted signatures which isn't making any problems, if no mistakes are made, is to have randomized colors or any such dynamic logic in your signature, as Garden has and I think some others used to have, too. The source of those signatures is often quite lengthy, but the substituted version is as short as a normal signature is, so the reason for the discouragment per your edit isn't quite correct.
Since the problems Brion was talking about only apply to transcluded signatures, not to substituted ones, I don't even see a reason to discourage it, but I'd be OK with it. The reason should be changed again though. --Amalthea 19:00, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I met Garden in the middle, not encouraging substitution ("it's allowed!" - which leads to the slippery slope of people making garish and lengthy signatures) but not completely disallowing it. Frankly Garden's change wasn't necessary as anyone smart enough to program a nifty signature like that is smart enough to ignore the rule against substitution, as I mentioned in the earlier discussion on this. –xeno (talk) 19:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, the opposition he was facing was based on the policy page, and he was encouraged to change it IIRC.
Anyhow, as I said I'm fine with the discouragement, but wanted to point out that the stated reason isn't quite correct, and I'd rather just remove it. --Amalthea 19:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I added the word "typically" before the two reasons substitution is discouraged, those clever folks with the cool signatures will know they are atypical and continue with their lives, happily substing their signatures as they go. Tweak as desired. –xeno (talk) 19:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Perfect. ;) Cheers, Amalthea, non-clever signature user. 19:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Customisation

sorry for sounding stupid but i try to find somewhere in here that say's how to change the color, but i only find guidelines.QueenofHearts (talk) 15:58, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The easiest way to change your signature from red to blue is of couse to create your user page. If you want to change it beyond that: I notice you already have a customized signature, so you already know how to change the wikicode that creates it. If you want to colorize it I'd recommend you have a look at other editor's signatures, and look how they do it. For example, edit this page and search for "Enigma". Also, see Wikipedia:Customisation#User name and signatures. Cheers, Amalthea 16:10, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Shouldn't you guys mat least mention how to change the color of your signature? I've seen many signatures with many different colors.QueenofHearts (talk) 16:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Oh well. Having a fancy signature is not really essential for the encyclopaedia. But feel free to expand on it at Wikipedia:Customisation. :)
Cheers, Amalthea 16:51, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

talk GiovanniBA (talk) 23:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

yeah.....they have the option, wikipedia should have some explanatoin somewhere. its jsut odd. i hate it when they hide this kinda stuff.

This page is about policies and guidelines. See also has links to stuff like Wikipedia:How to fix your signature. Also check out [[1]] (WP:EIW)) which will link you to most anything, such as User:NikoSilver/Signature shop and more. See also Wikipedia:Smurrayinchester's signature tutorial. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 17:21, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

The Tutorial mentioned above (at Wikipedia:Smurrayinchester's signature tutorial) is quite good, and appears to be the best thing on Wikipedia for explaining how to change the color of the signature. I have provided a Wiki-link to it in the article - see the diff. Dolphin (talk) 08:11, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Signature substitution 2

Concerning this change: Allstarecho, any reason for making this change? The reasoning at the policy page is incorrect since there is a plausible (if vain) motivation to substitute a signature which will respect length restriction and not be redundant.
There seems to have been consensus here for the change. A slient consensus at the very least, but there were three people actively involved in it, and the change was even encouraged at other noticeboards. As it stands, I would revert it back.
Amalthea 17:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

A discussion between you and Xeno is hardly a "consensus". It's always been policy because substing a sig circumvents the raw signature option in My Preferences. Anything you can put in a subst can be put in a raw signature up to the character limit. In addition, ~~~~ is much faster to type out than {{User:SoAndSo/signature}}, which makes the "easier" point for substing sigs moot. I would suggest though, if you really want long standing policy to be changed, that you bring an RfC on the matter and get more input than 2 or 3 people and come to a real consensus on the issue. :] - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 18:10, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

actually substing signatures can do more than raw signatures...i.e...randomized colours, if statements to make different sigs for different, pages, that kinda junk. I still think we should "say" that subst'ing is disallowed (makes it easier for me to be a rouge admin and delete signature subpages of horribly gaudy signatures that violate the length restriction), and then let whoever wants that kind of stuff to ignore the rule. (FWIW Allstar , you seem to be confused above on substing vs. transcluding) –xeno (talk) 19:45, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Saying that they are disallowed was the reason for the hoopla in the first place, since ignoring it wasn't accepted by some. --Amalthea 20:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

(ec) As I said, there were three people actively involved, and it was encouraged at least at WP:AN. This change had been written in the policy for two-and-a-half months now since the reasoning behind adding the prohibition was incorrect in the first place: they are not redundant to putting the substed content in a raw signature. What you can do (and a number of people currently *are* doing just that) is have some dynamic template that will produce a different signature depending on circumstances. If such a signature template is kept at an auto-protected place (e.g. User:Amalthea/sig.css) it is under no risk of vandalism, and if I have {{subst:User:Amalthea/sig.css}} as my raw signature, this change is transparent for me and ~~~~ will work as before. Brion's performance concerns also do not apply to substitution, the only overhead is in the one-time template expansion, which is completely negligable.
None of the (good!) reasons against transcluded templates apply for substituted templates, while all general criteria (length restrictions, no parser functions) still apply to the result. Substed signatures are indistinguishable from manually changing ones signature right before one posts.
So, do you have any reason against this change except that there weren't enough people involved? --Amalthea 20:04, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

The raw signature is there for a reason. It was never intended to be circumvented but to be THE signature. Whether it's substed or transcluded, the policy and consensus has always been to not allow it. Would you also argue that images in signatures is ok via WP:IAR? And while you say the overhead is completely negligable, I'd suggest otherwise if you had thousands of users substing or transcluding sigs 5 to 100 times a day. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 20:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

WP:CCC. –xeno (talk) 20:27, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes, consensus can change, but it hasn't anywhere I can see. In fact, the edit history shows consensus to keep the policy as every time it's been changed by someone ignoring the rules, someone else has reverted it. I think RfC would be the best bet here since this is longstanding policy and needs more community input than 3, 4 people. - ✰ALLST☆R✰ ^echo 20:51, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any admins lining up to block people who are substing their sigs, so it's clearly "allowed" (and if it really was a performance issue, I'm sure the devs could disallow it through the software). I've reverted to the "discouraged" wording. Feel free to open an RFC, but such a minor issue hardly deserves one, imo. –xeno (talk) 20:56, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Should longstanding policy to not allow transclusion and/or substitution templates for signatures continue to be the policy

Should longstanding policy to not allow transclusion and/or substitution templates for signatures continue to be the policy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Allstarecho (talk • contribs) 17:02, 25 March 2009

First off, we should totally ignore the red herring of transclusion of the signature - almost no one thinks it is a good idea and this will remain policy not to allow a transcluded signature. Moving on to the substitution bit, which is hardly "long standing". It was added on 23 June 2008 (tweaked slightly), and removed 2 October 2008, re-added 20 Oct 2008, tweaked and untweaked the same day, then reversed 7 January 2009 and then finally arrived at the compromise version we have today, as discussed between myself and Amalthea above at #Signature_substitution in mid February. –xeno (talk) 21:16, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

“

Substitution of templates in signatures is discouraged, as any such template will typically either violate the reasonable length restriction of 255 characters or will be redundant to using the same content as a raw signature.

”

I think this is fine. –xeno (talk) 21:19, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow, could the RFC question be any less neutral? Anyhow, I fully support Xeno's version. --Conti|✉ 21:21, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
- After feeding much of this debate, I concur with Xeno. We're not stupid. If we see a signature that is too long, we tell the user about it. Delete their signature page, shorten it, block as last resort. We don't need to beat some users to death for clever coding because two or three people can't stick to a limit, surely? GARDEN 21:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Disclosure: I've notified Richard0612, Anomie, Shoemaker's Holiday and Cyde as I have referenced their edits in my above statement. –xeno (talk) 04:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I think the current guideline is fine. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 04:17, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I also think the current guideline is fine. Arguing about this is daft. Go write an encyclopedia. -- Quiddity (talk) 04:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
No on transclusion. Subst I really don't care as long as the source page is protected in some manner and the output wikitext is a reasonable length and respects this guideline. Anomie ⚔ 11:19, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Transclusion is right out, so forget about that. As for substituion, all of the reasons listed in the section just above this one regarding the "clever" things that can be done make me more inclined to say we should keep it disallowed. Randomly-colored signatures? Different signatures for different pages? Ugh. Consistency in signatures is important. --Cyde Weys 14:50, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree with Xeno's wording. Cyde, I'd think that if a user ever has a signature that varies enough to be a distraction it can still be dealt with individually. This possibility isn't enough to prohibit it completely in my eyes, even if the only use for this "feature" were to make our editors happy (which is only beneficial to the encyclopaedia as long as such bells and whistles don't dominate a user's editing).
As mentioned, allowing transclusions was never an option. --Amalthea 16:04, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Just for my .02, I believe that the 255 character limit is plenty generous and that heavily customized signatures of any sort should be frowned upon in general. If it can't be done with simple wiki markup, it shouldn't be in a signature. This isn't the place to defiantly express our individuality, it's about writing an encyclopedia. That said, whether it's worth administrator time to enforce such rules is the side question, and I believe that admins have better things to do, especially when the creative signatures aren't disruptive or otherwise problematic. SDY (talk) 00:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
As for me, I find them more readable the shorter and simpler the signatures are. That shouldn't be the place for artistic creativity. We should be dealing with some existing ones I can think of, not permitted yet more excesses. The user page--that's another matter. DGG (talk) 04:13, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
I use a substituted signature, and I defy anyone to notice (unless they trawled through my userpages to find it.) The reason being is that I can then share my signature with my alternative account, which has the substitution with "logged on as Pek"" on the end. I've made sure that the sig itself, with the suffix, is not more than 255 characters. I can see the need to ban/discourage "clever" substitutions, or those than circumvent the 255 character rule, but there are circumstances like mine which are useful. — Tivedshambo (t/c) (yes that's a subst) 22:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)
Yes That is my answer to the RFC question. Personally, I think more editors should only use the tilde method.--Rockfang (talk) 03:32, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
What about signatures that are less than 255 characters when substed, but are not 255 in template form? — neuro^{(talk)(review)} 15:31, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Disallow transclusion, discourage but allow substitution - a single problematic change to a transcluded template as a sig could cause major problems. A substituted sig has the potential for a problem in case of "well-timed" vandalism. However, there are some situations where it may make sense. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 09:46, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Comment — Signatures should be ever more restricted. They are the single worst vector for bad code into the wiki. People stick all manner of low quality, invalid, and deprecated code into their sigs. I'd be all for no customization of sigs at all; just a few checkboxes to allow optional talk and contrib links of a canonical form. No color, no bold, no boxes, no superscripts; it's all attention-seeking. Cheers, Jack Merridew 14:13, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Motion to close: RFC isn't my strong suit, but aren't they supposed to be closed after 30 days unless otherwise specified? –xeno ^talk 14:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Require link to usertalk page in signatures?

I propose that we require a link to a user's talk page in the signature. Comments in this closed MfD will provide some background as to the origin of this proposal. What do other folks think of this idea? Ladyof Shalott 03:52, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The current text is here:

It is common practice to include a link to one or more of your user page, user talk page, and contributions page. At least one of those pages must be linked from your signature to allow other editors simple access to your talk page and contributions log.

Based on that MFD, the only reason I can see for such a rule would be to allow users to circumvent possibly offensive user pages. If that's the case then it'd be better to address that issue directly and forbid offensive material on user pages. The same user could copy the picture from his user page to his talk page, so just having a talk page link in his sig wouldn't really change things. Other than that, it seems like instruction creep. Will Beback talk 04:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Since we allow sigs without any link, there's no way this will be enforceable. --NE2 04:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Technically, the guideline requires a link. However since it's just a guideline it's hard to enforce. Obviously, this proposed addition would be just as unenforceable. Will Beback talk 04:34, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That requirement only seems to apply to non-admins. It should be noted that a non-admin with a compliant signatures get hounded as disruptive, but an admin with non-compliant signatures can get away with it as long as their bloody-mindedness lasts. DuncanHill (talk) 10:39, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

In other words, WP:NVC is a lie. Not that that's any kind of surprise. Anomie ⚔ 11:47, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

He gets hounded from time to time, he's just stubborn. –xeno ^talk 12:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. I think I agree with ~~NE2~~ Will here -- the image could just as easily be copied/moved to his talk page, so this doesn't solve anything. Matt (talk) 04:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I think you're agreeing with Will

--NE2 05:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Whoops! How did that happen?? Well, as far as what NE2 said, although we may allow signatures without links, SineBot would pick up on it and insert a signature with a userpage/user talk page link. Matt (talk) 05:26, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

You can opt out of SineBot, as I do (because I notice it immediately and would edit conflict with SineBot). --NE2 05:28, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Sinebot doesn't operate on users with more than 800 edits. –xeno ^talk 12:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe establishing new rules or requirements on the community as a result of one incident is almost always A Bad Idea. –Whitehorse1 07:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Support new policy I would support the creation of a policy requirement that all sigs contain at least a link to the usertalk page. DuncanHill (talk) 10:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
No, this will not provide a solution. If he wanted he could simply move the image to his talk, thus rendering the necessity pointless. Why disrupt established policy for one userpage? GARDEN 10:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The necessity is in making it easier for editors to communicate with each other, and this has nothing to do with WebHamster at all. DuncanHill (talk) 11:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Why do we have the big "talk" tab at the top then? I really can't remember the last time someone accidentally posted to someone's userpage. GARDEN 11:07, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Accidental postings to userpages are quite common, in my experience, particularly by inexperienced editors. To tell the truth the most disruptive sigs are those with no links at all, and those in hard-to-read colours. DuncanHill (talk) 11:11, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, I stand corrected; although a quick "Are you here to leave me a message? Go to my talk page" is easier and simpler in my opinion. I do however agree with the signatures with no links, which require guesswork as to where the userpage is (like, if I remember correctly, Ottre and RHMED had). Signatures with hard to read colours are generally accidents I would hope. GARDEN 11:25, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Neutral but open to persuasion either way. I'd certainly support adding that any user who provides a link to their user page instead of their talk page must accept that some users will leave messages on the user page. Regards, Ben Aveling 11:59, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Nah. It's not going to solve the problem: If I'd want to provoke people with nude-pictures, and I'd be eventually forced to put a link to my talk page in my sig, too.. I'd simply put the nude-picture onto my talk page. :) --Conti|✉ 12:06, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Let's not try to think of this only in terms of one hamster, who claims they aren't being intentionally disruptive with the picture. If guideline mandated a usertalk sig, and then he still moved the picture onto his user talk page, well, then we know he wasn't being genuine. –xeno ^talk
But what other problem is this going to solve? A link to the talk page is certainly a good idea, but requiring it seems over the top. There's nothing wrong with just one link to the user page, unless there's something wrong with the user page. --Conti|✉ 12:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
just to make things easier for collaboration. there's also the issue of people not providing any links at all. –xeno ^talk 13:00, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Support, not because I don't want to see nude images, but because I typically don't want to see a userpage at all - I want to leave the person a message. I had hope this RFC would have waited for a few weeks so it didn't become polarized about the beaver issue. –xeno ^talk 12:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Nah — Sigs identify users, and that's rather the idea with user pages. Talk pages are for talking, which is only one option. Jack Merridew 16:52, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Support with a ban on images on user talk pages. There is no reason for an image to be there unless it is part of the discussion. That way nobody gets offended. They get to talk to a user without seeing potentially offensive images, and we should make it policy too, to avoid battles over how to enforce guidelines. Griffinofwales (talk) 17:22, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Do not require link It would make far more sense to not require a link. This is instruction creep in that it addresses what is only the illusion of a problem. That MfD was a tempest in a teacup. Chillum 17:28, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I don't quite understand what you mean by it would make to "more sense to not require a link" ? And I would again ask people to judge this question on its own merits, not whether or not you think it's ok to show vag on a userpage or whether it is indeed an illusion of a problem. It's been unfortunately framed as a solution to that particular problem. –xeno ^talk 17:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

What if the image in question is on the talk page? There is a rule that requires linking to it. It would make far more sense to require that a link in a sig does not point to potentially shocking/offensive material. I really don't think it is a good idea to change policy based on one event that got blown out of proportion. Chillum 17:33, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, which is why I'm trying to avoid us conflating this issue. It is not only WebHamster who is (disruptively or otherwise) not providing a link to their talk page. –xeno ^talk 17:36, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

So this is just about a quick link to the talk page? The history button will give you that. I don't think people need to put links in their signatures, I don't see a problem with people having to do an extra click to find someone. I used a linkless signature for months once and it caused no problem. Chillum 17:39, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That's all well and good if you're ok forcing people to jump through hoops, or view vaginas, to get to their talk page. Not sure why people feel the need to aggravate their fellow editors in such a fashion. –xeno ^talk 17:42, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The history page provides a direct link to the talk page of a user. No hoops, no user page, just talk page. If talk page content is truly inappropriate it can be removed, the image you are referring to was hardly explicit and there was no vag visible. I think if the girl was spread eagle then the result of the MfD would have been different. Chillum 17:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

There was a little slice... =] iirc. –xeno ^talk 18:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

That is not Vagina, that is a sliver of the top of the Pubic mound. The former is a fibromuscular tubular tract leading from the uterus to the exterior of the body in female the latter is the fatty tissue lying above the pubic bone of adult women. A common misconception. Chillum 18:05, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Colloquial usage =) –xeno ^talk 18:08, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Questions on the appropriateness of celebrating the lack of bush, with visual aids, on your doorstep, are kind of thrilling, but I don’t see the relevance of the recent MfD to this proposal. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:10, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

The user with such a page has a link only to that page (not his talk page) in his signature. The confluence of a userpage that looks like that with a signature that routed people who might otherwise have gone directly to the talkpage there led to both questions of appropriateness of the page (hence the mfd) and this proposal. If your question was rhetorical, oh well. Ladyof Shalott 00:28, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree that your proposal is a serious, but the degree of tempest over the image has me wondering of the user had been substituting the image with his signature. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:06, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. If a user has something on their user page that they know to be offensive, and you force them to add a link to their talk page in their sig, they'll just add the offensive material to their talk page as well. Besides, is this really that big of a problem? --Kbdank71 17:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Oppose as instruction creep. Not every possible eventuality can or should be covered by policy. henrik•talk 17:49, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Oppose a nice thought, but not practical and nearly impossible to enforce. Bastique ^demandez 18:12, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
In what sense is it (i) not practical, or (ii) impossible to enforce? It would seem pretty easy to enforce to me... Robofish (talk) 16:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Oppose Policies and guidelines should not be for this sort of minutiae. We don't need to require all good ideas.--Tznkai (talk) 21:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
Support requesting that all signatures link to a watched talk page, and encourage linking to a userpage providing introductory information about the user. This is in the interests of reducing barriers to newcomers, even not-yet-edited wikipedians. The common implicit assumption that all important editors know each other, and know what’s going on, is something that makes initial involvement more difficult. This may not be so important in places like this page, but is important in places like article talk pages. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:05, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Support per xeno above. This has nothing whatsoever to do with images on userpages - it's to do with convenience. When I see a user's signature after a comment, I would like to be able to go to their talk page to reply in one click. Yeah, two clicks is not exactly a taxing ordeal, but why not just require everyone to link to their talk page in the first place? I can't see any good reason not to do it (and, as noted above, it would also help prevent users adding comments to user pages by mistake). Robofish (talk) 16:52, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
Strong Support the image issue is irrelevant. User signatures should contain any easy way to talk to the user. I personally find it annoying not to be able to "talk" to any user without going through multiple pages/typing it is manually. --ThaddeusB (talk) 16:28, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment: so the upshot appears to be that a link to at least one of: user page, user talk, or user contributions is required in every signature. So how are users who refuse to provide such links (and have signatures that aren't the same as their user name to boot) dealt with? Exploding Boy (talk) 15:39, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I don't see consensus based on arguments that a link must be included. Note that I'm not voting in this comment. Arguments against include: instruction creep, un-enforceability, guideline rather than policy, guideline for one case only, and so on. As to head counts: nine opposes, six supports, one neutral. Even if there was consensus, this is a guideline, not policy. More importantly, we don't change guideline language (see here) when (1) there is an ongoing RfC (or any other process) in which the meaning of said language in in question, and there are questions and debate about the applicability of this guideline (per the language at the time). And (2) there is no consensus as to such changes as a reaction to User:Docu and his RfC. In other words, no ex post facto changes. The guideline language needs to be reverted back to the pre-RfC version. — Becksguy (talk) 20:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Nothing substantive changed - some flowery language was removed. It's also unrelated to the above RFC which I agree didn't carry. It just says at least one link must be provided, which is exactly what it said before. –xeno^talk 20:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Strong Support per Xeno. There should not be roadblocks to contacting a user. Every editor should have a way to communicate them in their signature. In WebHamster's case, he said he doesn't put his talk in his sig because he doesn't want to hear from anyone. That's unacceptable. Enigma^msg 23:34, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
FWIW WH eventually added the link. –xeno^talk 01:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Five-tilde transclusion

On a few wikia wiki's we sometimes use Textbox's for comments. I've been trying to get use the five-tilde version of the signature as a timestamp, but I can't get it to be substituted into the comment and not the template itself. See here. Basically, I want the template to automatically run the ~~~~~ code when the template is used, without me having to actually type in the tildes when I make a comment. Can anyone help me with this?Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 02:55, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Well, that depends on how you use the template. In the end, the page you place the template on will of course need to contain the plain timestamp. There's two ways you can do that, either by placing {{sometemplate|~~~~~}}, or by hiding the timestamp tildes in a template which you then substitute into a page, e.g. {{subst:sometemplate}}.
If you place it in a template you'll need to disguise it a bit so that it isn't substituted right away when you save the template. Try using "~~<includeonly></includeonly>~<includeonly></includeonly>~~". But again, that template will need to be substituted, else you will just see five tildes. Amalthea 10:36, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Signature Sandbox

Shouldn't Wikipedia have a sandbox where users can see what their signature looks like? 75.66.180.12 (talk) 17:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The regular sandbox works just fine - just sign an edit there and viola. Shereth 17:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Recent sig-related RFC closed

See [2] for the closing admin's remarks. Exploding Boy (talk) 16:03, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Signatures must include at least one internal link, elevation to policy?

I feel I need to draw further attention to this instead of discussing it in edit summaries. Specifically I have reverted this edit and this edit as I do not believe the reflect consensus. I would like to request people give their opinions on these ideas. The previous discussion on this matter, Wikipedia talk:Signatures#Require link to usertalk page in signatures?, did not seem to come to a consensus in support of making this mandatory, much less something to block over. Chillum 02:43, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

For the record I do not object to the wording:

"While this is merely a guideline, signature use that is disruptive may lead to blocking under other Wikipedia policies."

This is obviously true in a wider context, however I do think placing it in the "Internal links" section seems to give the impression that not providing such a link is so disruptive so as to warrant a block. Chillum 02:48, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

That particular section attempted to mandate a user talk link. The more recent RFC held that at least one link (doesn't matter which one) is a requirement. See below section, we seem to have been posting at the same time. –xeno^talk 02:49, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

On July 25th, Pmanderson (talk · contribs) made changes to the guideline page [3] that seem not to reflect community opinion on signatures; i.e. that they must have at least one link. (Note, this if different than the above section that attempted to mandate a talk page link.) Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Docu had wide community support that at least one link was required and to intentionally sign without providing a link was disruptive and thus subject to blocking. There was also a suggestion that this guideline be to elevated to policy. Thoughts? –xeno^talk 02:47, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like to see consensus confirmed here instead of basing a guideline on an RFC about a specific person. It is often a bad idea to make policy decisions based on a single event. The last time this was proposed there was no consensus for it. Chillum 02:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I still think you're misreading things. The last proposal was to mandate a link to the user talk page. At least one link was always required, we were trying to mandate a link to user talk pages, because someone had a ... somewhat riske photo ... on their user page and didn't have a user talk link. Also note the July 25th change are the ones trying to change the status quo, so they have the burden of proof here. I think the Docu RFC is enough, but if you think another signature RFC is required, please feel free. We do need to sort out the issue of guideline vs. policy. –xeno^talk 02:54, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with this edit. No we don't need a signature RFC, just a simple talk page discussion. Chillum 03:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough. I still think the community has held that at least one link is necessary (the Docu thing was widely trafficked), but yea, I can't really be arsed to file an RFC over it. –xeno^talk 03:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Consensus is abundantly clear, and I see no reason why this should not be reflected in policy (let alone a guideline). There simply is no valid reason to have a link-free signature, period.
Also, the term "merely a guideline" should not be used in any formal context, as it falsely conveys that guidelines are lesser rules that editors are free to ignore whenever they please. —David Levy 03:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

You're right, of course. Unfortunately though, that seems to be how some users view guidelines (eg). –xeno^talk 03:22, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I noticed that. Quite a troubling misunderstanding.

Incidentally, I experienced an edit conflict when attempting to perform almost exactly the same edit as this; I removed the text "while this is merely a guideline" and relocated the statement to that location. (The only difference is that I didn't tweak the link's piping.) So obviously, I endorse the change. :-) —David Levy 03:28, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I support a ~~requirement~~ strong advisement of a link to either the user page, or the talk page. — Ched : ? 19:17, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
I think this is merely common sense and long overdue. --Conti|✉ 19:31, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
While I strongly disagree with the consensus that forced Docu to change his signature, it is consensus nonetheless. There was an obvious majority that feels at least a single link should show up in a user's signature. While the RfC was about a single user, it is unproductive to try and state that this same expectation should not be extended (via this guideline) to the remainder of the users at large. It does make abundant sense that the wording here be changed to reflect the consensus reached in that discussion. Shereth 19:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I would be fully in favour of this guideline to become policy, and will state as much at and RfC that comes of it. --BlueSquadronRaven 22:14, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I personally strongly object to the alteration of the guideline statement on links, which absolutely reflected consensus as previously worded (see for instance the long discussion and RFC on just this matter here) and strongly support the proposed elevation to policy. In the meantime I urge Chillum to undo his edits as it's clear they're not representative of current consensus on the matter. Exploding Boy (talk) 23:03, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification folks, I think it could have been done with less jaw-dropping but whatever. I am off to some other part of Wikipedia. Chillum 23:06, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Recently yet another user has used an entirely unlinked signature and when questioned opined that doing so was acceptable because WP:SIG is just a guideline and not a policy. How much longer will this type of thing be allowed to continue before we make the move of making this policy? Exploding Boy (talk) 16:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I, for one, have no problem blocking an editor for intentionally and persistently signing in a disruptive manner. I don't understand the "oh, well its only a guideline, so we can't enforce it" mindset. Nevertheless, I support the elevation to policy based on the support it received at the recent RFC. –xeno^talk 16:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Editnotice update

I have no idea why this page attracts so many misplaced questions and apparent article content. I have an updated version of the editnotice at User:Gadget850/Sandbox2 that might help a bit. Please review and comment. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 13:21, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

I too am totally puzzled as to why this page is so often used for the wrong purposes. I applaud your attempt to improve matters. The proposed new version may perhaps reduce the nimber of "how can I change my signature" type queries. However, I am not sure that it will help with the astonishingly common practice of posting quetions which have nothing to do with signatures: if people don't notice or ignore the old one I see nothing in the new one which would stop people doing likewise. I suppose it is just conceivable that the new colour scheme might make it more eye-catching, but I'm not sure. It will be interesting to see if anyone else has any comments. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Every time I have reverted a misplaced discussion here, I have added a welcome to the user's page. I looked back at the contributions for those users, and I see only the single edit. I don't get it. I'm hoping that not only the color might help, but they will also have to scroll down the page to get to the edit box. It won't be a cure-all, but it can't hurt. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 12:52, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Done. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 20:59, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree it can't hurt, and we may as well try it. So far it has not stopped PinkJerseyGirl93 posting nonsense here, but we will see how things continue. However, as far as I am concerned the minor trouble involved in periodically deleting inappropriate matter is not a big deal; I am more interested in the question why on earth does it happen so much here? It doesn't seem to happen anything like so much on other project-page talk pages, so why should so many people be attracted here for this purpose? Is there some inappropriate link to here from somewhere? Or is it one vandal who keeps creating throw-away accounts to do this? Or what? JamesBWatson (talk) 10:39, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Signatures w/o Login

The page doesn't (that I can see) offer guidance for those who don't have an account, but could at least mark an entry with their name, ideally while triggering automatic time-stamping (and perhaps some record of IP address). I realise the anointed would rather we all just got accounts, but I so seldom actually say anything here that keeping track of account details isn't worth the hassle. So would it be possible to have some simple idiom for doing that ? -- Eddy, 15:33ish, 30th August 2009 (UTC).

That would be SineBot. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

If you end a post with ~~~~, it will substitute that for your IP address (if not logged in) with relevant links, and a timestamp. Pretty sure that's covered on the page.

Sinebot and the like

Is it just me, or is Sinebot occasionally more troublesome than helpful? It often signs unsigned vandalism to talk pages before anyone can revert, eliminating the possibility of using the rollback button. Powers ^T 12:47, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

This has been discussed several times (search for word "vandal" on User talk:SineBot/Archive 1 to find several discussions). The bot does wait 2 minutes before signing. So unless you can suggest some new solution... — AlexSm 15:52, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Meh, it's irritating when it happens, but it's as easy to fix as Diff->Previous revision->"Restore this version" on the origin side (with twinkle). --King Öomie 15:56, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there's never too much positive feedback (unless it becomes a hinderance), so I just wanted to say that the auto-signing is good thing. Just for a mere example, I keep forgetting to sign my comments on talk-pages. Just wondering if it's really too necessary to point out that a person forgot the signing. F-3000 (talk) 15:28, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Invalid links in signatures - MediaWiki 1.15.1

I just realized that ~~~~ is creating links to SomeUserName and not User:SomeUserName. Is this a known MediaWiki bug? Is there a fix and/or workaround? Timneu22 (talk) 12:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

For example? Perhaps someone set their signature improperly. –xeno^talk 14:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

For example nothing... they just do a regular ~~~~, and it creates a link to SomeUserName. They certainly haven't set their signature wrong, because this happens for dozens of users. They haven't even updated their preferences to have a different signature. This is really a pressing issue because it is creating all sorts of "pages wanted"! Timneu22 (talk) 00:57, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Forbid "text-shadow" in signatures

Hi there. Recently, a growing number of editors use the CSS attribute "text-shadow" to make their signatures appear like this. I do not want to sound like a grumpy old man but I think using this attribute makes signatures harder to read (especially if combined with color like so) and leads to those signatures giving undue prominence to their users. As such, they have almost the same effect as images would have, if they were permitted. While I understand the fascination to play with a new feature like that, I think it would be wise to ask people to play with it elsewhere to not make discussion pages any harder to read than necessary. Regards So Why 14:08, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Weakish support. Isn't there some css code one can use to prevent seeing these though? –xeno^talk 14:10, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't show up if you use IE :). I see xeno has asked Amalthea‎ about the css code, and that would be the best way to prevent this imo - Kingpin¹³ (talk) 14:25, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
(ec) Hmm, adding
```
* {text-shadow: none !important;}
```
to your skin css should work (just tested it by executing javascript:void(appendCSS("* {text-shadow: none !important;}")); in my address bar).Amalthea 14:28, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Works great, cheers! –xeno^talk 14:31, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I don't believe you're going far enough. I think we should forbid the use of different colors, fonts, and sizes in signatures. The extra markup clutters discussion pages, and the nonstandard signature format often leads to terrible examples of mystery meat navigation. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 14:36, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

What is it all about? I'm on Firefox 3.0.14, Win XP and it's just plain text. Where's the catch? What do you see? NVO (talk) 14:39, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

"text-shadow" is a CSS 3 attribute that only shows up in new browsers (like Firefox 3.5). As for Amalthea's suggestion, it is elegant to allow people to disable it but it will not help those people who have not set such personal CSS files. Regards So Why 14:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

To answer the actual question, I see (on Konqueror 4.2.2) a "shadow" of the text just down and to the right. And it is particularly illegible in the colored example. I've always thought fancy signatures are silly and harder to deal with; I'd prefer it if everyone just used the default. Ntsimp (talk) 16:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd add the exclusion to monobook.css. We shouldn't permit sig customisation which substantially disrupts talk pages by making sigs too hard to read/use. Rd232 ^talk 16:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

If we did that, people wouldn't be able to use text-shadows to prettify their userpages though... –xeno^talk 16:51, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, someone will surely start using

<span style="text-shadow:grey 0.2em 0.2em 0.1em !important">like this</span>

then, which has a higher specitivity and overrules the monobook declaration, like this.
In general, I agree that the shadows are gruesome. I hope it's going to go out of style by itself, once the novelty wears off. Wouldn't mind explicitly discouraging it here, but there are a lot of things in signatures I don't like. One would think that common sense should be enough to make editors not use them, but alas, ... Amalthea 17:02, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Amalthea is correct, the mononbook.css fix can be circumvented and people tend to use annoying signatures, true. So we should discourage using them via guideline. I would go further and also discourage using background color or colors like this in signatures but I am afraid we will not be able to gather consensus for that. I do not think we should forbid/disable personal sigs completely, they are quite useful to distinguish people easily but I think some people simply overdo it (and I'm afraid this includes multiple admins and experienced users). Regards So Why 20:54, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

How about something like this? The shadow color has been toned down so the text remains easily readable. It's possible also from the dev end to disallow !important when the software converts ~~~~ to the signature, isn't it?

I really don't see it as much of an issue. Some signatures are just ridiculous, but if anything needs to go, it's rainbow signatures, with every letter a different color. Talk about a chunk of markup in the edit frame. --King Öomie 21:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Oppose. Look up "enumerating badness" sometime to see why this is a bad idea. We can't make a comprehensive list of all specific bad things people can do with their signatures, so why try? Rather, we should have a guideline along the lines of "signatures must be readable". --Carnildo (talk) 21:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Unless you can think of some other use for !important keyword in the signature, I think anybody using it should be warned and then blocked for deliberately disruptive behaviour (since the only intention is to cause inconvenience to fellow editors). — AlexSm 21:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I certainly can't. I haven't seen it abused (yet), but I strongly advocate disabling it in software when in a signature. --King Öomie 15:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm all for the banning of shadows, backgrounds, !important, etc. It may be because I'm another grumpy old editor, but it seems to me that fancy signatures are much more common now than they used to be (another factor could be that I've spent a lot of time at Wiktionary which takes a very much tougher line on what is acceptable in signatures). Also, I think we need to somehow raise the profile of the signature guidelines somewhat - just today I've had to ask an experienced user to stop their signature from blinking. They did so, but stated that they didn't know there was any restriction on signatures. I can't think of how to actually make it better known though. Thryduulf (talk) 21:32, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

How about lowering the 255 character limit to 32 characters or something like that. Or disallow markup in signatures completely. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 04:31, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Just to state the obvious, 32 characters would not be enough. Just to replicate the default signature without including a user name takes 31 characters [[User:]] [[User talk:|(talk)]]. I tried shadowing but i need more than 255 characters to work with :P delirious & lost ☯ ^{~talk to her~} 20:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

I can. The Signature section in Preferences needs to link to this guideline. That way, any user attempting to change their sig is at least aware there's a policy. In fact, this is going to WP:VPR now. --King Öomie 22:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

And it's done. --King Öomie 13:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree - the text shadows in signatures draw the eye away from the rest of the text. It is an affront to decent people everywhere. Also, I think colors should be limited or banned, as well.--Blargh29 (talk) 01:52, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
Agree, some of those signatures are quite hard to read. I came across one today where the depth of the shadow was about 2x the amount usually seen and it was just ridiculous. Cutesey visual effects in sigs are just a useless distraction and there's no reason to allow them to annoy the wider editor population. Editors seeking venues for artistic self-expression can always try Myspace. 69.228.171.150 (talk) 04:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Signature icon

The signature icon is used in a number of guidelines and templates. The enhanced toolbar uses a different icon at [4]. We should copy it to File and show it as an alternative where the original icon is used. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 09:04, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Substituting signature templates

The guideline indicates that "substitution of templates in signatures is discouraged...", which I support in general, but I'm wondering whether that applies to substitution of signature templates that are already on talk pages. Once signature templates have been posted, should they not be substed? Thanks, –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 17:24, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Signature templates shouldn't be used at all. Particularly unsubst'd, they're extremely vulnerable to vandalism (adding profanity to every page you've ever signed), and some bots have trouble parsing them when archiving pages. --King Öomie 15:35, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

If someone already used a non-subst'ed templte as a signature, yes, they should be subst'ed. The guideline is meant to discourage fanciful substituted sigs that typically exceed the length requirement, change colour every hour, have random sayings, etc. –xeno^talk 15:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. –BLACK FALCON ^(TALK) 18:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Help NEEDED with Editing An Article

Hello,

I I have created an article "Nachkam/Mahamane Kalil Maiga". I have spent hours trying to understand how to edit it but I am not understanding the process.

I have entered the text, references and links using the Article Wizard. Can someone help me edit the article to make it look structured?

Also, how can I add an image to my article?

Thanks!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Nachkam (talk • contribs)

This is not the right place to ask for assistance. Try the WP:HELPDESK. Powers ^T 01:25, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

ok bye

Question about signatures

Why does the signature policy not address users whose custom signatures use characters that don't reflect the same name that appears in the edit list? For example, if someone uses Cyrillic characters for their English username, it makes it extremely difficult to tie someone's comments into an edit history. This is particularly relevant in WP:AfD discussions. It isn't a question of stalking, it's a question of transparency. Having to pore through all of the code to find out what the actual user name of someone nominating an article to see their edit history of an article is, IMO, a rather unnecessary and tedious step.Vulture19 (talk) 13:59, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

"While not an absolute requirement, it is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the user name it represents."

"A distracting, confusing, or otherwise unsuitable signature may adversely affect other users."

"If you encounter a user whose signature is disruptive or appears to be impersonating another account, it is appropriate to ask that user to consider changing their signature to meet the requirements of this guideline. When making such a request, always be polite, and assume good faith. Do not immediately assume that the user has intentionally selected a disruptive or inappropriate signature."

If you see a user using a signature like the one you describe, point it out. Perhaps someone else knows specifically WHERE to point it out. As a technical note, most browsers allow you to see the target URL when holding the mouse over a link. For example, in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome, holding the mouse over my signature displays "http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User_talk:Kingoomieiii" at the bottom of the window. Hopefully this should save you time opening the edit window to see markup, which I agree is time-consuming and irritating. --King Öomie 14:09, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Autograph Page?

Didn't Wikipedia used to have some kind of "autograph page" that users could have? I think I remember seeing one that belonged to an admin a long time ago....it had a lot of Signatures on it....

Thanks

neon ^♥ ^contribs 21:10, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Current consensus on what can be in signatures?

I am interested in what internal wikipedia links can and cannot be in user's signatures, and would appreciate the community's input.

Number	Type of page linked in signature	Example signature	Signature links to
1	Petition on user page	JohnQ ^{In Australia,? Sign the petition!}	First sentence of the essay is: "We the undersigned petition the president to review the rights of the public to reevaluate the public domain photograph laws."
2	Live requests for comment	JohnQ COI editing=POV	Signature links to ongoing Request for comment, editor's RFC section.
3	Wikipedia essay	JohnQ WP:BUREAU	Signature links essay WP:BUREAU
4	Live petition on wikipedia	JohnQ _{Notability Now!}	Signature links to ongoing petition to push for previous promised changes on Wikipedia
5	Wikiproject	JohnQ _{Hamster Project}	Signature links to a wikiproject
6	Featured topic candidates !vote	JohnQ _{Article Stephen King finally at Featured topic candidates}	Signature links to a !vote on whether an article should be a featured candidate.
7	User page straw poll	JohnQ Click here to vote for the best ice cream!	User created straw poll
8	User page straw poll	JohnQ Bic pen poll!	User created straw poll
9	Wikiproject poll	JohnQ Wikiproject poll	Straw poll about the direction of a wikiproject

Ikip 20:56, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, all of these are either frowned upon or forbidden. Signatures should link to userpages, user talk, contribs, etc- not someone's pet projects, and NEVER external sites. You're free to link to all of these things on your userpage. --King Öomie 22:25, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Per the above, these types of things are pretty much frowned upon, although I have seen the link to a Wikiproject in quite a few signatures and they seemed to be fairly well tolerated. Shereth 22:35, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that they are "well tolerated" in the sense that there is a widespread acceptance that it is acceptable. It may be more (1) many people don't realise that they are frowned on, so don't raise the issue, and (2) they are often not noticed, so the issue doesn't get raised.

Since Ikip "would appreciate the community's input", here is my opinion. Signatures on Wikipedia articles serve three useful purposes: they indicate who made a particular post, they provide a convenient link to that editor's user talk page, and likewise a link to the editor's contributions history. They normally exist in a standard format, so that anyone who has been editing on Wikipedia for more than a very short time knows how they work, and can use those three functions instantly. Any and every deviation from this standard usage is at best a distraction and at worst a severe hindrance. This certainly includes such things as making the signature show a different name than the registered user name, and making it show some wording other than "talk", or worse still not including a link to the talk page at all. The examples shown above suffer from that defect. They also give links with idiosyncratic wording which, although probably intended to be self-explanatory, look not entirely unlike some other editors' semi-humourous links to their own talk pages etc, thus creating the risk of wasting the time of people who think at first that is what they may be. In addition to this, I think tolerating them encourages an attitude that one can go round promoting one's cause on Wikipedia in any way one chooses, and this encourages other, more objectionable kinds of promotion. I have known cases where an editor who has been told that some form of behaviour is unacceptable has responded with responses something like "but what about JoeX, who advertises his cause in his signature?" One then has to spell out in words of one syllable why the two cases are different, and, as likely as not, the user still can't see the difference. All in all, as you will have guessed by now, I am against such signatures. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:22, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Personally I think that the fad of standard links with non-standard link text is more odious than linking to a wikiproject. I'm referring to the cases where cutesy phrases link back to the user's talk page and contributions page, with lots of superscripts or subscripts or the like. I suppose I find overly complicated signatures a bit odious in general though ... but that could be just me :)

As an aside and a response to your own response above, I cannot help but to wonder. In a community-consensus driven project like Wikipedia, if a majority of editors have no problems with a signature because they are unaware that "it is frowned upon" ... is it really frowned upon if the community doesn't realise that fact? Shereth 18:25, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

To your semantic point, that struck me odd as well. Much like saying "Many people see it, and don't realize they don't like it...". --King Öomie 16:57, 10 February 2010 (UTC)

No, "if a majority of editors have no problems with a signature because they are unaware that it is frowned upon" is not what I meant. I meant that many people may disapprove of a signature, but not raise the issue because they are not aware that their disapproval is widely shared. JamesBWatson (talk) 12:27, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion: link to current artIcle's revision

I suggest that the date part of the ~~~~ template was turned into a permanent link to the current article's version, for example:

Stpasha (talk) 20:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The reason for this would be that too often when you go to a talk page of some article to see if there are any concerns raised or suggestions for further improvements, you'll find comments like

“I find section XXX very confusing ...”, or

“I think there is an error in the first formula in section YYY ...”, or

“Section ZZZ requires expansion ...”, or

“The article is totally useless for the majority of people, it was written with the intention to impress, not to inform the reader ...”, etc.

All of these responses would be much easier to investigate if it were possible to immediately jump to that version of the article which was in place at the time the comment was written. … stpasha » 21:25, 4 February 2010 (UTC) Elgan Powell (talk) 21:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Nice idea. Fences&Windows 23:00, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I would support this, but with plainlinks and linking the whole date/time as "Stpasha (talk) 20:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)". — Jeff G. ツ 18:04, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Unsigned comments

I was refactoring some discussion pages and found some ancient unsigned comments of little significance. I thought to note them with an unsigned template, but as near as I can tell, this would force me to at least look up an IP or date in the history, which was more effort than I wanted to expend. I asked the reference desk about this and they said just use a spacing fix, but I think that can lead to confusion about the number of speakers in the conversation. Anyone have any other ideas? Should there be a user unknown, date unknown unsigned comment template? Blue Rasberry 17:35, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I suggest that if the comments are both "ancient" and "of little significance" then you may as well just leave them. However, alternatively you could put something like <small> The above comment was unsigned and undated. </small> if you like. JamesBWatson (talk) 11:15, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Small text seems reasonable; if there is no precedent then that is what I will do. Thanks. Blue Rasberry 13:51, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Small text is a usability issue. However there is no reason {{Unsigned}} can't be made to work with zero parameters, indeed maybe it already does. Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 24 April 2010 (UTC).

It does now. Rich Farmbrough, 17:48, 24 April 2010 (UTC).

Template:Unsigned-unk –xeno^talk 16:04, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Default signature

I think the default signature should contain a " — " or a " --- " before the name. I can see that many people define their signature just in order to add a "--" in front of the name. Also, would be nice to have some predefined signatures (in my preferences), with a few colors and with the option to include the link to the contributions. Ark25 (talk) 03:20, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

"--" is traditional from other media, not really needed here the effort to set your prefs to have "-- " before your sig is negligible. I agree however with he pre-defined styles because it would give users some choices that could be css linked and kept up to date with accessibility requirements, skin changes etc.. Rich Farmbrough, 16:08, 24 April 2010 (UTC).

Images in edit summaries?

So I know that we can't have images in signatures. What about edit summaries? Histories are special pages, would they show up in the "usage" list of the image?

P.S. - If this is not the right place, please tell me where that is. A p3rson ‽ 22:58, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

It would be a Bad Thing™. Rich Farmbrough, 17:49, 24 April 2010 (UTC).

No, this doesn't work. When I put an image in an Edit Summary (as a copy of a change I made), the image is not rendered, but instead shows up as a link. — Jeff G. ツ 17:52, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Redirection page

Alright, this is probably not possible due to the coding for wikipedia, and if it were it would probably be done already, but I'll ask anyway. Is it possible to create a redirection page to here called [[WP:~~~~]]? If you type it into the search bar, theres no option to create a page, and I would imagine it may cause a few errors, but thought it may be worth asking anyhow. cheers! NeilHynes - ^Talk _Edits 23:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

I think that would cause mild breakage in that there might then be an inaccessible page (with or) without tricks. This sort of stuff is dealt with by the MW software and will invoke a "bad title" error if you do manage to call the page (more than two consecutive "~"). Rich Farmbrough, 16:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC).

Font sizes

I have removed "and <font size="3"> markup" added in revision 259317371 by Daedalus969 in this edit but not supported by consensus. — Jeff G. ツ 17:47, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

And I'm going to revert you, as font size 3 is the same size as big tags. Consensus isn't needed for the blatantly obvious, just as obvious as it is that you removed it as your signature breaks that rule.— Dæ dαlus^Contribs 17:54, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

My signature follows the examples of Fastily (talk · contribs), Dlohcierekim (talk · contribs), J.delanoy (talk · contribs), Tnxman307 (talk · contribs), OlEnglish (talk · contribs), and Elockid (talk · contribs), all administrators who use <big> or <font size="n"> tags in their signatures. Your signature, on the other hand, misrepresents your username as the nonexistent "Dædαlus". Also, the page is a guideline, not a rule. — Jeff G. ツ 18:55, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

1. That someone is an administrator doesn't mean that his or her judgement is perfect.

2. Wikipedia's guidelines are rules. They should be bent or broken when a good reason exists. "I want to" (scare quotes) is not such a reason.

3. I agree with your assessment of Daedalus969's signature. I hope that you'll address each other's criticism. —David Levy 21:27, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

My signature links to my page. I don't see the problem with that. Both user, and talk pages are linked; in that light, aesthetics shouldn't matter. If you're going to argue about aesthetics, get 4 deuces to change his signature to something other than 4 playing card symbols.— Dæ dαlus^Contribs 02:35, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, a signature should display the actual username without special fonts or colors.

But that's merely my opinion, not the community's. You're correct that Jeff G.'s signature contradicts consensus. —David Levy 04:24, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

As I said at your talk page, arguing that Font size 3 and big tags are different, and that consensus is needed for such an edit, is wikilawyring, given that

Font size 3
Big tags

Font size 3 is the same, if not bigger than the big tags. It should go without saying that font size 3, and anything above, should not be used, but obviously some people still do.— Dæ dαlus^Contribs 18:06, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

It's been saying not font/3 for a year and a half? *That's* in implicit acceptance and consensus. Have we had enough of attention-seeking sigs yet? Time to tighten the rules up a lot. I believe we should not allow sig markup at all. No font shite, no colours, no borders, and no tweaking the user name. About the only options should be talk and contribs via a checkbox in prefs. Cheers, Jack Merridew 19:37, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Please be civil, both of you. Thank you. — Jeff G. ツ 20:51, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

bollocks. referring to poor markup as shite is not incivil. ;) Jack Merridew 20:57, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is. Also, your signature in this edit transcluded a template and used an image in its markup, despite your alleged opinion above 49 minutes earlier. — Jeff G. ツ 22:02, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Not. Also, I just checked my prefs, and my sig is [[User:Jack Merridew|Jack Merridew]], which it has been for quite some time, including when I made that edit. In that edit, I did manually include some markup around the sig. Really not sure how one can allege one's own opinion, though. Are you having fun today? Chuckles, Jack Merridew 22:12, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

The markup you manually included passed the WP:DUCK test as a signature. — Jeff G. ツ 03:24, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Long discussed and not. Last notice that you should change the "4". Jack Merridew 03:41, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Superscript / Subscript

The guideline prohibits users from using superscripts and subscripts; however, at least half of the cutomised sigs I've seen include them. Kayau Voting IS evil 05:19, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't prohibit, it suggests one should "Be sparing". –xeno^talk 16:03, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedians sure aren't using them sparingly. Just look at the number of users using superscript! Kayau Voting IS evil 00:43, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

I wonder why that is in the guideline? Superscripting is heavily used in articles with <ref>...</ref> tags, and the sitewide CSS has line height tweaks to accommodate it. Math articles certainty use superscript and subscript. I would say that in practice, superscripting is not uncommon in signatures. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 01:30, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

So should that be improved? Kayau Voting IS evil 14:16, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think a reduction would be an 'improvement' at all, merely a 'change'. --King Öomie 15:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, OK, a change. :) Kayau Voting IS evil 09:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

IP Example Change

Could anyone check out my edit - I changed the IP example, just wanted to make sure it was a good idea - please talkback me (via my sig's link) when you reply (if you do) - I'll probably forget. Thanks! ~ QwerpQwertus ·_Talk_·----------Talkback%20Me%20Here----------#&autosummary=Talkback _Talkback Me_· 05:18, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Tick

Am I allowed to use the Y mark? Belugaboy ^{Talk to Me!} Y 15:26, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

No images allowed, but you can take the text-based tick from template:done-t. –xeno^talk 16:00, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Templates? Really?

At WB, my sig is {{subst:User|Kayau}} and it doesn't generate loads of characters, and MiszaBot doesn't have any problems with it. Kayau Voting IS evil 00:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

The "no sig templates" rule is due to it clogging up the server every time you change it and being a vandalism target. If you want to sign with "{{user}}~~~~~" I doubt many people would have a problem with it. --erachima talk 19:19, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

If you are subst'ing it, then you probably won't have templates in your signature. –xeno^talk 19:20, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Secondary signature

How about the idea the of 'secondary signatures' where users can use two signatures, whichever they want? --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 11:05, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

I doubt if anyone would want to do so. If they really want one, they can use their own userspace to create User:Lorem ipsum/sig and use it when they want to. Do you think that makes sense? Kayau Voting IS evil 11:10, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

Automated signature adding

Why isn't this process automated? I don't see why I should read some 2000 word article just to anonymously contribute to a talk page.. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.87.65.207 (talk • contribs)

It is not automated because we are still waiting for mw:extension:LiquidThreads to be deployed. –xeno^talk 00:09, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

If we adding a template or fixing typo then what is the need of automated signatures there. --Extra 999 (Contact ^me + _contribs) 05:33, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Removal of signatures

I was just wondering what the procedure is for dealing with editors who refuse to have their comments signed. I've spotted one IP user who doesn't sign their posts and reverts SignBot edits if it adds them later. The user seems to object to their IP address being displayed - it may also be partly because the user's comments are normally aggressively-worded complaints about the article. I have explained to the user that removing a signature doesn't make an edit anonymous because the information is available on the page history and recommended that they register if they don't want their IP to be shown on talk pages but it just got me thinking. The guidelines say that talk page edits "should be signed", not "must be signed", but I wasn't sure if this is just so users don't have to sign edits like template additions or archiving work, or whether it relates to users like this who don't want their comments signed? I personally would like signatures on talk pages to be required as not including them achieves nothing but adding them is a great help to other editors. Chimpanzee - User | Talk | Contribs 09:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

In reverting the addition of the signature, the IP is being disruptive. Who is it? --SmokeyJoe (talk) 12:09, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The user I was referring to is 66.170.216.184. The user also seems to leave messages such as "don't you dare sign my post" for the SignBot, obviously to no avail. So, what's the policy? It it a requirement rather than a recommendation? If so, maybe the wording should be changed from "should" to "must". Chimpanzee - User | Talk | Contribs 13:31, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. –xeno^talk 13:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both for your help. (I've also just corrected Template:uw-tilde to match) Chimpanzee - User | Talk | Contribs 14:03, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

My signature: Length check, and WP standards compliance?

I've just edited my signature to include reasonable Talk and Contribs links, but because of the way I have the signature date rendered (To include the CE distinction) my signature looks like it might be a little on the long side. :-|

Does my current WP signature still fit within reasonable dimensions (As per WP policy) or does it need trimming down?
Is there any way I can have the CE link appended to the end of the auto-posted date (Currently tacked-on after the = symbol) so that my signature satisfies my preferences whilst still meeting WP's standards for properly formatted UTC dates?

Farewell for now, and thanks in advance for any assistance! >:-)

+++ DieselDragon +++ ^{Talk, Contribs} - 26 October 2010CE = 16:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

curiosity about semi-random sigs

I have noticed (just as an example, not to cause a ruckus) that user:TreasuryTag has some sort of automatic randomization going on with his signature: his sigs are all of the form ╟─TreasuryTag►***─╢, where the brackets and the word tag rotate through different colors and the *** is any of a medium-sized list of words. I'm not quite sure how he does it, though I assume he's built some javascript into his signature to produce the effect. I don't think it's a problem in this case, not from a user perspective - it took me a while, but I did figure out that it was the same individual - but I don't know what the server-side ramifications of it are, and I can see some potential for abuse in it (e.g. someone who decides to completely randomize their displayed name on every post). is some comment about this worth adding to the guideline? --Ludwigs2 17:06, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that User:TreasuryTag/sig is substituted (no script involved). The randomness comes from evaluating the number of edits currently made on en.wikipedia. I would prefer that simple, fixed signatures were used, but what I really hate are the WOW-LOOK-AT-ME colored blocks (and the TT signature is much better than those, and has the benefit that some of the displayed text matches the username. I'm just venting because I do not think there is much chance of a guideline change, although I would support some tightening. Johnuniq (talk) 07:12, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

So are you allowed to have your signature on a userspace template to avoid the 255 characters rule? --George2001hi (Discussion) 16:41, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I haven't looked lately to see if there is a specification somewhere, but as I understand discussions that I have seen, the answer is no. Apart from just being reasonable, an important point about signatures is how talk pages look to other users when they are adding/adjusting comments: long or complex signature wikitext is disruptive. Johnuniq (talk) 02:36, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. --George 2001 ^hi 21:34, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Semi-protect talk page?

Given the unusual amount of completely off-topic threads created by IPs and new users (I'm assuming this page is linked to from somewhere very visible) and the fact that looking at this page I can't see a useful contribution from a new user (and indeed, it's unlikely that someone would have an opinion on such as the signature policy within 12 edits or 3 days of editing), why not simply semi-protect this talk page indefinitely? We could have Wikipedia talk:Signatures/Non-protected for new users, if necessary. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 09:35, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

I was going to ask about this. I recently accidentally added this talk page to my watchlist and have been intrigued by the number of misplaces discussions are created here. I'll leave it to the regulars to discuss whether it should be locked or not but I was wondering if anyone knows why there's so much of this on this particular talk page? Is it just because it's linked-to from somewhere? Chimpanzee⁺ ^{Us | Ta | Co} 10:59, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if it's because WP:Signatures is featured on several welcome templates and the (also bot-delivered) tilde template about signing comments? Almost every new editor or IP address who has made a couple of edits is likely to encounter one of the two at some point. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 11:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

In the absence of discussion, I'll be WP:BOLD and file this at RFPP; if the responding admin feels that there's insufficient cause without stronger consensus then no harm done. GiftigerWunsch [TALK] 01:16, 7 January 2011 (UTC)