Wikipedia talk:Signatures/Archive 4

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

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How?

Can someone help me make a defalt signature, I can't get mine to work as a default. This is it, if you need it-KjtheDj what do you want? Contributions

I have made a sig too, but,when I type the final result " appears as coded differently, And so does '<'+'>'! Can you Help!The Wiki Whippet (deeds)22:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, what ever I in doesn't work. Not even KjtheDj Works. I am now having to type my sig in manually. KjtheDj 20:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

How? (Please Answer!)

How can you make your signature have all those different colors and things? I'm a first time person on Wiki, so please answer my question! How do you make your signature look neat like yours? Have any tips, anybody? ♥Smartie960♥(talk with me!)♥ 00:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Plus, what codes can I use to get my signature that way? The signature i have right now is a code I got from someone. I know that there is more I can do to my signature, but what? please answer? Can you all give me some codes? I know to go to preferences and type in the code where it says signature then check raw signature, but I need some codes! Please help! ♥Smartie960♥(talk with me!)♥ 00:51, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

You can use standard HTML and CSS "code" text produces text for example. Elaborate signatures are discouraged though, so keep it clean, readable and short (no rainbow color gradients that result in 10 lies of code in the edit window whenever you sign and such). --Sherool (talk) 09:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Sherool! This is my new signature: ♥Smartie960♥ (Chatter Box) 21:55, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that it's almost completely unreadable. --Mel Etitis (Talk) 22:56, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I second that (hurts my eyes too). John Reaves (talk) 23:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Move the span tags inside the link like this: [[User:Smartie960|♥Smartie960♥]]. That way the link text will be light blue as well and easier to read against the green background. --Sherool (talk) 13:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok I did that and here it is:

♥Smartie960♥(Chatter Box)

Examples

We should have some examples under the custome signature section. Users should not have to hunt on the talk page to learn the basics of creating a raw signature. I'm still in the process of trying to figure out how to change my date and remove the old date once you get the new date attached. I don't expect all the tricks but some table of the basics would be nice. Morphh ^(talk) 14:32, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Please don't mess with the date, several high trafic pages are automaticaly archived by bots depending on when the last post in a section was made, non-standard date strings will be ignored and cause the section to be archived prematurely. Not to mention it becomes harder to follow when something was posted if everyone used theyr own custum date format. --Sherool (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I didn't want to change the format, just the size. Like "15:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)" Morphh ^(talk) 15:57, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

"Category" restriction addition

As 01-April-2007 and Category:Pages blessed by the input of Wikipedia user tjstrf has shown, it is overwhelmingly obvious why categories should never be in signatures. I fully endorse this guideline addition by User:Cyde [1]. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:14, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I also endorse the change. I first mentioned the ability to put categories in sigs almost half a year ago[2], and brought up the rule deficiency in several later sig-related discussions as well, but nobody ever took it seriously. Having a rule against sig categories implemented was an ulterior motive to my use of the prank in the first place. My apologies to whoever ended up depopulating it for me though, I was planning on doing that myself when April Fool's ended in my time zone.

Maybe next year I'll make my sig end with <nowiki>? :) ...OK, maybe not. --tjstrf talk 07:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the developers thought of that. You'll find you get an error trying to save your signature if it contains unbalanced tags. --ais523 14:53, 2 April 2007 (U T C)

Yes, I checked that earlier and the end result is that all your tags get converted into the url-coded equivalents. There's either a similar safeguard against me ending my sig with ''' and bolding the rest of the page, or it just results in an error, since when I tested that the end result was all of my signature being bolded but not the rest of the page. --tjstrf talk 16:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice cat! :-DDDDD very big laugh... I wish I had caught it in action... oh, that would have been even more hilarious! (→Netscott) 17:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I disagree because I've found a workaround, everything after this is nowikied--User:Rock2e ^{Talk - Contribs} 20:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Not surprising, but it's probably not a good idea to specifically ban whatever method you used because it will give people ideas. --tjstrf talk 22:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it is worthy of a ban if I can put images in my sig, please delete it after looking.--User:Rock2e ^{Talk - Contribs} 07:18, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, while I think about it, if WP could allow image links to upload.wikimedia.org then I could argure with most of the policies: Many concerns have been raised over the use of images in signatures, and they are considered to serve no use to the encyclopedia project. Images in signatures shall not be used for several reasons:

they are an unnecessary drain on server resources, and could cause server slowdown

|a new image can be uploaded in place of the one you chose, making your signature a target for possible vandalism and Denial-of-service attacks (not if you link to the right version, even if it is a new version, it will be the first one in the history.) they reduce searchability, making pages more difficult to read

they make it more difficult to copy text from a page. (Not really, if you try and copy and paste my sig and paste it then you'll miss out the images)
they are potentially distracting from the actual message. (Not if they are 16px)

in most browsers images do not scale with the text, making lines with images higher than those without. (Didn't happen with my sig (See above))

they clutter up the "file links" list on the image page every time you sign on a different talk page. (They don't if you externally link to the image.)
images in signatures give undue prominence to a given user's contribution.

Links in signatures

Do offsite links apply to counters and other Wikimedia wikisites? The counter is on tool.wikimedia.de. Does the WM own this server? Buick 22:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Links to Wikimedia essentially are covered by WP:SIG#Internal links and shouldn't pose a problem. Netscott 22:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

No. Seriously, do not add a counter to your signature. This is an abuse of Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 08:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Length

I'm about to add the following clause to the section about signature length:

Signatures that occupy more space than necessary in the edit box displace meaningful comments, thus forcing the editor to scroll when writing his reply. The presence of such long signatures in the discussion also disrupts the reading of comments when an editor is formulating his reply.

Comments welcome. --Tony Sidaway 08:27, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree but I have a workaround for the long code, but it means you can put unbalanced tags and imags in as well so WP:BEANS means that I shouldn't put it here.--User:Rock2e ^{Talk - Contribs} 10:25, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

SUBST:'d templates.

The reasons presented here do not apply to SUBST:'d signatures, as: vandalizing the template wont change anything, since SUBST:s are a sort of copy-paste from the template, it will not change globally with a subst:, and server load only increases however much subst:ing normal templates do. Can I use a subst: like I am now?Blastedt•(talk•contribs) 14:26, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

IMO, it seems ok as long as the vandal doesn't change the template, to protect it, move the page to .css, this will protect it from vandalism from everyone except admins and yourself.BTW you found out how I put images in, see above.--User:Rock2e ^{Talk - Contribs} 16:39, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

You need to move User:Blastedt/~ to User:Blastedt/~.css to protect it.--User:Rock2e ^{Talk - Contribs} 16:41, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't images be put in manually? ._0 Oh, and thanks. Blastedt•(talk•contribs) 18:17, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so, in the policy it says that it's been removed but that's a way around it. For April Fools next year, I might just put a nowiki at the end of my sig :P —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Rock2e (talk • contribs) 08:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Suggested change: Do not support a belief or an entity in your signature

I think it would be necessary ro remind people not to use internal links or images in their signatures in a way which could be supportive of a belief (like a cross to support Christianity) or to support and entity (like having the logo of a favorite team in the signature to show support to it). I'm proposing this, because in spite of the statements about not using images in signatures, some users still do this. I think using an image in as described above, would also be against WP:POINT.

Please feel free to make suggestions or corrections to my statement above. huji—TALK 08:48, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Putting this into the guideline would be like saying "Don't stuff beans up your nose". --Tony Sidaway 22:46, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

An example of how people have used it can be found here. A user has used Image:Bahai_star.svg in his/her signature, which is clearly showing he is a supporter of Baha'i faith.huji—TALK 18:51, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that supporting a belief should be avoided, as long as it does not insult other beliefs. A cross, say, would be alright, but a cross with an X on it certainly wouldn't.--Orthologist 20:11, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

No, we don't want Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Shinto, Hindu or any other symbols plastered all over discussion pages. You can put such symbols on your user page, if you like. --Tony Sidaway 21:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Per Tony, this would seem to be redundant with the "don't put images in your signature, period" rule. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:08, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the point of the change. Images are already strongly discouraged, and divisive usernames are already unacceptable. -- nae'blis 21:13, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all of the comments. I think there is a consensus supporting no change. I'm fine with it. huji—TALK 21:55, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

How different is to different

my signature is completely different from my userename. this is because i randomly made my username because my real name was already taken. so am i alowed to have the signature of "Algonquin"? ∆ Algonquin 10:32, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

In the long run you should probably change your username to something resembling the signature you want to use. Meanwhile it might be nice to put "Qz3" in brackets so that people can see your username clearly. This is important for relating discussion on talk pages to edit history of the article. --Tony Sidaway 11:35, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Elmo rule?

Could somebody please explain why this is called the "Elmo rule"? --Luigifan 21:24, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Because, uh, it isn't? Where on earth did you hear it called that? --tjstrf talk 07:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Non-breaking space

I have a non-breaking space in my signature to ensure that my name and the talkpage link are on the same line. Is this OK, or does it violate the guideline that markup which "disrupt[s] the way that surrounding text displays" should be avoided? Thanks, nadav (talk) 04:22, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

I think it's fine (it affects the way your text displays, not surrounding text). The 'surrounding text' rule is to prevent ^{markup like this} that screws up text that isn't part of the signature (see how close the first two lines of this comment are together?). --ais523 07:40, 22 May 2007 (U T C)

Thanks for the input. I'll specify this in the guideline, with an invitation to revert and discuss if someone disagrees. nadav (talk) 07:52, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Pre-signatures

Jonathan Kovaciny: Wouldn't it make conversations easier to read if everybody put their signature at the START of their comments instead of at the end? This would make it read more like a script, allowing readers to know who's talking before they get to the end of the comment. Perhaps the timestamp would go at the end of the comment. 18:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Jonathan Kovaciny 18:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)	Or, for even better readability, put every comment inside a table so that the usernames are always on the left and the comment is always on the right. This could be done easily with the appropriate template. Better still would be a change to the Mediawiki software to make Talk pages function more like a normal forum.

Comments? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 18:15, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with the sig-at-the-end method, but that might just be what I'm used to rather than that it's a good idea. Note that there are MediaWiki extensions being developed (m:LiquidThreads) to do something similar to what you suggest, but there's nothing finished enough for use yet. --ais523 15:13, 26 May 2007 (U T C)

And wikipedia is not a forum, normal or otherwise. LiquidThreads is fine for wikia, I'm not happy with its use on talk pages on wikipedia. --Kim Bruning 16:45, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm happy with colon-indented talking as well (although slightly miffed at the HTML it produces not being very semantically sensible). The problem with something like a forum is that it would be too heavyweight. Still, forum-like extensions for MediaWiki are being developed and there is at least one person (and probably others) who would find them useful. Maybe the ideal solution would be some script that 'forumized' a Talk page conversation to the view of the person using the script, so that they could have their forum-view and the rest of us could continue with old-fashioned colons? --ais523 16:48, 29 May 2007 (U T C)

User?

Everytime I add the wikimarkup, It comes up with USER in front of my name, so I always have to go back and delete the USER. For example when I type the wikimarkup it appears like this: User: Gundor Twintle Fluffy|User: Gundor Twintle Fluffy then the date, and I have to make it like User: Gundor Twintle Fluffy|Gundor Twintle Fluffy. Is there anyway to make a signature without the user coming up everytime?--Gundor Twintle Fluffy 14:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Go to Special:Preferences, write "Gundor Twintle Fluffy" (without the User:) in the 'Signature' box, turn 'Use raw signature' off, and save your preferences. --ais523 14:21, 1 June 2007 (U T C)

Thanks dude.--Gundor Twintle Fluffy 22:00, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Dealing With Signatures

mmmm.... Could u please consider a new category? Dealing with unusual signatures

When asking another user to change their signature, remember to remain polite. If you are asked to change your signature, please avoid interpreting a polite request as an attack. As Wikipedia is based on working together in harmony, both parties should work together to find a mutually acceptable solution.
All Wikipedians have different preferences to the way signatures should appear. Wikipeans should not edit signatures from talk pages , without saying why a signature was changed on the users talk page.

and could this be discussed:

For example, in very long Articlces for deletion, a markup signature may make it difficult for an editor to edit, or who may edit inadvertingly between your markup signature. Mike33 21:44, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

My sig won't work?

I tried to change my sig to this Chetblong^{talk to me} but when I put the code into My Preferences it says " Invalid raw signature; check HTML tags." Why is this and how can it be fixed? --:) Chetblong 00:12, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

You're not closing your  tags. (→zel zany - fish) 00:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

It works now thank you! --Chetblong^{talk to me} 01:06, 1 July 2007 (UTC)