Wikipedia talk:Signatures

This is not the page to ask for help with using Wikipedia or other random questions.

This page is for discussion of the Wikipedia:Signatures page itself, and Wikipedia's signature guidelines. To ask questions about how to use Wikipedia, see the Help desk. To get help with reference questions, see the Reference desk.

Archives (Index)
Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5 Archive 6 Archive 7 This page is automatically archived by MiszaBot II. Any sections older than 30 days are automatically archived.
About archives • Edit this box

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 (UTC)

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)

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. – () 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... – () 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... – () 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... – () 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)

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. – () 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)

information re: estadio universitario stadium

It would be nice if i could get the address of the above stadium for my upcoming trip to monterrey for an iron maiden concert on 2/25/09.  cant get address to access maps to find a hotel near the stadium and where the airport is located in relationship to stadium to pick a hotel.  please put address of stadium so i can look it up on mapquest.

sharon burnett bsharonlyn@aol.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.104.142.143 (talk) 01:54, 16 November 2008 (UTC)