Talk: Sign your comments

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Implementation

No dissent seems evident on either of the points below. If they remain uncontested on the 20th, I'll update the article to reflect this agreement. —Tanaric 11:20, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

I have no problem with the update, but this article clearly states that it is neither a policy nor a guideline. Should this article be redone (or should a new article be created) to be a true policy article? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:10, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Name Variation

I might also suggest that people don't allow people to display a name wildly different than their real username, like here. I've noticed people doing it for a while, but I don't know if any of them are regular contributors. --Fyren 20:16, 16 October 2006 (CDT)

I agree completely. Whatever name they display in their sigs should be very close if not identical to their username (maybe allow spaces or caps variations - but that's all I would want to allow to vary). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 09:49, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

Also agreed. —Tanaric 11:20, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

How heavily policed would this be? Provided a user is not impersonating another I really don't see the problem. That isn't to say I'm against the proposal, just that I'm not really in favour of it. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 16:54, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

This is mainly a problem of keeping track of other people. Someone starting out as UserABC but always (consistently) going as CBA in his sig would not bother me a lot, but someone changing the diplayed name every week would. --Xeeron 17:01, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

I don't want to have to click on a link or mouseover to figure out who the user really is. They should use something similar to what's going to show up in all the logs/histories. --Fyren 20:37, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

Length limitation

The proposal in the talk page made it clear that most participants desired a maximum length on signatures. Curiously enough, PanSola proposed a maximum length of 24 characters, and his signature is the reason I'm digging this back up. As one contributor said, "until a signature incident occurs, we shouldn't restrict signature length." Well, we're at that point now.

I'm in favor of this wording:

"Signatures that are excessively longer than typical signatures on the GuildWiki are discouraged, and may result in administrative intervention."

I like keeping the policy articles as general as circumstances allow, as is probably well known. I think PanSola's signature falls well beyond typical, which would justify me bouncing in and reducing it for him. :)

—Tanaric 09:51, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

Technically, the earlier conversation doesn't apply to PanSola's sig. While I agree that this discussion should be brought up again for the reasons you mentioned, I believe that his sig would be a new topic, not a carry-over of the earlier discussion.

The earlier talk applied to how many characters the sig took on the edit page, not how many characters the sig displayed on the talk page itself. The earlier concern was that a long string of code in the sig broke up the flow in the edit screen. PanSola has bypassed that issue by doing his sig as an inclusion, so that while it's very long in the talk page, it's one of the shortest sigs in the edit screen. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:02, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

I would like the following rules: 1) The sig should be substed if a custom /sig page is used. 2) The sig code should be limited to a reasonable length. -- (talk) 10:31, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

I'm for a reasonable length for both code and actual sig as it shows in the conversation. --Rainith 18:52, 14 October 2006 (CDT)

I agree with Gem; template-inclusion should not be used for sigs, ever. I'm now in favor of the following wording: "Signatures that are excessively longer than typical signatures, whether in the wikitext of the page or in the rendered text, are discouraged, and may result in administrative intervention. Sigs should always be part of the wikitext of a page; including a signature via a template is discouraged, as it results in all previous signatures changing upon alteration." —Tanaric 01:39, 15 October 2006 (CDT)

Sounds reasonable. --Xeeron 05:50, 15 October 2006 (CDT)

I like it and I agree completely with not permitting inclusions, but as an administrator I'm unsure how to interpret some of the proposed wording - I usually prefer firmer/clearer guidelines. I'm reading "typical signature" to mean the standard system generated signature; but what might be "excessively longer" to one person may not be to another. Twice as long? Three times? Five times? Ten times? Also when comparing, the date is uaually in the sig, but do we count it as part of the length when determining excessive length conpared to standard? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:23, 16 October 2006 (CDT)

This probably isn't the answer you want, but, you were appointed to an administrator position because your interpretation, whatever it is, is trusted. If I look at something and go, "Man, that sig is obnoxiously long," I would warn the editor, under this guideline. I'm really not interesting in counting characters in sigs; are you? From the other direction, if you don't care about sig length, you're not obligated to ever enforce this. :) —Tanaric 11:16, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

There's a few people who just use an icon e.g., User:Feather/Sig User:Gem/Sig and User:Tetris L/Sig. Are they ok, what if Feather wasn't using a feather, it was some other image? Does your sig icon have to resemble your username if your username isn't part of you sig? Hey, hey! Didn't think of that one did ya! :P I don't know how many characters is too long but I'm not a big fan od long sigs. If a user's name is different to their sig name but they keep their sig name the same, I don't mind. But yeah non name resembling sig icons are the big problem, just waiting to explode this problem is I tell yas, lucky I brought it up!!!! ::| --Xasxas256 21:05, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

Personally, I'm not a fan of images in sigs at all, but I think we can deal with small images that don't change -- even if they don't directly relate to the username. —Tanaric 23:05, 17 October 2006 (CDT)

In those cases the image should also act as a redirect to the users page. And one more addition to the policy: Each signature must have a link to the user page or user talk page of the user. -- (talk) 04:07, 18 October 2006 (CDT)

This hadn't resulted as yet in a policy change. Is everyone agreed on Tanaric's proposed wording ""Signatures that are excessively longer than typical signatures, whether in the wikitext of the page or in the rendered text, are discouraged, and may result in administrative intervention. Sigs should always be part of the wikitext of a page; including a signature via a template is discouraged, as it results in all previous signatures changing upon alteration."?

Also, as images were lightly discussed, I would also like to bring that up again. I'm not crazy about the use of images, but I can at least accept the use of icons. But, what of images such as Image:MyNameIsNotDan.PNG? To me, that one is too large and distracting for talk page use - should we modify the proposed wording to include images, or implement the proposed wording now, then discuss images as a seperate issue? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:46, 16 November 2006 (CST)

I think the proposed wording should be implemented now and the image thing should be discussed now. Imho small icons are okay, but the name of the user must be present and the icon should not be higher than a regular line. -- (talk) 17:05, 16 November 2006 (CST)

As I've mentioned before, I'd really rather have no images. If we're going to say images are okay, we should set a hard dimension cap. (Gem, your signature actually pushes the next line down by a single pixel in FF2 but not IE6, heh.) --Fyren 21:52, 16 November 2006 (CST)

Just to voice my opinion, icons are ok as long as they don't change the line spacing (there should be a pixel limit). What Barek said in italics above I agree with although a hard limit for wikitext would be good, there was a proposal for a set number a while ago, it should be dragged up again I think. --Xasxas256 22:00, 16 November 2006 (CST)

I've shifted into thinking that no images should be allowed. It is impossible to make images scale to line height, and line height varies too much for a static image to do. For example, I'll often use the "make text smaller" feature so my browser window takes up less space when I use the GuildWiki and Guild Wars simultaneously. If we do allow images, they should have a hard cap, somewhere between 8x8 and 15x15. —Tanaric 23:20, 16 November 2006 (CST)

I don't have a problem with images in signatures, but perhaps there's a way that we could allow sig images to be filtered out using CSS? We could make it mandatory for all signatures containing images to be wrapped in a span with a class of sig. So Gem's icon would change from:

[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] <small>([[User_talk:Gem|talk]])</small>

to

<span class="sig">[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] <small>([[User_talk:Gem|talk]])</small></span>

It is a little longer in the wikitext, but by adding a line like this to your CSS

span.sig img { display: none; }

you would never know that the image was there. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 06:24, 17 November 2006 (CST)

If people are really disturbed by small icons such as mine, I'm ready to use the LordBiro technique described above. I would hate to see my image completely removed. If this is done, the importance of regular text link to ones user page or talk page (and possibly having the name in it too) in the signature becomes even more important. Currently some users have a sig with the image only, whih would cause trouble for those who hide the images. Maby implement a rule that the name of the user and a link must be there even if the image is hidden? -- (talk) 06:37, 17 November 2006 (CST)

The general idea is okay, but if Gem were to use it, I'd see his posts signed with "--(talk) timestamp." Tetris' posts would be signed with "--timestamp." We could say signatures can have an image of up to whatever dimensions, in a span with the sig class, and text including a name similar to your user name with a link to either your user or talk page, maybe. --Fyren 08:01, 17 November 2006 (CST)

That's what I ment. Therefor my new sig would be:

--<span class="sig">[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] <small>([[User_talk:Gem|Gem]])</small></span>

-- (talk) 08:07, 17 November 2006 (CST)

Frankly, I don't really see the need for a sig policy, or even a discussion about it. Unlike the many forums I've frequented before, I have never seen a signature on GuildWiki that I found really excessive, disturbing or annoying, The only (mild) exception was PanSola's sig at the time when he had added that alpha leak note. 99.9% of all sigs on GuildWiki are perfectly okay in size and content. I think it is safe to say that signature abuse is not an issue at all on GuildWiki.

Read any random thread on this forum. Note that this is an official elite fansite forum. It doesn't matter if you don't understand the German text. Just check the signature sizes! Jeeez ... in most posts the signatures are 3 times longer than the actual content of the post. Or, check the forums on GWonline.net. They don't even have signatures, but all the user information in the left side column below the avatar increases the vertical size of a post that much that it's usually more than the actual content of the post. GuildWiki is MILES away from these two negative examples. Even the largest signatures on GuildWiki are tiny compared to an average forum.

I think if we impose any limitations on signatures by policy then we should either disallow custom signatures alltogether, or not limit them by policy at all. The few really obvious, excessive cases can easily be dealt with individually.

One final note about image signatures: My signature used to have the name along with the image, in colored text even. Ironically, I removed that in order to shorten the code text, to make it easier to read in edit mode! -- 09:08, 17 November 2006 (CST)

What started this conversation returning was PanSola's sig, and the complaints about it. No policy existed, so no action was taken. You suggest that excessive cases can easily be dealt with individually; by policy, what action could be taken? Admins have no more edit authority than regular contributors - without a policy to back it up, there's little to no authority to force a change. When the sig length issue came up originally, it was suggested "until a signature incident occurs, we shouldn't restrict signature length." Once one came up, the issue was brought up again. Now that PanSola's sig is back to it's pre-alpha leak notice format, I would still prefer dealing with drafting a policy now rather than waiting for yet another incident to come up. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:53, 17 November 2006 (CST)

There have been a couple of cases where I have noted users because of too large sigs (view or edit mode) and many where the image has beem too high. In most cases they just changed it, but sometimes I had to talk a lot to them and even needed help from others before the change was made. A sig policy is a must to avoid using excess time with these people. -- (talk) 11:03, 17 November 2006 (CST)

Barek: First of all I must apologize. I didn't read through the whole thread thoroughly before I started blabbering. ;) But still, I think the few cases can be dealt with individually, with a bit of common sense. I'm confident that in most cases a short notice on the user's talk page would do the job: "Hey, your signature is quite big. Could you crop it a bit?" If the guys doesn't react, let the discussion start. Even if we we set fixed standards now (pixel size of image, number of code characters, etc.) there will still be aspects that we can never pin down with a policy and that have to be dealt with individually in any case. Whatever standard you set, I could probably come up with an example of a signature that fits the standard, but is still annoying or offensive to some people.

And while we're at it ... I think before we think about limitations for signatures, we should think about limitations for user pages. There is MUCH more room for abuse here, in many ways, and it is much harder to set up rules for these. -- 11:15, 17 November 2006 (CST)

Tetris: I don't think we need to set hard limitations, but some general rules which we can cite when someone is obviously causing havoc. User page regulations are another thing as is seems that we have always wanted to keep the user pages as a free for anything zone. (With only restrictions for content such as pornography etc) Previously I tried to fight advertising on user pages (such as sell/buy/trade and services), but I was unsuccesfull as everyone else wanted to allow it. If we start making a user page policy, advertising is the first thing to discuss. -- (talk) 11:21, 17 November 2006 (CST)

For the text length issue, I think the text proposed by Tanaric of "Signatures that are excessively longer than typical signatures, whether in the wikitext of the page or in the rendered text, are discouraged, and may result in administrative intervention. Sigs should always be part of the wikitext of a page; including a signature via a template is discouraged, as it results in all previous signatures changing upon alteration." gives us the framework and the flexibility to address ever changing text issues.

I think that could be made policy or a guideline (incidentally, the article on which this talk is taking place is specifically called out as being neither a policy nor a guideline - which I think should be changed to at least a guideline).

For the image use, I think either a total ban or a fixed limit is needed. See [Build talk:E/any Searing Immolation] for an example of the type of sig image that I would want to prevent. However, that discussion can go independant of the text sig guideline above. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:45, 17 November 2006 (CST)

Although it's a little more liberal than many of the limitations suggested so far, I would say that a 20 by 20 pixels image in a signature should be made the maximum. I could be swayed to agree with a situation where wider sigs are permitted, but nothing greater in height than 20px. The average line size is about 18 to 20 pixels, so you won't notice a huge difference in line-height with anything at 20px, but higher than that and you'd have a problem.

Obviously, image size isn't the only factor to take into account, but personally I think this limit should be enforced. <LordBiro>/<Talk> 16:18, 17 November 2006 (CST)

The reason I brought this topic back up is because PanSola was asked by at least one contributor to shorten his sig, and he refused (quite nastily, in fact). I concede that images in sigs really haven't been an issue, so there may be no point in creating policy on it, but I would like to see something about the text size limits added to the article. —Tanaric 16:59, 17 November 2006 (CST)

Draft as a policy?

Does anyone want to take a stab at proposing a draft policy, based on this article and the above talk? Currently, the article is specifically called out as being neither a policy nor a guideline - which I think is a mistake. I'm seeing more-and-more use of images in sigs, and they are frequently growing beyond the 20px hight suggested above.
I don't have time at the moment; but if no one else takes this up, I'll draft something in a week or two. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 13:14, 12 December 2006 (CST)

My suggestion:

• The users signature must have a link to their user page or user talk page, which is easy to spot.
• The users signature must show their user name or by other means make clear what the users user name is.
• The users signature should not cause any disturbance with it's length. The length of the code should also not disturb editing talk pages.
• The users signature may include one small icon. The icon may not be higher than 19 pixels. The image file should preferably redirect to the users user page or talk page.
• If a separate page is used to store the signature, the page should not be used as a signature by including it, but by substituting.
• Advertising, external links and unappropriate content in signatures is not allowed.

I think that's all. Any suggestions and comments are welcome. Rewording should be done when the content is okay to everyone. -- (talk) 16:29, 12 December 2006 (CST)

Bump. Anyone? -- (talk) 20:12, 18 December 2006 (CST)

I should be able to put something together on this next week. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 20:37, 18 December 2006 (CST)

update: I should have something on Thursday for this. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:17, 27 December 2006 (CST)

A little late I'm sure, but any thoughts on disallowing outside links in signatures? --Rainith 14:52, 27 December 2006 (CST)

Reading comprehension FTW!  ;) --Rainith 14:52, 27 December 2006 (CST)

I'm working on the draft now. From the discussion above, it looks like a pixel height for images of 20px was suggested, but I noticed Gem's suggestion here is 19px. Personally, I lean towards 20px, as that's the standard height for profession icons, which many users seem to use (I'm also going to proposed a width of 25px, as the standard profession icon is 25x20. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:21, 28 December 2006 (CST)

The draft now exists at GuildWiki:Sign your comments/P1, and comments should be directed to the talk page at GuildWiki talk:Sign your comments/P1. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 14:42, 28 December 2006 (CST)

I have now replaced this one with the version from the suggestion as agreed on the suggestions talk page. -- (talk) 21:57, 14 January 2007 (CST)

Willful unsigning?

This guy went around removing the IP/user page link from a bunch of an anonymous user's signatures (around 14:00, 28 May 2007 in case he makes more edits). I haven't said anything to the user in question, but assuming he's also the anonymous user, do we care? --Fyren 22:09, 28 May 2007 (CDT)

Hmm? trying to remove his ip? by doing that he just associated his ip with that user name -_- (it is him btw 21:01, 11 March 2007 (hist) (diff) User:65.34.200.49 (Redirecting to User:Zathic) (top)) I think he should not be removing the sig, he should be replacing it with his zathic sig. -- Xeon 22:39, 28 May 2007 (CDT)

Long Signature

I figured out how to make your signature code long and have more details in your signature without useing much space in the edit space. You have to make your signature page like this User:banditda/realSig, and on that page you make your signature code, then make a page like this User:Banditda/Sig, and put this code on it {{User:Banditda/realSig}} then on the user preferences in the signature space make the signature {{subst:User:Banditda/Sig}}and on the edit space of the page where you signed your signature it shows up as {{User;banditda/Sig}} check for yourself.--

	B A N D I T D A

19:32, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

Its also not allowed. transclusion. —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 20:35, 17 July 2007 (CDT)

Signature length, not measured in pixels

Let's say I was just using ordinary characters, no images, no extra links, no anything in a signature...just plain text. What would be the maximum limit? For example...is 60+ characters too long? (T/C) 00:00, 9 September 2007 (CDT)

Petition to Make Allowed Signature Length Longer

If anyone else thinks that the allowed image length should be changed 75 px or something, please sign my petition.-- (Talk) (Contr.) 00:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

1. -- (Talk) (Contr.) 00:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Petitions are not an effective way to reach community consensus - they instead cause wiki-drama and strife. It's far better to discuss the topic openly and reach a mutually acceptable decision. Just because a topic has been discussed in the past, does not mean they cannot be discussed again. People's opinions and motivations for those opinions change over time.
Personally, I still object to anything over 100 pixels wide, but have no problem with some expansion beyond 50. However, I do feel that the image height should not be expanded beyond 19px, as that would impact line spacing. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 04:54, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Links to contibs

• "You may include a link to your user page and/or your user talk page for people who want to discuss something with you person-to-person. Beyond that, internal links should be avoided."

That by definition does not allow links to someone's contribs in a signature, however many people have links to their contribs. Should we add contribs into that section as allowed? Its far easier than hunting down every single person with it in their sig, and links to contribs aren't hurting anyone. --Shadowcrest 19:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems sensible. RT | Talk - A joyous wintersday to all 19:29, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Unless someone opposes it I'll add it in tomorrow or so. --Shadowcrest 00:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Hard to believe that was missed for so long. Cress Arvein(Talk) 00:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I thought so too =/ --Shadowcrest 00:25, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Wow, I'm surprised too. I support adding it; but I'll remove it from my sig until it is added. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 03:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Yay - I'm legal again! :-) --- Barek (talk) - 03:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

It says it should "be avoided", not that it's illegal. Anyway, yeah, go for it --Gimmethegepgun 04:07, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm adding it now. If someone really wants it removed bring up the discussion again. --Shadowcrest 20:19, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Overline

I noticed that with <i style="text-decoration:overline">, the line spacing is disrupted, and nothing is mentioned about it in here. Add anything about that? --Gimmethegepgun 22:48, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The original intent of that section of the policy was to prevent anything that would disrupt the normal line spacing. All of the commonly seen formats that could cause that were identified - if overline does the same, then it appears that using it would still be a violation of the spirit of the policy, just not the current wording. Or, in otherwords ... I support adding overline as a format to be avoided, as it's clearly a violation of the original intent of that section of the policy. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 23:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

AND edit count

no signature should be so long (in markup and/or size) that it has links to user page, talk page, contribs, AND edit count. I don't know if I really want that in there. —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 08:15, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree... especially since it was added with no consensus or notification. 08:20, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

How about OR? EC is much better then contribs... -- Warwick (Talk)/(Contr.) (EditCount) 08:23, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree with you on that. I would rather see an actual record rather than statistics of that record. 08:26, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Quality matters, not quantity. -- Peej 11:51, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

user_talk:Cookie 123#Re:User_talk:Randomtime

It is a way of contacting him. Imo, that shouldn't be disallowed. Thought I'd bring it up here, cause it feels much more relevant this way. --- -- (s)talkpage 14:51, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree, but found it confusing clicking the mail, thinking I'd get talk... Amend constitution? RT | Talk 14:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

The link clearly read "Mail" so that was just rushing it ;) --- -- (s)talkpage 14:54, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Added line

• You may also include in your signature 1 link to either your user page or your talkpage on central wikia, as long as you keep a link to your userpage or your talkpage on this wiki as well.

Wikia admins are coming here, and some of them may want to link to a central page. This should help RT | Talk 09:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Maximum Image Size

The policy is about not disrupting the pages- And I know this is sounding like I'm trying to bend the policy for myself, but anything under 21px~ isn't disrupting the page. Revise? Or maybe not. Oh yes, and sorry for not changing my sigsize yet, Failix -_- —Warw/Wick 21:01, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The entire GW:SIGN was supposedly invented because of me (during one of those months that I had been away so I didn't follow the details), so I am going to refrain from commenting on anything related to this policy d-: -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 21:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Because that was the size that we agreed on back in the day. Sigs may not "disrupt" the page, but may still be visually distracting. We have to draw the line somewhere. Its as if you get an A if you get a 90 but you get a B+ if you a 89.9. Well 89.9 is close enough than lets say we give that guy an A too. But then the new lower bound is 89.9 to get an A and the guy with 89.8 starts saying, well I'm pretty close too... See, you have to draw the line somewhere. —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 23:38, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The maximum height is 19px because anything higher will stretch the line height. -- (gem / talk) 00:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Max WIDTH

We know the reasons why Maximum height is 19px. However the Max Width appears completely arbitrary after reading the rest of the discussions on this Page. Many automated sigs take up MULTIPLE TIMES more space (either character or Pixel) than many simple images do. This is in itself very inconsistent with the desire shown on this page to hold all users to a fair limitation that takes all of these criteria into account. As such I support previous statements recommending a different metric for determining if a Sig is "Too Long", but with the Fair Trade-Off that sig Image width allowance be increased beyond 50px. --ilr(20,Jan.'09)

From your post, it is unclear whether you also read the archived older discussion when people discussed about the width. 50px was decided by those involved as being a width commonly agreed to be "non-disruptive". Is it arbitrary/unfair? I don't know, but if you would like to propose a larger width, it would help to develop/propose a non/less-arbitrary metric for the new length. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 00:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Automatically generated signatures are non-disruptive by nature, and in fact they are the exact ideal of what a signature ought to be. (T/C)

If I could nail down every single concern that lead to 50px being the "magical Number-42" in the first place, I would have made a new proposal page already. Before devising such a metric and challenging convention (that everyone else seemed frankly ambivalent to), there needs to be some agreement on purpose. That purpose: compensation for the ongoing matter of inherently shorter signatures versus much longer ones called into question on this page. I offer, that if a sig is inherently SHORT or shortened, compensation in the form of a longer icon is in order. What that exact number should be, I do not know --ilr(20,Jan.'09)

These are in part graphical design issues that are hard to quantify. I'd propose that the first part of the signature shouldn't be longer than the time/date stamp that commonly follows it (most existing signatures meet this criterium or don't exceed it much). Furthermore, there should be a limit on the density of "blocks", i.e. a picture like Warwick or Honorable Sarah have could be wider because it is less visually "weighty" than the block-style things: Suicidal Tendencie and others use no more than the allotted 50 pixels, yet seem too wide for my taste, while your double-headed design was not (barely). --◄mendel► 04:03, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Well thanks, I'm all-about graphic design concerns so that helps me... --ilr

The whole point of a signature is so that users can easily identify who made a comment and reach that person for feedback. They also must avoid being visually disruptive, and that is the logic behind the 19px requirement and things like no animated GIFs etc. The 50px part is a fairly arbitray number which, at the time, was met with a general consensus to be not too big and not too small. It allows for most users to make their entire names into a sig, which cuts back on "wiki markup" quite a bit; and it is at the same time, not too long that anything really obnoxious can be made.

Personally, I think 50px is just fine, and I am not sure why it ought to be changed. (T/C) 06:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Because this is what I was told: "You could try gathering consensus about changing the width rule to a "total width" rule for the signature. I know you would get some support" ...I'll believe it when I see it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ilr (contribs) .

That comment was made after this one. My main drift, though, was "don't fix what's not broken". If there was a specific reason why sigs need to be longer than 50px - if there are some advantages or benefits or something - I missed it... (T/C) 23:34, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

So you're saying my main argument of compressing longer code+text into tighter images, possibly with more room for negative space so that everything looks better from a graphic-design standpoint, is not Beneficial in any way? ...A Block != A Miss —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ilr (contribs) .

I like shorter wiki markup on sigs, but the idea of using a sig to cover everything just seems kind of obnoxious unless it is white/transparant. An automatically generated signature is, let's say, 150px long. So I could have a 19x150px image which links to my userpage. I would personally find that disruptive because of its size and prominence, even though it reduced the wiki markup to almost none. (T/C) 03:16, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Reset indent Good, good. Now we're getting to some of the technical examples that gotta be considered before a new proposal. 150px is a prime example of something that might often get chopped and shifted to the next line by word-wrap on lower resolution screens. But what about Two x 50px or One x 100px? What if there was a poll done on Screen Res's and a direct conversion of Text size to Pixel size could be gained from it? Wouldn't an absolute Formula for determining Maximum sig-length be Beneficial? What if there was a trick to save even more space by displaying Time-Stamps only on Mouse-Over? Couldn't this all be filed under progress, and thus be of benefit? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ilr (contribs) .

(Reset indent) Ilr, you're trying to imply a connection that doesn't exist. You're saying that we should allow wider images because sigs with images use less wikitext than others, which is incorrect. Just because a sig uses an image doesn't mean it will be short on wikicode - just look at Nova's signature below, it has an image but is one of the longest. Mendel's is one of the shortest, and it doesn't use an image. Allowing wider images would in no way correlate to a decrease in the wikitext used.

Yes, 50px is an arbitrary number, but that in itself is not a reason it should be changed. If you can give good reasons why the width should be increased and a good explanation of what it should be increased to, that would make your argument much more solid. As it is, there's no point in changing it to just another arbitrary number - if we increased it to, say, 60px, then people will complain that we didn't increase it to 70px, and nothing would be solved. —Dr Ishmael 05:12, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

If you take signatures like mine or Viper's as an example, that is a case where using an image reduces wikitext. However that does bring up the point that images themselves don't do that - it all depends on what they are used for. If a sig image is your username, and you use it to redirect to your page or something, then that reduced markup. But if you just include it as an accessory as a lot of people do, then it only adds to signature length. So, if we were to allow a wider limit based on those grounds, we would also have to force people to format their signatures in a specific way in order to meet that justification. Which is problematic because it just creates another arbitrary standards. Pyre Fierceshot says: don't exchange one set of shackles for another.

Oh btw, timestamps *must* be displayed as part of a valid signature, because that's a big part of the reason for signing. Signatures serve three purposes: they identify who made a comment; they provide a convenient link to reach that person; and they show when the comment was made. Thus, the timestamp is very important. It is an undue difficulty to place on others, if they have to go to the history to check when someone made a comment. (T/C) 20:35, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Well the proposed idea was not to remove the timestamp completely, but only make it show when you hover over the signature, thus reducing the inline text size, but I don't care about this issue one way or the other, as long as the timestamp is accessible directly, without any additional clicking. As far as increasing the sig image length, someone told a really nice story once (I don't remember the link now, but it's somewhere here on the wiki). If you give someone a free piece of candy for every purchase at a store beginning one year after the store opened, they will come back and ask you to give them a free piece of candy for every purchase they made the year before. The point is, don't give people free stuff for no reason, or they will be upset that the free stuff wasn't enough, no matter the fact that it was free to begin with. Next thing you know, you will see line-long sigs with pointless text in them, or someone will decide to make their sig into a string of Xmas lights or a snake, just to see how long they can get away with. RoseOfKali 21:19, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Entropy - allowing a wider image or whatever on any sort of conditional basis opens the door for people to poke the rules for loopholes. We need to stick to a single concrete limit on image dimensions that applies to all users. Like I said above, if someone can make a valid case for increasing the width to something specific, then we avoid the free candy situation, and I'd have no issues with changing the policy.

Timestamp was something I've wanted to bring up, actually, but couldn't fit into my previous post. I don't think moving it to a tooltip is at all ideal - usually I want to see the timestamps for multiple posts at once for comparison, and if they were in tooltips, that would require excessive mouse movement on my part between the different sigs. All signatures should display the full timestamp (date and time) for uniformity. —Dr Ishmael 21:40, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

I think sig images are fine with a width of 50px. The only thing that could frequently require longer than that would be words, which can be simply formatted with a custom font and color and not require an image. Plus, what's stopping you from putting 2 images next to each other? Sure they would get separated at the end of a line, but that's infrequent. Or is that not allowed and I missed it somehow? RoseOfKali 02:40, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

"The user's signature may include one small icon." And even if that weren't in there, we'd probably add it in immediately, because big loopholes are big. --Shadowcrest 03:49, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

sig gallery

Click the edit link to see how long the signature wikicode is - there are few that fit on a single line.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 127.0.0.1 (talk • contribs) 02:39, 21 January 2009 (UTC).

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 127.0.0.1 (contribs) 02:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC).

-->Suicidal Tendencie 23:18, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

-User:PanSola (talk to the ) 00:32, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

-- † The Falling One© 19:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

-- Jïörüjï Ðērākō.>.cнаt^ 22:58, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Nova — (contribs) 22:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

— Warw/Wick 20:24, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

--Honorable Sarah 00:54, 12 April 2007 (CDT)

--Łô√ë îğá†ħŕášħ 21:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

--- -- (contribs) (talk) 19:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

¬ Wizårdbõÿ777(talk) 18:52, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

RoseOfKali 05:04, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

—♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 22:09, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Entrea [Talk] 04:00, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

-- - talk 22:15, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

(T/C) 05:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

--◄mendel► 02:43, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

-- 04:11, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

--Viruzzz 13:11, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Ezekiel [Talk] 14:36, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

This sig gallery has one purpose: to illustrate how long signatures can get in comparison to others, not to collect every sig on the wiki. Please make a new topic and/or page if you want a general signature collection. --◄mendel► 14:47, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Why is template unsigned2 commented out?

There's a section on the page dealing with {{unsigned2}}, but it is commented out. I suppose that means we should not use that, but why? The template doesn't say, and its talk page is empty. --mendel 23:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, but I wish I'd known about that template before, because it looks more useful.Entrea [Talk] 23:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

They are exactly the same according to their descriptions. They just use a different ordering of the arguements. It might be commented out because at one point it was decided that we should use it less? —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 23:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like Gem commented it out as part of updating the policy. It also looks like it might have something to do with the fact that unsigned2 doesn't let you omit the date. —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 23:18, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

They are not the same. See here:

{{subst:unsigned|M.mendel|23:01, 6 June 2008|M.mendel}}

{{subst:unsigned2|23:01, 6 June 2008|M.mendel}}

gives

     —The preceding unsigned comment was added by M.mendel (contribs) 23:01, 6 June 2008.
     —The preceding unsigned comment was added by M.mendel (talk • contribs) 23:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC).

I like unsigned2 better, but it looks like unsigned is newer? PanSola will want to have the Userpage link removed so the sig is shortened. Looking at our user list, we don't have any users whose names start with two numbers and a colon, so I could rewrite the template to autodetect the ordering of the arguments. Plus it's not hard to autodetect an omitted date. Anyone want? --mendel 00:00, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

How would you figure out the date? Its not the date that the person submitted the edit using the template. Its the date that the person who signed left their edit. —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 00:07, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, yeah, that is harder (bet I can do it? huh? huh?). What I meant was that it is not hard to react to the template only having one parameter, which means the date must be missing (so no UTC should be printed). --mendel 00:26, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Well whats wrong with just sticking to {{unsigned}}? Its used a helluva lot more than unsigned2 anyway. —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 00:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Because it's not as convenient as unsigned2? No wonder unsigned is used more if it's the only one listed on GW:SIGN. Anyway, my question was "what's wrong with unsigned2", and that's not been answered. Yet. Here. --mendel 00:36, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

How is it not as convenient? The only apparent different in the usage is that they take their arguments in a different order. In any case, if there is something wrong with {{unsigned}} then we should be fixing that one. —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 00:38, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Right, the order of the arguments is the matter of convenience. If you're typing from memory, unsigned is convenient; if you're pasting from the history, unsigned2 is, because you can copy date and user in one go and only need to add the |. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with either, though. --mendel 00:56, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

"PanSola will want to have the Userpage link removed so the sig is shortened" Um, please don't predict what I will want in a definitive voice. Thank you. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 04:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

My preference would be simply a link to the User_talk: page. Reasons:

• Usually only new/inexperienced users leave unsigned comments - all reasons that follow are based on this assumption.
• The link that most other users would likely want is to the un-signer's talkpage, in order to leave a comment about signing their comments.
• More than likely, they won't have many contribs, nor would they have a userpage, so those links wouldn't even be very useful.
• If you do want the userpage or contribs, it's only one more click to get there from the talkpage, and with the Wikia lag issues resolved, one more click isn't going to hurt anyone. (This is the reason I only link my userpage from my sig.)

I don't see any reason that we need 2 unsigned templates. Just fix up {{unsigned}} to make everyone happy, and delete the other. —Dr Ishmael 05:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

_{PanSola, I was going by your past edit(s) on Template:Unsigned. If predicting at all, why not predict with certainty? ;-) The future is uncertain anyway.} I like to have contribs, if you see a dead link to the talkpage, you do save the extra click. Would linking Contribs to the word "added" be ok? Does anyone use the date/time on Unsigned with the timezone added (i.e. would I need to check its presence)? --mendel 09:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

ammending policy re: images

I would like to add a note regarding signature images. If the uploader would like to delete the image, it cannot be fully deleted without leaving red links everywhere they signed their name. I propose that if the person doesn't want to use the image and/or if teh image was deleted for being a copyvio/ it gets replaced with an image of a single white pixel so it doesn't leave red links. This is preferable to later removing the links (as a bot). Additionally, images not only must appear the proscribed size on the page, but must be uploaded that size so that no resizing parameters are in the image tag. This saves space and also prevents those potential future white pixels from being too big. —♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 23:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be a good idea.Entrea [Talk] 23:10, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Clarify: if the image is deleted for whatever reason, it should be replaced with a 1x1 white pixel. The other thing is: any sig image shouldnt be resized in the tag. Its extra text and if we do replace it with that 1x1 pixel in the future, the parameters will cause that pixel to stretch out the size of the old image. So [[Image:whatever.jpg|19px]] is a no-no. The pic shouldn't be resized in your sig. The uploaded image should be the correct size. Does that make sense?—♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 23:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps I am just a little slow today, but I'm still not grasping something here. You say replace with 1x1 white pixel. I got that part. You also say that using [[Image:whatever.jpg|19px]] is a no-no. So... is one supposed to go and fix all instances of that used signature with the 19px and delete that? Or ... I am just confused by this... grrrrrr Look at Image:Banjthulu IPU.png as my example. -- I~sk8 (T/C) 23:34, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Don't go back and change instances of it. But from now on, sigs should not have the resizing in the image tag. The image you linked is a bad sig image as its quite big and would need to be resized in the tag. This means that if you wanted to replace the image later with one of a different size, all places where you had the image size specified would stretch out your new image to fit the given size. So Banj used that image with it resized in his sig. If I upload a 1x1 white pixel in its place, that pixel would be stretched out whereever the old sig was used.

Also, as a side note, if the person's sig was just the image, they can't request it be deleted. otherwise it would only be a 1x1 white pixel instead of their username where they had signed—♥Jedi♥Rogue♥ 23:41, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Why do you allow sig images to be deleted at all? If they are not copyvios, they have been published under cc-by-nc-sa, so I could just upload the same image to the wiki again to have that other user's sig display again. If I had access to it, that is, I am not taking the precaution of archiving all sig images.

I hate for the deletion to be invisble. A placeholder like ░ or single crossed-out box seem more appropriate. Perhaps in the unlikely case of a username signature being a copyvio, an image of the user's name in Times could be substituted until the user choses a new image. In fact, policy should be that the user who is displeased with his sig image should be the one to upload a replacement.

I am unsure if the page for a deleted image holds the same info that the image page held, namely, a list of pages where the image is displayed (what links here is not the same!) --mendel 00:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, if the uploader requests the deletion of a sig image which was barely used, it creates no real problems, and there is no reason not to honor their request. You could upload the same image again, if you had access...but what would be the point of that? The user who published it no longer wants it to be here, and that ought to mean something, surely? User: redlinks don't show up in the Wanted pages anyways.

I agree with Mendel that something a bit more visible than a 1px dot should be the substitution...if only so that you actually know there is an image in the sig.

The page for a deleted image still works for Whatlinkshere, and it ought to have the exact same info. (T/C) 00:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

A white dot is not going to be sufficient for users whose image comprises the entire signature. Mine, for example. There would no identifying characteristics whatsoever. I would suggest a PNG of the user's name in plain black Ariel. 00:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

What links here on the page for an image only shows direct text links to the image page - pages that actually use the image as an image are listed at the bottom of the image page itself, and this will still show for a deleted image (see File:Vaarsuvius.jpg).

Redlinked images show up on Special:Wantedpages, and it is image redlinks that will be created by deleting a sig image, not user redlinks. Because of that and to retain history/redirects/etc., sig images should never be deleted outright, only replaced (the old versions of the file can be deleted after a replacement is uploaded). Mendel and Felix's ideas for non-name and name images are both good. For non-name images, we can have a boilerplate [:Image:BoxWithRedX.jpg] or something readily at hand to replace them. —Dr Ishmael 01:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Image:DeletedImage.png . It's kind of paradoxical, but I like it. --mendel 01:19, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Image resizing = ok?

The policy states: "The icon's image file should not be larger than 50 pixels wide x 19 pixels tall." Some users upload larger images and resize the image in their signature. This leads to Mediawiki resizing the image (that's called a thumbnail) and caching it. In effect, every viewer downloads only the resized cached copy for display. I propose that we agree that this procedure meets the spirit of the policy and is allowed. --◄mendel► 17:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the policy used to be that way, and it was changed to the current way for some reason I can't remember just now.Entrea [Talk] 03:55, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, duh. The whole image deletion/replacement/resizing thing that was posted right above also how did I get to this old old post from watching RC?Entrea [Talk] 03:58, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

"The image file must redirect to the person's user page or talk page. "

Now can we just use [[File:Example.jpg|link=User:Example]] so that it just links straight to the users page. — Balistic 22:39, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Technically yes, but it makes signature longer in wikitext; the advantage of an image sig is that it has the potential to shorten. --◄mendel► 23:19, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Slight image width policy change proposal

I have read the discussions on here, but not in the archives. I would like to argue for a policy addition with the following text: "If your image is substitutional for your user name, it may be up to 80-100px in width instead."

• As some have already argued before, an image could potentially compress the size of text aswell as wikicoding
• ♥ T a k i F u j i k o ♥ is way more disrupting than and it doesn't use an image at all, just as an example.
• Thislongusernameislong is also way longer, and has an added image at the end to boot, but is "permitted" according to SIGN, however would currently be not. That makes no sense.
• Since no concensus could be reached before, because it's difficult to measure a signature in inches or something like that, I propose "another fixed value" with 80-100px so it's easy to comply with and doesn't become a "slippery slope" as Gigathrash put it.
• In the end, we must all use common sense when creating a signature, a policy shouldn't be so strict like a reallife law with enforcement and dire sanctions, but rather something to help you along and help everyone get along.

Please discuss. -- 05:50, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the increase of image width if that is the whole signature with no additional text (like a link to "my talk" and "my contributions" and a redirect to "a picture of my arse" or whatever else people have put into their sigs over the years... >_<). That last bullet is going into "slippery slope" land, however. A slightest loose end, and there will be plenty of people ready to walk all over you quoting policies and saying that they didn't break anything because you gave them too much room to play with. Unfortunately, not everyone seems to be gifted with common sense... RoseOfKali 18:22, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Your points are mostly valid; however, you commit the fallacy to compare what is possible under the current policy with what you want to have for yourself; you should compare what is possible under the current policy with what is possible under your proposal.

Also, I would propose that image-only signatures should use the link=User:name parameter to directly link to the signee's userpage or talkpage. --◄mendel► 21:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Artistic suggestion: use two different colors, one of them transparent, and "mush" your two names together. --◄mendel► 21:11, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by link=User:name parameter? And by that artistic suggestion? The current sig is pretty much what's possible. In the case of an 80px limit. If it was 100px then it's just 20px wider, but it doesn't change anything regarding the image's content right? Blinking, animations and stuff are just as forbidden for "wide substitutional images" as for "small 50x19 px icons". 21:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

[[image.ext|link=User:Taki Fujiko]]. Bolded the link parameter. --- -- (contribs) (talk) 22:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

This is why I suggested that Sig sizes should only be measured by their SUM instead of a very limited image-size plus an unlimited text character size. There should also be limited formatting. IoW: some ppl's sigs take up 3x as much page AND coding space as a 100px image would. And if this committee isn't willing to expand the image widths, then they need to be consistent and better limit the character length of text-heavy sigs. --ilr(11,Aug.'09)

I see absolutely no reason why the sig length should not be changed. The 50px limit was entirely arbitrary at any rate, was it not? 23:01, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I also agree with the suggestion to limit the character count of sigs. I've seen plenty of them where the sig itself takes 3-4 lines of wiki code after a 3-word comment. I usually browse discussions using the (diff) from article's history to easily see what's new since my last visit, and people's sigs can get really annoying when they take more space than the actual comments and you have to strain to find the comment itself in the sea of sig formatting tags. RoseOfKali 13:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Maybe a rule that your signature should only consist of your username and relevant links and a bit of styling. I've seen a sig that was <username> (Talk to the hand <icon of mesmer hand>) which is unnecessary (nothing personal to you dear sig user, it was just a good example!). -- 15:41, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

iS tHiS vIsUaLlY dIsTrAcTiNg?

I've always thought that this policy shouldn't exist as an actual policy, more as a guideline. I think that common sense should dictate what is and isn't allowed. ^ — Warw/Wick 15:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I think a few strict guidelines like for example: No blinking and no animations and 19px height because of standard font size height are good. The rest should be subject to common sense...who cares if your pic is 50 or 80px wide? Or if you use ascii hearts to decorate your username. It's not visually disrupting in the strict sense.-- 16:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As I've said before, not everyone is gifted with common sense. That's why we have "Caution! Hot!" on every coffee cup in America and "Choking hazard, do not give to infants" on all plastic bags... Oh, really? Are you serious? I would've never thought of that. I wouldn't be surprised if someone somewhere tried suing WalMart for selling them a sharp ice pick that "accidentally" killed their abusive husband. "I'm telling you! He just walked into it!" -_-` /facepalm

@Taki: I've seen sigs where the username is flippin long as it is, and they decide to add a userpage link, username-named sig image, a separate link to their contribs, a separate link to their talk, and multi-colored formatting for each letter, making the thing the size of a paragraph in its own. Don't tell them about the extra sigpic code! RoseOfKali 16:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

That's because, as I am so fond of saying, lol america. — Warw/Wick 16:26, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

What's with the ctrl-clicks and not practicing what you preach? RoseOfKali 16:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(random indent) @Felix: Yes, the 50px limit was chosen slightly randomly. I think it's fine as is, but hey, I'm a-progressive in these matters, because it's all fine by me (up to a certain extent. Skuld's example is slightly over the top). --- -- (contribs) (talk) 17:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Slightly. :P -- 17:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Just as long as I don't have to change my sig.--Łô√ë îğá†ħŕášħ 19:44, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Custom signature in preferences

In my preferences page I have

"—[[User:No man|'''Noman''']] [[Image:Nomansig.png | User]]"

as my custom signature, with the "Custom Signature" checkbox checked. With this setup, no link is made where Noman appears in my signature, although it does show, as bolded text, the piped string in

[[User:No man|'''Noman''']]

Also, if I attempt to add any html tags I get a message saying that my custom sig cannot contain these tags. This article's custom signature section claims that there is a "Raw signatures (without automatic link)" checkbox in my preferences page that will allow me to use html markup but the checkbox is nowhere to be found. Signature produced by four tildes: —Noman 13:21, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

It's occurred to me that the piped text in my user link wasn't appearing as a link because I tested it on my own user page (woops). That leaves the html usage problem (I'd like to use coloured text) —Noman 13:24, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

As long as custom signature is checked, you should be able to use [[User:No man|<font color="#ff0000">Noman</font>]] to change the color. It will have to be inside the alternate text for the link, or the styles set up for links will have priority. I'm not certain what you are trying to do with the image, but if you want it to link to your talk page, the correct syntax is [[Image:Nomansig.png|link=User talk:No man]]. (Alternatively, you can put a redirect on the page for that image, but my personal preference is never to link to a redirect when a direct link is possible.) Nwash 13:38, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

Seems to accept the html tags just fine now - I wonder what I actually typed in before to make it yell at me... Anyway, I have my sig image page configured to redirect to my user page, but I'll change it to a direct link as you suggest. Cheers. —Noman 13:52, December 12, 2009 (UTC)

So how do you do this?

How do you actually do this? do you create the image somewhere else and then load it into the wiki like normal pictures? Beginners question I know, but I'm curious. Unwisesage 16:28, March 28, 2010 (UTC)

You mean like a signature with an image? Well, first you have to find or create the image you want to use. Remember, the maximum height is 19 pixels and the maximum width is 50 pixels. Then, you have to upload it to the wiki, like any other image, using Special:Upload. After that, you should probably redirect it to your userpage or talkpage, but if you don't, don't worry, someone else will. Then, all you have to do is go to Special:Preferences and, using wikicode, create your signature in the designated box. Make sure the Custom signature checkbox is checked. Note that there's no easy way to preview what your signature will look like from the preferences page. I suggest you use our sandbox in order to play with the code until you have it how you want it, then copy+paste it in the aforementioned box. --Macros 17:23, March 28, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you've got it exactly right. If you choose an upload filename that has your username and the word "sig" in it, and possibly even put it into Category:User signature images, you'll be ahead of much of the rest (but it's not required). Making the background transparent is a plus when it comes to people browsing the wiki with a different theme. --◄mendel► 17:44, March 28, 2010 (UTC)

Re: "The image file must redirect to the person's user page or talk page. "

Considering the change in how clicking on an image works (does not take you to page first), I would argue the rational used to make the decision back in 2009 should be re-evaluated. -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 00:17, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

As in, "Wikia broke the image redirects"? You've got a point there. May I suggest implementing this policy after the fork, though? --◄mendel► 01:39, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

It broke image clicking in general, with or without redirects. But yeah, there's no reason to enforce that policy until we are settled with our hosting and the policy can be reviewed. RoseOfKali 01:43, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

The reason not to change it now is that when we're off wikia, the image redirects will be working as God intended. 02:16, November 4, 2010 (UTC)

Irony: You know, if there is a MediaWiki god, it probably would be Jimbo... -User:PanSola (talk to the ) 02:24, November 4, 2010 (UTC)