Battle of Honey Springs

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Length section

Hello. Has anyone been bothered by the Length section's text?

If substitution of templates or another page is used, please be careful to verify that your signature does not violate the 255-character length limit when the templates are expanded, as the software will not do this automatically.

The signature guidelines obviously state templates are not allowed. The section Transclusion of templates (or other pages) says so and so does Guidelines and policies. In my opinion, this text could be removed, but if some are still willing to keep it for means of reference, please do reply with any suggestions or comments. Thanks. Silikonz (💬 | 🖋) 08:52, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some unusual contributors keep their signature in a user subpage and substitute that. The quoted text is required to tell people that while substitution is permitted, it cannot be used to evade limits. Johnuniq (talk) 09:49, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, OK! Substitution is the key word here. I didn't notice that, how clumsy! Thanks for your response anyway. :) Silikonz (💬 | 🖋) 10:46, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Worth this one-word clarification at "Guidelines and policies" (in my unhumble opinion). ―Mandruss ☎ 10:50, 14 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Matma Rex, is this question about subst:d templates something that you want to consider for the mw:New requirements for user signatures? I know it's checking the templates in other ways now. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:15, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Whatamidoing (WMF) We could make the software check the 255-character limit after template substitution (other changes from last year made it easy to do), but I didn't suggest that because overly long signatures aren't causing problems for Echo or DiscussionTools, as far as I know. I'd be happy to write a patch though if you want to do it. Matma Rex talk 11:26, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone has views on this, please comment at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Topic:W6cduvydhcc5ek9h Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 16:57, 2 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What needs to be linked?

I don't really care what the answer is but this page contradicts itself with in a short distance. Under guidelines and policies (which if we're being technical is its own quagmire of ambiguity) it says A customised signature should provide an easily identified link to your talk page. You are encouraged to also provide a link to your user page. In the section below on syntax it says Your signature must include a link to your user page, talk page or contributions. (emphasis added). Which is it? I'm guessing the Guidelines/policies is correct in which case the syntax guidance should be made clearer. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki now enforces that all signatures MUST include a link to your user page, talk page, or contributions, and that is what the syntax section is referring to (Special:Diff/967743863). WP:CUSTOMSIG/P is older, but says that all signatures SHOULD include a link to a user talk page, and MAY include other links. They're not inherently contradictory, but some rewording might be in order. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 19:35, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Barkeep49: Basically, one link is mandatory; but it is up to you which one of the three this is. The other two are both optional. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:51, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's up to you @Redrose64 except it should be your user talk, or at least that's what it says. Barkeep49 (talk) 23:17, 19 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There's a local social rule that says there should be a link to your User_talk: page.
There's a (new) technical rule that says there will be at least link to your account (your choice of User:, User_talk:, and/or contribs). Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:13, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I made this reversion. There is no reason to water down the instruction that there should be a link to the user talk page with verbage after that implying it's no big deal not to have it. In fact, if it were up to me, we'd outright require such a link. Crossroads -talk- 01:34, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. A newish user should follow the should advice to have an easy link to their talk page. Experienced users know that they can wikilawyer such language and be a nuisance, but the advice should not be watered down. Johnuniq (talk) 02:01, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I just have a quick question of clarification. When mentioned "must have a link", do we mean the label, or the link itself without implying what the label should be? Made up for this example: [[User:Alpha|Beta, Gamma, Delta]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) (link with a different label, custom text optional) or [[User:Alpha|Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta]] ([[User talk:Alpha|talk]]) (link with matching label, custom text optional). I don't mean to insinuate using one version over the other, only to clarify what is implied by "link". — Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 16:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cursive letters on the keyboard

Please add an explanation of how to write "Cursive Letters" on the phone or laptop keyboard. notify me when adding this explanation. Mohmad Abdul sahib (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 23:41, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend normal text, but you could use something like <span style="font-family:'Foo';">text</span> in your signature, where "Foo" is the name of a "cursive" font and "text" is the text that you want to appear in your font of choice. Note that not all readers and editors will have your font of choice installed, so they will see normal text. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:41, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You can use the generic font family cursive, which is browser-dependent yet portable - it has been valid ever since CSS 1.0 way back in 1996. <span style="font-family:cursive;">Text</span> → Text. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:00, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That looks like Comic Sans on Firefox 87.0 (and Comic Sans is not cursive). A longer sample: As you said, browser-dependent, and apparently dependent on some browser(s) other than Firefox. 68.97.37.21 (talk) 11:54, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your browser should have a configuration page, which might be called options, preferences or settings; in that there should be options for setting the default font family that should be used for each of the five generic font families. I don't know how your browser is configured, so cannot explain why it is using Comic Sans for cursive (as opposed to a font like e.g. Freestyle Script): but it should be possible to select any font that is installed on your device for each of these. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:50, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see that in the Firefox options. They allow you to specify a "default font", and the fonts to be used for proportional, serif, sans serif, and monospace. I currently have those options set to Calibri, Serif, Calibri, Arial, and Courier New, respectively. I can see no way to specify the font to be used for cursive. If there is a way to do this in Firefox, it is an obscure trick not provided in the usual options dialogs. Note that I don't care for my own purposes, I am just correcting the apparent misconception in your last comment and trying to help shed some light on the OP's issue. As far as I can tell at this point, using font-family:cursive will get them Comic Sans for all Firefox users. That may or may not be acceptable to them. 68.97.37.21 (talk) 00:56, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As for the OP's request to update the Signatures guidance, I would oppose that as outside the scope of this guideline (as well as any other Wikipedia guideline, for that matter). This issue would be better raised at WP:RDC or some off-wiki forum, as it has more to do with how to use CSS to achieve a desired formatting result than about how to use or edit Wikipedia. 68.97.37.21 (talk) 01:03, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We have been assuming that the OP is asking how to use cursive in their Wikipedia signature. On the other hand, I have often seen new users post on this page about things that have nothing to do with Wikipedia signatures, and it's a mystery to me how they keep ending up here. Read the original post again; it says nothing about signatures. I now think they simply seek help typing cursive on their devices, which again is not a subject for Wikipedia outside WP:RDC—unless there happens to be a Wikipedia article that answers the question, which I think is unlikely. 68.97.37.21 (talk) 11:12, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That Cursive looks like Comic Sans at my end, I'm using Firefox, and while I have changed some of my option, I have never messed with the font settings; it's still whatever default Mozilla set it at. Perhaps whomever decided that Cursive looks like that, meant displayed Script rather than displayed Comic Sans, and it's just the font family name that's wrong, i.e. Script is Cursive, and vice versa, or at least, that's what I was taught how it should appear. — Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 16:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Signs and new beginning

I want to publish my article on a novel by milan kundera no one works on it before or any other website or even on wiki as much as i want so i m concerned about references, how to give ?? And what type of references?? Signatures are added where?? Talha Mahmood789 (talk) 19:30, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Talha Mahmood789: Please read the box at the top of this page. It says:
If you are new to editing Wikipedia, you are probably on the wrong page. Do not ask general questions on this page. Do not talk about articles on this page.
This page is for discussing the Wikipedia page Wikipedia:Signatures. To comment on an article, go back to that article's talk page. To find out how to ask questions and get answers, see Wikipedia:Questions. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:00, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Signatures and usernames

There is a thread at ANI which primarily concerns whether/when it is acceptable for a signature to display a name other than one's username.

Under WP:CUSTOMSIG/P we have the following:

  • A customised signature should make it easy to identify your username
  • It is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the username it represents

First of all, what is the relationship between these two bulletpoints?

Second, is there still consensus for this? If so, what should be done when a user is asked to make their signature conform to this guidance and declines? If the answer is nothing, I would argue that we should reassess whether there is consensus to have these written in a guideline (which should, of course, be followed unless there's a good reason not to, rather than followed unless someone just doesn't want to).

Third, what wording would best reflect current consensus?

There may be an RfC in the future here, but let's just have a conversation about this first, before formally supporting/opposing/RfCing. It would help, prior to an RfC, to at least identify what the correct question/options are. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:53, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the urge to individualize one's "appearance", but when the account name is not what is displayed in the signature, it makes following discussions more difficult. When you have to enable pop-ups and hover or click through to the user page just to see who is commenting, it's irritating. I've had pings fail because I tried to reply to the visible "name". It's also confusing when I see an edit in my watchlist and click through to read it in context, but can't find the comment because the editor name I'm looking for isn't displayed. Personally, I would support modifying WP:CUSTOMSIG/P to say the signature must include the actual account name. Schazjmd (talk) 23:05, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but we have to live with reality. That means there will be no change because too many people are too used to the current system. There is a faint chance that the WMF will introduce a super-talk scheme in the far future with automatic signatures and there would be no customization possible. Johnuniq (talk) 23:17, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I, too, support requiring a signature to incorporate the username. It may be helpful to add a bullet point that says that a user who does not wish to include their username in their signature has the option of changing their username. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 23:19, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Add me to the list of people who thinks there should be the prefers a real username incorporated into the sig. There are plenty of other ways to customize a signature to express your individuality. - Ched :  ?  23:27, 24 May 2021 (UTC) (edited 05:43, 26 May 2021 (UTC))[reply]
Johnuniq, The WMF will never do that b/c they will never spend the Actual Resources and Social Capital required to make talk pages not suck. They just won't. Jorm (talk) 23:28, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think that if there is a lot of push back from editors with already grandfathered signatures, they shouldn't be made to change, but encouraged to do so (in a positive manner), granting some leeway. Whether "leeway" means allowing them to keep their signature, or merely granting them a extension of delay, that will need to be decided. I'm not against the change, but let's not start badgering editors just because a deadline has passed. We will need a process of escalation for signatures that don't comply with the new policy, a fair and respectful one. — Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 10:12, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Cullen328 and Schazjmd. We are here to collaborate to build an encyclopedia. A core part of that collaboration is following each others contributions, whether that involves edits to articles or comments in discussion, and the ability to ping in replies. So I would like the guideline to require that every sig must include a link to the editor's user page or usertalk page which displays their exact name, and nothing else. Further text or decoration may be added, and the linked text may be styled, but the sig must include a clear link of the form [[User:Example|Example]] or [[User talk:Example|Example]].

As a secondary preference, I would also support a proposal to ban all customisation and allow only the default sig. That would lose some helpful decoration and colouring and the helpful link to contribs which many of us add to our sigs, but its simplicity and clarity would avoid all this discussion about the nuances of sig rules. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:38, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

BrownHairedGirl, re proposal to ban all customisation and allow only the default sig. Just no. Far too draconian and it would never see the light of day. — Ched (talk) 23:46, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Ched: As I noted, it would be my second preference. I would support a ban on customisation only if the less restrictive display-and-link-your-actual-username proposal failed. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:58, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's relatively common to see experienced users and admins tell new users that they must state their username in their signature. This is a double standard, as a number of experienced users and admins don't comply with this "rule". Either we should explicitly require this, or we should explicitly note that it's not required (i.e. strike the weasel-y "common practice" language). The status quo is unfair.

As to potential outcomes here: In the days before pinging, I think it would have been reasonable to say that a signature needn't show the user's name if the displayed name redirects to the correct user, and either is registered as a doppelgänger or cannot be registered due to similarity. However, as long as redirected userpages don't redirect pings, such a policy still risks User:Example (signs as X. Ample) not getting notified when someone (reasonably) writes {{ping|X. Ample}}. As such, my inclination would be to support a requirement without exception. However, users should still be allowed to include an alternate name, e.g. Xavier (User:Example · talk). -- Tamzin (she/they, no pref.) | o toki tawa mi. 23:57, 24 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Also let's not forget about non-Latin usernames. Nardog (talk) 00:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The incident is here at ANI (permalink) where a particular signature is discussed. That raises another point: should a signature include 37 bytes of html to force the 94-byte signature (including timestamp) to not wrap? I would say no. Regarding requiring a visible user name, there are plenty of variations which would make a copy/paste difficult—that needs thought. Also, there are some old-timers with over 100,000 edits and renaming them would not be easy. Is grandfathering to be considered? Johnuniq (talk) 00:16, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I oppose any grandfathering. Guidelines are hard to enforce if some editors get a free bypass, because that looks like favouritism. A single set of rules for all sigs will end the whataboutery. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Regarding nowrap (and everything else other than signatures matching usernames), IMO this sort of thing is difficult enough to find consensus on; let's focus. :) I find the idea of grandfathering when it comes to users (as opposed to, say, some odd cases of article style) to be highly problematic. We already struggle with new user retention and occasionally get a bad rap for applying policies and guidelines more leniently to old-timers where those rules have gray areas. Let's definitely not have rules that explicitly discriminate based on account age except where necessary (autopatrolled for vandalism, for example). — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Back to your original question, @Rhododendrites: Imagine that you have a username that you thought was cool at the time, but your opinion has changed. Maybe you thought that PokemanFan was a cool idea when you created your account at the age of 12, or maybe you picked a name to honor a favorite person who has since turned out to have some disgraceful problems, or, I dunno, maybe you're just tired of getting e-mail messages from jerks who want to know if you're really a "SlimVirgin".
      What do you imagine these editors would do under your proposal? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      @WhatamIdoing: Just to be clear, I support having a guideline that applies consistently above all else. If that means long-timers get to do something that new users can't, it should be explained as such rather than surprising newbies with a rule that only applies to them but is written like it applies to everyone. My first choice of the list I just posted below is to allow abbreviations [and other nonusername text]. So perhaps PF/PFan and SV, or even SarahSV. I know there will be plenty of unusual/edge cases, I'm sure (JzG comes to mind, with a sig that connects to the name, but in an abbreviated spelled out version of the acronym), but that feels like the best way to me. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      @WhatamIdoing: Change their username. --Ahecht (TALK
      PAGE      ) 04:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict) Some cases currently discussed at ANI are even worse than the "X. Ample" example. At least with "X. Ample", there is some chance you'll recognize the playful pun. Some of them are more like User:Example signing as "HS2021grad" – a completely unrelated string. If I'm in a talk page conversation and I see someone say "I agree with Example", I want to be able to figure out who they're referring to without viewing the source markup text. And if I search for the remarks made by a particular user account, I want to be able to find them (e.g., if I have noticed that a particular user has shown up in the talk page history). And if I click on a link to go to some user talk page, I don't want to end up surprised and think I must have clicked on the wrong link or am looking at the wrong browser tab. To me, it already seems pretty clear what is meant by "a customised signature should make it easy to identify your username". If I look at a signature and no part of it bears any resemblance to the username, I think it has not met that criterion. — BarrelProof (talk) 01:09, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I support your viewpoint, BarrelProof. I've had problems with links rather than signatures, but the frustration is much the same. And yes, I will be working on my own signature after a night's rest. — Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 10:25, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Grandfathering is not favoritism; it's a practical way to move in a positive direction for new things without disrupting existing things. If someone doesn't want to join the project because they can't have a fancy sig but (waaaah!) older editors can, we don't need them. And note that changing the existing signatures of established users adds a certain amount of confusion in and of itself. So if grandfathering will begin a transition to solving this annoying problem, fine. EEng 00:41, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • A new user (or, in the case which led to this discussion, someone who's been here since 2009) being put off for being scolded and dragged to ANI for doing exactly the same thing lots of other people do does not make them an expendable crybaby. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:58, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      No one should be scolded and dragged to ANI over this. The policy should be clear (including any grandfather provision) and people should be directed to it and asked to comply. EEng 01:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • (edit conflict) There has been some grandfathering of other aspects, such as using an email address as a username. Allowing grandfathering might reduce some of the resistance. — BarrelProof (talk) 01:06, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @EEng: I AGF that grandfathering is not intended as favoritism, but it is definitely perceived as favouritism by some editors, and resented as such.
      The way to create a smooth transition is to have a transitionary period for everyone, in which the new rules are clearly signposted but not yet enforced. In that period, users with no-compliant sigs can be gently warned that they need to change their sig before the 32nd of Julember (or whatever date is chosen). We should make these messages all kitten-cuddly, and save the tigers until the deadline expires. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:11, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      I repeat that changing the sigs of established users creates its own confusion and, IMHO, is just enough of a fig leaf to justify grandfathering. I don't care whether it's perceived as favoritism. Big deal. You perceive and resent favoritism over custom sigs, and might quit over that? Then we don't need you. EEng 01:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Along the same line, you have invested years contributing to the site but resent having your actual account name in your signature and might quit over that? We should have a rule for everyone or scrap it all together. Schazjmd (talk) 15:18, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

While IMO the discussion that triggered this also has a problem with battleground mentality in enforcing it, IMO the guideline should flatly prohibit obfuscating a person's user name, with no grandfathering. A signature that is not the user name is useless. Signed Rumpleskilson. :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by North8000 (talk • contribs) 00:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think that individualized signatures in the sense of special color schemes and the like are very helpful and should actually be encouraged (not commenting on my own; haven't gotten around to it yet). However, what is the rationale for not having an exact copy of the username in the signature? The only good reason I can think of is that some editors may start to be referred to more commonly by an abbreviation or by another nickname than by their actual username. But even in that somewhat borderline case, they could consider changing their username. All other reasons why people are doing it are clearly much less important than usability and transparency in collaborative environments. As for the grandfathering, I see even less good reasons for that. Clearly, those who know old-time users also know their real username and would have no problem adapting, and those who don't know them would have less reason to be perplexed. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 02:12, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely Opposed to any grandfather clause. This should apply to all users, regardless of the final decision. A "grace period" might be worth persuing, so users can transition from one to the other, or make it clear "Hey, my name is now X, but I used to display it as Y," but allowing older accounts to bypass the rule is just favoritism. We have enough problems with letting people get by breaking rules just because they've been here a long time, we don't need to enshrine that habit in policies or guidelines. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite 19:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As a tangential point, I think admins must have a signature that makes them easily identifiable, both to who they are and how to communicate with them, per WP:ADMINACCT. Examples of RfA candidates who the community have demanded change their signatures include Peacemaker67 (crack ... thump) and Hog Farm (bacon). For everyone else, I'm less worried about it, though I have wondered how many people type {{ping|Fiddle Faddle}} by accident. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 11:18, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree that there is a need for a change to our current practice, so that we enforce (if necessarily gradually, so as not to upset anyone more than we have to) a ruling that there should be a recognisable connection between a signature and a username, so that, for example, someone looking at a User Talk Page can recognise the signature which is associated with that user. Abbreviations, variations, etc are fine, and I don't know how we would express the rule, but the obscurity of unrelated signatures adds to the "in-crowd" atmosphere which can make life difficult for new editors. There are a very important couple of comments in the "non-Latin" section below:
"So long as Praxicidae and other active editors view everything ending with -cidae as Praxicdae's name, everything is fine."
"creating readily-avoidable types of "insider jargon" like this is a well-known type of barrier to new entrants. The very fact that you qualify your comments by referring to "active editors" describes a problem in the shape of an In-group and out-group.
That is why we need to try to enforce our guidance that a signature should be recognisable as being that of a particular editor. I don't know how we handle the specific problem of non-latin names, as a user is entitled to use the same username across all Wikipedias. I personally find it difficult to identify/recognise usernames in scripts other than latin or cyrillic, and would find it difficult to distinguish between contributors to a discussion if there were several editors using signatures in the same non-latin script. PamD 07:39, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about potential options

Question: what about these for some options to replace the two bulletpoints above (with my explanations in italics):

  1. A customised signature must clearly present the username it represents.
  2. A customised signature must clearly present the username it represents. You may include additional text or links as long as the username is clear. (This may or may not be implied in #1, but some may prefer being clear on the matter.)
  3. A customised signature must clearly present the username it represents or an abbreviation thereof (for example, TNT for User:TheresNoTime). (Sorry, TNT; just the first example that came to mind. Worth noting there will certainly be edge cases here, but that's probably ok.)
  4. A customised signature must clearly present the username it represents except where a signature was in use prior to [some date]. (The "grandfathered" clause discussed above.)
  5. [Remove the bulletpoints without replacing them, as there is no consensus to require customised signatures to correspond to usernames]. (If anyone can simply decide to dismiss this guideline for any reason, it shouldn't be a guideline but an essay.)
  6. [Something else]?

Does this capture the different perspectives here? The worst option of all, which is not included, is to do nothing and have a guideline that will be enforced arbitrarily and which anyone can ignore for any reason. If we're going to have a grandfather clause, it needs to be explicit. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 00:59, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear, this isn't an RfC or a vote. I'm checking to see if these options actually encompass the options which could find consensus first. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:00, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You may need something about non-ASCII usernames. Also there's possibly an option allowing for a "real" name in place of a username, while restricting some types of anarchy in signatures. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 01:05, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@力: Please no "real name in place of username". That's just a recipe for perpetuating the problem. Editors should be allowed to put text after the username, which may or may be be their real name. For example
--User:Example the galactic goddess
--User:Example2, Sean Citizen.
This can also accommodate nom-Latin names --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:22, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) User names not written in Latin script were mentioned above and are missing here. And, I think that the word 'clearly' will need some clarification in several of your listed options. Example: would the sig "verlorn ist das sluzzelîn dû muost ouch immêr darinne sîn" be ok for me? What about "nilezzulS"? etc. (I guess I'm anticipating all sorts of loopholing, but with some justification when regarding past discussions. Personally, I have no preference, which doesn't mean I don't care). ---Sluzzelin talk 01:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding non-Latin script, I wouldn't anticipate changing WP:NLS. Whatever bulletpoint, or lack thereof, which comes out of this discussion, would still be part of the larger guideline. Do we think it needs to be spelled out here, too? As for the rest, does it make sense to just say "must include the username it represents"? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it makes more sense to structure this like:

  • The big question: Should a customised signature generally correspond to the username it represents?

If not, we should get rid of the bulletpoints. But if so, then which do you agree with:

  • A customised signature should present the username in its entirety, without changes.
  • Signatures may contain additional text in addition to the username, as long as it does not violate another part of this guideline.
  • An abbreviation of a username is an acceptable signature (TNT for TheresNoTime, for example)
  • A variation on a username is an acceptable signature (an alternative spelling or backwards, for example).
  • A username in the middle of other text, such as in a sentence, is an acceptable signature.
  • A customised signature may differ from a username where the username uses non-Latin script.
  • This rule should only apply to signatures that enter use starting in June 2021.
  • This rule should only apply to signatures that entered use starting in [other date?]
  • What else?

The idea is to present not discrete options but a central question and then modular options beyond that. It's a little tedious to delineate all of the possibilities and then combine the ones there's consensus for, admittedly. Is it worth going that route? Sorry to clog the page with lists. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I think there's a few more options. Not that I necessarily support either of these, but for the sake of completeness:

6) A customized signature must clearly present a name that most users would understand to represent the username. (slightly broader version of #3; e.g. a longer form of the same name, typographical puns like "&" instead of "and", homographs like "$" instead of "S", etc.)
7) (In addition to any of the other options) The displayed name must be either registered to the user in question as a doppelgänger, or ineligible for registration. That account's userpage must redirect to the user's actual userpage (or user talk page if they have no userpage).

-- Tamzin (she/they, no pref.) | o toki tawa mi. 01:35, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Rhododendrites: Thanks for trying this valuable exercise of defining options. However, none of them reflects my preference, which is verbosely expressed here:
A customised signature must clearly display as its first item the username it represents, and the username must be a link to either the user page or the user talk. No other characters may be displayed a part of that link. Additional text may be included, but the only links permitted are to the user page, talk page, and contribs list. The display text for such subsequent links must clearly describe their function in plain English.
Can something like that be included? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Afk for a little while but please go ahead and add those elements above as you see fit, preferably brown into parts. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:48, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: I am beginning to think that this is all getting too complex. There are too many issues on the table, and I think we should simplify the list down the core issue: the exact username must be a link to the userpage/talk, with no other text included in that link. That' the crucial issue which facilitates the basic task of copying the username into a ping. If we don't get that clarified, then the secondary issues are not worth the fuss. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:01, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
the core issue - but I don't think that's the core issue as much as the most extreme of the ideas being discussed. I'm skeptical such a proposal would find consensus. IIRC there was a recent proposal that the name must be copy/pasteable that failed to find consensus. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:00, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: thanks for this. Timezones are curious things, I feel like I've missed a lot of discussion already but here goes some very rough and ready feelings from me on this. I thank you for the options and the chance to discuss things after the ANI. I'm an editor of many years standing, and back when I started here, I remember how editors went buck-wild with signature mark-up. It was perhaps the excitement and naivety of the Internet back then. It was, of course, an earlier age. My own username does not match my signature entirely. I used "doktorb" all over the place back then and wanted this to match. These days I use many different variations, including my own real name thanks to social media sign-ins in the modern Internet mode. I still use "doktorb" as my signature here. It's not so much "grandfather rights" as a force of habit. To date, not one person has objected to my signature not being an exact match, and not one editor has asked me to amend or change it. In my case, the two are as near as damnit the same, and surely this is fine. I'm not misleading people into thinking that I am an entirely different entity. The problem comes from editors who do just that. If my signature had no relationship at all with "Doktorbuk", then I would, in my own view, be potentially misleading other editors. I feel the ANI case involves one such case. If my signature deliberately obscured my real username, to the point of giving the impression of a redirect or renaming or other such arm;s length relationship, then it would surely be a case to open against me. Let's not get bogged down by editors who may have gone crazy with colours and fonts. Let's stick with those who have chosen to call themselves X but have a signature that is widely and deliberately unrelated to X. doktorb wordsdeeds 02:00, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorb: here's me pinging the username you display. The ping doesn't work, and it's just as broken as if you had displayed some completely unrelated name. Only an exact match works.
I have always found you a helpful editor, so please explain why you think this impediment to pings is helpful. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hey BHG. I've just gone through my notifications. A good half-dozen editors have pinged/mentioned me using Doktorbuk. Maybe they had to preview their posts first and change doktorb to Doktorbuk, I don't know, but in all cases, not one of those editors mentioned or suggested that my signature was an impediment to pinging. I was notified in good time and without complaint. Maybe they're being polite?! Maybe it's not an issue. Until your message just now, no editor has ever mentioned that it's an issue that doktorb does not match up to Doktorbuk. So from my perspective, it is not an insurmountable problem. If my signature is changed, for the first time in, what, 12 years(?) would that create an improvement to my contributions? doktorb wordsdeeds 02:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorbuk: it's not insurmountable, but it is an impediment. Why make things difficult? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:26, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Up to this very moment, it was not suggested or communicated to me that it was making things difficult. It is, I note, half 3 in the morning. If, following sleep and a shift at work, I feel that my signature has to exactly match my username for the first time in over a decade, I will make the amendment. I supported you on the ANI page, and now feel like the lack of the letters 'uk' has placed me under scrutiny. Until the next time. doktorb wordsdeeds 02:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl, if pinging is your concern, I wonder if you might be interested in the Reply tool, which you'll find under "Discussion tools" at Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-betafeatures. The (regular) visual mode and the (experimental/extra click to enable) wikitext source mode give you an automatic search for users, and it prioritizes the people already in the discussion. I've missed very few pings such I started using it. (Work-me is happy to answer questions.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:36, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: I installed the Reply tool about a year ago. It's a bit of a pain, because about half the time it fails, and I have to edit the page anyway. So I often don't bother with it.
In fairness to the tool, it does create the markup for the ping, which I can use as I edit the page to paste in the failed reply.
But even with the tool, we still have the problem that the resulting display of usernames in a reply is bewildering. Consider this example:
  • All the sources cited agree that Murphy was a leprechaun. --Craic Sean 00:01, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Example: No they don't. O'Hara (1947), Ahern (1998), McLoughlin (2001) and Foster (2012) are all cited. They are peer-reviewed papers focused on that issue, and say he was not. --Poiuytrewqqq 00:02, 1 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The ping works there, but that exchange is bewildering to other editors, because Poiuytrewqqq reply to "Example" seems to be a reply to someone other than the author of the post above. This doesn't help. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:02, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@BrownHairedGirl, there are several tools. You have User:Enterprisey/reply-link in your common.js file. I'm talking about a new part of MediaWiki software that's available as a tick-the-box-in-your-prefs Beta Feature. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:51, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@WhatamIdoing: I don't usually install beta stuff, but thanks for the info.
But whatever tool there is, not everyone will use it. And even for those who solve the ping problem, we still have the problem of the ping displaying a username which doesn't match the sig ... which leads to confusion abut whether the ping is to the editor above or to someone else.
We should not have to be doing workarounds for the basic task of of identifying each other. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's not insurmountable: I systematically click on the link to the user's talk page and copy-paste the username from there. But that's a hassle indeed, and it's entirely due to users who don't have their actual user name in their signature. People aren't going to address you on this specifically, because everyone's doing it. But changing this guideline would definitely make wiki-life just a bit easier for all of us. Of course, it's much worse when a username's not recognizable at all, but my take is that prescribing an exact copy solves more problems than it creates, and is therefore the recommended route. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 02:41, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorbuk: And cases like yours are why I want to make sure we can account for abbreviations and variations. I suspect there would not be consensus for an absolute 1:1 accordance between link and username in every instance. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:02, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: 1:1 accordance may sound like pedantry, but nothing else works. Abbreviations and variations cannot be pinged or found in page histories. Without an absolute 1:1 accordance between link and username, editors cannot copy the username to make a ping, unless we go through extra steps like clicking the link to open in a new window and see where we land. Similarly, we cannot copy the displayed username and search the page history for it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:32, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: Thank you for your response. And thank you for wanting to find a workable compromise. I agree with you that 1:1 is simply not going to get past the wider community. Working with you to find a compromise, in the grand tradition of how Wikipedia works, is something I hope to do. If I don't lose too much sleep (as appears to be literally happening at the moment!) doktorb wordsdeeds 04:11, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorbuk: unfortunately, any perceived compromise isn't really a compromise.
If the displayed name is not exactly the same as the username, it can't be used to make a ping, and it cannot be reliably used to search page histories etc. There is no scope for compromise here, because the choice is rigidly binary: either we have an exact match which works, or something else which doesn't work.
Those of us holding out for an exact match are not being stubborn or maximalist. We just don't want to go through all the drama and effort of a change which leaves those problems 100% unsolved. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with most of that wording, but I would just leave it as "clearly describe their function." No need to add "in plain English", as it's redundant to "clearly". --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 04:12, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why not just have something like A customized signature must contain an exact copy of the actual username. It's simple, and I see no good reason not to comply with this. And if there is a good reason, well, it's only a guideline ... Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 01:50, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Apaugasma: That's heading in the right direction, but it allows the username to be buried in other text, or for the username not to be the linked text. A little more precision is needed.--BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 02:18, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • @BrownHairedGirl: you are right; what about this: A customised signature must contain an exact copy of the actual username. Any other characters used should not render it unclear what the exact username is. We can just keep the immediately following A customised signature should provide an easily identified link to your talk page. You are encouraged to also provide a link to your user page. I note that this proposal is less stringent than yours, but I think it does the job, and it is perhaps also more likely to succeed. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 03:01, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Apaugasma: I disagree that it does the job. That would still permit unhelpful stuff this:
          --[[User:Example|Its me!]] make an Example of me
          I get that you are trying to simplify and to soften the tone, but it seems to me that the whole exercise is pointless if the outcome still has loopholes. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:23, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
          • @BrownHairedGirl: I think that, in the example you give, the other characters used do render it unclear what the exact username is. But perhaps we could put it like this: Any additional characters, text, links, or markup should not render it unclear which part of the signature is the username. Shouldn't that do it? Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 03:57, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
            • I could hardly sleep so back again. Reading this exchange frustrates me. BrownHairedGirl, you sound as though you want perfection and no compromise. You should know that's not how Wikipedia works. You won't get the perfect solution past the wider community, so let's try to find middle ground.
            • The bullet points above contain the following suggestions:
              1. Signatures may contain additional text in addition to the username, as long as it does not violate another part of this guideline.
              2. An abbreviation of a username is an acceptable signature (TNT for TheresNoTime, for example)
              3. A variation on a username is an acceptable signature (an alternative spelling or backwards, for example).
            • I can't see why we can't work within these parameters. I am disappointed by your tone, as it seems you want to order all signatures to be like yours. You're not an admin, s please stop acting like one. doktorb wordsdeeds 04:08, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
              • @Doktorbuk: please don't make this about tone. BHG has given her reasons above why she thinks abbreviations and variations should also be disallowed. I agree with those reasons. Perhaps, when you've gotten some sleep, you can argue why the reasons do not suffice? Best, Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 04:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                • @Apaugasma: Thanks your for response. I'm sorry to say that BHG has frustrated me because you have tried to come up with a compromise and they have batted you back, most recently because of the potential for "loopholes". We have to find compromise and it seems BHG, having instigated a bad tempered ANI is now set on being uncivil towards other editors here. My signature has been fine for over a decade. I can't see why this has to change because someone who is not an admin is demanding we follow their exact and particular demands. doktorb wordsdeeds 04:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Well just stay assured then that there are others, like Ahecht above and also me, who share BHG's particular concerns. To meet those concerns, either your signature or your username would have to change, and I understand that's not a very pleasant thought. But it would improve the experience and usability for a lot of other users. I strongly suspect that the requirement to have an exact and easily identifiable copy of the username in the signature would be supported by a lot of users, perhaps even by a majority. I definitely think it should be one option to choose from in a potential RfC. Let's just take the perspective where this position is one among many respectable positions, and where we can debate its merits and its shortcomings. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 04:38, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                    • @Apaugasma: "To meet those concerns, either your signature or your username would have to change" - that's not true. There are many options available as this is not an RFC and nothing yet has been decided beyond this open discussion. doktorb wordsdeeds 08:37, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      @Doktorbuk: I am very sorry that my comments have come across as some sort of criticism of you. That was not at all my intention, and am annoyed with myself that some excessively terse phrasing may have given that impression.
                      I know that you had no absolutely intention to make difficulties for others, and I entirely accept that you were unaware of the issue. I am very sorry if that was not clear from my comments.
                      My point is simply that a sig which does not clearly display the actual username causes problems in threaded discussion. Most editors are like you unaware of the problems, but they do exist, in two ways:
                      1. A post is signed "Craic Sean" (markup: [[User:Example|Craic Sean]]). An editor who replies can't just create a ping by copying the displayed name. They have to burrow a bit, or use a tool such as the reply-to widget, to create {{Ping|Example}}
                      2. Having made the ping, the resulting thread shows a post signed by Craic Sean, with a reply directed at Example. That is confusing to everyone else reading the thread.
                      That is one of the reasons why I hold out for clear display of the exact username. Any deviation in the displayed name makes it harder to follow the discussion, and harder to correlate the usernames against page histories, contribs lists etc. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:21, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      There are lots of things that make discussions here hard or annoying to follow. Incorrect indentation, replying to the wrong person, font tags, single letter usernames, usernames that are also common words, you name it. We've managed for the last 20 years to work with quirks such as Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington signing as Nearly Headless Nick, a harmless joke that helps to lighten the mood. Yes, it makes things slightly more difficult. But so does your signature: from experience with other people's signatures, your name could also be "Brown", "BROWN", or "HairedGirl". —Kusma (t·c) 15:41, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      @Kusma: Huh? My sig clearly displays my exact username. In what way does it make anything more difficult for anyone?
                      And sure, there are many other flaws with talk pages. But that's no reason not to fix what we can, and the fact that we have endured with this problem for 20 years is no reason to continue to endure it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      But here's the thing. Talk pages should be improved long before signatures should. And I supported you 24 hours ago, I'm now somehow distracted/bounced into this back and forth. One thing from this discussion alone: why are we having to count how many *'s and :'s we're using to ensure the correct indentation? It's messy, slow and outdated. Solving talk pages overall, outwith this discussion, granted, should be our focus. You were right, BHG, to ask one editor to ensure their signature matched their user-name because there was no connection at all. We're now in this back and forth arguments over something that's been blown out of all proportion. We can survive for 20 years with my signature missing 2 letters. doktorb wordsdeeds 21:33, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      @Doktorbuk: the fact that we can survive another 20 years with a problem is no reason not to fix the problem. We could have survived without article alerts and pings and mouseover popups and longer edit summaries and DEFAULTSORT and so on, but why not aspire to do a little better than just survive?
                      The only thing that's blown out of all proportion is the reactions of some editors who would need to make a small change to their sig. I am genuinely puzzled by the strength of your reaction to a proposal which would require you to make a one-off change to your user prefs: restore 2 characters to your sig. It should take maybe 30 seconds to find the setting and change and save it.
                      Please can explain why you are putting so much energy into opposing that change? It's a minor issue, and you were unaware that it caused minor inconvenience to others ... but now that you know about those unintended consequences, I don't get why you seem so upset about possibly being required to change it. I don't want to see you upset, so please can you explain why thus seems to be such a big deal for you that you lose sleep over it? I don;t understand, and would like to understand. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:59, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      BrownHairedGirl, there are people who have fancy signatures of the type Example of an Awesome User, and it is not immediately obvious whether their username is "Example", "Example of an Awesome User" or "Awesome User". So people who have seen other signatures could misunderstand yours.
                      The "problem" of signatures some being different from a preferred standard is not large enough to justify the disruption that enforcing a new rule against the preferences of thousands of good faith users will bring. (I still remember the userbox wars). —Kusma (t·c) 21:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      @Kusma: that doesn't answer my question. You specifically said that my sig "makes things slightly more difficult" Please explain how my sig makes things more difficult, so that I can fix it. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:40, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      @BrownHairedGirl: the word "Brown" is highlighted in brown in your sig. It is not a priori obvious whether this is a style choice or carries meaning (in which case your username could be "Brown", or the wikilink-colored "HairedGirl"). The ambiguity is small and easily resolved, but only by of the three things you seem to be opposed to: knowing from previous interactions how your signature corresponds to your username, hovering over the name to see where it links to, or looking at the wikitext. I don't see any need for you to change your sig, but I don't see that need for most other sigs, either. —Kusma (t·c) 06:14, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      @Kusma: It seems to me that you have not actually identified any problem with my sig. I reckon that what you have observed is a different problem: that the existence of other sigs which obscure the username have a wider corrosive effect, by making every displayed name suspect.
                      I think that's an important issue. The fact that some displayed names are misleading means that every displayed name is suspect: yours, mine, and everybody else's needs to be checked. This can be resolved only by eliminating the divergence, so that editors can rely on the username displayed in a sig, with the same certainty that they can attach to usernames displayed in a page history. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:04, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
                      Yup, none of these sigs are an issue. It is fine to use colour for emphasis and it is fine to use colour for meaning. (The vast majority of Wikipedians are smart enough to figure out which is which). The only thing corrosive here is the attitude that we must make rules for everything. —Kusma (t·c) 14:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The essential tensions here are between "Usability" and "Customability", and that is best understood as a spectrum. The more usable a thing is, the less customization it can support. Talk pages are terrible. Half the reason they're terrible is that the Signature comes at the end of the statement. The next third of the reason is that they're impossible to easily scan for content by a specific user, and that's made even more difficult when that user's signature doesn't match the actual or the expected user name.
    (I shall spare you my rants on talk pages but just remember that in all communication software written after 2001, you don't have to cut and paste a user name to reply to them. I've been thinking about a way for MediaWiki to write signatures to page in a kind of programmatic way that could avoid that entire thing, but it's just edge thoughts. The reply gadget does most of my thoughts already, when it works.)--Jorm (talk) 04:46, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    My point here is to ask this: what, exactly, are talk pages for? If they're for just shooting the shit and idle chatter? Then sure, go wild, make your sig invisible, who cares. But if they're supposed to serve a usable purpose then it is our duty to do everything in our power to make that purpose easier to accomplish, which means uniform signatures, since that's literally the only thing enforceable by the software.
    (Everyone tells me they're for "collaboration" and "working on articles" but the stats don't show that. The data shows people talking. That's the job of a talk page. It's in the name.) Jorm (talk) 04:52, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Entirely uniform signatures wouldn't be it though: custom colors and markup can make it a lot easier to quickly scan who wrote what in a discussion, and should be encouraged. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 05:03, 25 May 2021 (UTC) (as I wrote above, not commenting on mine; haven't got around to it yet)[reply]
  • I'm fine with requiring the username to appear somewhere in the signature (as a replacement for the two quoted bullet points). It's a simple proposal, won't affect most people, and matches what some people have been told in the past. Looking forward to an RfC. (I can also start it, if you want.) Enterprisey (talk!) 05:17, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Disclaimer: I've signed my name as Кузьма for a while). Customised signatures not including the username exactly are mildly annoying, as they require more work and attention while composing pings. They are not in the least disruptive, though. I'd be happy to support something like "please include your exact username in your signature, otherwise people will think you are being annoying on purpose. If you don't like to display your username, please consider changing it". I would also suggest to leave people alone whose signatures don't comply with the rules (whatever they are) if they only post on discussion type pages rarely. People enforcing signature rules appear to me to have a far more disruptive influence on the atmosphere here than people breaking them. Be kind. —Kusma (t·c) 08:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd support moves to enforce this, per BHG and Cullen. Signatures exist to help other editors know who made a particular comment. That's their sole purpose, and while I have no problem with people who decide to make theirs frilly and colourful, the username must appear somewhere therein. Not doing so makes threads harder to follow, in particular when looking through edit histories and when matching up pings to comments in threaded discussions. And is therefore detrimental to our goal of creating an encyclopedia. I also oppose grandfathering. While I am probably familiar with many of the more prolific editors and their sigs, the above issues still apply to them (particularly for newcomers to the project), and creating an exception for them just because they're veterans is not fair. The simple solution in those cases is in any case to retain the "funny" name but put the real one in brackets after it.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:42, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove most of the list and replace it with a *short* list of hard 'No you may not have this in your sig'. Eg 'Do not violate WP:ACCESS, no flashing/animation, maximum character length'. The only real requirement for a signature is that it contains a direct link to a user's talk page for click-through. If you are responding to someone within a discussion, you can call them by whatever they have signed as, people will know who you are talking to. If you are clicking through to their talk-page, its irrelevant whats in their sig as you are in the right place. If it makes it harder to ping someone specifically? Here is a newsflash, lots of editors hate pings. The ping system has removed any effort on the part of editors to actually leave a polite note on other's talkpages, its abused by trolls, and its made it trivially easy to round up a posse. Its also un-needed in most situations, as if you are seeing the displayed sig for the first time, you are going to be looking at a discussion they are already involved in.
The more criteria and rules about what people should be doing, just increases the amount of opportunities for nosy busybodies to engage in make-work & bullying. Its about exerting power over others and the thread that started this discussion is a classic example of why excessive bureaucracy is a bad thing.
All of the above however does not address the issue that signature guideline is not a policy. While it is not a policy, it will not be enforced evenly amongst those with greater power. It will be enforced (as guidelines often are) against soft weak targets. I would support a harder policy on signatures, but only if it is a policy, while it is a guideline I wont support anything that enables editors to engage in selective bullying. Only in death does duty end (talk) 09:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I find pings can be helpful, but usually unnecessary. For instance, when I login, I'm usually notified of a reply without the necessity of being pinged; pings show up as a different notification. Several years ago, I was in a discussion, and while the editor was in good faith, they're repeated pinging me was very annoying. And as you mentioned, there's room for abuse of the ping system, though that can be addressed similarly to addressing disruptive edits. Do we define signatures based on identification, the ease of pinging someone, or other? Believe it or not, I've been informed previously that I was overusing Template:No ping, and I found this humorously ironic, but a respectable request. I think it ties into the ping, or not to ping part of the signature discussion. — Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 10:50, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Totally disagree with Only death here. Pings are probably one of the best innovations of recent times, in terms of making it easy to have joined-up and timely conversations, without having to rely on someone spotting your reply on their watchlist or having to leave a note on their talk page. Also, "signature guideline is not a policy" is a bit irrelevant. Guidelines are also expected to be followed, absent other considerations, and should this discussion here end up with an RFC proposing that we enforce the guidelines (which I would support) then that would become the new process going forward, presumably with the use of blocks for noncompliance. This may seem like an over-reaction, but these signatures are a genuine annoyance, for very little gain to the project.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:07, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Amakuru, Thank you! I'm more partial to "thanks" but I'm glad people like pinging.--Jorm (talk) 18:39, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd be in favour of simply disabling custom signatures. They do nothing to help improve the encyclopedia and encourage playing silly buggers with the resulting drama (as here). Alexbrn (talk) 11:11, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem is that we want to encourage international collaboration and invite editors with non-Latin usernames to also participate here. It becomes easier to talk about them if they have a custom signature containing a nickname that isn't their username. See WP:NLS. 苦思馬 (talk) 11:32, 25 May 2021 (UTC) that's not my real sig[reply]
    Limiting en.wiki account names to Latin characters only would solve that more cleanly, wouldn't it? Alexbrn (talk) 11:40, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The issue with that is that many people don't primarily edit enwiki, but might be active on e.g. ruwiki or hiwiki as well – requiring people to have multiple global accounts because of different scripts does not strike me as a sensible idea. Softblocking someone just because their username is spelt "Блаблуббс" instead of "Blablubbs" is excessive and probably fairly discouraging for the users in question. --Blablubbs|talk 11:46, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Its not even worth exploring, anything that would inhibit or otherwise interfere with full and free use of SUL would quickly result in the WMF getting out a big stick. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:50, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The whole "global account" concept is just typical IT grandiosity, that serves no purpose in helping to build any particular encyclopedia - but rather works against it by encouraging high-friction usernames into local wikis. Alexbrn (talk) 11:53, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There are solid technical reasons behind it and it is not exactly unique, I dont expect to have to have different gmail/amazon etc accounts for any country I happen to be in. Being able to edit ENWP/Commons/Wikidata with one user-login is a good enough reason by itself, thats before we get to other language wikis. The only place it really falls down is local policy application. One example being when an editor on ENWP laughably claims (on ENWP) they have not outed themselves despite confirming their RL identity on another language wiki while using a SUL-linked account. Yeah mate, if you wanted to keep your identity obfuscated, dont use a SUL username. The problem with SUL isnt SUL or its implementation, its that local policies often fail to take into account the technical reality and bigger picture. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:12, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Alexbrn, Limiting names to Latin characters is, honestly, racist. I know it may not look that way or feel that way, but by enforcing such a policy one is literally saying "this language is superior to others".--Jorm (talk) 17:09, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Congratulations! you've made the most stupid post on Wikipedia today! IT systems regularly restrict character repertories for operational reasons. I imagine you now screaming at you mobile phone's keypad for being racist. What silliness. Alexbrn (talk) 17:37, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Alexbrn: I'm going to be kind here.
    1. I don't know any serious technical organization who doesn't store text in UTF-8. Storing text in low-number ASCII is a thing that hasn't really happened since the mid-aughts, so you should probably retire that argument. It certainly doesn't hold water here, where MediaWiki absolutely supports and stores all character sets.
    2. There is a significant difference between the technology used to input content (the keyboard) and the technology used to read content. You are conflating the two. Input mode acceptance is you and your keyboard. If you only use an en-US keyboard, that's great. Personally, I use en-US and ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i; your milage may vary.
    3. Input methods aren't racist, nor are content readers. Policies are racist. A policy that says "only English-reading names are accepted" is, quite literally, racist.
    4. I am not calling you a racist. I am trying to educate you about language imperialism.
    Hope that helps.--Jorm (talk) 18:37, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Cool story, Bro. Maybe you should go back to what you are good at; mocking cancer survivors. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:35, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    What patronizing posturing bollocks. If you're going to play the I'm-so-righteous nuclear "racist" card you need at least to say something that shows you not to be so bloody ignorant. CJK institutions typically do not want to use "UTF-8" (which is an encoding method, not a character set) for content as it is inefficient for their repertoire. They tend to use UTF-16. Before you start launching forcible attacks you should at least get some basics in order. The point is simply that for restricted locales it is good to have have systems that are in sympathy with those restrictions, and that indeed might be to do with the fact that some character sets are less sophisticated than others. This has nothing to do with any "language" being "superior" to any other "language", but plenty to do with practical realities of interacting across mixed locales in an international context. Alexbrn (talk) 19:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    k.--Jorm (talk) 20:24, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There's no need for any of this: as Rhododentrites put it in their draft RfC, we could perfectly have something like If a username uses non-Latin script, the signature must include the username itself, but can additionally include a Latinized version. Shouldn't pose too much of a problem. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 17:34, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict) I don't think custom signatures are inherently a bad thing (they can occasionally be helpful in quickly identifying users on large discussion pages for example), but I'd support strong wording that mandates that a signature must include your full, unmodified username in a way that makes it unambiguously clear what the username is – I'm fine with
    Peter Exampleman ([[User:Blablubbs]]) or Peter aka. [[User:Blablubbs|Blablubbs]]
    but not with
    [[User:Blablubbs|B14b1ubb$]] or [[User:Blablubbs|Bla-Peter Exampleman-lubbs]].
    The only important bright line for me is that a signature should make it possible to copy-paste the username into {{yo}} without having to read the source of a page.     --Blablubbs|talk 11:42, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Without the wikitext, it is hard to know what the username is even if it appears in the signature. You are always just making a guess. I'm not sure that forcing users to display their entire 100-character username is a good idea: when you ping those, you might want to pipe them to something shorter anyway. —Kusma (t·c) 12:29, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with some of your suggestion, Blablubbs, but not entirely. It does make it easier to find a user in a discussion, but is that just a convenience? Kusma also has an excellent point; I don't know what the character limit is for usernames, but perhaps that should be evaluated also. Perhaps if the username was truncated so that the first (quantity) characters of the username are required to be part of the signature, but not the whole username. Just enough to satisfy a text search for that user. — Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 17:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, strike the above. After reading others' comments, I feel like the copy-paste test I propose, while I still think it's a good idea in principle, may be a bit too rigid. The current guidelines, if enforced reasonably, are probably enough. --Blablubbs|talk 12:08, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd not really considered copy-pasting into a ping template without having to read the page source (probably because I (a) use the source editor, and (b) have just gotten used to grabbing the username from the wikitext). However, given that doing things this way (having the full unmodified username displayed) makes for easier discussion I'd support the change. As such I've modified my signature slightly to comply - while my username was patently obvious, it wasn't copy-pasteable because of my silly Unicode embellishment, now 86'd. firefly ( t · c ) 12:28, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Firefly, that's one of the points that isn't clear to me. It appears that the main goal is to make it easy to ping someone in a discussion by making it easy to copy the username. Assuming you're posting your comment in your usual wikitext editor, is it actually necessary to make it easy to copy the username from the rendered/reading/HTML page, also known as "the page you can't see right now, because you have the editing window open"? I assume that most of us copy from the wikitext (which gives you the whole link, assuming that there is a User: link at all [rather than only a User_talk: link]). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:01, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think the main goal is about pings at all. I think the main goal is to be able to understand the conversation flow and find the remarks made by a particular user. It should not be necessary to read the source code to understand who is commenting and who is being referred to in a conversation. Ping seems like less of a problem to me, because I edit the source to produce a ping already, and I can see what the hidden username is when I do that. — BarrelProof (talk) 16:44, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The ping thing is somewhat relevant for users using the non-beta reply tool in source mode, but I sort of see it as a heuristic: If your signature does not actually identify you in a way that makes it possible for me to find or ping you simply by typing your username into {{yo}} or the search box at some later date, then it isn't really doing the job that a signature is supposed to be doing. --Blablubbs|talk 17:30, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • To separate potential RfC structure discussion from more general discussion, I've started User:Rhododendrites/signature rfc drafting and would invite others to edit or discuss a possible RfC there. Hopefully that simplifies things rather than further complicates them. :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 13:56, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest any RFC be on the fundamental question or else offer just 2 choices. 3 or more choices would create a math problem.North8000 (talk) 15:38, 25 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with @North8000. The core issue is clear and quite simple, so please don't overcomplicate the proposal.
If we can resolve the core issue of displaying the exact username as a link title, then other issues can be dealt with in followup RFCs, for those who still have any energy. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What you're looking for (the italics you posted above) is not, frankly, going to find consensus. That doesn't mean I disagree, but based on what I'm seeing above (and every other time this comes up), there's not going to be an appetite for anything so rigid. That doesn't mean we can't ask about it, but it does mean that an RfC which doesn't explore compromises and types of exceptions (which would satisfy many of the people here) would not IMO be fruitful. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is my view entirely. We have guidelines that work. They're in need of a fresh-up and tidy, but they're pretty much fine. They've caught someone whose sig and name are almost on different planets. They shouldn't catch someone with just two letters difference. doktorb wordsdeeds 03:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorbuk and Rhododendrites: I am sorry to have to repeat myself, but my simple point is being repeatedly ignored, so I have to repeat it:
Compromise can be great, but in this case a compromise is logically impossible because anything less than 100% equivalence between username and displayed-name gives 0% utility in pings and in searching page histories. Either they match or they do not match ... so please don't pretend that this talk of exceptions and slight variations is a compromise. It's well-intended, but in effect it is a wrecking amendment.
And Doktorbuk, the current guidelines clearly do not work. I just had a wasted trip to ANI because too few editors were wiling to deprecate even a complete lack of correlation between username and display. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But come on @BrownHairedGirl:, you and I have been on this rodeo for long enough to know that compromise is how Wikipedia works. 100% equivalence is a pipe-dream. You found one user with wholly unrelated sig and username, and it was fruitless because that user seemed to be a bit of a stubborn old goat. The user was at fault, not the guidelines. You'll not get 100% compliance to concrete, hard and fast, BHG-approved rules. You just won't. You need to work towards a middle ground. doktorb wordsdeeds 03:40, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorbuk: I am frustrated that you appear not be making any effort to read what I have written about why a compromise is not technically possible.
So I will try asking you a question: what variation on a username which is less than 100% equivalent can be used to make a ping?
Take any registered username you like, modify it however you like, and show me how it works as a ping. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:01, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your point is not being ignored. Pings is just one part of this. Consistency is another. Enforceability is another. Abbreviations vs. variations vs. totally unrelated text is another. By focusing entirely on your own binary choice you dismiss the rest, but by asking about several options we still have the possibility of finding consensus to do what you want -- it's just one configuration among other possibilities. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:06, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Rhododendrites: I am not dismissing the rest. I am asking others not to use terminology which (I assume unintentionally) obfuscates the effect of their proposal.
So dropping 100% equivalence is not a compromise. It's a 100% abandonment of the usability goal of facilitating pings and searches. You may have good reasons for dropping that goal, but please be clear what it involves.
Other goals may be pursued, and those other goals may be worthwhile. But if this going to an RFC, we need some clarity about what effects are of particular options. Your draft RFC is a helpful start to the process, and it's great that you did that work. But after thinking about it for a while it seems to me the path we all set off here (and on which you followed through in the draft) is in hindsight the wrong one: we have focused on the format rather than the functionality.
I now think that the questions we need ask should come from the opposite direction. What we should be asking the community to decide is: what a sig is for? What functions does it need to fulfil? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 04:44, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
BrownHairedGirl, This is exactly what I was trying to say above: Asking what the purpose actually is. Form follows Function, as it were.--Jorm (talk) 04:47, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Jorm: I am sorry that I overlooked your prev post. I just found it[1], and yes, we are very much on the same path. "Form follows function" is exactly right, but this discussion so far has started with form. (Please note that I am not casting aspersions on anyone. I have been a busy part of that mistaken focus on form).
Please can we work together to try to define the issues, and draft a few questions? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 05:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No worries! This entire conversation is getting crazy. I have spent a lot of time thinking about Talk pages and signatures. I think a new section should probably be opened.
I think also it would be good to a) assume that the WMF will provide zero technological implementation support to us, so therefore we are stuck with the tools we have, and b) that we understand the technological limitation of Echo, which is that it can only "ping" people if 1) The ping text is included correctly in the edit that inserts the signature of the commenter. It is not possible to "fix" a ping.
Also technically you don't need a template to trigger it. It's just the text: [[User:Jorm]] Jorm (talk) 05:58, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Jorm: I've long had this question, and perhaps you could answer it: does it also work when the link to the user page is piped, as in, e.g., [[User:JzG|Guy]]? WP:ECHO doesn't mention this. It's especially relevant when the username and the signature don't match (as in my example). Apaugasma (talk|☉) 06:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
.... it should. If it doesn't, I think that would be a bug. I haven't actually tested that in a long time. Maybe this will work? I know I designed it that way. Jorm (talk) 06:59, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Dear Jorm, it did work, as you could also now confirm. Thank you for bearing with me, and for designing this stuff, Apaugasma (talk|☉) 07:06, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Point 3 is likely the best, perhaps with a grandfather clause for a couple months of active editing for anyone who would qualify. An indefinite grandfather clause is not helpful. Signatures that don't clearly relate to the name of the account are unhelpful and harmful in that it confuses people who may wish to go to a user's talk page or contributions. So long as a signature resembles the username enough as to not cause confusion, what's the problem with acronyms, abbreviations, etc? As an example, I don't think anyone is going to be confused by my username/signature. I agree with those above that it should be put to the community to be a policy that custom signatures must be understandable enough to not cause confusion when the person clicking them is shown the actual username (ex: userpage/contribs history/etc). This allows for acronyms, abbreviations, fancy text, etc - but ensures that the signatures are useful. Beyond that policy, further guidance should be had but not enforced. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:13, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez, I was watching the history of this page and noticed that you contributed, so I opended the page and ctrl-F'ed "Ber", but found nothing, and only then remembered you're one of those users who don't have their exact username in their sig. Also, I write up my replies from a text editor, so when I want to ping anyone I need to open up their userpage and copy-paste the username from there. Both of these are minor annoyances which would be resolved by requiring the exact username to be present (and that's counting that I'm a bit computer-savvy, which not all new users are). The site would be more usable in various ways by this simple requirement. But perhaps this is a cultural thing that would be very hard to change. Apaugasma (talk|☉) 02:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I can see that reasoning, but keep in mind that would eliminate signatures that have characters separating parts of the username for valid reason - for example, if I signed Berc|hanh|imez, that would prohibit it. This would also mean that people with non-latin usernames would be forced to include them, as opposed to a transliteration or latinized version. That's why I can't support anything more than I suggested as policy. I'm obviously okay with those things being as guidelines, but we shouldn't mandate them. Not to mention the fact that usernames can be varying lengths - I don't think people with longer usernames should be forced to include them in lieu of an acronym. Sure, it's hard, but you can always click the "diff" button on my edit to see what I sign as and copy that - it's one more click for you, and it's no harder to see my comments once you realize what I sign as (IPA pronunciation of my username). -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Berchanhimez: that "once you realise" thing is problematic, because it unnecessarily forces editors to take an extra step. Your fellow editors should not have to go on a journey of discovery between your sig and your username. (Yes, it's not a huge journey of discovery in respect of any one editor. But multiply that by every editor who does it and every page they save an edit on, and it starts to add a significant overhead).
Surely there is a simple both/and solution here: sign your post with both your username and however you want the name displayed. This could be done in several different ways:
Current sig markup display
Current sig :bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez ([[User:Berchanhimez|User]]/[[User talk:Berchanhimez|say hi!]]) bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!)
ALT1 bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez ([[User:Berchanhimez]]/[[User talk:Berchanhimez|say hi!]]) bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User:Berchanhimez/say hi!)
ALT2 [[User:Berchanhimez|Berchanhimez]] (Say bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez/[[User talk:Berchanhimez|say hi!]]) Berchanhimez (Say bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez/say hi!)
Those are just quick suggestions. I am sure there are other ways of achieving a both/and solution, but I just wanted to demonstrate that it can be done simply and easily. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:08, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But why force people into using generic signatures? We don't do that now. If that's your goal, state it. doktorb wordsdeeds 03:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorbuk: a little AGF would help. The examples I suggested to Berchanhimez are very clearly not generic. So why on earth do you suggest that I am trying force people into using generic signatures? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And to pick up on what bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez has said, there will be people with non-Latin names, long names, names with their own (valid) characteristic flair to their signatures, people who may have valid reasons to abbreviate their names, people who just plain like their signatures to be different, who are now penalised. Remember some users have been here for 10+ years, and might have just got plain bored with their sigs. Why penalise all these people? doktorb wordsdeeds 03:14, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
People with long usernames would be the kind of exception which we would allow, this being a guideline and not policy. I don't see a good rationale to make any of this into policy anyways: we can and should enforce this guideline in the absence of a good reason to contravene it. Yes, people with non-Latin usernames would be asked to include them, which shouldn't be too much of a problem, unless again if they are too long, but then the same exception would apply. I guess that people who would have to change their signature to comply with the new guideline would generally oppose such a change, while those who wouldn't need to change anything might support, and perhaps it's not important enough to have such a fuss about it any case. The last thing I'd want to do is to penalise. Apaugasma (talk|☉) 03:29, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely support a smoothing out and tidying up of guidelines. I can't support enforced rules suddenly appearing. Extremists who want only hard and fast unshakeable rules don't get far here, in my experience, and hopefully a suitable compromise of guidelines can come out of this. Non-Latin names really should be treated carefully. I don't agree with the "racism" claim above, but I do express caution in forcing users into English/the Latin script as a kind of "penalty". doktorb wordsdeeds 03:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Doktorbuk, It's really easy. If someone told you that you had to change your name because they couldn't pronounce it, you'd call that racist, yes? When immigrants went through Ellis Island and got renamed? That was racism. It's not "lynch folk" racism, but it's still a colonist tendency. The fact is, though, we don't have to worry about it. MediaWiki supports the character sets.--Jorm (talk) 03:44, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Jorm Oh don't misunderstand me, I agree on the priniciple of what you're saying. Your examples are valid, they were racist policies, and are racist attitudes. I can't go as far as to use the word in relation to this matter. But I am uneasy, as you are, about guidelines being turned into hard and fast rules that would penalise editors into changing their signatures on the say-so of (broadly defined) Western editors. doktorb wordsdeeds 03:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorbuk and Apaugasma: some people are making very heavy going of a very simple issue. The actual, precise username is a crucial piece of info in working collaboratively. Omitting it or modifying it in any way places a wholly un-needed obstacle to collaborative working. Yes it's only a small obstacle, but it's an obstacle that has to be crossed by every other editor who interacts with those who don't display their actual username.
And as I have note before, a compromise is not possible here. If a displayed name is not a 100% match for the username, it cannot be used at all in pings, and will usually not work searching page histories, etc.
Non-latin names need no special treatment. Just display them as they are written, and after link add any other text you want. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 03:53, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO the concept the user name has to be at least clear in the signature is quite likely to gain consensus. Probably likely to have just a few opposes. North8000 (talk) 11:53, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@North8000: Depends a bit on the wording. Are abbreviations of long names ok? Is it ok to leave out the ~foowiki that SUL produced at some point? Is is ok to have extra text in the signature as in "Only in death does duty end"? I am supportive of demanding that sigs be closely connected to the username, but oppose "from looking at the page and not the wikicode, it must be obvious to anyone what the username is", which outlaws not only Nearly Headless Nick, but also many of Praxidicae's sigs, Only in death's sig, doctorbuk's sig, Piotrus' sig, and arguably BrownHairedGirl's. —Kusma (t·c) 13:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Kusma: Since I'd guess that 99% of Wikipedians have a signature which is simply their user name, I don't have broad experience with ones who don't. Or to have an opinion on exactly what the rule should be. And the ~99% is what I had in mind when I guessed at the likelihood of a moderate "user name is at least clear in the signature" concept gaining consensus. :-) North8000 (talk) 14:01, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@North8000: I think that your 99% guess is about right. I might guess 98% of active users, but close enough.
That raises a wider question. How come such a tiny minority has the community from upholding impeded the clarity of having a displayed name which can be relied upon to exactly match the username? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Playfulness, adventurousness, eagerness to try out new technoselfs, ... something the majority of editors might not be interested in experimenting with. I don't think that minority is to be blamed. This has been allowed, and probably rarely caused explicit or obvious communication problems in these users' experience. I don't think it's a tyranny of the few, it just grew this way. (I didn't say you called it 'tyranny' or blamed anyone, btw, just trying to get the point across). I, too, have often had to figure out who's actually who (and since Praxidicae was mentioned: it took me a while to recognize that pattern). It never really bothered me, so I've never said anything, but I can imagine how it can become confusing or annoying depending on the situation. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:29, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm serious: I'd like to know what you mean by "the concept the user name has to be clear in the signature" and how that applies to Only in death, Piotrus, doctorbuk and Praxidicae. —Kusma (t·c) 14:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pinging @Piotrus: and @Praxidicae: since they're being discussed. I think it's only fair they know about it. — Ched (talk) 14:49, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Ched: Thanks. Is there a problem with my sig? If so, I'd appreciate it if someone would explain it to me clearly. I haven't heard anything about any problem with it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 14:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • @Piotrus: This is a discussion that has come from an ANI and appears to have gone around in circles for little good reason. Your sig is within guidelines as far as I can see. This discussion aims to address if the guidelines need tightening. doktorb wordsdeeds 15:56, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This seems like a pointless proposal for the sake of bureaucracy. If someone is attempting to mislead via their signature, that is one thing and already covered under policy. It's also too prone to being a gray area in terms of being readily identifiable. Right now my signature is fully compliant with our policies, as it's correctly linked and this would require hundreds of editors who have shortened their signatures for various reasons (ugly formatting, shits and giggles, what have you) to change it. This would also eliminate non-latin usernames, like one of our phenomenal stewards, Alaa, who most non-Arabic speakers know him as and would be very confusing and difficult to respond to User:علاء. If we're going to be pedantic about all of this, why not just eliminate custom sigs all together? YODADICAE👽 14:55, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Praxidicae: your statement that my signature is fully compliant with our policies is untrue.
Yes, your sig is linked, which complies with WP:CUSTOMSIG/P #2.
However, WP:CUSTOMSIG/P #1 says "A customised signature should make it easy to identify your username" ... and the displayed text "YODADICAE" has no immediately obvious connection to your username "Praxidicae".
Maybe there is some sort of Latin-language joke in there, but requiring your fellow editors to parse a Latin joke absolutely does not "make it easy to identify your username". --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Unsurprisingly, you completely missed the point. There was no joke in my original comment about latin. It was that Alaa, a steward, is widely known by "Alaa", despite his username being arabic. Your proposal and subsequent temper tantrum about signatures would eliminate his use of a westernized name. And yes, my signature does readily and easily identify me because my userpage is linked and every time you respond you can see [[User:Praxidicae|my custom sig]]. If you believe my signature isn't compliant, I welcome you to bring it up at the appropriate notice board, BrownHairedGirl. YODADICAE👽 15:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We are here to collaborate to build an encyclopedia yes, the people mentioned are in fact here to do so and have proven themselves at that. Introducing a little levity into discussions on occasion is not a bad thing, this is after all a hobby for all of us, not a professional office. YODADICAE👽 15:06, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
More heat than light, etc. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:02, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
@Praxidicae: a joke sig is not deployed on occasions. It is deployed every time you post a comment everywhere. Overused jokes grow old very fast.
And there are a zillion ways to add levity without creating an obstacle course for your fellow editors who simply want to know the username of an editor. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:17, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Praxidicae: are you playing some sort of game?
I addressed the issue of your sig, and the claims you made about it. I didn't miss any point about any other sig, because I didn't address that.
It is crystal clear that displaying " YODADICAE" instead of "Praxidicae" is a blatant breach of the guidance that "A customised signature should make it easy to identify your username" ... and no, I am not willing to waste my time in argument with someone who claims otherwise. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:28, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not playing a game, my comment about levity and my comment about Alaa's and other non-latin character usernames were two distinct comments. I find your outrage at this to be ridiculous, though and would appreciate you leaving my name out of it if you don't intend to actually follow up on your accusation that I am not compliant. Pro-tip the policy says: It is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the username it represents which implies that short of me making it some nonsense gibberish that doesn't link to my userpage or talk or contribs, I am compliant. Your selective outrage over this matter is laughable given your previous comments about others potentially "not being here" while making some 50 odd edits and 2 days complaining about this non-starter. YODADICAE👽 15:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Praxidicae: you raised your username as an issue, so don't complain if someone responds to your claims about it.
And your claim that writing "YODADICAE" instead of "Praxidicae" meets a requirement to resemble to some degree the username it represents is most benignly explicable as trolling. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Keep calling me a troll. By your logic, the users I listed below, like KrakatoaKatie and others are also trolling and in violation of policy because it only contains part of their username. Or did you miss the 'dicae' at the end of each of my usernames? And the clear link to my user/talk pages? And the only reason I'm here is because I was discussed several times before someone gave me the courtesy of actually pinging me. YODADICAE👽 15:45, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If you've been here for 11 years and have 2 million edits but can't figure out how to quickly and easily (mouse over, click!) see a custom sigs username, I really don't know what to tell you other than this is a stupid hill to die on. YODADICAE👽 15:27, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Praxidicae: Of course I figured out the workarounds years ago. I just resent that some editors enjoying disrupting Wikipedia by requiring their colleagues to waste time doing workarounds to intentionally-created obstacles.
Your choice of phrases like stupid hill to die on are avoidably inflammatory. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:32, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I just resent that some editors enjoying disrupting Wikipedia by requiring their colleagues to waste time doing workarounds to intentionally-created obstacles. lol have a nice cup of joe while you go dig up some diffs to support such an assinine statement. YODADICAE👽 15:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The diffs would be every comment you posted with your non-compliant sig, each of which creates an obstacle. Sadly, I am entirely unsurprised that you so rapidly resorted to personal abuse. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:44, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your gaslighting is pretty offensive. This is the exact bullshit that pushes good editors away who have proven themselves to be here to contribute instead of wasting their time engaged in some weird authoritarian/wannabe lawyer LARPing. YODADICAE👽 15:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The only gaslighting here is your repeated absuiveness, and your repeated bzarre asertiosn that "YODADICAE" somehow indicates to other readers discover that you user name is in fact "Praxidicae". The problm has been explained to you clearly and civilly, but you respond with bizarre rants. Very odd. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please drop the stick. A substantial part of the community feels that the consistent "dicae" suffix is sufficient to identify that editor. There's an open question as-to whether it should be clearer for inexperienced editors, but you're supposing a problem that doesn't really exist. Most of the editors who are active enough to know the active editors aren't worried, apparently; otherwise there would be far clearer support here for your point of view. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:02, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I, personally, thought that "Praxidicae" and "Yodadicae" were separate editors until this very thread. Jorm (talk) 23:20, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Me too, @Jorm.
And 力: created readily-avoidable types "insider jargon" like this is a well-known type of barrier to new entrants. The very fact that you distinguish between its accessibility to active editors and others describes a problem in the shape of an In-group and out-group. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:40, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I second power~enwiki's comment. Drop the stick. It surely is confusing at times, but it should be clear by now that most people are glad to accept that as part of the freedom to have a fun, creative signature. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 00:15, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to add that we have to comply with a lot of rules already when we do our work here. A little levity while chatting about our work = happier Wikipedians = better work. Remember that we're all volunteers and it helps if we enjoy what we do. —Kusma (t·c) 15:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
^^^ This Put the human back into Wikipedia. —k6ka 🍁 (Talk · Contributions) 15:59, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Even when people do include their user name in their sig, it is often the case that they include other (linked) terms also, and it is not possible, without follwoing links, to see which is the actual user anme There are examles of this in this very section. Any policy mandating the incusion of usernalmes in sigs would need to preclude such obfuscation. (I'd be happy to add a "User:" prefix to the username in my sig if such a policy were introduced.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • My interpretation of the guideline is that abbreviations are acceptable. In my case, the signature just shows the full version of my username in chess notation. It's just a nod to my chess hobby, but it is no way confusing or misleading. It's a tweaked version and still related to my username, just as Prax's are. Yes, User:P-K3 would fail as a ping, but it is trivially easy to copy the correct wikitext. There will never be consensus to enforce exact representations of user names, that's just a non-starter.-- P-K3 (talk) 17:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is not even remotely a problem. If you're ever unsure of someone's username, hover over their sig, which links to their full name. Or if you're on a talk page, you're using source editor anyway and can read the link. Or you use replylink, which does the job for you. Custom sigs are awesome, creative, funny, and make editing more enjoyable. At the end of the day, our editors edit because it is enjoyable and fun. Editors should in no way be forced to have boring sigs. The idea that sigs need to have ones full username presents problems for those who go by a real name or nickname, who want to create clever sigs, and whose names are long, among others. Wikipedia is already such a droll place, signatures allow people to express themselves. Let's keep signatures fun! CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 18:09, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is one of those fights the community has that is caused by bad software. All other communications software on the internet (like email and forums) shows both the username and a custom signature. If we used something other than MediaWiki to communicate, we wouldn't be having this dispute at all. Levivich 21:35, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Script/gadget?

It seems to me that there's an easy solution here, but not one I feel confident in doing (nor would have the time to right now anyway). A user script (eventually gadget) could easily be written that would place the user's exact username in parenthesis or something right before the timestamp of signed (or {{unsigned}} templates) edits. Since all signatures are already required by policy to have a link to the user page or talk page, all such a script would need to do is find timestamps (already possible as there's a gadget to change timestamps into local time), search for the "user talk" or "user page" link that most immediately precedes it (i.e. not directly in front but simply the first one), and add a parenthesis (User:Berchanhimez) right before the timestamp. This gadget could be enabled by default if people like, but it would at least be usable by anyone who has a problem with custom signatures. I'm suggesting this because it looks clear to me that there's no consensus to prohibit custom signatures as a whole, and some people will always have a problem with something - so let's just give the people who have such a problem a way to solve it with a gadget. It wouldn't work for people with javascript disabled, sure, but there's a lot of things that don't work with javascript disabled. Not to mention that this would work on archived talk discussions too and not just going forward. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This should work, as the reply-link script manages to do this. I like this because it solves the issue for those who are confused by custom signatures without having the social cost of forcing everybody to change their self-representation. —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 22:02, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The beta "discussion features" plus the Special:Preferences/editing preferences/discussion pages/"Enable experimental tools in the quick replying and quick topic adding features' source modes" works like magic and replaces any need to copy and paste for pings. Perhaps there is a technical solution here after all. —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 09:20, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And as others have said, reply-link already automatically adds the person's username when you reply - but that script is complicated enough (or something else is b0rked) that it's not even working on this section. That's why I brought up a simpler script that does three things - look for timestamp, find most immediately preceding user(talk)page link, add (User:Username) next to the timestamp (either before or after) - the less it has to do the more likely it'll work everywhere and appease people. I'm wondering if someone "techy" may have a little bit to mock this sort of script up and allow people to see how it would work? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:41, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You'd need to include something so that it doesn't duplicate the user name when the exact user name is already in the signature. One other note, this has the same effect as mandating adding their actual user name to their signature when it is not already included. Which also seems like a pretty good solution....nobody has to "give up" anything. One more comment (unless I misunderstand the technical side of the proposal) the latter doesn't need WWF who gives anything community-driven at best a low priority. North8000 (talk) 12:33, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Berchanhimez, I'm a software dev. I don't normally work in web software, but it's not really different enough to matter. I'm convinced this can be done, and be done rather easily. reply-link uses regular expressions, and though I haven't dug extensively through the code, I'd bet it looks for links to user pages or user talk pages to identify the username, as that's the obvious and easiest way to do it.
Identifying a timestamp is also pretty easy: number-colon-number-comma-space-number-word-number-space-"(UTC)" I loathe regular expressions (I've actually written an HTML parser that never once uses them), but even I could write a regex match for a timestamp or a user/usertalk link.
If I can find the time this weekend, I'll look into writing a simple script that will strip styling from signatures. It'll probably require you to have reply-link installed, as it's easiest to piggyback off of that, but that might not be the case. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:36, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I could certainly whip something up as well. Kephir's Unclutter script may also work for this purpose. I was considering opposing the proposal and saying "just use a script", but I've heard comments about new users finding logged-out signatures difficult, which is why my proposal exists. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some examples of signatures

Here are some examples of signatures of Wikipedians that make it reasonably clear who they are referring to but do not match the exact string (some are substrings, some are superstrings, others are variations). As a semi-random place where experienced Wikipedians congregate, I chose WP:BN, more specifically Wikipedia:Bureaucrats' noticeboard/Archive 44. (I don't know whether all or even any of these users still sign this way. Do your own research if you want to know.)

There are two bureaucrats and several sysops in the list. I don't believe their signatures hinder communication much, if at all. Certainly not nearly as much as has been claimed, and definitely not enough to do something as disruptive as outlawing this little piece of customisable self-expression. —Kusma (t·c) 15:16, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And there doesn't seem to be any issue with communication there. YODADICAE👽 15:20, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was about to type something like this very section. My sig misses just two letters. It's not misleading. It's not problematic. It's not confusing. It's within current guidelines. It's within current rules. It has never been a problem over my entire time being here. Surely it will be more of a problem and disruption to change hundreds of perfectly fine signatures? doktorb wordsdeeds 15:36, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I totally agree with you, my point in identifying this was to show that contrary to the narrative by some here that users with custom signatures that are in fact compliant, just not in that particular user's taste are in fact here to build an encyclopedia and collaborate, as evidenced by the years of contributions. YODADICAE👽 15:39, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doktorbuk, your name reminds me of User:Jamesofur, whose name is usually misread as "James o' Fur". If he had used a "mismatched" name ("James of UR"), it could have prevented years of confusion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Praxidicae: To be clear, while BHG and some others are saying usernames must be presented exactly, some people just don't want them to be completely unrelated. Others just want whatever rule we have to be clear and applied evenly. The last of these is why I opened this thread. It began with an ANI thread in which someone who uses a signature that is entirely different from their username was being told that the rules require them to change it. But we don't force all users with such signatures to change, so why would we enforce it just with this one person? In that case, it clearly violates our bulletpoints on this page, so why is it ok sometimes but not others? The My goal here is to ensure that this guideline actually reflects practice/consensus rather than be applied arbitrarily. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:45, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I understand why you did it but I think the guidelines are already pretty clear and that the users listed aren't in violation. However, what I find unacceptable is the continued insinuation here by other users that editors like myself and the well respected list above are somehow not here, trolling or in violation of policy based on a reasonable interpretation of a policy that doesn't jive with a select few users over zealous, verging on authoritarian view of said policy. At the end of the day we are here to collaborate and build knowledge and I don't see any examples here where the collaboration portion is impeded. YODADICAE👽 15:48, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, we are here to collaborate. I don't see anything remotely collaborative about conduct such as Praxidicae's absurdist claims that "YODADICAE" meets the WP:CUSTOMSIG/P #requiremnet that A customised signature should make it easy to identify your username, or their trolling sneering at editors who object to being required to use workarounds. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 15:57, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
We have many people with many interpretations of the existing bulletpoints, and lots of examples of uneven application. Since the bulletpoint about linking to a user page and other bulletpoints about correspondence are separate, we can tell that, as written, just having a link to a user page does not on its own mean one is following the guideline. The other bulletpoints (quoted at the very top of this page) are more vague, and can be interpreted to allow all sorts of abbreviations, variations, etc. But if my username is Rhododendrites and I sign with "Bieberfan999" can we agree that's not in the spirit of these guidelines? Yet even in that kind of case, we only enforce it for some users (mainly new users and those who don't have lots of people showing up to defend them). That's a problem. If there's no consensus to enforce the guidelines, we shouldn't have them as part of our WP:PAG -- they should be an essay. If there's consensus to have them, they should be applied evenly or at least articulate that, say, if you were here before these guidelines existed then you're excepted (not ideal IMO, but clarity would be an improvement over the current situation). That's my perspective, anyway. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:56, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
lots of people showing up to defend them: you have identified the core problem here. It's why the ANI thread didn't go as it should have (a lot of bickering and non-discussion instead of a quick and simple enforcement of a guideline which was ignored for no good reason), and it's the reason why BHG's proposal is doomed to failure. There are just too many highly experienced users who find the presence of a link to the user page in a signature wholly sufficient. To exactly what degree the text of a signature must be related to a username is a vague and subjective notion, therefore not worth of much attention, and so even editors with wholly unrelated signatures get a pass. It's sub-optimal from a usability perspective, it does confuse some users, but it's too ingrained in wikiculture to be much open to change. There may be a lot of people, perhaps even a majority, who would want it to change, but for many others it's such a sensitive subject that even having an open discussion about it is a non-starter. Apaugasma (talk ☿) 19:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Of course the guideline wasn't enforced. At that ANI section it was aimed at one editor. It should have been aimed at all editors who have, to a certain degree, signatures that bend or break the guideline. You can't sanction one person and let the others off. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 20:07, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The editor in question has changed their username, and their signature now contains the username as a substring, so for everybody except perhaps some purists the matter should be closed. I suggest that future attempts to make users comply with any signature guidelines should try the approach of talking to the user nicely for a few days instead of Demanding Action, Now, especially on signatures that have been in use for a few years. —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 22:16, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
CambridgeBayWeather, of course you can take action in one case without going through all others first. If not, nothing would or even could ever be done (this editor is POV-pushing, but what about all the other editors doing the very same thing? No POV-pusher should be sanctioned if we're not going to get at all the others!). But I know of no other editor who so blatantly violated the guideline as at that ANI case. Seriously, if even in that case nothing was done (in the sense of being enforced), it is time to change the guideline. Policies and guidelines reflect community consensus, so let's just remove the bit saying that a customised signature should make it easy to identify your username. Apaugasma (talk ☿) 22:46, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Apaugasma. If the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy has been enforced in general then it can be used to sanction any given editor. On the other hand if the Wikipedia:Signatures guideline has not been enforced in general then it needs changing and not chase after one editor. Look at the person who was dragged to ANI compared to the other names. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 21:03, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • More bureaucrats:
  • It is quite common to have custom signatures that don't pass the "cut and paste from browser display to ping" test. Among highly active users, I don't think it is just the claimed 1-2% that fail this test, but closer to a quarter to a third of users. —Kusma (t·c) 15:55, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've only interacted with / about one of the above. Seeing other people talk about them by their actual user name and I saw their signature. Not that I explored or pondered it, but for a while I thought that they were two different people. I may be an oblivious dummy, but I'm an experienced oblivious dummy :-) so that means that it can confuse at least some of us. North8000 (talk) 17:16, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I regularly hold my cursor over a signature to determine the actual username. So long as the link to the true userpage is correct, it is a matter of seconds to identify the poster, regardless of what they use in their signature. Thanks. -- Avi (talk) 17:29, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Tooltips don't work in mobile, for a start. Jorm (talk) 17:41, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But actually following the link should. -- Avi (talk) 07:08, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've been using my nickname as my signature since I joined in 2005. There has rarely been a problem in the over 15 years since. The name links to my userpage and is in accord with guidelines, so I am not certain what the issue is here. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 17:27, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Focus on: abbreviations.

I want this section to focus on abbreviations. So this could be long user names reduced to initials, or in my case where the last two letters are omitted, or any broadly defined case of a signature being an abbreviation of the user name.

What are the real, genuine ways in which abbreviations break current guidelines? And how do abbreviations cause genuine inconvenience to the editing process?


doktorb wordsdeeds 18:31, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • I feel like focusing on how things break the current guidelines is the wrong solution. We should be looking at what the guidelines should be. Guidelines can be changed, and should be.--Jorm (talk) 20:11, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's very odd to see Doktorbuk how do abbreviations cause genuine inconvenience to the editing process?. That question has been answered in reply to Doktorbuk at least half-a-dozen times on this page alone. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:03, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Focus on: non-Latin script

I want this section to focus on the use of non-Latin script in signatures. This could be a stylistic decision, or a reflection on the language spoken by the editor, or a way to indicate ethnicity, or a similar reason.

How does a signature with non-Latin symbols break current guidelines? Is forcing changes on an editor in this situation necessary? And how do we balance the right to use a first language with the guidelines on signatures and usernames?

doktorb wordsdeeds 18:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • It is generally helpful to have a signature that has parts that others can ctrl-F for. And for non-Latin usernames, it is helpful to have a Latin nickname for the user. However, if a signature with non-Latin symbols breaks current guidelines, we should fix the guidelines, as there is nothing wrong with non-Latin symbols. —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 19:00, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will personally fight until I am a bloody nub to prevent any policies that limit non-Latin characters anywhere in the interface.--Jorm (talk) 19:22, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Non latin characters are fine, considering that many people's usernames are made of non-latin characters. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 20:30, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't see any way in which non-Latin symbols cause any problems or break any guidelines. Take two example cases:
  1. User:Example Hassan wants to also display the Arabic version of their name: حسن‎. They can have a sig: Example Hassan (حسن‎)
  2. User:Example حسن‎ wants to also display the latin-alphabet version of their name: Hasan. They can have a sig: Example حسن‎ (Hasan)
    And if User:Example حسن‎ just wants to display their username, then they can sign as : Example حسن‎
Where is the issue or problem that needs discussion? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:12, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The question is the other way, whether a user with a non-ASCII username can have an entirely-ASCII signature. This is more appropriate for Hebrew/Arabic/Indic usernames, but as an example; could I have lì in my signature in lieu of my username? (not that I would, but 等等) User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:23, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@力: I don't see that as a character set issue. It's just a specific instance of the general problem of some editors choosing to mislead their colleagues by displaying as their username something which is not their username. If the two don't match, then the problem is the non-matching, not the character sets. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:30, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And but this is why I think the consensus is not with you. You need to represent your name in your signature, not specifically your username. So long as Praxicidae and other active editors view everything ending with -cidae as Praxicdae's name, everything is fine. While I might support an RFC requiring an exact username (without HTML markup) in the signature text, I doubt it would find consensus. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 23:34, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
力: as i replied above, creating readily-avoidable types of "insider jargon" like this is a well-known type of barrier to new entrants. The very fact that you qualify your comments by referring to "active editors" describes a problem in the shape of an In-group and out-group. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:42, 26 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is correct, but as with everything, there are costs and benefits. Our jargon and our many implicit behavioural norms must be a nightmare to navigate for a newbie. That makes it good practice to avoid jargon, but forbidding experienced editors to use shortcuts when talking to each other clearly isn't an option. Enforcing uniform signature rules seems unlikely in my opinion to have a measurable positive effect on the editing environment for new users. Allowing people their small quirks seems more useful to me in welcoming a diverse editing community. I actually believe it is good practice to have the username in the sig, but I don't believe that requiring this is a good rule. Certainly enforcing such a rule is going to have far higher social costs than there are technical benefits. —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 08:32, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am telling you, right now, that 100% of the data and studies that I have seen and personally conducted say the exact opposite of what you just claimed. Moreover, one merely needs to look at historical examples of how various communities have survived and thrived to see that.
Signatures and talk pages are the Number One barrier to entry for new editors. Everything else is a fart in the wind. Jorm (talk) 17:24, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Jorm: OK, I think I'd like to know more about what exactly you are referring to here (it is always good to learn when I am wrong). I know that talk pages are difficult (having to indent and sign manually is bizarre, not to mention that it is very difficult to even figure out where to discuss things. That article talk pages aren't a good place to talk about the article probably isn't obvious) but I'm intrigued to hear that they and signatures are more effective at turning away newbies than, say, seeing their 100% factual and accurate edit reverted because they did not cite a source and someone thought it might be vandalism. Or waiting 4 months for the AFC review of their article and then getting an incomprehensible "not notable" decline. Anyway, I'm getting a bit offtopic so if you want to reply on my talk page please do so :) —Kusma (Кузьма · कुस्मा · 𐌺) 18:20, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is totally a tangent but it's relevant to this discussion so I'll put it in here.
I dunno if you're familiar with who I am or my work in the past but for like five years I was senior designer at the WMF and my entire raison d'etre was talk pages and communication systems and editor retention. I have literally spent thousands and thousands of hours researching and watching how these things work on Wikipedia and across all its many languages and the difficulties inherent in there.
At one point I was structuring this problem in a "1 to 100" view, which was thinking about the edit count journey, the goal being to remove as many obstacles between a user making their first edit and their 100th (that being when we saw that being a Wikipedian either took or it did not take).
First, we need to distinguish between those we consider "constructive" users and those who are not. This has to do with edit motivation. It's not about vandalism - many, many great editors started as vandals. Think a POV pusher vs a gnome. A gamergator who is only here to shout "BIAS" isn't going to be constructive but they'll jump through hoops to figure out how to yell. We don't care about those people; they'll be blocked soon and never, ever become productive. So we focus on people trying to help.
The first and largest obstacle (edit "zero") was even knowing that it was possible to edit the encyclopedia. The second largest was finding something to fix. The third largest to edit zero was finding the edit button. Parsing wikitext was surprisingly not difficult (and anyone who says "women don't get it b/c they're not technical" is a fucking idiot because at the time we were doing these studies women made up like 75% of the blogger population and blogging software sucked).
Anyways: getting reverted is not the killer to productive editors. People are good with that. They don't mind it. At first, they are really worried that they are doing something bad, or going to harm the encyclopedia. They will often try to find out if they're doing bad by looking up stuff on their own but that's rarely useful. It is important to understand that at this point in their heads, Wikipedia is still a "system" or a "program" and decidedly not a "community".
Usually it was around edit number 10 than a new user comes in contact with another Wikipedian. It is at this point that they learn about the existence of talk pages and have to understand how to use them.
(Side note that the Mobile Interface is a terrible travesty and should be burnt with fire. Mobile does everything in its power to hide the existence of talk pages, and new users never, ever understand pings or see "you have new messages" and interpret that correctly. So there's that to chew on.)
(I could fill the Mariana Trench with things that can kill a user at this point, mostly about templates and the like, but we want to stay looking at the software)
Talk pages, even though they are the exact same software as the editor, are bafflingly hard to use. They have so many counter-intuitive systems and broken metaphors that new, productive users splatter against them and are ground to a paste. This is, without a fucking doubt, the single largest hurdle to gaining and keeping new users.
Talk pages do not resemble any other communication method in use in any other software ever written in reality or fiction. There simply is no mental model that they can be mapped to in order to increase the likelihood of understanding. There is never a "oh, it's like email" or "oh, it's like instant messenger" or "oh it's like a forum" or "oh it's like talking to R2-D2" moment.
This is because of a shit ton of reasons which are really obvious but the number one - with a bullet - most confusing thing to any new user is the signature. Why is the signature different between these two people? Does that connote status, or permissions? What do the red ones mean? Are those moderators? What's "contribs"? Why is it at the end of the comment? Why isn't it called out more clearly?
That's before they even open the editor. That's just reading. This has an incredibly high kill value. Users find the signature system so utterly confusing that they decide that they don't want to have anything to do with these crazies. Right here. This is the point of inflection.
Let's say they get past that, though. Let's say they think "oh, there's some code to this, and I don't understand it now, but I'll figure it out later." (I know that's how it was for me).
If they then manage to figure out how to edit the talk page (and holy shit do not get me started about how shitty Monobook and Vector are with regards to that discoverability but spoiler it starts with "why are there two selected tabs") - if they manage to even get into the technical side of the conversation, there will, indeed, be an "ah-ha!" moment because they will see that it is "like editing the page" so that's good at least but then we come to Wile E. Coyote's Wild West Fun Ride and all of the misery inherent in trying to figure out what the colons mean or stars and what's the fucking difference between wait what the fuck this is a hashtag now? And all this is before we even have to read, parse, and sign the post.
(This is a very high kill ratio point; roughly half of the people just stop right here. They close the window and move on.)
Most people assume that the software will sign the message for them. Because why wouldn't you? Every other software in the world signs posts for you automatically. (Take a look at the number one bot with edits and you'll see that it's SineBot. That should tell you something right there.)
Watching someone discover that Wikipedia doesn't automatically sign their posts is soul-crushing thing to watch. It's just the Price Is Right's sad trumpet noise on repeat.
Okay so now they know they need to sign their posts. Usually because a "helpful" Wikipedian yelled at them.
The most common thing people do in this case is scan backwards and look for wikitext that most resembles what they think is a "signature" (and the key marker here for nearly everyone is actually the "--") and then cut and paste that and make changes. They get this part right a lot, actually. But no one - no one - knows to type ~~~~~~~~~~, click the "signature" button (because of ton of reasons, not the least of which is that the icon is terrible), or read the "Remember to sign your posts" message (This knowledge doesn't creep in until around edit 75 or so).
(And yeah, before some jamoke comes in and says "I figured it out right off it was easy" yeah yeah yeah tell your story walking maybe get a cookie or something yer a fuckin' geeenyous" <wank motion>)
Anyways. They're scanning for a signature to copy. Finding one is also incredibly difficult because in Wikitext Mode they're a blob of gobbledygook. So what they do now - always - is try to search for a User Name that they recognize.
It is at this point, nearly every time, that people quit. They just throw their hands in the air and walk away, never to return. It had a kill ratio of something like 97%. It's probably worse now.
So the tiniest of changes here - the absolute smallest of consistencies - will reduce that kill ratio by a lot. We need to be doing absolutely everything we can to reduce this kill point.
The tiniest thing we can do right now is enforce signature readability while the user is first encountering talk pages (also make all user page links blue, regardless of whether or not there is a page there).
It has to be the community that fixes this. You cannot count on the WMF ever doing anything for this. You cannot say "oh, there's a gadget". You must always assume the user has a stock system with Vector and Vector is terrible and a source of Many Woes. The Foundation does not have the courage to push software changes to fix it. It has to be the community.
(Another thing that could be done locally is move the signatures to the top of the posts with some clever css. Maybe I'll get high one night and write that; see if I can get it to work.) Jorm (talk) 19:27, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for sharing your perspective (and for your work), this is full of great points to think about. I never thought about newbies believing that signature colours could mean something (fancy sigs only just started to become fashionable back when I was a newbie), but now that you point it out it seems very reasonable. I have now changed my signature back from something mildly clever to something rather plain. From your description of a newbie's journey above I infer that custom colours, signatures not matching the username and irrelevant fanciness all cause problems for newcomers, and while I disagree that newbie conversion rate is the only number for us to look at, a campaign for simpler signatures ("do it for the newbies!") could actually be helpful. If 90% of users have plain blue signatures, do you think that will help? —Kusma (talk) 20:57, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Will 90% solve the problem? I don't know. It would have to be studied, maybe. it definitely won't hurt, and it will almost certainly help but I wouldn't think it a silver bullet.
There are a lot of things that can be done. A good thing would be for there to be an obvious visual marker (like an icon) to tell the user that they are looking at a signature. Most software uses an avatar image for this, but Wikipedians go apeshit if you suggest such a thing. There might be a way to inject an icon visually using a :before css rule or something.
Moving signatures to a consistent spot is probably the best thing to do. That would aid in scanning and recognition of the affordance as well as aiding the user to neural map that they're looking at a conversation. Jorm (talk) 21:18, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've made a tree-hugging hippie proposal at WP:VPR. —Kusma (talk) 22:22, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's a reflection on changing times. Signature files come from a Usenet/email/Unix tradition, and is a place for creativity; however with Usenet/email, the actual username is conveyed separately in metadata to establish identity. Today, web-based bulletin boards and social messaging apps are widespread methods for group conversation, where colour and icons associated with the user name can carry meaning. As Levivich alluded to earlier, if we want to mandate that certain information be associated with each signed post, then it would best for the software to provide the info, or provide user interfaces or tools that provide the needed functionality. (For example, in addition to the pure wikitext methods of pinging, we could also have tools allowing you to look up users to ping using auto-complete, so you'd never have to copy and paste a whole user name. If the software were extended to support an alias as part of user profiles, then you could search users by alias, too, and users could set it to match their signatures.) Of course, in the meantime, it may be desirable to provide more encouragement to follow specific conventions. isaacl (talk) 22:01, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
A thing to think about when making comparisons to Usenet or Email is that people read posts there already knowing who the sender is. You know who is speaking before you reach the signature.
Further, the way quoting in those mediums works also lets the user know who is speaking before the gist of the message. Jorm (talk) 22:31, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, as I said, in all of the other methods I listed, the username is conveyed separately, and as you've noted previously, in standard locations where it's easily accessible before reading the message. If the reply tool from the talk pages project becomes sufficiently popular, then it may become possible to associate more metadata with each comment and provide greater functionality. isaacl (talk) 23:29, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm curious as to if you have a study that says custom signatures are the number one barrier? It seems more likely to me that 1) the study likely didn't differentiate between different problems with signatures, and 2) if it did, it's probably having to manually sign at all that's the problem - along with having to indent manually and things like that - not the fact that some people have customized ones. But again, curious if you can link to the study so we can see for ourselves. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:42, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
To a new users there is no difference between a custom signature, a red signature, a blue signature, or any other signature. They are all an impenetrable code. They do not care because there is no consistency.
I don't work there anymore and the last time I tried to find any of my research or anything it had been moved or deleted or whatever. You need to understand that I'm talking about a lot of studies and questions, many videos and observations. Statistics grinding. There was a whole team at one point who would answer questions like this.
I know for a fact that the distinction between customized and non-customized signatures was explored and researched because one of the things I was excoriated by the community for was saying that custom signatures were not going to appear in Flow. There were many reasons behind that (and I talked about that just above). Jorm (talk) 19:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, even if I dropped seventeen gigabytes of studies about this on your lap, it wouldn't mean shit. The community has never cared about what data has to say about these things. It only ever looks for reasons to ignore findings and keep doing what it's doing. Jorm (talk) 19:43, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Jorm, well, I care. And I know we don't agree on everything here, but I'd certainly like to see the evidence for what you're saying is true. Something not appearing in a planned feature doesn't mean it was actually studied - if it was, you should be able to show us the result that says custom signatures specifically (not just the quad~ markup) is a barrier to entry for new folks. I think you'd sway a lot of people away from custom signatures if you could actually show a study that shows it's a barrier to entry - many people do care what the new user experience is like, and in fact I've done what I can to make it easier for new folk - and if well-done studies show that custom signatures (like mine) are a barrier for them, then dog-gone it I'll remove mine (or at a minimum I'll put the default Username (talk) back at the beginning). -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:47, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Quod est demonstratum. Jorm (talk) 19:48, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You've demonstrated nothing, and you still haven't linked the study. If it truly exists as you're claiming, it should be trivial for you to find and link it. The fact you're refusing to do so (when you've had more than ample time) and instead trying to paint me as the bad guy doesn't help your case here. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I just told you that all that shit was deleted or moved, or it was never made public, or a million things. You are demanding that I produce some magic fucking artifact before you will even consider the idea that you are wrong.
I haven't worked there in six years. When I did, I had to be your work monkey. I'm not anymore. Jorm (talk) 19:52, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's quite odd to me that the WMF, an organization based on transparency and open access to information, would intentionally delete data that's relevant to its projects. But I accept that since you don't work there anymore it may be harder to find for you. Showing the actual study that said that custom signatures instead of default was a barrier to entry would sway at least one mind (mine) and I suspect quite a few others. So if you really want to sway minds, that's the way to do it - not just saying "believe me when I say it is so". Maybe someone else will just take you at your word with this - but in my field, we don't believe until we see with our own eyes. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:56, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You think the WMF is transparent? My sweet summer child. Jorm (talk) 19:59, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Generally it is because of attitudes like yours that the WMF has such a bad reputation amongst users here. So if your goal is to distance yourself from them, you are going the wrong way about it. Either provide the details requested above or cease the bloviating. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:02, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to clock in for a few minutes and respond to a few things here, since I have some information.
The Reply tool works better – but you can't get this kind of stark differential if the old method only had a 50% failure rate.
@Jorm said earlier "This is a very high kill ratio point; roughly half of the people just stop right here. They close the window and move on." If you look at the number of people who open the wikitext editing window in a discussion namespace vs the number who post a comment, I believe it's more like three-quarters of new editors, at least if they open the entire talk page rather than a section. (Accurately detecting a reply vs non-reply edit inside a section turns out to be harder than a non-MediaWiki dev would expect, especially when most of them don't sign their posts.)
If you are interested in re-arranging the page with CSS, I think you can hope to achieve ~99% success. The mw:New requirements for user signatures work is slowly improving matters, and the mw:Reply tool (try it now!) only fails to detect a signature in about 1% of edits.
@Berchanhimez, "the data" is video recordings of humans trying the software. Back when most of that research was done, the WMF didn't usually get permission to release the individual user testing videos. So you can't have all of the raw data, because privacy. However, you can have some of it, such as this screencap recording in which a new user says things like she can't figure out who wrote anything on the talk page or even be certain what the talk page is for (around the 7-minute mark). Notice that she is only reading the page at that point; there cannot be any question about how many tildes to type to create her own signature, because she is just reading the talk page at the point that she says she can't figure out who posted the contents.
Unrelated to the raw data-vs-anonymized reports question, a few years ago, they set up the corporate cloud to auto-delete everything six months after an employee quit (unless there was manual intervention, which pretty much only seemed to happen for Legal and HR). It's arranged better now, but, due to one of those unfortunate who-left-when happenstance things, a good deal of design research work seems to have gotten lost, and that's not counting the stuff that never made it into the cloud in the first place, which included pretty much all of the original user research data from a decade or more ago. I think that nearly all of the original data collected by Steven Walling and the old mw:Growth team was lost to the "dusty hard drive" problem, except for content that was uploaded to Commons or posted on the wikis.
BTW, I think you can rely on Jorm's recollections. I've never known him to be dishonest, and he's been saying the same things about these studies since they happened. (Caveat: You should not trust him on the question of whether Chili con carne should be served with rice.  ;-) Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Back to the original subject

Both these sections - and any more I think of starting - were intended to streamline the discussion into manageable chunks, given that the above conversation is such a sprawling mass of threads and tangents. I think that having focused sections helps in deciding what is working and what is not. As detailed in this section, above, we can see how having hard and fast rules about non-Latin characters is a non-starter. I like Kusma's line about enforcing hard and fast rules will have a "far higher social cost than...technical benefits". As ever throughout this discussion it is clear that the winning argument, the stronger argument, is with those of us who don't agree that the guidelines should force all of us to have the same drab boring generic signatures. doktorb wordsdeeds 09:08, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think anyone's seriously proposing removing the colour and fonts and HTML code from signatures and forcing everyone to use the default signature, which I've managed for five years. Adding two letters to a signature should not be that big a deal. If editors are after a bit of pizzazz and individuality, they can achieve that very easily through HTML (and frankly would be far more successful). Sdrqaz (talk) 08:58, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
As someone with a non Roman username, I am against anything that would require me to display Roman transliteration in signature. That would more confusing to new users as to which one is the actual username, confusion when pinging and the like. I spend most of my time on Wikipedia fixing Lint errors, which among other things involves fixing bad html in signatures. See the stats in Firefly Linter count. Most of the Lint errors in discussion namespaces are because of signatures. Custom signatures cause unnecessary maintenance overhead in future, so I don't use anything other than the default signature. Anyone curious about how to pronounce my username can see it in my userpage. Link to talk page will be in English, so no problem if anyone wants to communicate. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 12:59, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The focus here was on the opposite concern: if we require the full username to be present in a signature, won't that create problems with non-Latin usernames, such as it being hard for other users to keep various users with the same non-Latin scripts apart, or such as that other users won't know how to address them, etc. (it's largely a non-problem though, since requiring the full username doesn't entail disallowing extra text containing a Latin-script nickname; the main thing would be that they would perhaps not always have the necessary space to include the username along with the nick) Those who argue that such problems will arise actually want to be less restrictive, i.e., they want to allow all kinds of variations instead of the username, not require them. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:25, 29 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A reader's perspective

I hesitate to enter this heated discussion, and am not even sure where this comment belongs, but I want to share a perspective that I haven't seen discussed above (although I certainly may have missed it in this long thread). I've been on Wikipedia for a few years, but mostly doing gnome-type work, and I've never to my recollection participated in any policy discussion. Nevertheless, I do often read pages like the Village Pump, the Help Desk and ANI, and feel I've gotten a lot of insight into policies and procedures by doing so. As a result of this discussion here, I'm realizing the source of some minor puzzlement I've experienced in reading such pages. For example, I've heard the name Praxicidae mentioned in discussions, and I've seen the signature "YODADICAE", but I never until today realized that these are the same person. I think I've seen people say something in a thread like "I agree with Praxicidae", and I've vaguely thought "hm, I don't remember seeing that person comment in this thread" but just moved along, without connecting the response to Praxicidae's original comment. Similarly, the name "Doktorbuk" mentioned above caused me some (brief this time) puzzlement, until I was able to glean from context that that is the user whose signature is "doktorb". This thread is making me think that this has happened a number of times, and that I've at least on some occasions not fully followed the flow of a conversation, because I've not been aware of who is being responded to, or if a reference is to something that was said in the current thread or somewhere else.

There's been a lot of talk above about how to make pings and other interactive features work smoothly, but my concern is simply that when reading a thread, I'd like to be able to follow who's responding to whom. It seems to me that if a user is mentioned by name in a thread, it should be easy to discover what that user has said, without going back through the thread, post by post, and clicking on any names that seem to be in some way related to the name I'm looking for. It doesn't seem an unreasonable desire to be able to follow the flow of a conversation by just reading it. Perhaps it's not considered terribly important that non-participants follow a conversation (I'm not being snarky, I can totally understand that viewpoint), but I just want to ensure that this particular impediment caused by custom signatures is understood. My apologies if this interjection isn't helpful. CodeTalker (talk) 21:19, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is great! Thank you for saying this. This is exactly what I was talking about up above, in my (long) comment to User:Kusma and literally proves my point. I wonder if this would be considered "sufficient documentation" to believe a problem exists. Jorm (talk) 21:40, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for this and your perspective. And an apology, if one is needed, for "doktorb" not automatically referring to "doktorbuk" in your mind as you read. From my perspective, the guidelines are just that, guidelines, and as I retain enough of a relationship between "doktorb" and "doktorbuk" I am in no mood or desire to change things. However, you do make this view with fresh eyes, perhaps fresher than those of us who have filled this page with so much back and forth over the last few days. There may be a problem with the way the signatures are displayed, which is not necessarily the same as the way signatures are created. This sounds like splitting hairs, but I'm sure that we can find a technical solution - I see some have been suggested above - which would allow for editors to continue reflecting their own character through signatures in addition to the need to make identification easier for readers. I think we can all agree that the extreme position advocated by certain editors, that for uniform bland standardised signatures scaffolded by rules, is a complete non-starter in this context. doktorb wordsdeeds 22:21, 27 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
hi, I'm another newer user (who also happens to have a shorthand signature "MelecieDiancie" -> "melecie"), something like doktorb would easily be identifiable as Doktorbuk and ——Serial as Serial Number 54129, but some may be confusing like the aformentioned YODADICAE👽 / Praxidicae, as well as Guy / JzG, and Christopher, Sheridan, OR / DeNoel. also, something I noticed, customsigs can also make it easy for someone to see who wrote what at a glance, like say "oh, there's brown text and it starts with "Br", it must be BrownHairedGirl", or "it's green-purple-blue with a superscript, it must be Cullen328". by time ones that differ a bit like Praxidicae's would certainly also become recognizable as well, but to a newbie, it's still confusing, and hovering on where the link leads would show you the sig's owner, but it's time consuming that I think names in a signature should either be the username or an easily recognizable shorthand for such (so for example me MelecieDiancie, recognizable alternatives would likely be Melecie or Diancie, and something like MelDia would be borderline unrecognizable and for those it'll be evaluated in a case basis). • | melecie | t 02:55, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@MelecieDiancie and Doktorbuk: Mostly out of curiousity, I wonder why you want to have something other than your username in the signature. If you prefer melecie/doktorb to your actual username why not change the username to that? Neither of them are registered and I think such a request wouldn't face any issues. I can definitely relate to CodeTalkers annoyance at not immedietly connecting signatures and usernames, especially when I stumble into an area where I don't edit much with many new names. --Trialpears (talk) 13:24, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've actually been going back and forth between using Melecie or MelecieDiancie as a username in other places recently, and I feel like MelecieDiancie is slightly more personal (if I'm correct, Melecie is just the japanese name of Carbink), however I may end up switching to just using Melecie if I feel like it • | melecie | t 13:34, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I would like to add that this discussion is taking place among self-selected power users. And perhaps many are personally proud of their fancy signature formatting, effort which they don't want to be invalidated. Admittedly I'm not really a new user, just a gnome of many years, but from at least the perspective of someone who frequents talk pages less often, why do customized signatures, especially ones that hide the username, need to exist? As an outlet for creativity at the cost of legibility? Learning about them is just another stumbling block for new users. It may seem minor, but again, the group talking here is self-selected for willingness to put up with Wikipedia's old-Internet weirdness such as html tags and talk pages being implemented as freely-editable wikitext documents (instead of perhaps something like a typical forum, bulletin board, or reddit). Mousing over the link, following it, or viewing the wikitext can clear it up (e.g. "Guy" is actually "JzG"), but why make a system that requires the user to take effort in de-obfuscating the displayed name? And these steps can be more difficult for people with technical restrictions such as a slow device/connection or who primarily use the keyboard. I'm happy to see User:Jorm's comments (such as the long one) and the follow-up by User:Whatamidoing (WMF), because for all that sometimes I see people complain about WMF decisions affecting Wikipedia, I think here they're useful to provide a perspective less attached to the in-group. Anyway, I'm at least for requiring signatures to distinguishably include the actual usernames. --Anon423 (talk) 23:01, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The end....?

What would we agree on being the end or conclusion of this talk page's current conference of discussions? What's our end point? doktorb wordsdeeds 21:51, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it doesn't specifically establish anything other than there is a big open question. My own opinion would be to formulate a "how far would you go?" question regarding requiring more clarity of the user name in the signature, and then give 4-5 ascending degrees of stringency and then have people answer that question. This is very different and less flawed than asking people to pick one of the 4-5 choices. North8000 (talk) 22:11, 28 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

withdrawn Request for comment about flags on signatures

Should the signature policy explicitly allow flags on signatures as per the below image? --Almaty (talk) 19:28, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ironically, using JzG here is a bad example, let me highlight why: I used a flag before the policy came in, I removed it when the policy came in. Guy (Help!) 6:33 pm, 4 April 2007, Wednesday (14 years, 2 months, 2 days ago) (UTC−4).
You can use emojis, but WP:SIG is clear about images for all of the thousands of reasons highlighted in the dozens of previous threads on this exact matter. Not to mention that many of those users haven't edited since the sig policy/guideline changed and was made more clear or they have since changed it. BEACHIDICAE🌊 19:29, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I think many people in the past have used flags for whatever reason, and that the policy should reflect longstanding practice --Almaty (talk) 19:32, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Did you actually read what I linked? It's explained extensively as to why you may not use images in signatures and that there is no "grandfather" clause, which wouldn't even apply to you anyway since your signature came well after the requirement not to have images in sigs and as such this RFC is pointless, redundant and bordering on disruptive. BEACHIDICAE🌊 19:34, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't pointless or redundant, if the RfC closes as "no" then SVG flags should be explicitly forbidden, because I just clicked on signature tutorials and found how to make one with flags, and it isn't forbidden by the policy. Not everyone knows that flags werent allowed even if they read the policy. Here is the signpost article about it --Almaty (talk) 19:38, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It has literally been done at least a dozen times. Take a look in the archives. BEACHIDICAE🌊 19:41, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK if flags were so common then why doesn't the policy say images of any type including flags. --Almaty (talk) 19:46, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Those examples are from 14(!) years ago and the policy has since 2007 forbidden the use of images of any kind in signatures. So why should the policy mention flags in particular? Is there any evidence that a lot of people were using flags recently because they did not think them to be images? Regards SoWhy 19:57, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SoWhy I think (but don't quote me on it) there may be some "flags" from emojis (or at least I feel like there is something similar) but definitely the no image/svg rule has been pretty heavily enforced to the point of blocking editors who refuse to change it for the reasons outlined by several people in the threads I've linked. BEACHIDICAE🌊 20:05, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I did. whatever no one cares, and I got a ANI about it? could be avoided if explicit. --Almaty (talk) 20:03, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Signatures#Images says in bold: Images of any kind must not be used in signatures. That is very clear. I see no need to say that "any kind" includes flags just because one user refused to remove a flag after the policy was pointed out to them. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:09, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Its still ambiguous, images of any kind could mean emoji, and emojis are allowed, and given the signpost article I thought flags were allowed too. Its clearly a hot button topic I wish I never changed my signature from the default. --Almaty (talk) 21:38, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • an emoji isn't an image? just wondering. — Ched (talk) 22:28, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is. I mean, displaying files and displaying unicode are different from a technical perspective, but the end user experience is the same. As emojis have been explicitly allowed, perhaps WP:SIG should be clarified accordingly so it's more obvious that some images actually are allowed despite many of the reasons against images still applying. Yes, they can be extremely distracting but we as a community have decided the right to draw pictures with each and every comment one leaves on a talk page is important to protect. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 23:47, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    As far as this policy is concerned, if it's Unicode, it's not an image, even if it happens to be a Unicode character that looks like an image. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I suggested on AN changing this to "image files" instead of "images", as that would make clear files are prohibited, but other "images" (such as emoji or other unicode characters) are allowed. Alternatively, it could simply specify the types of markup prohibited, ex: "use of the [[File:]], [[Image:]], <gallery> and substantially similar markup is prohibited". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:50, 1 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I would support changing "images" to "image files" to clarify this. On the other hand, I would not be opposed to banning emojis either but that is a question for another day. Regards SoWhy 07:38, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a good idea. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    No it is not. 06:13, 13 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
    User:The owner of all, I suspect that you have misunderstood something here. The (IMO good) idea here is that the ☑️ in your current sig is okay, because it's a "character" and not really an "image". The alternative is that we continue to let editors tell you that the Unicode character in your custom sig is an "image" that must be removed. Either view is valid, but it'd be hypocritical for an editor to simultaneously use such a Unicode character while also saying that it's bad for editors to use such Unicode characters. I assume that you don't think that your own sig should be banned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:55, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that images were not allowed because they slow down rendering on large talk pages with many signatures, and unicode pictures were allowed because they did not. If it is a flag or not should not be relevant, but rather if it is rendered as text or inline image. Please correct me if I am mistaken about the intent. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 08:33, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Slowdown is one of the reasons. WP:SIGIMAGE lists all of the reasons and they are all good ones. Each reason alone is sufficient to ban images in signatures. Regards SoWhy 13:05, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In regards to those reasons, I can see where possibly 3 of them might apply to emoji as well as image files:
  • They make pages more difficult to read and scan
  • They are potentially distracting from the actual content
  • Images in signatures give undue prominence to a given user's contribution
but I must also say that these criteria are highly subjective. Elizium23 (talk) 16:00, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In these two edits on this very page, Chicdat (talk · contribs) demonstrates how a flag may be legally incorporated into a signature without involving any images at all. The rainbow flag there is actually four Unicode characters taking up a total of fourteen bytes (in UTF-8 encoding) between them. It's not necessary to use the characters directly, since the hex NCRs &#x1F3F3;&#xFE0F;&#x200D;&#x1F308; may be used for the same effect: 🏳️‍🌈. The four characters involved are:
Basically, the second and third characters are being used to apply the colours of the fourth char to the shape of the first. All Almaty needs to do is find a Unicode character depicting the WHO logo, and combine it with the white flag in a similar manner. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 13:48, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Text for not having images

Can someone explain this text to me? Given that here we give people the exact CSS needed to make an obnoxious orange signature, and here the CSS for obnoxious purple signatures. Perhaps we should extend the policy to username colours too, such that colour may not be used to give undue prominence to a given user's contribution ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:21, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As with images, there are an awful lot of people who talk about bright signature backgrounds being obnoxious/distracting/whatnot, but when it actually comes down to an RfC people seem loath to prohibit much of anything. If anything, we should ditch orange/purple examples. Just because there's not an appetite to prevent it doesn't mean we should encourage it. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 12:54, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Maybe we can give examples in a different font, or in dark green or something, but nothing that is super flashy. PR's second example, however, is about user CSS, which is a topic that might be better to be covered elsewhere altogether. Perhaps the "Customizing how you see your signature" and "Overriding custom signatures" should be moved to the bottom of the page, or to a different page altogether. (This page needs to decide whether it is a guideline or a howto). —Kusma (talk) 13:08, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that people should be able to set an option in their preferences to see plain signatures, I nonetheless resent the implication that my signature is "obnoxious".


      .  New article created×158
  .x88888x. 
  :8**888888X.  :>  .d``            uL   ..               
f    `888888x./   @8Ne.   .u    .@88b  @88R      uL     
'       `*88888~   %8888:u@88N  '"Y888k/"*P   .ue888Nc..
\.    .  `?)X.   `888I  888.    Y888L     d88E`"888E`  
   `~=-^   X88> ~   888I  888I     8888     888E  888E 
          X8888  ~    888I  888I     `888N    888E  888E 
         488888    uW888L  888'  .u./"888&   888E  888E 
  .xx.     88888X  '*88888Nu88P  d888" Y888*" 888& .888E   
'*8888.   '88888> ~ '88888F`    ` "Y   Y"    *888" 888& 
   88888    '8888>    888 ^                    `"   "888E
   `8888>    `888     *8E     { u s e r }     .dWi   `88E
    "8888     8%      '8>     { t a l k }     4888~  J8% 
     `"888x:-"         "  { c o n t r i b s }  ^"===*"`   

05:42, 6 June 2021 (UTC)

Surely if you're making an audacious joke sig, it should have user rights in it too? Vaticidalprophet x9 EM MM Rv ECo 05:48, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

DOS attacks?

Perhaps Redrose64 would like to give a substantive reason for their revert per WP:PGBOLD (Consequently, you should not remove any change solely on the grounds that there was no formal discussion indicating consensus for the change before it was made. Instead, you should give a substantive reason for challenging it and, if one hasn't already been started, open a discussion to identify the community's current views.), however, more importantly I'd like to see a diff from a WMF sysadmin saying that images in signatures constitutes unbearable load for the WMF servers and are akin to DOS attacks. The claim appears highly dubious at best. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 20:47, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

While I no longer work for the Foundation, when I did we had a policy (if unwritten) that local Wikis should not make policy decisions based on expected load.
Technically, an image in a signature will not affect the servers much (if at all); the server sends the HTML for the link, the slow-down is going to be on the client side (rendering lots of images, especially if the html for the image doesn't include height and width tags). Emoji images are... nothing. They're air. The client and the server won't care in any way about them. Jorm (talk) 21:22, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Re first sentence, I think there's also an equivalent community essay at WP:PERFORMANCE. A sound principle IMO. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:27, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Client-side performance and bandwidth usage should be taken into account, though. Trimming down the number of server requests is important for responsiveness, and reducing the amount of data transferred is helpful for lower throughput/capped data environments. (I realize this does not apply to the specific edit in question, but would be a new reason to add to the rationale.) isaacl (talk) 22:44, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly the real killer here is going to be someone linking a 50 megabyte file in a 32x32 pixel square. --Jorm (talk) 22:56, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It's an established principle that you don't make unilateral changes to agreed policies. You discuss them first, either on the associated talk page or at WP:VPP. Whichever venue is selected, you should ideally leave a note at the other one directing people to the discussion. When the policy change is agreed, the change may be made, and the edit summary should include a link to the discussion concerned. Notice how in this edit, HJ Mitchell (talk · contribs) used a URL (now archived to Wikipedia talk:Signatures/Archive 9#Promotion to policy). That edit was made more than seven years ago, and whilst the two templates preceding the line "Images of any kind must not be used in signatures for the following reasons" have both been amended since then, the eight-point bulleted list following has not changed by even one character. Indeed, one of those two templates explicitly states Changes made to it should reflect consensus and I saw no consensus for ProcrastinatingReader's edit. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:32, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your assertion directly contradicts the community established policy at WP:PGBOLD. Although most editors find prior discussion, especially at well-developed pages, very helpful, directly editing these pages is permitted by Wikipedia's policies. Consequently, you should not remove any change solely on the grounds that there was no formal discussion indicating consensus for the change before it was made. Instead, you should give a substantive reason for challenging it and, if one hasn't already been started, open a discussion to identify the community's current views. The claim -- that images in signatures will DOS the WMF servers -- is just not true. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:47, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Since you have been quoting from PGBOLD (twice now), you will also be aware of WP:TALKFIRST, which precedes it on the page: Talk page discussion typically precedes substantive changes to policy. Changes may be made if there are no objections or if discussion shows there is consensus for the change. Minor edits to improve formatting, grammar, and clarity may be made at any time. Your edit was not made to improve formatting, grammar, and clarity, it was a substantive change to policy. This subsection begins with a link to Wikipedia:Be bold#Wikipedia namespace where we find: Wikipedia does not "enshrine" old practices: bold changes to its policies and guidelines are sometimes the best way to adapt and improve the encyclopedia. In this case, "bold" refers to boldness of idea; such ideas are most commonly raised and discussed first to best formulate their implementation. The admonition "be careful" is especially important in relation to policies and guidelines, where key parts may be phrased in a particular way to reflect a very hard-won, knife-edge consensus—which may not be obvious to those unfamiliar with the background. In these cases, it is also often better to discuss potential changes first. So: suggest a change by all means; but if you do make an undiscussed change, don't expect there to be no objections, and when an objection does occur do not word your counter-objection in a way that implies that the objector (me) is in the wrong. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Technical note, it is not just about the servers. Users without much ram may experience issues rendering on their browsers also. Pages with hundreds of small images can grind a browser on a low resource system to a halt. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 23:50, 2 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, and I mentioned this here, but issues for certain users due to their device capability or internet speed/reliability (something not mentioned in the current list, but probably should be), is distinct from the alleged damage to WMF servers, currently mentioned in the list. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 00:04, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    In the context of Wikipedia, denial-of-service refers to the ability to misuse MediaWiki features to unduly waste server or network resources. For example, we used to be able to view up to 5000 contributions for an editor, but that was reduced to 500 to avoid DOS attacks. Similarly, Lua modules are limited to 10 seconds and 50 megabytes. Those limitations are imposed by the WMF but I guess that whoever added the DOS rationale for no images had that in mind because replacing an image with a massive file then purging a hundred pages would degrade services. Johnuniq (talk) 09:19, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The key here seems to be "expected load". Forums that allow custom images in user profiles on posts generally display about 20 at a time (by default). Wikipedia, on the other hand, has talk pages with hundreds of unique editors having posts that haven't yet been archived. Some pages (certain RfAs) have over 500 unique signatures. Imagine if all of these users had a picture in their signature. That's no longer "expected load" - that's insanity in my opinion. And yes, unless any image used in a signature was automatically protected, it could be a way for a denial of service attack. Just upload a much larger file in the place of one that's used in a signature, and instantly increase server load anytime anyone loads a page that user had ever signed. Do that enough, and it would potentially overload the connections and cause a denial of service. Furthermore, while colors can give the appearance of prominence, images can imply more prominence - as an example, a user recently attempted to add the WHO flag to their signature. That's more prominence than any set of colors could ever give. While I agree with the fact that we shouldn't worry about performance, that doesn't mean we can't include that as a reason images aren't allowed - it just means that if it were the only reason, we should reconsider. I disagree with the changes made and think the policy is fine as is. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 08:11, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • $300 million and we're worried about server load from images in signatures? Ahem. I just want to remind everyone reading this that for many years, other websites like Facebook and Twitter (and MySpace and Geocities and Wordpress and so many more), have been able to allow their users to post images, even in hi-res, even embedded video, even with infinite scrolling, for millions of simultaneous users, without crashing their servers or their users' browsers. The technology has been out there for many years; we're using sticks and stones here (aka MediaWiki). (And I agree with the removal of the server load and DOS reason.) Levivich 16:00, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a somewhat related problem described on mediawiki.org’s Recommendations for mobile friendly articles on Wikimedia wikis § Limit number of images in a page:

    Ideally, a page should have no more than 100 images (regardless of how small). Note if you have more than 10,000 images in your page, the page will be inaccessible on mobile.

    I believe this number is counting image tags (file declarations), and not separate images. stjn 20:54, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Accessibility concerns

For all the recent talk here, I could find only one mention of web accessibility on it. I believe this issue needs more exploring, the notes below attempt to do so. Some of the notes below are directly inspired by signatures/discussions here, but I made an effort to not name and shame anyone. (Note about words: ‘users’ in the following text means everyone, and not just registered users.)

  • For colour-blind users and users without an ability to use the mouse, having a consistent and distinctive colour for links is critical because Wikipedia is only distinguishing links by their colour. Without actions like hovering, the only colours for this to our users are blue and red. User signatures usually use more colours, so if the only signatures on the page are custom, some users might not be able to tell that you can go to a user/talk page. This is especially bad for links that are in black, as that makes them indistinguishable from the page text colour. That means that a custom-coloured user signature should have some other way of recognising it as a link, specifically an underline. Not having one on those links is an accessibility violation (link to WCAG 1.4.1 info page).
  • Similarly, blue or red should not be used in a signature for text as a courtesy to keep the expectations of users consistent and to stop people without a mouse from expecting it to be a link.
  • For colour blind users, if a link employs a background colour (also known as highlighting), the contrast of link text needs to be checked with a background colour, as already described by contrast guidelines in the Manual of Style.
  • For screen reader users and users without an ability to use the mouse, custom signatures frequently do not describe the link targets understandably without having to hover or inspect their URL. This is an accessibility violation (link to WCAG 2.4.4 info page). All links in a signature should a clear description of their purpose, so while u-t-c meaning links to ‘user’, ‘talk’, ‘contributions’ might be understandable at least to some from the link context, it is pretty much impossible that ‘clubs symbol’ and ‘spades symbol’ would be understood as ‘contributions’ and ‘email this user’.
  • For screen reader users, but not limited to them, the previous point also means that if a user goes to the link saying ‘wingardium leviosa’, but arrives at the user page of a user called ‘Stream Levitating by Dua Lipa’, they might be a bit confused about whether they were lead to the right page. While some changes to them can be fine, user links should not be entirely different from their username (‘Kendoll’ → ‘KenDoll’ is fine and might be actually preferred for screen readers, ‘Kendoll’ → ‘KENSINGTON DOLLARBILLS’ or ‘ꓘ∈И’ are not), unless you also insert the username, preferably somewhere in the link itself.
  • For screen reader users, the most problematic custom signature would not be the one using non-Latin characters (or at least it shouldn’t be one using them), but the one employing many graphic symbols or various text substitute symbols. Accessibility expert Adrian Roselli describes how misuse of some Unicode characters imitating the various typefaces (usually valid for use as math symbols etc.) can be harmful for screen reader users in tweets, but it applies to us as well. (While there are no uses of this on this page, I have noticed some on village pumps.) More generally, use of various Unicode characters will either lead to your signature being too verbose (as in the previous link) or lead to it not being read out for some at all. Accessibility expert Leonie Watson tells that this can be the case for emojis.
  • For users with low vision, as well as anyone increasing standard font size, signatures should have any text size changes relative to the original font size, as already described by text size guidelines in the Manual of Style. 16 out of 66 uses of font-size (thankfully, by just one user) on this page make it harder to increase font size of their signature to readable levels, with the same signature also having a smaller font size than is recommended there as a baseline for content.
  • For users on autistic spectrum, it is sometimes recommended to have simple and consistent layouts that use simple colours. We need the opinion of those users to know for sure whether they had issues with the way our talk pages are structured to know more, but it is something to keep in mind.
  • Not in English Wikipedia, thankfully, but for wikis generally: images should have alternative text, especially if they link to other pages (including file pages). If they link to other pages, alternative text should describe the purpose of a link, for example |alt=Talk page.

There might be more issues that might be listed, these are just the ones that I can remember off the top of my head. Some issues above can be fixed in some cases if users applied more WAI-ARIA text in their signatures, used underlines in their links, did not abuse Unicode symbols, etc. But I think that having those issues in the first place is a strong argument that if you want your signature to be inclusive and accessible (as, I think, most of us should), you should just keep it simple and straightforward. And I hope that this write-up will persuade at least some to do so. (And I sure hope that no one thinks that these are the issues that needs to be fixed by the users that experience them, and not us.)

For years, I have used a user script unformat.js (links to Russian Wikipedia) that removes most of the custom signature code for me, leaving only their text. To be honest, I have made it not because I wanted our talk pages to be more accessible, but because I considered most of custom signatures ugly and attention-seeking. Now I am more and more of an opinion that the best way forward is the opposite: to have some means for Wikimedians to customise signatures without them showing up in page code and without the explicit consent of a user. There must be some ways to write a script for that.

(Please ping me when replying to this section.) stjn 20:54, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For the lack of anything better to say, this, times 100. I like the idea that custom signatures ought to be an opt-in enhancement, maybe a gadget. I'm envisioning a world where custom sigs are an opt-in preference, but we opt in every existing account. Logged-out users shouldn't see them. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:00, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote up User:Enterprisey/signature rfc drafting. Probably a dead-end but I hope it moves the conversation forward. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:34, 3 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes! And thank you for writing this. Aesthetic preferences might be important but accessibility must be the Foundation's #1 priority. Le Loy 01:13, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it'd be a good idea to give all users an option to view all signatures with plain formatting, and I even think that making custom sigs opt-in would be mostly fine. That said, as someone to whom the above accessibility concerns apply, I can say confidently that I don't give a hoot about what color someone's talk page signature is, or if the font is ugly, et cetera. I may think less of their graphic design skills, but it certainly doesn't bother me to the extent that I think they should be forced to express themselves in a way I find acceptable. jp×g 02:03, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: usernames in signatures

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The following three questions concern the extent to which customized signatures should be required to display someone's full username, or an easily recognizable abbreviation/variant. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Background

There have been several discussions concerning customized signatures which do not correspond to someone's username and the impact they may have on other users (for example).

Editors have expressed that the guidelines at WP:CUSTOMSIG/P (namely A customised signature should make it easy to identify your username and It is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the username it represents) have proven ambiguous and are frequently ignored. While guidelines are not firm rules, they are intended as generally accepted standards that editors should attempt to follow, following common sense and absent a good reason not to. If a guideline can be ignored without reason, the consensus behind that guideline should be reconsidered and the guideline updated where necessary.

This RfC is to determine what consensus is around this subject, and its result should then be reflected in the language at WP:CUSTOMSIG/P, up to and including removing the two bulletpoints.

This RfC does not concern stylized text or text in addition to the username.

Question 1

Should a customized signature be required to display someone's username in its entirety, without changes?

Notes:

  • A response of "no" would mean that abbreviations, variations, and other names are permitted instead of the username.
  • Per the scope of this RfC, an answer of "Yes" would still allow nicknames, variations, translations, or other names in addition to the username, as long as they are clearly separated.

Survey (Question 1)

  • Support EpicPupper (talk, contribs) 01:10, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Specifically, there should be something that you can copy-paste into a {{ping}} template, and it should be obvious what part you have to copy. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:20, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Strong support: There's a sliding scale here. I do think, say, having no spaces in your username but spaces for different words in your signature, or different capitalization in your signature and username, is acceptable. I basically support, though. Vaticidalprophet 01:54, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Drop the 'weak', I don't think "people can put spaces in their sig" is important enough that it's a fair trade for keeping confusing signatures that primarily serve to mark new editors as outgroup for not knowing what someone's called. Vaticidalprophet 02:20, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Our purpose here is to build an encyclopedia, not to be an outlet for unlimited creative expression. Having the username displayed next to your comments be your username, not something else, aids in our purpose by enabling clearer communication. Therefore we should do it. This isn't the death of quirkiness on WP—there will still be plenty of room for creativity through additional text or formatting. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:59, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per option 4 below. This is pointless policy creep that no one other than the self-appointed enforcers will read. And this comes from someone who has never had and will never have anything but the default signature. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:02, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Policy creep is bad because it makes our guidance longer and more complex and thus less accessible to newcomers. This proposal is actually the exact opposite, as it makes our guidance simple and direct, rather than trying to tease out a complex and blurry gray line about how close a signature has to be to one's username to be valid. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:21, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Sdkb, I suppose in my view, and again, this is someone without a custom signature so I don't have any strong opinions on them at all, I think the effort enforcing this guideline if it was strictly written would cause more disruption than the signatures themselves. I don't think we should write guidelines in a way that do that. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I think bright lines are easier and less disruptive to enforce than gray areas. The community very clearly feels that there's some level at which misleading signatures are unacceptable, so there's going to have to be some enforcement no matter what. But it'll be a lot easier if it's just a clear-cut "your signature has to be your username". {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:29, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. If there is a consensus that exact usernames should be displayed with comments, that's a software problem that needs amending by automatically doing this for all signatures present on talk pages (or, for example, just setting the four tildes to automatically do that before the signature or similar. There's also reasons not to do this - for example, people with secondary accounts should be allowed to display their main account name, or to even use the exact same signature, which this would prohibit. Furthermore, this does not include an allowance for any non-latin usernames, which people should be allowed to sign in latin characters if they so choose. There's too many issues with making this sort of thing policy instead of just using common sense (as TonyBalloni suggests below), but Question 2 is something that should definitely be considered. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely Not It's no more difficult to copy-paste from the wikitext where a link to a user or user talk page is already required by current guidance, and VE doesn't work for talk pages anyway. We've allowed custom sigs which use nicknames for forever, and abbreviations of usernames go all the way back to the very beginning without major issue. If the allowance for some personality and customization causes a good-faith contributor to make even one more edit than would otherwise be made it's already made up whatever the slight cost in overhead. Further, many users contribute cross-wiki and use the same customized signature globally, are we really going to bite them when they come to this project over this? Which brings me to my next point, what will we do if someone refuses to change a signature? block? over this? that's ridiculous. And imagine all the arguments over edge cases, and time sucking ANI threads over this sillyness, and for what? Whatever slight benefits would accrue from this are massively outweighed by the costs. Regards, 31.41.45.190 (talk) 03:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Absolutely not pointless policy creep. Acronyms, abbreviations, dropping numbers, etc are all fine. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:16, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. If a change to a requirement would make a real, positive difference, it is not instruction creep. Clearly some editors disagree about whether there is a real, positive difference, but I think it is quite clear that if our goal is to build an encyclopedia, that this does more good than harm. Even if the change is relatively smaller than other changes that could be made in the talk page area, this would definitely make talk pages easier to jump in to for new users, and users on talk pages easier to interact with. We can talk about the auxiliary topics of software implementation and enforcement, but as the core of this question is whether this is an requirement that makes communication between editors just a bit smoother (the whole purpose of talk pages!), and I think the answer is clearly yes. As for specifics, I like what RoySmith said. — Goszei (talk) 02:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    My support is conditional on the idea that there is not a suitable technical implementation that would automatically accomplish the goal: having an always-shown name that can easily be recognized as a particular user, copied, and pinged (for new users, and anyone more experienced who wants that). User:Enterprisey/signature rfc drafting has intriguing ideas on the technical front, and the solution may come from there without the need for sigpolicy changes. I want to see some results before I change my support for this, though. — Goszei (talk) 03:13, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I encourage editors who do not see a problem to read Jorm's remarks in the "non-Latin script" thread above. I also recommend the newbie account above titled "A reader's perspective". The experiences described match strongly with my own, and so I implore those reading to reflect on their own start as well. As established editors, we are the few, the minority, who made it past the "kill points" that Jorm describes, of which signatures are evidently a major hurdle. At issue is not blatant disruption nor fun, it is potential editors who are silently and forever turned away. There is absolutely nothing more valuable to the continued improvement of the encyclopedia than the uptake of new editors. We are not acting like it.
[T]he number one - with a bullet - most confusing thing to any new user is the signature. Why is the signature different between these two people? Does that connote status, or permissions? What do the red ones mean? Are those moderators? What's "contribs"? Why is it at the end of the comment? Why isn't it called out more clearly? [...] This has an incredibly high kill value.
They're scanning for a signature to copy. Finding one is also incredibly difficult because in Wikitext Mode they're a blob of gobbledygook. So what they do now - always - is try to search for a User Name that they recognize.
It is at this point, nearly every time, that people quit. They just throw their hands in the air and walk away, never to return. It had a kill ratio of something like 97%. It's probably worse now.
So the tiniest of changes here - the absolute smallest of consistencies - will reduce that kill ratio by a lot. We need to be doing absolutely everything we can to reduce this kill point.
There is a problem, it has tangible, drastic, and negative effects on the encyclopedia, and we need to start fixing it. — Goszei (talk) 11:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Jorm's observations are interesting but, since he has aggressively refused to substantiate any of them, I don't see any reason to lend them any more weight than those of the thousands of editors who evidently have no difficulty coping with differently coloured text or the abbreviation of the word "contributions". – Joe (talk) 12:20, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. I have aggressively said "I do not work there anymore." It's amazing how hard it is for you to accept that I do not have a login to the office wiki anymore, or that (since I haven't worked there in 6 years) that things have changed or gotten lost or deleted, or that corporate organizations do not just willy-nilly release research despite how "transparent" folk think they are. This is a deflection and a bullshit reason not to agree to something that is manifestly obvious once you are made aware of it.
You could assume good faith and my at my word and not question my professional integrity but that seems to be too hard for Wikipediana to do. Thanks for the aspersions, though! Jorm (talk) 16:18, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Admittedly we're in different professions, but in mine it's not professional to ask people to accept assertions if you can't produce evidence for them. Your claims aren't at all obvious; in fact it's pretty counter-intuitive that, if you afford the average new editor an ounce of intelligence, 97% of them would be so baffled by variation in signatures they would give up on communication entirely. I get that it's not your fault that you can't share the research that produced that surprising conclusion, but it's not reasonable for you and others to expect us to make decisions based on nonspecific 'studies' that we can't verify, assess the methodology of, or just, you know, read. Or to berate and swear at your fellow editors just for asking to see it, for that matter. – Joe (talk) 10:31, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with an incredibly large scope and reach, and therefore an extremely diverse set of editors. This proposal does not account for them. Users with non-Latin usernames are the clearest example of how this proposal actually hurts a set of editors and I would argue communication overall. I am sure there are other examples of specific users who have specific reasons for their signature that ultimately benefit communication. The point is this proposal ignores the myriad of specific situations where the proposal would be harmful. This proposal which will have a slight benefit for many, but ignores the complexity of Wikipedia. Zoozaz1 talk 02:44, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Surely all of the concerns can be resolved via MediaWiki enhancements. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 03:02, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm lukewarm to exact name, as a default signature sort myself. In at least one other community I have dropped numbers and frequently people are referred to onwiki with a shortened name. --Izno (talk) 03:05, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. This is too drastic. We have historically allowed editors to use customized signatures that allow for "abbreviations, variations, and other names", and the overwhelming majority of these have not posed any perceptible hindrance to collaboration. Just click or hover over the signature to see the full username. Mz7 (talk) 03:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, per RoySmith and Sdkb RudolfRed (talk) 03:49, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose We have come this far without this rule and there has not been any real disruption that I have seen. This is pointless policy creep in my opinion. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 04:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No Copied from above...This is not even remotely a problem. If you're ever unsure of someone's username, hover over their sig, which links to their full name. Or if you're on a talk page, you're using source editor anyway and can read the link. Or you use replylink, which does the job for you. Custom sigs are awesome, creative, funny, and make editing more enjoyable. At the end of the day, our editors edit because it is enjoyable and fun. Editors should in no way be forced to have boring sigs. The idea that sigs need to have ones full username presents problems for those who go by a real name or nickname, who want to create clever sigs, and whose names are long, among others. Wikipedia is already such a droll place, signatures allow people to express themselves. Let's keep signatures fun! CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 04:56, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose I believe that editors should have to include something that closely resembles their username or is a portion thereof, though I don't think that they should have to include the entire username as well, so long as a link to their user page is provided in their signature. It's not disruptive enough to warrant a new guideline being issued, in my opinion, though a more narrowly tailored version of this proposal may have earned my support. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:25, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose A common problem with many usernames is that they are too long. This arises especially with new accounts as there are now millions of accounts and so most short names have been taken. Here's some recent examples: "Confusingweirdusername"; "The Dark Lord Returns To The Earth"; "Bất động sản Lê Hoàng Thanh"; "Curiousladywithsharpbrain"; "Anand Kumar Rawat (Rock Anand)". It is then natural and reasonable to abbreviate such long user names in sigs. Forcing them to be repeated in full would make matters worse by overloading the signatures, so making them more confusing rather than less. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:29, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No (oppose). This has got to be one of the most pedantic, WP:CREEPy discussions I've ever seen on Wikipedia. Shortening one's name is not a quirk or "creative expression", it's a routine part of everyday communication in Western culture and most other parts of the world. For example, like many editors, I edit under my real name, and sign with my first name, as I would anywhere else. The same logic is naturally extended to pseudonyms to establish a friendly tone. I also agree with Tony that this is completely unenforceable; are you seriously going to block people because you have to copy their username from the left side of the | instead of the right side if you want to ping them? – Joe (talk) 09:44, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Oppose just to pick a random user - 春夏秋冬東西南北. While there is nothing wrong with this user using their username in their signature, if they wanted to use a English characters - perhaps of a legit sock redirect account to make it easier to communicate with English users I would not want to stop them at all, especially if the anchor actually goes to their page. — xaosflux Talk 11:13, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    As specifically called out in the proposal, nothing would stop the user from including a translation of their name as well - as long as the sig includes their actual username. Retswerb (talk) 01:28, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Retswerb: while I think that the actual username should indeed be linked to somehow I think that "displaying" it is unnecessary (e.g. that [[User:春の垢バン祭りを米国の陰謀と意味不明な事を言ったネトウヨたネトウヨ|RichEditor12]] should be fine, so long as "RichEditor12" isn't actually another user). — xaosflux Talk 14:44, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Xaosflux: Yes, lengthy usernames, those would merit an exception. Non-Latin scripts have nothing to do with it though, and the proposals here create no problem at all with regard to them (though they do tend to act as a red herring). ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:32, 17 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Pointless instruction creep. As TonyBallioni notes this will just lead to self-appointed DefenderOfTheWiki-type enforcers wasting everyone's time. As long as a signature is not misleading or overly confusing, an abbrevation or variation is absolutely fine.-- Pawnkingthree (talk) 12:58, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I'll echo Pawnkingthree's comment just above which summarizes it quite well. Additionally, the software allows emojis as usernames and while they are no longer allowed, there are a couple of people who are allowed to retain those names under a grandfather clause (such as User:😂). We should want those editors to use human-readable signatures. Regards SoWhy 13:05, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The function of a signature is to identify who made a given comment, allow other editors to follow the conversation, and provide a means of contacting the editor. When an editor sees an edit in the watchlist or history and wants to find it on the talk page, they should be able to search on the editor's name; not having the editor's username in the signature makes that fail. The question does not concern stylized text or text in addition to the username. Schazjmd (talk) 15:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No I support editors being allowed to use their own guidance and judgement when it comes to signatures within guidelines, and that includes shortening or abbreviating ones name. I miss out the last two letters of my username in my signature, as a mild example, and as it falls within the guidelines I am doing nothing wrong. As per Joe Roe above, this option is mission creep of the worst kind. doktorb wordsdeeds 16:43, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. A signature should not need to be an exact match. Using an abbreviation, an initialism or logical nickname should be acceptable. -- Calidum 17:25, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Pings are tricky enough for many of our editors: I don't want to name names but I have seen many a veteran (including our most active administrators) not being able to do them correctly. Those difficulties are increased for new editors, and increased even further when you can't just copy-and-paste someone's signature into the {{reply to}} template. I also personally prefer this to Q2 not because I'm a killjoy, but because it makes the guideline more impervious to gaming and lawyering. Q2 allows for greater variations in interpretations, which are ripe for exploitation. See also my comments during the drafting. I will also repeat what I have said below at Q2 in response to those saying this is the end of individuality –

    Those above who write about this as being some sort of thin end of the wedge where every editor is deprived of their individuality appear to be exaggerating. Editors would still be free to add whatever HTML markup they wish, be it bold text, italics, different fonts, superscript, subscript, or colour. That is not the purpose of this RfC.

    Sdrqaz (talk) 18:01, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. It should be possibly to copy and paste a username from a signature in all cases. Nicknames are only obvious to those in the know, which is only ever going to be a small subset of even experienced editors. Thryduulf (talk) 20:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, although it is good practice to do so in most cases, and the connection to the real username should be clear. For some objections ("want to copy from the rendered page for pings"), there are some great technical tools like mw:Talk pages project/Replying or User:Enterprisey/reply-link.js that make this a non-issue. —Kusma (talk) 21:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Kusma: In my opinion, the editors that need this change the most (the new ones) are also the ones who wouldn't know how to install those gadgets and scripts. Sdrqaz (talk) 22:10, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Sdrqaz: I'm currently hoping for the "Reply" feature to become the default so changing their preferences won't be necessary. But yes, new users don't know how to ping, and almost any non-standard signature is likely to cause difficulties for them (and Jorm says so). —Kusma (talk) 22:16, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Per WP:CREEP, this seems excessive.Jackattack1597 (talk) 23:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Hell no. And we've said no to this many times before. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 00:12, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @MjolnirPants: The perennial proposal you link to is about "personalized signatures (colored text, CSS, HTML, special characters, etc.)". This is emphatically not what this RfC is about. This discussion is about how usernames appear in signatures only. One could indeed, as I personally tend to do, strongly favor both personalized, colorful signatures and having full & unchanged usernames in the signature. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:23, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      You might want to go look through some of those past discussions. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:15, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, first of all because the actual impact of such a requirement has not been assessed. How many Wikipedians would be required to change their sigs to meet this standard? I've no idea -- but I'd change mine to be non-conforming if this rule were to be adopted, because it's a really stupid rule. It's _inconvenient_, certainly, but as long as the sig links to the userpage, it's a trivial inconvenience. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇 05:05, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I don't criticise people who perceive there to be a problem, and who want to do something about it, but I think that this will likely cause more problems than it solves. Custom sigs, and indeed non-English usernames, can cause all sorts of minor irritations. Some folk use colour combinations which don't comply with MOS:CONTRAST. Some folk (including some of the supporters above) use backgrounds which don't render properly on my smartphone browser (Chrome on an Android smartphone, viewing in 'Desktop' mode), so that I literally can't read their usernames unless I'm on my laptop. Some folk have actual usernames which consist purely of non-Latin characters which I wouldn't know how to say out loud or to type without copy/pasting (which is very fiddly on a smartphone). Some folk have sigs which don't match their usernames, and so it's not immediately obvious who they are when reading a discussion. All of these have the potential to cause a certain amount of inconvenience, and different people will register that inconvenience with varying amounts of annoyance. On the other hand, people get attached to their own, and other people's, signatures. Creativity and expression are good, fun things. I like how Prax has recently started changing her username to match the season or something else that's going on in her life - we've have Grinchidicae, Cupidicae, and I think Vaxxidicae and probably some others - they make me smile when I see a new one. Drawing a line under that sort of stuff and forcing people to comply with rigid guidelines will cause the people who are used to the current freedom of expression, and who like it, a certain amount of inconvenience, and they will register that inconvenience with varying amounts of annoyance. My feeling is that the annoyance and disruption that will be generated by changing the guidelines will be greater than the annoyance and disruption that is currently being caused, hence my opposition. I will note however that I'm about to go change my signature so that the space between 'Girth' and 'Summit' is shown, to make it easier for people to ping me if they are copy/pasting from my sig. GirthSummit (blether) 10:39, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - this is a drama magnet. We have no means by which to enforce any mandated change to any user's signature, so this policy creep will just cause fights that we cannot resolve. I also agree that if we're going to mandate a standard signature then it needs to be enforced by the software and not by community discussion. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 11:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No. A link to User: and/or User talk: space is quite sufficient, and more accurate, for positive identification. Elizium23 (talk) 14:16, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: the last time that a signature that didn't contain a username caused me at least a full minute of confusion was—genuinely—less than 60 minutes ago. It's a problem for quickly searching in discussions, it's a problem to newcomers who try to ping or link based on the rendered signature text, and it's just weird. Signatures have been a drama magnet for well over a decade, but in the long-term such a change in policy would pay dividends in reduced time waste. I know a couple of signatures I quite like that don't follow these rules (including, on a technicality, Girth Summit's old one as they reference above), but they could be changed to abide by them with ease and no less of creativity or distinctiveness. — Bilorv (talk) 18:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mostly support Oddly, I don't mind abbreviations of longer names, hence the mostly support, but I'm continually exceptionally confused by variations, translations, nicknames, weird fonts, et cetera. I just don't know how this would be enforced by users - agree with Ivanvector this would require a software change. SportingFlyer T·C 21:34, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, I think this is already covered per Ivanvector's post below - signatures should make it easy for you to identify the user, which isn't always the case and has caused me the occasional accessibility issue. I'd support some sort of software change, I'm not convinced this is the correct change to make, but I'd support it. SportingFlyer T·C 21:38, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose A user's full name is just a click away. Not a big deal. ~ HAL333 17:20, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I've been at this almost 15 years and haven't once been tempted to change from the default. On the other hand, I have idly wondered how much bandwidth is taken up by downloading and rendering all the cool signatures to which other editors seem so attached. Jclemens (talk) 21:57, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support - I can't think of anywhere else on the internet where displayed usernames are anything but usernames. As a relatively new active editor I can definitely attest, as others already have, that seeing back and forth conversation with references to users who have something else as their signature is a hugely insider/outsider experience and lends itself to exactly the kind of alienation that Jorm has described well above. Retswerb (talk) 05:37, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    A lot of email clients will show a display name (when provided) instead of the email address (which for Internet mail is in the form local-part@domain). (The format of the underlying email header is "display name <email address>".) Some email clients allow users to configure a signature that is added automatically at the end of the message, which is essentially what MediaWiki's signature feature is based on. MediaWiki differs of course by not providing a direct method to view the username: you can look at the history, but you have to manually find the right entry; or you can examine the wikitext source, assuming the user has complied with the guidance to include a link to their user page or user talk page. isaacl (talk) 20:17, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    That's fair regarding email display names, but the same clients that show the display name also are typically able to auto-fill the actual address when the display name is entered, thereby ensuring a seamless experience - unlike what we have here. Also relevant, as referenced above, is the back-and-forth which is present here (and not in email) which involves signatures and usernames intermixed in a given discussion on a page. Retswerb (talk) 01:10, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I discussed the desirability of the MediaWiki software providing better tools/interfaces, including auto-completing user names when notifying users. In general, having a display name is pretty common since usernames have to be unique and so users may want to present a more convenient moniker. Think of any website/Internet service that has you login with an email address or a username but lets you specify a different name for display (Facebook, Instagram, Skype, etc.). However they are designed with this distinction in mind and so the software handles it mostly transparently to the users.
    Regarding back and forth, that happens all the time in email when the recipients reply with quotes from the previous email, and in fact the use of nested lists in English Wikipedia conversations mimics the indenting convention in email. Identifying who said what in email can be tricky as the reply chain gets longer. isaacl (talk) 05:11, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, solution looking for a problem. Stifle (talk) 08:26, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as the included link(s) are perfectly sufficient for {{ping}} purposes. — csc-1 17:56, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, as others have said, WP:CREEP. If I were to support this proposal I'd need to see clear evidence of abuse of the flexibility of signatures that isn't dealt with by the current system, and would be dealt with by the new system. ∰Bellezzasolo✡ Discuss 19:28, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, not displaying your username in your custom signature makes communication needlessly complex. Devonian Wombat (talk) 00:25, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, I am not really sure I understand the point. As long as 'wdijubwif838434XXXxxX' is a valid username, I can't see the difference this makes anyways. --allthefoxes (Talk) 01:30, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support, mismatches between usernames and signatures was one of the hardest things I ran into when I was first trying to learn Wikipedia and contribute to discussions. {{u|SamStrongTalks}} {Talk|Contributions} 14:09, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—A solution in search of a problem. Clicking the link in someone's signature to their userspace should not be cause for confusion. Kurtis (talk) 17:06, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support but prefer option 2 Seddon talk 00:39, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose: My issue is with the words "without changes". I change my initial character to lowercase, a change I think is harmless. —¿philoserf? (talk) 00:41, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support – You sign something to identify yourself. It defies logic to allow people to sign things in another name. It makes it more difficult to use the ReplyTo template, and impacts new users more than experienced users, making this place feel even more strange and frankly unwelcoming. If you want something to personalise, to reflect you as an individual, we have user pages. Domeditrix (talk) 08:05, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The talk page project at WMF will make enforcing signatures easier, see mw:New requirements for user signatures and it is only around the corner. The problem here is that when the guideline was first implemented there was not really an method to enforce it, which I did point out in that discussion. En.wp was ahead of the curve on this one and the guideline should not be changed because of that. If anything, other wikipedias will have to make an decision on signatures at some point.--Snævar (talk) 09:10, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support.--Vulphere 11:38, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I've seen no evidence that 97% of new users are put off purely because some editors use nicknames, and find it very difficult to believe. There's lots of confusing markup when you begin editing Wikipedia, but the idea that someone who can work out how to use {{ping}} or {{u}} cannot fathom someone's username is, frankly, ludicrous. If this is a genuine problem then the solution is obviously to improve the Mediawiki software, and there are in fact already several solutions available. Moreover, if this was to become policy, enforcing it would cause far more disruption to the project. If the cure is worse than the disease you should just live with it. nagualdesign 20:36, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose -- given my signature says "Rockstone" but my username is "Rockstone35" (because Rockstone was taken when I registered this account back in April 2007). -- Rockstone[Send me a message!] 03:57, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose We don't need this rule. Also, I can think of a user who would be harmed by it. Cardamon (talk) 04:34, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak oppose - I came to this discussion as someone who would like to see the requirement to have the full username in the signature (with due exceptions for long usernames) implemented. I still believe that its benefits (mainly in usability and editor retention) would outweigh its costs (mainly in freedom of expression, though this is really minor given that colorful and creative custom sigs would be still allowed and, if it were up to me, encouraged) if it were the norm. However, I do agree that the potential disruption caused by the process of implementing this norm (instruction creep, quibbles over whether signatures do or do not conform to the new guideline, angry editors leaving the project over such quibbles) may tip the balance into making it a net negative. Sooner or later the whole talk page system will inevitably be modernized (rendering these issues moot), but until then it may be better to just leave this be. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 09:58, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - there is no valid reason that the name you display should not exactly match your actual user name. If you want to be called something, then make THAT your user name. --Khajidha (talk) 19:41, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Otherwise, what's even the point of signatures. Sandstein 19:45, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Genuinely disruptive signatures are already covered by policy.  – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:10, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This looks like WP:CREEP. TrueQuantum (talk) 22:16, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The purpose of signatures is to identify the user posting a comment. Experienced users may not have a problem with seeing something other than the exact username, but some new users undoubtedly would be confused by it. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 03:47, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support 04:48, 13 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
  • Oppose per WP:CREEP. Custom signatures did annoy me, so that's why I installed User:Kephir/gadgets/unclutter to standardise them when I view pages. I see no reason to provide an extra "you broke some rule you probably didn't know about" hurdle to new users. --LukeSurl t c 14:54, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not in heaven or hell; this is way too creepy. Sometimes users call me Chic instead of Chicdat because it's shorter, and sometimes I sign my username as Chic instead of Chicdat. No one objects to that. 🏳️‍🌈 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 10:06, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Why do people have to have display names (signatures) different from their usernames? After all, you can choose your own username, and request changes. It makes discussions more difficult to follow while serving what purpose? Jokes? I prefer something easy to ctrl-f or recognize in my watchlist/page history. I must admit, signatures of even longtime contributors such as Praxicidae or JzG seem unnecessarily obfuscated to me, and I would have forgotten those examples but for being reminded earlier in this page. Even minimally altered signatures such as Doktorbuk -> doctorb create a layer of difficulty that is completely unnecessary. They require readers to consider whether these are in fact two separate people, and remember the association. Yes, you can mouse over, follow the link, or view the source wikitext, but that's an impediment for keyboard-first users and slow computers. This may be a small hurdle, but it's still unneeded. And for signatures that embed usernames within other text, such as Piotrus, I'd prefer the username be clearly distinguished. I'd almost advocate for removing the entire custom signature feature but for the recommendation that non-Latin script usernames be accompanied by courtesy romanizations or unique pseudonyms. I could also get behind a Mediawiki feature that displays the plain username of every editor after their comments, though that'd be a bit incongruous with the wikitext source editing ethos. Maybe I'm biased as a wikignome towards simplicity, but I also I believe myself to be a netizen with a relatively high tolerance to annoying technical minutiae. After all, I'm here, and Wikipedia selects for those qualities, especially with the old-fashioned source editor and required familiarity with markup language in order to participate on talk pages. To welcome new users, we could use fewer of these stumbling blocks. --Anon423 (talk) 19:59, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - a signature should always unambiguously identify the user, and per Thryduulf, and if a username is so large or weird as to disrupt talk pages, then the problem is the username, not the signature - Nabla (talk) 11:59, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, I'm not convinced there's a serious enough problem to warrant a policy change, or that the supposed bright line suggested here would actually cause fewer hassles than it would prevent. XOR'easter (talk) 17:01, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The purpose of the signature is to identify who made a statement or comment. If the username is not easily recognizable then it becomes difficult for even long-time contributors, much less new users, to determine who is "speaking." — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 03:39, 19 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support on the condition that capitalization changes are allowed. lomrjyo(talk•contrib) 00:35, 20 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support Customised signatures are pure vanity and serve only to make navigating Wikipedia more confusing for ordinary people.Suttonpubcrawl (talk) 06:24, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose per Nagualdesign and Stifle. GABgab 18:53, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose I struggle to see how harassing users about their signatures improves editor retention, if anything it does the opposite. W42 21:52, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Question 2

If there is a consensus against Question 1 (if signatures are not required to display the username in its entirety, without changes), should signatures be easily recognizable to a new user as referring to the username they link to?

This would disallow signatures with minimal or no resemblance to the username, for example signing another name entirely, but would allow shortened names and variations as long as the connection would be obvious to most new users. If you answer "Yes", please indicate whether there should be an exception for usernames written in a non-Latin script, following WP:NLS.

Survey (Question 2)

  • Yes, with exception. NLS usernames should still be welcomed, but I would like to see some sort of regulation or clarification (perhaps through a comment) of NLS signatures. EpicPupper (talk, contribs) 01:14, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with exception. Vaticidalprophet 01:54, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose as policy creep. If someone is behaving disruptively with their signature, they can be blocked or otherwise sanctioned already. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:04, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    They can be blocked or otherwise sanctioned already. Not usually without some inordinate amount of drama for what should be common sense but which clearly isn't sufficiently common for everyone. Izno (talk) 03:03, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    WP:DE is a guideline. If someone is being disruptive, we sanction them. If they aren't, we don't. There's no need at all for a policy on signatures. I don't really get the point of custom signatures, but I also don't get the point on rules regulating them. It's really not that big a deal. By creating more rules that people are not going to read, we just create more frustration on the end of both admins and people with slightly against policy signatures. That is more disruptive than the signatures themselves. TonyBallioni (talk) 03:09, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "I don't want a policy at all" is not in the cards in the context of the proposal, but I guess it helps explain your decision making. Izno (talk) 17:40, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support guidance so long as the exception above is included, and so long as it is "common sense" and not overly codified as to what qualifies as "obvious". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per TonyBallioni. I don't think making this policy is a good idea. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, per the rationale that I expressed in response to Question 1. Failing a Q1 requirement for something you can copy-paste, a signature should at least have some clear correspondence with the username. If an exception for NLS means that User:力 can have a signature without "力" in it, or if it means that User:Hassan can have a signature that only has "حسان", then I oppose such an exception. — Goszei (talk) 02:32, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support here. Your signature should have some text in it that looks like your user name. --Izno (talk) 03:00, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Even for an experienced editor, it tends to be very confusing. Usernames in signatures are for communication with other, not for self-expression. DGG ( talk ) 03:10, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, with emphasis on the "easily" and "new user" parts, and the exception for NLS signatures (although I'd love it if they had both the original username and a romanization). I've been here for a decent chunk of time and I still get confused. Allowing signatures that are wildly different from usernames is, to use some programming-speak, a feature that doesn't pull its weight. Enterprisey (talk!) 03:14, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as second choice to option 1. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:25, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with exception. It's inconvenient when (mostly new) users choose a signature that is completely different from their username. However, minor alterations to the username such as using initials instead of full name, shortening the name, etc. seems reasonable and not bothersome. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:02, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This is really vague. We already have rules against disruptive or confusing signatures that cover any case that would actually cause a problem. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 04:15, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I'm afraid this change will likely backfire and actually result in more drama. Many longstanding editors use customized signatures that are potentially allowable under this proposed wording, but they are borderline enough that there will inevitably be disputes about whether they indeed are. Surely there are more pressing matters facing the encyclopedia that we could be discussing instead. We have already gotten this far as a project with the status quo on signatures; it's not clear to me why suddenly we have decided a change is desperately needed. Mz7 (talk) 04:27, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmm, to clarify, I'm referring to the "status quo" in terms of historical practice. As the RfC mentions in the opening statement, the wording of the current guideline does seem to be ambiguous and has led to recent drama. I would say removing those two bullet points mentioned in the RfC would probably bring the policy closer to a description of historical practice. Essentially, in my view, the cost of the administrative effort required to force an editor to change their signature is not worth the benefit of avoiding whatever short-lived confusion is caused by the signature in the wide majority of cases. Mz7 (talk) 05:08, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Shamelessly the same as above because I feel exactly the same... This is not even remotely a problem. If you're ever unsure of someone's username, hover over their sig, which links to their full name. Or if you're on a talk page, you're using source editor anyway and can read the link. Or you use replylink, which does the job for you. Custom sigs are awesome, creative, funny, and make editing more enjoyable. At the end of the day, our editors edit because it is enjoyable and fun. Editors should in no way be forced to have boring sigs. The idea that sigs need to have ones full username presents problems for those who go by a real name or nickname, who want to create clever sigs, and whose names are long, among others. Wikipedia is already such a droll place, signatures allow people to express themselves. Let's keep signatures fun! CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 04:57, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    CaptainEek, editors using smartphones and other devices that can't hover are a large and growing group. For readers, going by stats.wikimedia.org, mobile web displaced desktop during 2020 as the most common client type. (Edit: Just tap and hold.) Going to the source editor is time-consuming, and for new editors who aren't good at parsing talk pages, an undue burden as well. DiscussionTools and reply-link are certainly solutions, but won't be ready for widespread use for a little while. I totally agree with what you're saying about custom sigs, and they can remain just as playful, formatting-wise, while including the username: yours is a prime example. For an editor who has a different name, they can change their username, abbreviate or shorten it, or include a preferred name in a larger font along with their username in a smaller font. Enterprisey (talk!) 05:22, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Then editors can do what I do on mobile: click on their name, which must link to their userpage, which one should do anyway when they encounter a new name. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 05:38, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You can also tap-and-hold to view a link - or if you browser doesn't allow it, it should. Elli (talk | contribs) 05:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Heh, my version of Firefox Mobile doesn't - that would certainly do it. I guess I'll strike that bit. Enterprisey (talk!) 06:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This seems like a narrowly tailored way to balance the concerns between signatures not matching up with a username and also allowing for some degree of nicknaming and creative expression. I understand concerns of WP:CREEP, though I think this would be a way to improve the encyclopedia that would not harm our accessibility to newcomers. This proposal is rather sensible. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:30, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This creates an impossible requirement as nothing is "easily recognizable to a new user". Talk pages are mostly incomprehensible to new users, especially if they try to edit them. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:34, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose until someone can come up with an actual example of this being a problem that can't be dealt with under the current guideline. – Joe (talk) 09:47, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose because of the NLS issue which I don't think should require an "exception". — xaosflux Talk 11:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with clarity - This should be obvious, and proving that someone is being problematic enough under the current setup is far different to requiring it to be clear. I do agree that there are issues with vagueness here, and were this passed would want some clarifying language to be added. Nosebagbear (talk) 16:14, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. Signatures should not be a random string of characters entirely unrelated to the username. -- Calidum 17:27, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; neutral with regards to non-Latin script. The goal of signatures is to tie your comment to your account, and passing that responsibility to other editors by asking them to hover over your links or tap-and-hold them does not feel right at all. I am sometimes baffled by signatures, and I have made a handful of edits and have been here for a while. Imagine what it's like for a new editor (even if that was years and years ago). Those above who write about this as being some sort of thin end of the wedge where every editor is deprived of their individuality appear to be exaggerating. Editors would still be free to add whatever HTML markup they wish, be it bold text, italics, different fonts, superscript, subscript, or colour. That is not the purpose of this RfC. As far as I'm concerned, this is merely enforcing the existing guideline that has been regularly flouted. For those who have said that the existing guideline is enough and can be enforced if necessary, see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive1068 § User:DeNoel's sig. The editor in question eventually renamed themself, but that kerfuffle was closed with no direct action and effectively relied on the goodwill of that editor. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:48, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    My main concern is that this RfC is being presented as a means to avoid the drama that took place at that ANI thread, but the most realistic outcome if this proposal passes is that we will have even more ANI threads where longstanding editors will have their signatures questioned regarding whether they are "easily recognizable to a new user", and there will be even more confusion. The best solution for the encyclopedia is a cautious toleration of quirky signatures. If they are truly confusing, then you can ask the user to change it, but if they don't want to, then I would just drop the issue and go back to writing articles. There is no need to threaten people (be it experienced editors or new editors) with blocks or sanctions over something as comparatively trivial as this. Mz7 (talk) 20:39, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    That is an attempt at formulating what is allowed and what is not. A number of editors would like clarification on what is allowed and what isn't, or recent kerfuffles have shown how cloudy the threshold seems to be. I'd prefer having something like this being discussed than simply the unnuanced section "discussion not needed" below. ---Sluzzelin talk 20:46, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I understand that concern, and that is one of my (two) reasons for supporting Q1 – it provides a cleaner, more objective standard that is less open to interpretation and lawyering if those disputes flare up. I agree it's a relatively trivial matter when our ultimate goal is trying to create an encyclopaedia, but if it really is so trivial editors who refuse to adhere to consensus need to think if their individuality is important enough to maintain another barrier of entry to newer editors. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:18, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong support. Option 1 is preferable, but if that doesn't pass then this is the second-best option. The point of a signature is to unambiguously attribute your comment to the person who made that comment, anything that obscures that connection (intentionally or otherwise) hampers usability and decreases accountability. Also per Sdrqaz. Thryduulf (talk) 20:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Easily" is a bit too vague for my taste. —Kusma (talk) 21:13, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose With same rational as for question one, and because of Non-latin script issues. ( [WP:CREEP] )Jackattack1597 (talk) 23:10, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I see several comments here about non-Latin usernames but I don't understand why that would be an issue at all - these proposals would just require the non-Latin component to be displayed without prohibiting any Latin additions (e.g. "דוגמא (Example)") - which is exactly what best practice currently recommends. Thryduulf (talk) 23:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose What, exactly, is this suppose to accomplish? Making pings easier? If you're pinging someone, their proper username is right there in the edit window. Making editors accountable for things that new users complain about at the pump, teahouse, or one of the drama boards? Not only are those complaints almost entirely spurious, I've yet to see any confusion over the displayed name versus the username. Even if there was any such confusion, it's fairly simple to sort it out. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:41, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on the same grounds I oppose Option 1. GirthSummit (blether) 10:41, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, but this is already adequately covered by WP:CUSTOMSIG/P and does not require any change to the guideline. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 11:50, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, and I supported the first proposal. Such loose wording is worse than no wording, as it will not be enforced or taken into account but will produce additional drama and more words. — Bilorv (talk) 18:54, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. If someone has a Latin-script username and wants to use a romanization of it, or translation of it, or for that matter unrelated name, they can lead with that and put their username in parentheses after it. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 07:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose this policy creep. If someone's username is an issue, it can be dealt with individually. ~ HAL333 17:22, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with common sense exceptions as identified above. Jclemens (talk) 21:55, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as less preferable than Option 1 but still better than status quo. Retswerb (talk) 05:37, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, policy creep/solution looking for a problem. Stifle (talk) 08:26, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose per my previous response. — csc-1 17:56, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as a second choice to option 1. Devonian Wombat (talk) 00:28, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • No this is hopelessly vague WP:CREEP. I won't rehash mny earlier rant but this will cause way more problems then it solves. Regards, 31.41.45.190 (talk) 01:19, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, for the same reasons above. If a username or signature is extremely disruptive, policy already exists to resolve that issue.
  • Support as a fall back for Q1. Lets make things as easy as possible for newer users. {{u|SamStrongTalks}} {Talk|Contributions} 14:10, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—How hard is it to just hover over or click on a link in somebody's signature? I've never found pseudonyms confusing, not even when I first started, and I have been a registered user for thirteen years now. Kurtis (talk) 17:17, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Hover effects don't work on mobile devices and afaik depend on certain gadgets being installed currently. Jorm (talk) 17:49, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support this isn't policy creep. This is a discussion to change policy. Policy should not be immutable. Lets make it easier for new users. Seddon talk 00:38, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes —¿philoserf? (talk) 00:43, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – I don't see how this solves the issue at all. People will WikiLaywer their way out of any substantive changes to their signatures whatsoever, and admins won't feel it necessary to force the issue if they think somebody is excessively bending the rules. Which is why I strongly support option 1, but do not support this. Domeditrix (talk) 08:08, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong oppose - Same rationale as my oppose vote above, but in addition this proposal is far more ambiguous, which would undoubtedly lead to even more unnecessary drama. nagualdesign 20:41, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Status quo makes things needlessly difficult. I am not aware of any other website that allows users to display a "signature" (or analogue) that is completely different from their actual usernames. JBchrch talk 10:46, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Off the top of my head: Steam and Tumblr both come to mind. CaptainEek Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 19:04, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I would note that the whole concept of usernames creates exactly this sort of disconnect. An editor could release national secrets on WP and never be held accountable, under the right circumstances. And at the risk of stuffing beans up my nose, I'll that this doesn't require the faintest shred of technical know-how, beyond that of a typical person. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:21, 11 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It's pretty common on websites and Internet services, because usernames are unique by design, but people's names aren't, so typically they want to present a more convenient moniker. (Think of all the sites that have you login with an email or login name, but let you configure a display name that gets used everywhere.) The difference of course is that those sites and services are designed to support monikers and so they deal with it in a way to make it mostly transparent to their users. isaacl (talk) 05:33, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose We don't need this rule. Also, I can think of an editor who would be harmed by it. (That was the same oppose as above, because the same reasons apply.) Cardamon (talk) 04:46, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - I think that implementing the proposal in question 1 (full usernames in signatures) would be sensible but perhaps inadvisable given the disruptive potential of the process of implementing that requirement (see my answer above). The proposal here in question 2 would be less effective in increasing usability, but it would be much more disruptive given the inherent vagueness of easily recognizable to a new user. The last thing we want are endless quibbles over signatures, and this proposal seems to invite precisely that. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 10:13, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. As per option 1, otherwise what's the point of signatures. Sandstein 19:46, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per Sandstein. --Khajidha (talk) 19:49, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and for non-Latin characters, I think they should include some sort of Latin character name/abbreviation for us to be able to refer to them using characters available on our keyboards (as English-language editors). 04:53, 13 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
  • Oppose unenforceable unless we effectively implement question 1, which I have already opposed. --LukeSurl t c 14:57, 14 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as second choice to Question 1. As someone with a non Roman script username, I don't display Roman transliteration in my signature, but have no problem with others doing so. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 04:44, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Hey, there's a gadget to hide custom signatures for new editors at WP:VPIL right now. Isn't that better than forcing editors to do this creepy signature thing? 🏳️‍🌈 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 10:10, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. If anything goes, then anything goes. Abuses (say changing sig constantly) should be dealt as disruptive behaviour, there is no need to codify that to the least detail. - Nabla (talk) 12:03, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Opposing Q1 does not necessarily indicate an attitude of "anything goes." Per Goszei's comment above, if a user with WP:NLS characters in the username (e.g. a mythical User:忍) is allowed to have a signature with only Latin characters (e.g. "Shinobu" or "Heart-under-Blade") that would make it difficult at a glance to properly {{reply to}} that person. If the exception for NLS characters means that someone with NLS characters must use those characters, then I agree with that exception. I would like clarification of the exception for NLS characters as written in Q2. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 04:01, 19 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Question 3

If there is consensus in favor of either question 1 or question 2, should they apply to all signatures, or only those which were not in use prior to this RfC.

This is included because some have argued that users who have used the same signature for an extended period should be "grandfathered" in (i.e. given an exception).

Survey (Question 3)

  • All signatures. I don't see a point on not having all signatures needing to follow any new policy that comes into effect; it would benefit everyone for the same reasons as signatures after this RfC. EpicPupper (talk, contribs) 01:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    To be clear, this intends to also signify no grandfather clause. EpicPupper (talk, contribs) 00:25, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All signatures, no grandfather clause. If you've been around for long enough to be grandfathered in, you've been around for long enough to know better. Vaticidalprophet 01:54, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All signatures, per WP:Equality. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:02, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Grandfather clause since literally no one except the people who want to enforce it are going to read this page, I don't think its fair to bother people about something they don't realize exists. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:05, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "But I didn't know about it" is rarely sufficient to avoid enforcement, which comes after warnings anyway. Besides which, more generally an RFC is the neutral mechanism for community notification of discussion. RFCs potentially divisive also advertise on CENT, VPPRO/VPPOL, and elsewhere. It's not fair for anyone to have text in a guideline which is not actually supported by consensus, if in fact the text in question does not have consensus. Izno (talk) 02:54, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All - if the goal is truly to make talk pages easier to read and recognize who people are talking to, then any support for a grandfather clause directly contradicts that. You either apply this to everyone, and thus succeed in making them easier to use, or you use a grandfather clause and have changed virtually nothing. Maybe making it apply to everyone would make it clear how many people are "silent opposition" (which even if this is centralized will be an issue) to this. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All. A grandfather clause is directly counter-productive to the goals of Question 1 and Question 2, if implemented, and it would also be simply unfair. — Goszei (talk) 02:16, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All as much as I oppose the above policies, they should be applied consistently and fairly. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Grandfather clauses are the worst. (Consider how long Wikipedia will stand as an institution.) --Izno (talk) 03:06, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All - This is the only one of the three questions I'm registering an opinion on for the time being. This started with an ANI thread in which the wording of our guidelines, which are completely ignored by so many users, were being used to pressure someone to change their signature. Guidelines should be followed unless there's a good reason not to. If they can be ignored at will for no reason by some people while they're strictly enforced with others, something is wrong. Imagine the experience of a newbie being told to do something on a page where you can see many people doing the exact same thing without being told to change. If the guideline has fallen out of step with consensus, it should be updated, but it should apply to everyone. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 03:29, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All. Grandfathering adds too much complexity. Keep it simple. –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:04, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All While I loathe the idea of going up to someone who has had the same sig for 10 years and telling them it is suddenly not okay we can't have a special class of users that this rule has not applied to. For this reason I have opposed 1 and 2 but support ALL for this question. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 04:16, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Narrow Grandfather Clause per TonyBallioni. Additionally, it might actually be minorly disruptive for people who are widely recognized by their current signature to suddenly have to switch. In my mind, this should be a forward-looking guideline for new signature changes; I would support a clause that prohibits changes to be made to signatures that do not bring the signature in line with the guideline. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:34, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All per WP:SOP: "Newcomers are always to be welcomed. There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers." Andrew🐉(talk) 09:38, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All provided there is a long transition period - I don't want to see a bunch of people getting blocked for violations right away. — xaosflux Talk 11:21, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All, per the Prophet: If you've been around for long enough to be grandfathered in, you've been around for long enough to know better. We already have issues with people trying to divide the community into the regulars and the newbies, akin to separating the wheat from the chaff. We don't need to write that approach into policy. Sdrqaz (talk) 18:12, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All signatures, although users should be given a reasonable period in which to change if required. Because editing levels vary significantly, the changeover period should be expressed in terms of a number of signed comments (obviously excluding sandbox tests of a new signature). Also, once again I agree with Sdrqaz. Thryduulf (talk) 20:29, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All If we're going to enforce strict signature rules, we should enforce them uniformly. Also, I support a longish transition period for everbody. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackattack1597 (talk • contribs) 23:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All I hope that the proposals above do not pass, but if they do, they should apply to everyone equally. There will inevitably be a period of disruption when it is implemented, and I expect that we will probably lose a significant number of long-term productive editors when over-enthusiastic policy enforcers start dragging people to ANI to force them to comply, but if people want this change badly enough then we'll just have to deal with that when it happens; better that, than a permanent situation of new users getting annoyed that older users can do something that they can't. GirthSummit (blether) 10:47, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All - after a reasonable implementation and education period, any changes to this guideline must apply equally to all users. If I have to look up when a user created their account (which is logged) and when they last updated their signature (which is not logged) in order to determine whether enforcement is required, enforcement is not going to happen at all. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 11:52, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All I view this as an accessibility issue, meaning that any changes must apply to everyone. SportingFlyer T·C 21:39, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All. All editors are equal. Grandfather clauses should only exist where a clear inconvenience would result otherwise. -- Tamzin (she/they) | o toki tawa mi. 07:50, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All Jclemens (talk) 21:54, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All, absolutely. Those who have been around longer should set an example of following policy, not be excepted from it. Retswerb (talk) 05:40, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Grandfather clause. Stifle (talk) 08:27, 8 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All - Enforcing this any other way sounds like a nightmare of its own right. --allthefoxes (Talk) 01:30, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All, no grandfather clause. {{u|SamStrongTalks}} {Talk|Contributions} 14:11, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All, notwithstanding my aforementioned opposition to both proposals. And frankly, even if it were to pass, it won't be actively enforced by very many administrators. Ain't nobody got time for that. Kurtis (talk) 17:27, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All Seddon talk 00:33, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All —¿philoserf? (talk) 00:44, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All.--Vulphere 11:41, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All. Rules apply to all users. Sandstein 19:46, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All. --Khajidha (talk) 19:49, 12 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All. ಮಲ್ನಾಡಾಚ್ ಕೊಂಕ್ಣೊ (talk) 03:52, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All 04:55, 13 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
  • All. Obvious ly they may keep the previous sig, with full name added. - Nabla (talk) 12:02, 18 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • All signatures should comply with any changes to signature policies or guidelines. A grace period would necessarily be required where someone with a non-compliant signature must be notified on their talk page and given a period of time to comply. — Jkudlick ⚓ (talk) 04:03, 19 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (usernames in signatures)

User:Enterprisey/signature rfc drafting has some interesting ideas. The gadget looks like a nice idea, and the romanization preference looks good. EpicPupper (talk, contribs) 01:17, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mkay, So, this is evidently going to be fairly controversial. I'll drop in my short 2 cents: A signature is intended to be something that all can identify you as. That's the entire point of sigs. I'm going to take back my previous comment, and say that it is an idea that could work, and I'm not going to object to it, but I don't think it's the best solution. It's fairly complicated, for a simple problem. I don't see why people cannot put their "nicknames" or variations into parentheses, and have their usual, pingable usernames in "normal" text. EpicPupper (talk, contribs) 01:30, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
For anyone who, like me, had trouble understanding this technical intervention, the idea is to effectively install User:Kephir/gadgets/unclutter (the signature part) for new users by default and allow a toggle for everyone. All users sign both a custom and basic signature and hide whichever one you don't want to see. This would be helpful to new users who may be confused by some customized signatures, but I think there are an awful lot of people who like customization as long as it's "within reason". Sorting out that "within reason" is part of what this RfC is doing. And as you/we've said on Discord (where we're talking about it while posting here for anyone not in Discord :) ), there is room for sorting out where consensus is while at the same time exploring technical means to improve user experience. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 01:40, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree with the gadget/removing sig customization. (That is: I think the gadget would functionally serve to remove sig customization, considering most new editors don't play with their settings much.) I might be more interested if it were opt-out for everyone, including new editors. Vaticidalprophet 01:54, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I believe custom-HTML ("fancy") signatures should be prohibited in general (WP:SIGRANT). ~ ToBeFree (talk) 02:50, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's a whole other 3+ question RfC that could be had - on how to define fancy. I tend to agree with you - I think anything other than muted colors that have some distinct purpose, as well as bold and italics, should likely be prohibited - they serve little to no purpose and can make things harder to see where to click for people. But questions would involve boxes, shadows, colors (and which ones), bold/italics, super/subscript, etc... but I'd definitely support limiting the forms of custom HTML that could be used to reasonable things. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:53, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hear, hear (in re to Free). Izno (talk) 03:10, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with ToBeFree (mainly due to the extra markup in source editor), but if this RfC doesn't pass I see zero chance of that proposal passing either. Sdrqaz (talk) 17:19, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I think it might have a better chance of passing. It doesn't affect the experience of any current account. Enterprisey (talk!) 20:43, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Enterprisey: I assume you're talking about the draft RfC, which is fair. I was talking more about ToBeFree's ideal world where all HTML markup would be deprecated from username. Sdrqaz (talk) 21:02, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oh yeah... I can't read, sorry about that. Enterprisey (talk!) 22:28, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No harm done: happens to the best of us! Sdrqaz (talk) 22:50, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with prohibiting html in general. Without it it becomes difficult to impossible to make even beneficial changes to one's signature even with the intent of making it easier for other editors to reach you. 05:00, 13 June 2021 (UTC) TOA The owner of all ☑️
  • No symbols - especially math symbols that are not available on all keyboards. It is very possible that "Ed A" recalls something important that "Ed *&%#" contributed but can't recall the specifics and would simply like to ask that editor for input. How on earth do you find them in search, especially if it's a symbol you don't have access to on your keyboard? This particular RfC doesn't explicitly address the symbol sig issue but I think it merits a serious visit in our user naming conventions. Atsme likes fun sigs Tell me 'bout it 13:50, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It occurred to me that my current signature is indeed customized by one letter, and that it actually improves readability with the default sans-serif body text font (since an uppercase i is indistinguishable from a lowercase l, and I think there may have been an instance where someone thought it was a 1) without impeding the ability to copy the signature for communication purposes, since the MediaWiki software will automatically uppercase the first letter for links to user names. isaacl (talk) 15:31, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding users copying a signature instead of a user name from the wiki text source to generate a notification: the typical use case is when you are mentioning another user and you want to let them know in a lighter-weight manner than a post to their talk page. Once you realize signatures aren't always the same as user names, it isn't a big deal to click on a link to the user page or user talk page and copy it from there, but it's not necessarily evident for those less tech savvy. isaacl (talk) 15:42, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • this is a cool sig → —usernamekiran (talk) 20:51, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Need for this RfC

Position: The questions stated at the rest of this RfC are not relevant to the content or administrative work of the encyclopedia. Users should use their judgement as to what constitutes a disruptive signature. In extreme cases where there is consensus a signature is disruptive, administrators may take necessary action.

  • Support this discussion isn’t useful. TonyBallioni (talk) 01:54, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • [Moved this "option 4" down here after this was added along with the other subsections]. @TonyBallioni: Then oppose. Or abstain. Or do something other than disrupt this RfC to make a point trivializing something lots of people clearly care about. We have guidelines which are randomly ignored. If they don't reflect consensus, they should be removed. If they do, there should be a good reason for ignoring them. If you think they're irrelevant to this project, nominate this guideline for deletion. A draft of this RfC had input from many people before being posted here. Let's let this play out, shall we? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:10, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • @Rhododendrites: I would like to establish consensus that the community as a whole doesn't care at all about this, which I believe to be the case. You can't do that without an explicit option. There are any number of reasons the above could fail. Putting it forward that this is explicitly not a concern that the community has would be useful. The above failing won't do that. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:24, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, if you insist... Strong oppose, considering that signing up to Wikipedia is basically a hazing ritual ("why are all new editors UPE or socks?" because we immediately drive away people who aren't either being paid to do it, or have already done it before), and making it not a hazing ritual through ways like "getting rid of the fact people who look like they're called X are actually called Y and you mark yourself as an outgroup member for calling them X" is only a good thing. Vaticidalprophet 02:23, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, of course. Everyone making this about "the poor new users" - we were all new users, we survived, this hasn't been an issue in the past twenty years except among experienced users who have nothing better to do than drag people to ANI over something harmless. I use a simple signature (hardly custom, just a contribs link), but I don't see the point to making all these policies and endless arguments. If someone really struggles to understand signatures - and can't be taught - I think it's likely they would end up leaving anyway, voluntary or not. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:27, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • we were all new users, we survived It took me about six years of infrequent IP editing, responded to with the grace and magnanimity registered editors are so known for giving to unregistered ones, to even create an account, and about four years after creating an account to become an active editor. "We get new editors to stick around...a decade after they first take a interest in Wikipedia" doesn't sound like a shining example of "we all survived being new". Vaticidalprophet 02:29, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • So? I hardly think adding more policies and restrictions will help new editors. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:42, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is disruptive Update: struck after Tony moved it to discussion. Thanks. - Tony has edit warred to reinstate this section after I moved it. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:33, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I intend this as a valid option to an recently started RfC that was excluded. You moved my post, which is against WP:TPO. I restored it as moving it is against the guidelines. If you wish to discuss more, feel free to take it to my talk page. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:37, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • Do you feel that anyone can just edit existing RfCs and then edit-war to ensure their "option" (or, in this case, a WP:POINT which just challenges the RfC itself in the most dismissive way) is prominently positioned? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:43, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • If you wish to discuss this, please do it on my talk page, which is what should have been done before moving it. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:45, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Meh I agree that software or script/gadget solutions are better than just making a policy that's going to be broken and lead to more wasting of time to try to enforce. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:08, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • My comment was intended to go here, and there's no prohibition on suggesting alternative options in RfCs or adding a "do nothing" option when one isn't presented. What's disruptive is trying to own the RfC and stifle an easy way for participants to express their desire to see no changes at all. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:47, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • No objection to a "status quo" option, or even another reasonable option. The problem is Tony's presentation here functions as just a dismissive "no" to existing questions 1+2. People seem to think I have a very strong opinion on these questions. This whole thing started because people with lots of ANI defenders ignore certain guidelines while new users and those without sufficient defenders get pressured into abiding by them. If there's consensus for something to be a guideline, it should act like a guideline (that is, be followed unless there's a good reason not to). I've no problem with removing these from the guideline if there's no consensus for them. I would think that anyone who finds complaints about signatures to be a waste of time and energy would embrace the opportunity to do away with the basis of those complaints. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 02:54, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
        • @Rhododendrites: people with lots of ANI defenders ignore certain guidelines while new users and those without sufficient defenders get pressured into abiding by them exactly and changes to this or any other guideline aren't going to fix that, in fact CREEP usually makes this problem worse. Regards, 31.41.45.190 (talk) 17:23, 9 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This section is fundamentally equivalent to opposing all of the changes suggested in Questions 1, 2, and 3 (i.e. supporting the status quo). It doesn't make sense to make a new section, especially with such a dismissive tone. Let's try to be productive and disagree peacefully. — Goszei (talk) 02:57, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I concur with Goszei, Rhod, et al. This should be moved to the discussion section. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 03:15, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: @Sdkb, Goszei, Berchanhimez, Vaticidalprophet, Rhododendrites, and Elli: moved this back to discussion after talking to Rhododendrites (but sub-sectioned since it had enough comments.) Like I mentioned on his talk page, I'm pretty nervous about this becoming a updated guideline that doesn't have community consensus just because most people who don't care don't comment, and I think the eventual end to any update of this policy is new users being overzealous in enforcing it, being annoying, and getting blocked (or having it contribute to a block.) That being said, if people want to have the discussion, and there are valid ways to address opposition to it as policy creep, I don't mind doing it in a way that makes everyone happy. TonyBallioni (talk) 04:14, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • We are perfectly capable of handling this on a case by case basis instead of a sweeping rule that will bother dozens or hundreds of editors whose signature has never caused a problem. That being said this is a perfectly valid proposal, just not one I think should pass. HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 04:18, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Anyone who finds this unnecessary can oppose or abstain. Obviously (from reading the discussions above and what led to them) there are editors who ask for clarity and there have been situations where clarity might have prevented escalation. I won't be !voting in this RFC, but I find this section here (as opposed to on the talk page) unusual for an RFC at best and unfair at worst. ---Sluzzelin talk 19:48, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd really like to see people voluntarily keeping their signatures simple and reasonable. But I don't really think anything productive could ever come out of reporting Nearly Headless Nick or Smerdis of Tlön to Wikipedia:Signatures for administrator attention, a place that would be ideal for an {{adminbacklog}} that we can take care of once we're done with all of the important tasks. —Kusma (talk) 21:25, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I fully support the position expressed at the top. This is pointless, and either of the first two proposals being implemented would cause far more problems than they solve. Also: I will absolutely not change my signature, regardless of the outcome of this discussion, or the existence of any admin willing to block me for it. I will also revert anyone who edits my signature as well as anyone who complains about it at my talk page. This whole proposal is disgustingly opposed to the collaborative spirit of this project, and I'd rather stop editing than give in to this sort of micromanaging process wonkery. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:46, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The community has repeatedly expressed consensus against blocking users for signature guideline violations, and there is no other means of enforcement. This RFC will not change that. So by all means hold the RFC and change the guideline if consensus develops, but it will have no effect on the administration of the project whatsoever. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 11:56, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Honestly, I didn't know there was a Javascript option to simplify signatures. I have no idea how to add it and the only part of the script I want would be to unclutter the signatures, but this whole thing could be avoided if you allow the users who don't care about signatures to customise their signatures while giving users with accessibility issues access to disable funky signatures. Because of the accessibility issue, I would make the uncluttered signature option the default. SportingFlyer T·C 21:46, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed - Thank you, TonyBallioni, for adding this section. This RfC is a complete waste of time. See Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Disallow personalized signatures. I have abstained from even answering Q3. And the fact that thousands of regular editors will probably not even know about it should be taken into account. The only reason I found out about it was because I happened to be having a discussion about signatures on my talk page, and the editor I was talking with happened to spot it and notify me. Surely we have something better to do, like building an encyclopedia. nagualdesign 20:54, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • The healthy discussion taking place above speaks to the relevance of this RfC. Regardless of the outcome, I'm glad this conversation is happening. Retswerb (talk) 01:00, 13 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I must admit, signatures of even longtime contributors such as Praxicidae or JzG seem unnecessarily obfuscated to me, and I believe myself to be a technology user with a fairly high tolerance to annoying technical minutiae. After all, I'm here, and Wikipedia selects for those qualities, especially with the old-fashioned source editor and required familiarity with markup language in order to participate on talk pages. I think we could use more accessibility and fewer barriers to entry. My preferred solution might be a Mediawiki feature that displays the plain username of every editor after their comments, a feature like every other medium of online conversation in the modern world, though I admit it doesn't really fit with the old-fashioned (and frankly a little bizarre) way talk pages are implemented, i.e. as editable hypertext documents like everything else on Wikipedia. --Anon423 (talk) 19:10, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment IMO this sub-thread question is worded so problematically that any result would not be meaningful. Persons wanting a change say that obscured users names are a problem, not that they meet a more extreme level of being "disruptive". So saying "either it's disruptive or no change needed" is a false dichotomy. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:21, 15 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators

  • There's a question missing on this RfC that I'd like to add - Should an administrator's customized signature be required to display their username in its entirety, and link to their talk page, without changes? I would strongly support this per WP:ADMINACCT; for the more general question on signatures, I am neutral. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 16:07, 4 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have read that section again, as I have many times in the past. How is this not covered by the existing text "A customised signature should provide an easily identified link to your talk page"? HighInBC Need help? Just ask. 00:40, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with HighInBC here - provided there's a link to their talk page, I'm comfortable with the likes of JzG (well, if he picks up the mop again) and Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington retaining their current sigs. GirthSummit (blether) 10:50, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No - administrators should not have special privileges nor special obligations under this policy, nor under any policies that don't specifically concern the use of admin tools. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 11:55, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This has been advertised on WP:CENT as "usernames in signatures". That needs updated to something along the lines of "Require full, unaltered username in all signatures" because that is a potential outcome of this discussion. This should also be given a watchlist notice because it will impact every logged in user in some way. I'm not up to speed on how to best propose a neutral watchlist notice, but I recommend someone do so as soon as possible, otherwise the calls of "this wasn't advertised well enough" are going to come in - nobody actually watches CENT anyways. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 16:09, 5 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Berchanhimez, good idea. "Require full username in signatures"? Enterprisey (talk!) 05:49, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I'd like to see "unaltered" because I think it encompasses the suggestion that it must not be changed, added to, shortened, etc. But at least that's better. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 12:23, 6 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I actually prefer WP:CENT listings that give just the topic without the specific proposal(s). They're not only shorter, but it means that people have to actually read the proposal to form an opinion on it, rather than forming an immediate gut judgement based on the listing. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:03, 10 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Follow-up suggestion

As much as I hesitate to suggest yet another new process, I wonder if something modeled on WP:RFCN might be the solution here. RFCN deals with usernames that are not blatant policy violations but are still seen as problematic. It's not used a lot but it does deal with a dozen or so issues each year, and has much lower drama levels than a board like ANI. There are some prerequisites: the user must have been active recently, and discussion on their talk page must be attempted first, only if they disagree or ignore the concern can you file at RFCN. It's a decent way to deal with edge cases. Something to consider. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:57, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it is a better idea to just work to get something like Enterprisey's rfc draft finalized and implemented so that people who like custom signatures and those who don't can coexist without either having to significantly modify anything. Rather than setting up another board for reporting issues (which will turn into a drama fest despite best efforts) SamStrongTalks (talk) 21:35, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Enterprisey's suggestion is an excellent idea. I haven't counted the !votes but I hope that the RfC above, which appears to have been closed without comment, is considered to have demonstrated a lack of consensus. nagualdesign 22:17, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Nagualdesign: It was closed as no consensus. The comments are on the three individual questions rather than at the top (1, 2, 3).
Beeblebrox, it might be helpful to add something at the top just for those who are quickly skimming. SamStrongTalks (talk) 00:17, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Sam. @Beeblebrox: also note that the {{consensus}} templates aren't visible (on mobile at least) for whatever reason. I had to read them using the diffs of your edits. nagualdesign 01:37, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's messed up, I had no idea. Beeblebrox (talk) 03:45, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Signatures&oldid=1029971563