Wikipedia talk:Signatures

Draft message to be sent out to users with invalid signatures

...is at User:HouseBlaster/sandbox. Comments welcome. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 22:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I adapted a message that a few of us have been using for three years or so. It has worked well; I have had a number of comments thanking me for the detailed instructions or saying that they worked. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! The new version suggests that a replacement signature is provided, but that is not the case. If someone wants to go through and do that for all 300+ people on the list, be my guest. Otherwise, I think it be changed to say (in kind language) "either figure out how to fix your signature on your own or ask for help". HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 22:50, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and  Done the above. @Jonesey95: does it look alright to you? HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 00:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Good catch. The message looks great now. I used to provide fixed custom signatures for each editor when I delivered this message. See this talk page for an example. We're not going to do that with this message. How was the list of editor recipients created? I'm curious about the criteria. Also, does the "Learn more" button appear automatically for editors who have an invalid signature, even before they click Save? – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:49, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

The list was created at phab:T356168 (with a massive thank you to Matma Rex!). The Learn more button appears automatically. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 01:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I poked around that task and some of its links, but I was unable to find a set of criteria that were easy for me to parse. I did a bit of spot-checking, and I didn't see any errors. I was expecting there to be a lot more than 300 active editors with font or tt tags in their sigs. We'll see. We may need to repeat this process once every month or two for a while; infrequent talk-page posters appear on and disappear from the toolforge signature report. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:13, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

The list comes directly from MediaWiki; if they are not on that list they either have not edited a discussion in the past three months or they do not have an invalid signature. I know some people create a template and use that instead the standard ~~~~; their signatures are not technically "invalid". HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:15, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: if there are no further objections, would you be able to send out the message to everyone at User:HouseBlaster/invalid signatures? HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 23:25, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but I will be away from Wikipedia for the next couple of days. Please ping me again on Sunday or Monday. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: would it be easier if I ask at WT:MMS? HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

That would be fine with me. You might also mention that this message will need to be re-sent (to smaller groups of editors) every month or two for a while. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: it shouldn't need to be resent, because in a month all of those editors with invalid signatures will no longer have invalid signatures. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:50, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

The change has been deployed :) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 21:07, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Hooray! I look forward to not seeing font tags in newly posted signatures. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:47, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Bot incorrectly notified me

I fixed my signature months ago. --ZacBowling ^(user|talk) 04:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

ZacBowling, unsurprisingly, bots are imperfect. Express your concerns to the bot operator. Cullen328 (talk) 04:52, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Also, telling a bot to go away (begone) is ineffective. They do not respond to random editor comments. Cullen328 (talk) 04:59, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Guidelines and policies

At present there are two policies on this page addressing the same thing:

• 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.

There was a RfC in 2021 which closed with the consensus against signatures being required to correspond exactly to usernames and no consensus to require that signatures be easily recognizable to a new user as referring to the username they link to.

The two conclusions from the RFC were:

• "There is significant opposition to the point where it is clear there is a consensus that signatures are not required to display someone's username in its entirety, without changes."
• "There is therefore no requirement that signatures be easily recognizable to a new user as referring to the username they link to."

It seems only the second guideline (above) adheres to this consensus, so the obvious solution is to remove the first one. However when I tried to do this it was undone by another editor. So I'm bringing the discussion here. Thanks. WikiMane (TP2001) (talk) 14:29, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

ThunderPeel2001, why did you reimplement your disputed edit before getting any responses to this question? – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:02, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Because I'm a naughty Wikipedian :-P Note that actually it wasn't the same edit, I moved the second point to more prominence because I reached out to the editor who undid my edit on their talk page... and they refused to discuss their edit, which led me to think they hadn't even read the whole list before undoing the original change I made. WikiMane (TP2001) (talk) 10:04, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I note the second conclusion also states I would add that the existing advice on the subject could be worded more strongly regardless of it not being a hard requirement. I don't think we need both of the bullets, but it would be reasonable for someone to support stronger language in the merged version. Anomie⚔ 11:24, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a proposal? It seems hard to find wording that is both strongly suggestive to new users but also won't be used as a cudgel by other well-meaning editors. WikiMane (TP2001) (talk) 10:09, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Maybe "A customised signature should make it easy to identify your username, but this is not required."? 🤷 Anomie⚔ 11:51, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I think that works. Do we keep the second point, too? WikiMane (TP2001) (talk) 16:34, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd have just one bullet point, with the footnote from the second existing bullet included. Anomie⚔ 21:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Although just thinking about this with fresh eyes, what's wrong with: "It is common practice for a signature to resemble to some degree the username it represents, but it is not required."? Do you think it's too soft? WikiMane (TP2001) (talk) 21:13, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

That is too soft. One reason people opposed requiring signatures to match user names is that a significant number of excellent editors started years ago with a user name that no longer appeals and they have signatures that don't draw attention to it. This guideline/policy is mainly for the future and newer editors should be encouraged to have comprehensible signatures. The fact that the policy does not say "a signature must match the user name" is sufficient leeway for cases like yours. You have "TP2001" in the signature and that's fine. Johnuniq (talk) 02:02, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok, updated with @Anomie's suggestion. Thanks! WikiMane (TP2001) (talk) 20:59, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Government Sites like Texas.Gov are Free-Use

You recently erroneously deleted a whole page I created due to "Copyright Infringement" because I copied the text from the site, which is allowed in Texas. Texas allows free-use of the Government site content like the one I used and you were outside your lane deleting the whole thing. It was an award and I copied the EXACT Qualifications for the awards, the same way we post US Military Awards and qualifications here. We don't edit them or change them we post exactly how DOD/or the Branch lists it.

Please un-delete my page as you're incorrect. TheNathanMuir (talk) 18:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

@TheNathanMuir: this is the talk page for discussing improvements to the page Wikipedia:Signatures. You should probably ask the person who deleted that page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)