Wikipedia talk:Signatures

Proposed changes

1. WP:4TILDES quoteth:

• At the end of your comments simply type four tildes (~), like this: ~~~~.

When newbies (and some experienced editors) follow this advice explicitly, it ends up running the sig right up against the end of the content – especially hard to read when the content has no trailing punctuation. E.g., a comment by Someuser: Blahblahblah foo bar bazSomeuser (talk) 23:12, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to change this to:

• At the end of your comments, simply type a space followed by four tildes (~), like this: end of your comments. ~~~~.

2. I'd also like to add clarification that the signature should be last:

• The signature should be at the very end of your comments, as expected by various automated tools. Do not add anything after the ~~~~.

Comments? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 05:33, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Support the first since the logic is hard to dispute and it has a very small "footprint"; you're just slightly extending an existing sentence for clarification. As for the second, I do sometimes see an editor put something like a list of sources or some proposed text after their signature, and I've sometimes "fixed" that as a routine refactoring action (I believe there should be a signature at the end of every post). Not sure we need a guideline to that effect, however, and I would like to see other arguments. Particularly I would like to hear about what various automated tools are adversely affected by that. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:59, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

When I tell someone how to add a signature, I spell it out because people used to email or forums think that a signature should be on a line of its own. I say something like:

• At the end of the last line in your comment, type a space followed by four tildes (~), like this: end of your comment. ~~~~.

I wouldn't bother mentioning automated tools: just say that there should not be any extra text after the four tildes. This is a guideline and people who understand what they are doing might rarely make an exception. Johnuniq (talk) 06:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Useful: Some editors seem to sign their post at the start, not the end. PamD 10:13, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

timestamps

A discussion regarding timestamp creation along with signatures is currently open, anyone interested is invited to join the discussion. Best regards, — xaosflux ^Talk 14:34, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

FYI the just-added language includes Signatures that are customized may be considered disruptive and editors using them may be blocked accordingly. I believe this should probably be clarified as Signatures that are have a customized timestamp may be considered disruptive and editors using them may be blocked accordingly. Pinchme123 (talk) 01:08, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I just changed this to Timestamps that are customized but your version occurred to me as well after I made the edit. The discussion on this change was closed @ ANI before I think a clear consensus had been worked out, and some were opposed to CREEP. In the associated discussion about the problem signature I felt that that particular signature should be prohibited and that I would probably support an outright ban on changing the timestamp in any way but had not considered every possibility for why they might be changed. The section on non-Latin usernames indicates that right-to-left scripts will cause an appearance of Wed ,23:58 (שֵׁם) May 2016 - I don't know where the number of the day is supposed to be or if this is a typo. But if that is the system-generated format I assume bots understand it? —DIYeditor (talk) 07:41, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Bots look at the wikitext, they don't care about the directionality. So the first item in the bytestream needs to be the time as hh:mm followed by a comma, a space, the date as DD Month YYYY, a space and finally the timesone. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:06, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

... finally the timezone in parentheses. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 12:45, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@DIYeditor: When that example was added, they put the day name ("Wed") instead of the day number. I cleaned it up. Anomie⚔ 15:27, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@DIYeditor: Brevity is nearly always preferable. Thanks for your better update! Cheers. Pinchme123 (talk) 17:47, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

That discussion is closed, less than 24 hours after the invitation. It also was about a single user's behaviour. All in all, I find the invitation misplaced - please do not discuss general changes in a section about individual users. CapnZapp (talk) 21:55, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Rich Farmbrough (talk · contribs) has found this post from almost seven years ago where InedibleHulk (talk · contribs) says that they will "gladly change it back". Apparently not. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:03, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

He said there that he would change it back "if any major problem arises". As we've seen, he is the judge of how major the problems are, not the Wikipedia editing community. So that comment is not inconsistent with his more recent ones. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:24, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Aye. Shit finally got real, now here I am, changed back. The system works. InedibleHulk (talk) 10:31, 12 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposed solution - if a new discussion page comment has a time in a format that most bots do not recognize, SineBot or another bot will time in a standard format but do it in a way that makes it invisible in web browsers. SineBot already "signs" comments that have a username but no date with {{undated}}. Adding an "invisible" correctly-formatted time will keep the bots happy without making editors feel like someone is "messing with" their signatures. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:00, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Disagree. As long as the talk pages are indented/threaded/ordered by convention I think users must follow the convention. —DIYeditor (talk) 09:35, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Emojis

should we add something about how signatures can't be entirely emojis?--🐦DrWho42 (📼) 05:59, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I assume you mean the non-timestamp part of the signature. I doubt this is necessary. I say this because existing guidelines already discourage distracting, confusing, or otherwise unsuitable signatures, and most "emoji-only" signatures would be confusing either because they didn't uniquely identify the user, or because the emoji itself was not displayed in a unique, non-confusing way on all common web browsers (some browsers and operating systems only support some emojis, it is possible that some "modern" systems don't support them at all). If a particular emoji-only signature whose emojis were not supported by screen-readers or other adaptive technology, for example, that could be considered as "confusing." Now, hypothetically, if your signature consisted of several universally-supported-on-modern-systems-including-screen-readers emojis AND it was clearly identified with your username and was not confusing or guideline-violating in any other way, I'm not sure that we should disallow it merely because it was an emoji-only signature. I would support adding a line to the guideline cautioning people to consider both technical/cross-machine-compatibility issues and issues of outright-confusing use of emojis in their signature. For example "stopsign emoji""running emoji""now emoji"/"talk emoji" for a user whose username that was totally unrelated to the concept of running, speed, or something similar would be confusing, but if the username was StopRunningNow then that would be entirely appropriate provided all 4 emojis were supported on all modern browsers and screen readers on all modern operating systems. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 16:26, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

@DoctorWho42: That would be a problem for usernames that consist entirely of emojis, unless you are saying that they would require customization, which maybe isn't a bad idea after all. E.g., 😂, who signed: FACE WITH TEARS OF JOY ^[u+1F602].

—[AlanM1(talk)]— 17:54, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

😂 and this

Isithandile (talk) 17:57, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Putting parts of this guideline in the software

Please see mw:New requirements for user signatures. This is a proposed change to MediaWiki software that would prevent editors from accidentally setting certain types of WP:CUSTOMSIGs (such as a custom signature with no links, or certain types of WP:SIGFORGEs). This would, hopefully, reduce the amount of effort volunteers expend in explaining what's okay and what's not, by producing an error message whenever someone tries to add an invalid signature to their prefs. It's basically a way of putting some of this guideline into the software.

Please share information or examples of (wanted or unwanted) signatures over there. Also, they're not planning to invalidate any existing signatures (this software change would only take effect if you actively tried to change your sig). If you have an opinion on whether they should or shouldn't invalidate old, non-compliant signatures (either now or later), then please tell them that, too. Thanks, Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 18:27, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

If you want to know whether your signature (or any individual user) is okay, please try out User:AntiCompositeNumber's tool at https://tools.wmflabs.org/signatures/ There's also a link to some stats and invalid signatures. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 23:34, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Signature advocating a political cause

I think including a political cause in a signature is breaking WP:SOAPBOX part of the Wikipedia guidelines. Therefore, I think we should include a provision to not make signature political and extend WP:SOAPBOX to signatures too or broaden the definition to not include political soapboxing on any part of Wikipedia. --Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 18:05, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Template:～～～～

@Redrose64: Concerning this edit, when I save {{subst:～～～～}} in my sandbox, it works as documented. Did you encounter something different? --Bsherr (talk) 17:44, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

But subst: wasn't mentioned. When I use the template as it was directed, this is what happens: Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

which is a violation of WP:SIG#NT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:15, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I created this template after testing in my sandbox, and everything works correctly when it is substituted. CrazyBoy826 18:16, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Also, I created the documentation around 5 mins after the template, so you might have visited the page within that time. I changed the page to show the subst. CrazyBoy826 18:19, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Concerning WP:SIG#NT, this is substituted, so after you save your edit it's exactly the same as using regular four tildes. CrazyBoy826 18:20, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: ping CrazyBoy826 18:21, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Your edit says nothing about subst: and the template, when used as directed in that edit, produces the effect that I demonstrated above. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:24, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I shall now subst it, to demonstrate another problem. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:25, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

And as you can see, it screws the page layout by adding an undesirable newline, contrary to WP:SIGAPP. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 18:26, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: see this, everything works correctly after some minor fixes. If anything else happens, just revert the edit on the signature page and put noinclude on the template until it is fixed. CrazyBoy826 18:36, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: To me, or use {{～～～～}} didn't mean literally code it that way, but use it consistent with its documentation, which prescribes substitution (for example, at Wikipedia:Vandalism#Blanking, illegitimate, which uses {{uw-test1}} or {{uw-delete1}} even though they require substitution). But using Template:Tlxs might be an improvement, to the extent that it doesn't require the user to take the extra step of looking at the template. Are you still seeing issues from the template when substituted? I've looked just now but it seems to be working correctly. --Bsherr (talk) 20:14, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Not when substd, the extra newline has now gone. But can we be certain that users will always subst? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:40, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@Redrose64: How are we certain that users will always subst the user warnings? Is there a way to add it to the bot substitution list? CrazyBoy826 21:53, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

There are two approaches. The first is to use Template:Require subst, which generates a warning message if the template is not substituted. The second is to identify the template for automatic substitution by bots, by following the instructions at Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted (it involves adding a template to the template documentation page). --Bsherr (talk) 01:55, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

If bots substitute it, it will produce the bot's signature instead, so I'm using Template:Require subst. CrazyBoy826 21:55, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh, that's true. Good thinking. --Bsherr (talk) 02:38, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Operation Snipe the Capture of Kashmir Valley

HONORS of the Guraisis a battalion honor for the heroics of the Greansiers and 2/4th Gurkha for the capture of the Kashmir Valley and regaining command of control under Brigadier Rajendra Singh. The ancient silk route being used as a martial point for infiltrators was sealed and placed in the control of India and the local Dards swore allegiance to India. Although Skardu is not too far away, Brig Rajendra Singh using mountain warfare tactics, allowed Gen. Carriappa to use other resources for Skardu and setup complete command,control and communication in Srinagar. This allowed Gen Thimayya to untangle himself from his failed operation Kipper and join forces to Skardu. For the heroic efforts of Greandiers and 2/4th Gurkha the regiment got the honors of Gurais. The mountain warfare tactics in this rugged terrain was novel as Gurais Located in the north-west corner of Kashmir, Gurez lies just 130km from the capital, Srinagar; the stark difference in lifestyles, though, is both enticing and appalling. Once you’re past Bandipora, the road climbs to the Razdan Pass (3,500m), before descending to a land that can best be described as an inhabited wilderness. This sole link with the rest of the state gets snowed in from the end of November to April-May, cutting off the region for close to five months of the year. At the opposite end, and across the mountains. Kanzalwan, the first of the 28 settlements en route to Gurez, may seem like any other village in rural Kashmir. Past Dawar though, it feels like a different world. The Kishanganga river snakes its way through the valley, as fields and homes made of wood and mud lie in the shadow of the mighty Himalayas was properly annexed and placed in command of the Indian army. In his 1895 book, The Valley Of Kashmir, Walter R. Lawrence writes: “Many of the Margs are visited every year by Europeans, and Gulmarg, Sonamarg, and Nagmarg are charming places for a summer holiday. Perhaps Pahlgam, the village of the shepherd which stands at the head of the Liddar valley with its healthy forest of pines, and Gurais which lies at a distance of 35 miles from Bandipura, the port of the Wular lake, will before long rival in popularity the other Margs." A St Stephans Forest Agent managed the Shatoosh harvest for the Queen of England and her contract with the Sikhs. His hut was in the Vijji Gulli. The Dards helped the Greandiers and 2/4 Gurkha to crawl through this gully. Brigadier Rajendra Singh created the strategy of indirect attack. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spockbuddha (talk • contribs) 08:50, 10 June 2020 (UTC) Spockbuddha (talk) 08:52, 10 June 2020 (UTC)