GuildWiki talk:Sign your comments

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Implementation
No dissent seems evident on either of the points below. If they remain uncontested on the 20th, I'll update the article to reflect this agreement. &mdash;Tanaric 11:20, 17 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I have no problem with the update, but this article clearly states that it is neither a policy nor a guideline. Should this article be redone (or should a new article be created) to be a true policy article? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 18:10, 23 October 2006 (CDT)

Name Variation
I might also suggest that people don't allow people to display a name wildly different than their real username, like here. I've noticed people doing it for a while, but I don't know if any of them are regular contributors. --Fyren 20:16, 16 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I agree completely. Whatever name they display in their sigs should be very close if not identical to their username (maybe allow spaces or caps variations - but that's all I would want to allow to vary). --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 09:49, 17 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Also agreed. &mdash;Tanaric 11:20, 17 October 2006 (CDT)


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


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


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

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

I'm in favor of this wording:

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

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

&mdash;Tanaric 09:51, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Technically, the earlier conversation doesn't apply to PanSola's sig. While I agree that this discussion should be brought up again for the reasons you mentioned, I believe that his sig would be a new topic, not a carry-over of the earlier discussion.
 * The earlier talk applied to how many characters the sig took on the edit page, not how many characters the sig displayed on the talk page itself. The earlier concern was that a long string of code in the sig broke up the flow in the edit screen.  PanSola has bypassed that issue by doing his sig as an inclusion, so that while it's very long in the talk page, it's one of the shortest sigs in the edit screen. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 10:02, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I would like the following rules: 1) The sig should be substed if a custom /sig page is used. 2) The sig code should be limited to a reasonable length. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 10:31, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I'm for a reasonable length for both code and actual sig as it shows in the conversation. --Rainith 18:52, 14 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I agree with Gem; template-inclusion should not be used for sigs, ever. I'm now in favor of the following wording: "Signatures that are excessively longer than typical signatures, whether in the wikitext of the page or in the rendered text, are discouraged, and may result in administrative intervention. Sigs should always be part of the wikitext of a page; including a signature via a template is discouraged, as it results in all previous signatures changing upon alteration." &mdash;Tanaric 01:39, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * Sounds reasonable. --Xeeron 05:50, 15 October 2006 (CDT)
 * I like it and I agree completely with not permitting inclusions, but as an administrator I'm unsure how to interpret some of the proposed wording - I usually prefer firmer/clearer guidelines. I'm reading "typical signature" to mean the standard system generated signature; but what might be "excessively longer" to one person may not be to another.  Twice as long?  Three times?  Five times?  Ten times?  Also when comparing, the date is uaually in the sig, but do we count it as part of the length when determining excessive length conpared to standard?  --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 11:23, 16 October 2006 (CDT)


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


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


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


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


 * This hadn't resulted as yet in a policy change. Is everyone agreed on Tanaric's proposed wording ""Signatures that are excessively longer than typical signatures, whether in the wikitext of the page or in the rendered text, are discouraged, and may result in administrative intervention. Sigs should always be part of the wikitext of a page; including a signature via a template is discouraged, as it results in all previous signatures changing upon alteration."?
 * Also, as images were lightly discussed, I would also like to bring that up again. I'm not crazy about the use of images, but I can at least accept the use of icons.  But, what of images such as Image:MyNameIsNotDan.PNG?  To me, that one is too large and distracting for talk page use - should we modify the proposed wording to include images, or implement the proposed wording now, then discuss images as a seperate issue? --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:46, 16 November 2006 (CST)


 * I think the proposed wording should be implemented now and the image thing should be discussed now. Imho small icons are okay, but the name of the user must be present and the icon should not be higher than a regular line. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 17:05, 16 November 2006 (CST)
 * As I've mentioned before, I'd really rather have no images. If we're going to say images are okay, we should set a hard dimension cap.  (Gem, your signature actually pushes the next line down by a single pixel in FF2 but not IE6, heh.)  --Fyren 21:52, 16 November 2006 (CST)
 * Just to voice my opinion, icons are ok as long as they don't change the line spacing (there should be a pixel limit). What Barek said in italics above I agree with although a hard limit for wikitext would be good, there was a proposal for a set number a while ago, it should be dragged up again I think. --Xasxas256 22:00, 16 November 2006 (CST)
 * I've shifted into thinking that no images should be allowed. It is impossible to make images scale to line height, and line height varies too much for a static image to do. For example, I'll often use the "make text smaller" feature so my browser window takes up less space when I use the GuildWiki and Guild Wars simultaneously. If we do allow images, they should have a hard cap, somewhere between 8x8 and 15x15. &mdash;Tanaric 23:20, 16 November 2006 (CST)


 * I don't have a problem with images in signatures, but perhaps there's a way that we could allow sig images to be filtered out using CSS? We could make it mandatory for all signatures containing images to be wrapped in a span with a class of sig. So Gem's icon would change from:
 * "[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk)"
 * to
 * "[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk)"
 * It is a little longer in the wikitext, but by adding a line like this to your CSS
 * "span.sig img { display: none; }"
 * you would never know that the image was there.  &lt;LordBiro&gt;/&lt;Talk&gt; 06:24, 17 November 2006 (CST)


 * If people are really disturbed by small icons such as mine, I'm ready to use the LordBiro technique described above. I would hate to see my image completely removed. If this is done, the importance of regular text link to ones user page or talk page (and possibly having the name in it too) in the signature becomes even more important. Currently some users have a sig with the image only, whih would cause trouble for those who hide the images. Maby implement a rule that the name of the user and a link must be there even if the image is hidden? --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 06:37, 17 November 2006 (CST)
 * The general idea is okay, but if Gem were to use it, I'd see his posts signed with "--(talk) timestamp." Tetris' posts would be signed with "--timestamp."  We could say signatures can have an image of up to whatever dimensions, in a span with the sig class, and text including a name similar to your user name with a link to either your user or talk page, maybe.  --Fyren 08:01, 17 November 2006 (CST)


 * That's what I ment. Therefor my new sig would be:
 * -- [[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (Gem)
 * --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 08:07, 17 November 2006 (CST)


 * Frankly, I don't really see the need for a sig policy, or even a discussion about it. Unlike the many forums I've frequented before, I have never seen a signature on GuildWiki that I found really excessive, disturbing or annoying, The only (mild) exception was PanSola's sig at the time when he had added that alpha leak note. 99.9% of all sigs on GuildWiki are perfectly okay in size and content. I think it is safe to say that signature abuse is not an issue at all on GuildWiki.
 * Read any random thread on this forum. Note that this is an official elite fansite forum. It doesn't matter if you don't understand the German text. Just check the signature sizes! Jeeez ... in most posts the signatures are 3 times longer than the actual content of the post. Or, check the forums on GWonline.net. They don't even have signatures, but all the user information in the left side column below the avatar increases the vertical size of a post that much that it's usually more than the actual content of the post. GuildWiki is MILES away from these two negative examples. Even the largest signatures on GuildWiki are tiny compared to an average forum.
 * I think if we impose any limitations on signatures by policy then we should either disallow custom signatures alltogether, or not limit them by policy at all. The few really obvious, excessive cases can easily be dealt with individually.
 * One final note about image signatures: My signature used to have the name along with the image, in colored text even. Ironically, I removed that in order to shorten the code text, to make it easier to read in edit mode! --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 09:08, 17 November 2006 (CST)


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


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


 * Barek: First of all I must apologize. I didn't read through the whole thread thoroughly before I started blabbering. ;) But still, I think the few cases can be dealt with individually, with a bit of common sense. I'm confident that in most cases a short notice on the user's talk page would do the job: "Hey, your signature is quite big. Could you crop it a bit?" If the guys doesn't react, let the discussion start. Even if we we set fixed standards now (pixel size of image, number of code characters, etc.) there will still be aspects that we can never pin down with a policy and that have to be dealt with individually in any case. Whatever standard you set, I could probably come up with an example of a signature that fits the standard, but is still annoying or offensive to some people.
 * And while we're at it ... I think before we think about limitations for signatures, we should think about limitations for user pages. There is MUCH more room for abuse here, in many ways, and it is much harder to set up rules for these. --[[Image:TurningL sml.gif|Tetris L]] 11:15, 17 November 2006 (CST)


 * Tetris: I don't think we need to set hard limitations, but some general rules which we can cite when someone is obviously causing havoc. User page regulations are another thing as is seems that we have always wanted to keep the user pages as a free for anything zone. (With only restrictions for content such as pornography etc) Previously I tried to fight advertising on user pages (such as sell/buy/trade and services), but I was unsuccesfull as everyone else wanted to allow it. If we start making a user page policy, advertising is the first thing to discuss. --[[Image:Gem-icon-sm.png]] (talk) 11:21, 17 November 2006 (CST)
 * For the text length issue, I think the text proposed by Tanaric of "Signatures that are excessively longer than typical signatures, whether in the wikitext of the page or in the rendered text, are discouraged, and may result in administrative intervention. Sigs should always be part of the wikitext of a page; including a signature via a template is discouraged, as it results in all previous signatures changing upon alteration." gives us the framework and the flexibility to address ever changing text issues.
 * I think that could be made policy or a guideline (incidentally, the article on which this talk is taking place is specifically called out as being neither a policy nor a guideline - which I think should be changed to at least a guideline).
 * For the image use, I think either a total ban or a fixed limit is needed. See Build talk:E/any Searing Immolation for an example of the type of sig image that I would want to prevent.  However, that discussion can go independant of the text sig guideline above.  --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:45, 17 November 2006 (CST)


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


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


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