Forum:Obnoxiously large Signatures

Forums: Index > Rin's Travel Agency > Archive > Obnoxiously large Signatures

Previous Discussion

Resolution

Edit 18:47, May 10, 2011 (UTC) The resolution below is policy as of 03:08, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii319/THE_faethin/kainfinal.png

		FëasindëTalk "Burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." 22:02, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
		Listen guys: this thread is going nowhere, as it normally happens when there's so many people merely commenting as opposed to actually giving input. This is my proposal. If the majority of users agree with it we use it, 'kay? Clear display of one's username. You may use whatever writing system you want to use provided your user name is written in Latin letters. Timestamp. Always. I agree wholeheartedly with Bluer in that the timestamp has been neglected, for no reason other than lazyness. It would be compulsory for all users to include a timestamp in their sig. No exceptions. No images higher than 15px. Taller images disrupt the flow of a conversation and are quite pointless in the end. Please agree or disagree. If you wish to voice your opinion do so on the previous section of this thread.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff25/bluerfn/occu-27.png

		Ser Blue says at 02:41, July 15, 2010 (UTC)
		Please also add to the resolution that all sigs should be linked at the very least to the user page. Applies mostly to custom sigs.

---

• Agree: Fae is sexy and therefore he's right. Faethin^{te audio} 22:02, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree:Agree. Agree. Must. Agree. O__O -Azul ^{(talk・contribs)} 22:06, July 10, 2010

(UTC)

• Agree: I second Fae's reasoning. (Seriously though, this comes off as kinda common sense to me.)--Otherarrow 22:08, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: I think this is very good reasoning. My Sig's okay though, right? The Banner that says 'ADMIRAL LEVITHAN' is 18px. :o. --Admiral Levithan 22:23, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: Glad we're not mincing on the finer issues. - +DeadlySlashSword+ 22:23, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: It's pretty much what I said at the top. You can easily make an nice, original signature by following these guidelines. Jeppo (Talk | contribs) 22:41, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: I thought the timestamp was compulsory anyway, since it is compulsory on talk bubbles. ScatheMote 22:45, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: "Fae is sexy and therefore he's right." Can't really argue with that logic. Plus, anything ridding this wiki of those vile, giant, page-messing images is alright by me. - Paramina 22:52, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: Although it's not that serious. Judge Balthier 23:06, July 10, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: While the "only Latin Letters" certainly limits the creativeness of custom sigs, this is nonetheless a good suggestion. So, of course I am going to agree. Besides, I always do the timestamp, so at least I ahve been following one of the rules. A.J. two ^{(Smashboards)} 01:43, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: — Yuan^Salve!_Acta 01:45, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: Likeacupcake 01:52, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: "You may use whatever writing system you want to use provided your user name is written in Latin letters" - I think Fae means that as long as your username is portrayed with Latin letters, you can write anything else you want after that in non-Latin. There is ample room for creativity. 8bit 02:18, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: And now it's up to the user or the community to police it? Guideline making is one thing, implementing is another. ^BLUER一番 02:56, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
• Disagree: The clear display of username screws me over slightly, the timestamp rule is f'ing obvious anyway, but I agree with the restriction on images. So yeah, first rule screws me over.  Armageddon11!  11:09, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: Common sense. Also, just hovering the mouse over the sig doesn't seem to work all the time for me (I couldn't tell who above person was). Sad, as having to click on the link just to see who it is is a lot of lost time on a slow computer... KujaRhapsodos 12:45, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: Seriously. If you don't care, GTFO. You're not being helpful at all. - Henryacores^ 16:28, July 11, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: Expect that this is going to be the letter of the law on the DNC from here on out. T·A·C·T·I·C·A·N·G·E·L 04:02, July 12, 2010 (UTC)
• Mostly agree: See my detailed opinion above -- Sorceror Nobody  15:58, July 13, 2010 (UTC)
  • Fully agree, now that I no longer have to worry about losing my Cocoon Sig -- Sorceror Nobody  14:04, July 18, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree:If I want to talk to you,I don't want to go over somones name and see its not even the correct Username. Drake Clawfangs for example. Naruto195 00:39, July 15, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: All 3 of my sigs work :D ShirubaKurono , , 19:40, July 18, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: My 2 sigs work :D EDIT:Except people who have a nickname which they are referred to as more than their username, they should be able to use that. 死の騎士 17:22, July 22, 2010 (UTC)
• Agree: As long as acronyms are OK. I definitely use 'SCM' a lot more than 'Some Color Mage'. Some Color Mage 08:14, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

EDIT: And then I realise my current sig uses my full name. Still agree though.

Enforcing this policy

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii319/THE_faethin/kainfinal.png

		FëasindëTalk "Burn the land, boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me." 03:08, September 13, 2010 (UTC)
		As of right now, all comments signed with signatures that do not comply with this policy will be removed. Cheers.

This work? It uses Greek letters but it still reads my name. This is what I based the name "Oavatos" off of. I had google tranlated "Death" and this was the result. I only just found out that it was really a Greek demon of death pronounced "Thánatos". ◄ Θάνατος ► 04:27, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

@Oavatos: Well, it's still quite easy to tell it's you, even though theta (Θ) is indeed TH and nu (ν) is N. A more accurate one for "Oavatos" would probably be Οαφατος (Oaphatos). Less obviously you, but you might get away with it. Greek alphabet FTW, BTW

@Fae: Do you want people to track down all previous instances of unacceptable signatures and replace them, or is the enforcement only "from now on" rather than being applied retroactively too? -- Sorceror Nobody  14:56, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, I think going around changing them all retroactively would be both somewhat rude and unnecessarily time-consuming. Just my personal vote. Bluestarultor 15:04, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

I fail to see how it'd be "rude". The only thing I think you could mean is changing other people's sigs, which isn't an issue because each person changes their own, not anyone else's. Also, for those who use templates (in my case, this one), just editing them will cause all instances of that signaure to be changed automatically -- Sorceror Nobody  15:39, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, the grammar confused me. I thought the question was whether to go and wipe them all out, which would be rude. If people just do their own, it's not so bad. Still unnecessary, though. Bluestarultor 16:01, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Addendum

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff25/bluerfn/occu-27.png

		Ser Blue says at 05:27, January 2, 2011 (UTC)
		I want to address the blinking of user sigs. So far as I know I'm successfully distracted by the blinking text when I want to focus on reading a discussion thread. Even more annoying is when the good input left by a user is overlapped by the blinks left by said user, I recommend for blinking text to be disallowed from signatures.

		Sorceror Nobody – The supreme nonentity Talk · Flan's Elbow Colosseum · MSPA Wiki · 18:49, September 23, 2011 (UTC) "I can detect matter down to one atom in a vacuum the size of the moon, and apparently, this guy doesn't exist" -- Foaly
		Can we add a rule that sigs are not to include extraneous strings of text that serve no purpose? So, things like "Visit the Soul Shrine!" are permitted (although some might still argue with that...), but we don't allow pointless strings of text like "To think that mother would prefer Sephiroth over..." Category: Proposal

http://i683.photobucket.com/albums/vv200/Henryacores/Gilgy_Sprite.png

		Henryacores - "É que esta noite vou lançar ao mar/A bruma que houver em mim./Vou beber e cantar este luar/vou dançar até ao fim." TALK - 18:55, September 23, 2011 (UTC)
		I am not trying to attack anybody, but I'd honestly put "Visit the Soul Shrine!" and "To think that mother would prefer Sephiroth over..." in the same category unless the former is lowercase. And even then... But everyone who remembers my position in this discussion knows I'm very straightforward in what comes to signatures and perhaps a bit radical.

I agree with HenryA in treating the two the same. 79.69.204.213 21:55, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

I think common sense should prevail. Signatures are there purely to tell other users who has written what. The optional talk and contribution links are there simply for the reader's convenience. Anything else isn't necessary on a signature - links to a user's project (e.g. a Colosseum project) are almost always linked to the user's userpage, and therefore doesn't need to be in signatures, and anything else, no matter how funny or interesting it may be, doesn't add anything at all - it draws the attention away from the discussion at hand and just makes the signature unnecessarily and obnoxiously large.

In short, we shouldn't need to make it wiki policy, just a bit of teaching users what a signature's actual and sole role is. Jeppo (Talk | contribs) 23:17, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

A query about enforcement

Waitwait, surely Faethin's signature isn't within the policy? If it is, then it shouldn't be. It doesn't contain his username. And the only reason people recognise it as him is because he used it before the sig policy. If any new user were to do it would be a breach of the policy. 79.69.195.89 12:38, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

I think we make a certain amount of concession for (a) longtime users and (b) users who have the name sufficiently similar. Feasinde is very similar to Faethin (and is technically the same name, but that's beside the point). Basically, this is the sort of thing that I meant by "sufficiently identifying". It's like my Shantotto Nobody variant, which is of the form S___ Nobody and uses my usual colour scheme, so you can tell it's me. More to the point, I never use non-direct variants of my sig in main talkspace or "srsbznss" forumspace, which is where the policy is most strongly enforced. Incidentally, another point about "identifiability" is that Fae only ever uses the same sig; he doesn't use variants, so you only have to "learn" his sig once. By all means, though, take it up with Fae ; ) -- Sorceror Nobody  12:49, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Feasinde is not similar to Faethin. It starts with an "F", and "i" and "n" remain paired, albeit no longer the last letters of the name. But that's where similarities end. Since "a" and "e" have switched, "th" has become "s", and it has the newly added "de" on the end, that's a massive change. "Faith-in" become "Fee-sin-dee". I imagine both those pronunciations are wrong, but that so isn't the point. ;)

As for your Shantotto Nobody variant, as you say since you don't use it where the policy is enforced, it doesn't matter.

But should being a long-time user change the rules? Won't that just end up causing "but they don't have to" wars. Which our response being that they've been here longer. Although, the signature policy also works on a case-by-case basis anyway, since Born from Darkness is known as BfD, and you are SN, and 8bit BlackMage is 8bit. You could get away with using those as your signatures. But users can tell those names derive from your original usernames without having to understand any language but English. Furthermore, those abbreviations weren't exactly invented by the above mentioned, and have become commonplace abbreviations anyway.

I would bring it up with Faethin, but OH NOEZes! I cannotz edit his talkpage cuz i am a lowly IP and will obv. vandalise it. 79.69.195.89 13:03, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

The presence of an 'e' and 'a' next to each other is moderately uncommon (and thus has a certain kind of "similarity" about it), while 'th' and 's' being interchangable isn't exactly hugely unusual. The key "similarity", though, is that they are more similar to one another than any other username is to them, so you're unlikely to mistake anyone else for Faethin. Compare to the vast number of users with, say, 'Blue' in their usernames, which are considerably more easily confused. As for editing his talk page, you know full well that your excuse is transparent -- Sorceror Nobody  13:27, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

"th" and "s" are interchangable in places that are not English.

This forum page is for large signatures. Do we have a specific page/section in projectspace/srsbzness forums for the wiki's signature policy? We should do.

In other news, Kaimi has been using a sig in such places as the VfFA project page, while breaking 1 or 2 sig policy rules. 79.69.195.89 14:45, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Firstly don't say you can't edit Fae's talk page because you can. Secondly I believe this policy is self-enforced, so that if a user is using a signature that infringes policy, we just tell them about it on their talk page and they will usually change it so that it conforms. Jeppo (Talk | contribs) 14:52, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. I'll sometimes edit the template to resize any images that are too large (because that's a "technical" change rather than a stylistic one), but any other changes are the responsibility of the user. As for Kaimi's sig, the minimum reduction is that (a) the images all need shrinking and (b) I would suggest that the links should be anchored to the images they already are, so the text links can be removed entirely. As I say, though, that's a minimum. A fuller suggestion would be to remove at least two of the images and have short text links instead, because one image is not too intrusive, but multiple is just annoying -- Sorceror Nobody  15:01, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Edit conflict

Firstly, it was a joke. And I'm not going to tell him "I think your signature breaks the rules you set out". I was instead discussing why he is an exception.

Secondly, mmkay. I'm not versed in the policy (and whether an unnecessarily length sig is against policy) so I mentioned it here instead. 79.69.195.89 15:04, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

I think what we need is a rule of thumb for what constitutes "unnecessary length". Perhaps it should be a matter of proportion; for example, a small Flan on the end of mine is not significant, because it's one small image, and also my username is quite long (although it would be unfair to assign too much weight to the name length). My sig is only 18% longer due to the Flan. Conversely, something like Kaimi's, where the whole thing is literally (and almost exactly) eight times as long as it needs to be – that's 700% longer than necessary – is clearly not suitable. Even allowing for timestamps as well, my sig drops to ~7% longer, but Kaimi's is still a whopping ~110% larger than it needs to be. If your sig size (minus the username) is comparable to a timestamp, something is very wrong -- Sorceror Nobody  15:17, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, why not just decide what a reasonable length is? We've already had a forum on obnoxiously long user names, so why not combine them? I say that any signature in excess of 2 inches excluding timestamp is already longer than it has to be, whether it's the name or the name and an arena and links to cat videos. Like the three I've made I've put work into being reasonable. We have my normal sig (Bluestarultor ^BSA) which links what I want it to in a small image and 3 letters, we have my Command Synergy Battle sig (Bluestarultor☆BSA  talk) which does the same and is modified from looking like FF13's battle commands, and I made one for SacredMinotaur (GFMinotaur and GFSacred, IRC Bots ) which expresses all it needs to in a short length. As you can see, you can do a lot in just over an inch at normal magnification (if you've adjusted your browser's zoom, try Ctrl+0 or find it in your menu to reset it). Bluestarultor ^BSA 15:28, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Edit conflict

I don't think %es should play too much of a part. We have a (possibly unwritten) username policy. Somewhere between 25to30 characters I'd imagine is too much.

WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

I'd say anything longer than this: "—————" -- is too long for additional text (not including chosen username display) in a signature. And your username display should be no longer than twenty-characters or your username+5 (whichever is longer). Does that make sense? I feel my suggestions sounds a bit random. 79.69.195.89 15:32, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

The thing is that as you demonstrated, not all characters are the same width. And honestly, who's going to keep a count? I think worrying more about overall length makes more sense than worrying about additional length, because people with short names are unnecessarily punished for them, while people with stupidly long names get a heck of a lot more to work with. If your name is 5 words, it doesn't matter as much if you have an additional 5 letters, but a 5-letter name isn't going to be able to do much with simply getting doubled in length. Bluestarultor ^BSA 15:40, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

I'm suggesting that regardless of length of username, everyone should get the same additional space.

I also added that people should allow their username display to be fifteen characters because people don't always just only display their username*(most people use shorter versions of their username, but I know as ILHI I made it longer). To be fair to people with longer usernames, I suggest that their username-length+5 so they can still add more characters to their username, but not too much more.

So essentially,

• "JBedWWWWWWWWWWW (username display)————— (additional text)" - the largest length my signature could be.
• "Sorceror NobodyWWWWW—————" - the largest signature SN's could be.

Bearing in mind that people won't usually fill their space with "W"s. I understand that people won't count characters. But if something is evidently long, it would be nice to give them a guideline to what they can do, even if we don't actively check. And for the kind of people that will bother to count... well if they exist then they'll help enforce it. 79.69.195.89 15:52, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

I think it's much simpler to give people a length to be under and leave it at that. Most people 13 and over are aware of what 2 inches/~6cm looks like. If not, what are they teaching kids these days? I'm not saying we need to take a ruler to our screens, but just eyeballing it if it looks too long based on that, it's just too long. In short, the simpler the rule, the easier it is to follow and enforce. Let's not make this complicated. Bluestarultor ^BSA 16:00, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

This is the dumbest discussion on this site. Notice how all sites with overt detailed policies about everything stupid are all completely awful. If someone has an intrusive sig you could tell them you find it intrusive. The best thing about the FFWiki is that it doesn't have so many gay rules and kind of runs itself with a lot of the admins in a role of periodically visiting superstars. There are pros and cons in everything of course but as it seems to be people's sigs right now are not a huge problem, not so big they can't be dealt with in individual basis. You just end up making pointless rule no one will enforce that is buried in some old forum thread no new members joining will read to find out about these "rules".Keltainentoukokuu 16:07, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

"Notice how all sites with overt detailed policies about everything stupid are all completely awful."

[Citation needed]. How are they awful?

"The best thing about the FFWiki is that it doesn't have so many gay rules and kind of runs itself"

[Citation needed]. O RLY? The wiki decides on standards and follows them. Both in mainspace and outside. That's how all wikis work. It runs by itself as long as all users follow the policy.

"not so big they can't be dealt with in individual basis."

Case-by-case is not always the best method. Having a set of guidelines laid down allows people to know what to expect. Telling someone their signature is too long can end in them maybe cutting out a few characters, or just not doing anything at all. If the wiki has guidelines, they can reduce it to a level that they know the wiki accepts. And no one can argue because the entire wiki follows it.

"You just end up making pointless rule no one will enforce"

If no one chooses to enforce it. The same can be said for talkboxes and their 60px left-margin. This is still enforced.

"that is buried in some old forum thread"

Ideally it would end up in a project page.

"no new members joining will read to find out about these "rules"."

Ideally the aforementioned project page will be linked to either on the welcome template, or on one of the pages linked from the welcome template. 79.69.195.89 16:16, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

There are pros and cons in everything of course but as it seems to be people's sigs right now are not a huge problem, not so big they can't be dealt with in individual basis.

Keltainentoukokuu, this discussion is more than a year old. Perhaps this is not a huge problem right now, but this wiki is extremely dynamic and if this discussion was called, maybe it was because in last year's July it maybe was an issue that worried a significant group of users (myself included). I agree it is not a cracking issue on our community, but if there's something around that bothers a reasonable lot of people inside the wiki, I believe it's completely unfair to call it "the dumbest discussion on this site", if even a "dumb discussion".

EDIT CONFLICTx2 This may not be a constructive addition to this discussion, but I can't agree with using such direct examples in its development. I would ask of you to try to make this the most generic as possible (maybe using more than one example per case, I bet there are as many) because if a policy about signature size is going to be enforced, it will be generic.

Also, keep in mind that there may be a controversy behind enforcing signatures, specially if they are set through Wikia and not via templates. Wikia's signature function is GLOBAL, which means it will be your signature for every wiki of Wikia. We must have users that come from other wikis and already have a set signature in consideration. In the other hand, the username is the same throughout Wikia, and so is common sense.

Of course, this has nothing to do with signatures used through templates since they are based on this wiki alone. Even if I personally disagree with their use, template signatures should not be transplaced into discussions, rather being placed in discussions with the "subst" prefix, so as to work uniformly with Wikia's signature. - Henryacores^

Edit conflict

You have a point, Kelt. My argument against it is that in cases people are called out on it, they often go "you and what army" and continue on. I happened to run into this with Lycentia of all people when she'd used a Gaia avatar creator to make something resembling Rydia and uploaded it as "self-made fanart" despite Gaia and all its resources being copyrighted. Coming from a mod, and apparently a respected one at that, that essentially she was throwing out what I was saying because I wasn't a mod and she didn't care as long as it wasn't staff saying it, was rather insulting. Having a policy to point to in these cases gives people in that position backing. Bluestarultor ^BSA 16:21, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Edit conflict × FSM knows how many

Using 'gay' as a derogative, Kelt? Tch. Hence my original statement being "a rule of thumb". We don't need to make any kind of precise measurements. My percentages were not a suggestion for a basis of a rule, just an indicator of the issue. I, for one, would be happy with saying something like this:

Users should aim to make any increase to the width of their sig, due to optional stylistic additions or extra links, as small as possible. Links can be anchored to small images, although there should not be more than one (or maybe two at a stretch if they are small enough) images; otherwise, they should be abbreviated for practicality, e.g. contributions to contribs, and initials for longer titles wherever possible. If the user wants links to their talk page and/or contributions, they should consider embedding them in their username rather than having separate links, as this is a common practice, and thus many users know to look for it. Most importantly, any significant width increase that serves no function should definitely be removed. Obviously, the other rules (e.g. 15px high for images) still apply.

IMHO, that's a pretty balanced set of restrictions. Most importantly, it doesn't punish for long usernames. Another good thing is that it leaves plenty of room for customisation, while still keeping it from getting out of hand. Minor additions like my Flan are fine, for example, and it also allows things like Bluesey's ATB sig, because although it's an aesthetic feature rather than a functional one, it's virtually harmless to the width -- Sorceror Nobody  16:27, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

Considering how HenryA reminded me that sigs are WikiaWide, I agree that we don't need any definite pixel-sized and char-amounts. I'm fine with the above and working on a case-by-case. 79.69.195.89 16:31, October 15, 2011 (UTC)

I was going to suggest that non-functional bits be removed if at all possible, but then I re-read it and saw that I missed that line, so I'll put in my support for that as an initial wording, allowing for any changes that people might propose which sound good. Bluestarultor ^BSA 16:42, October 15, 2011 (UTC)