UDWiki talk:Moderation/Policy Discussion/User Signatures

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Aren't we getting a little overrestrictive here?

Look at my sig. Aesthetically it cannot be called ugly, it doesn't break any page, neither it is really long or takes a remarkable big space on the lines it's placed, but it uses smileys as separators for every link on the sig. This policy forbids me to do that? Also, my intended username is pretty long by itself with 19 characters ("Matthew_Fahrenheit"; alternatively, if we take in account the one that I inputed for conveniency, it's 16 characters). Why should this policy allow guys with shorter names to put longer personalized content on their signatures? What do you find of offensive or aesthetically displeasing on my smileys, or other popular characters users as link separators like |? And I don't think that the guys that use text colors should not be doing that. Maybe a limit on how much can you use color tags would be better to avoid users with rainbow-like signatures, but nothing beyond that. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 21:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with text color (as long as it's visible on the page and not light/white), but background color can be seriously annoying. Also, as long as the sig contains the username or a part of it in alphanumeric chars, the sig clearly identifies who it belongs to (as it should). Of course, excessive images and formatting are to be avoided, but don't make the wiki into an uberbureaucracy where individual pixels of sigs are examined for violations. If anything, everyone should stop using templated sigs... --Daranz. t . mod . W(M)^∞ . 21:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
What's the difference? You can still enter the code into the Signature field in Preferences, so all a template does is to simplify editing your signature, as well as retroactively updating the template calls. Cyberbob  Talk  21:45, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
It generates additional queries as the server has to lookup the sig templates in order to include them in the page. AFAIK, the lookups are done when the page is saved, and when the included template is saved. This means that for large discussions with lots of edits, there's a lot of additional database lookups when the software has to process all the template calls. Also, when you change the template, all the pages that the sig was used on have to be re-saved. (also, curse edit collisions) --Daranz. t . mod . W(M)^∞ . 21:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Daranz, if nothing else i would love to get rid of all policies and just have the wiki being ruled based on common sense. But it seems some people like to exploit the lack of rules and point fingers at mods when they try to keep the place clean, this is why this policy is needed. But perhaps you have point with the colors. If we just forbid the background colors, i think it would be a lot better already. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 21:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
The 'individual pixels' you mentioned in the end would just be there to regulate those who abuse the image size. I wouldnt like to force someone with a nice signature to remove it only because it has 121 pixels, but i would love to have something to tell those with an image 400pixels wide, for example. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 21:53, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I use a templated sig as a way to avoid leaving a two lines code on every page I sign. As I see it, a simple {{User:Matthewfarenheit/Signature}} is better than ''[[User:Matthewfarenheit|Matthew Fahrenheit]] <sup>[[YRC]]''☺''[[User talk:Matthewfarenheit|T]]''☺''[[Wiki Monitors|MW]]''. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 21:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Matthew, Have you read the entire policy ? You still can use your smiles.. they are part of the wingdings font, so they count as the three non-alphanumerical characters you can use. And this is still the draft matthe, we can talk about the limit of characters you can use :P (perhaps make it 12 extra characters beyond the username). --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 21:47, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Nop, my smileys aren't Wingdings. I don't know the exact term, but they're characters available to most fonts. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 21:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Whatever, you would still be allowed to use them if this policy was approved. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 22:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
OK. It would be nice for you to update the policy by:
  • Adding restrictions to the use of tables and colored backgrounds on the sig.
  • Getting rid of the restriction on colored fonts.
  • Implementing "user name characters plus x" as the limit on user signature's characters.
  • Implementing a time limit for full effect of the policy upon approval: let's say it takes full effect 14 days after the policy's approval, with 7 days of recommended change of sigs and 7 days of compulsory change of them (at least on the templated ones) in order to comply. After that, it would be vandalism to have a sig that violates the new rules... or you could make it so new users can get a single unofficial warning to change their signatures before they get officially warned. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 22:17, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd agree with that, except I think you need to have a maximum length to the user name as well, or we'll just see someone try to sign with a hundred character long nick -- boxy, overlord of all he surveys, master of the universe, and all round guud guy to boot (you know it's true, don't bother to deny it!) T L ZS PA DA 04:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Animated GIFs

Animated GIFs need to be able to stay as long as they are below a certain file size. I would suggest 5 or 10kb. My dancing emote is 2. Text color needs to be allowed too, or this is just stupid. Black isn't the default color. I use black on mine. The blinking tag, I agree, needs to die in a fire. Now.--Gage 22:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I fail to see how they're "needed", but I agree that if they're small enough they can stay. Thari gif is far bigger than 10 kb but yet it's implemented on a way that it's even less space consuming that the dancing smiley up here. Maybe size limits in px work best? --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 23:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Animated GIFs are NOT needed. They only take the attention away from the actual content of the image. Even Thari's dancing jesus would be annoying if he signed sevearl times in the same page. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 23:14, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I say one gif, file size limited, and height/width limited -- boxy T L ZS PA DA 04:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty much divided. Gifs can be distracting, but to just take them off seems more reactionary against guys with "cooler looking signatures than me" than anything else. But when we reach the issue of some bad taste gifs as the one on AS's sig, then... If all other issues are resolved on the policy, I'll gladly vote for it without taking in account this particular point. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 04:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the animated .gifs must die. Thari's isn't annoying, but the dancing smiling ones are. 'IF they're allowed, then file size and space size limit them. --Darth Sensitive Talk W! 23:36, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Changing Templates/Preferences

Just wondering... If in this process he gets banned, the moderation staff will change the signature to match this policy. Do the mods have powers to change user's preferences and enforce this statement? I thought not, but correct me if I'm wrong. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 23:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

They will if the policy gets passed. I do think though, that language should be added specifying that the mod may only revert to a previous acceptable version, or change it to username + talk page. And animated .gifs must die - they're super annoying when multiple ones exist on the page. --Darth Sensitive Talk W! 01:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I meant if Wiki mods (ANY wiki) could access the preferences of another users and change them or, at the very least, reset the "signature" value to default. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 01:06, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Is it even technically feasible to be able to access other people's preferences? Cyberbob  Talk  01:07, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
To the best of my knowledge no - we would only be able to work with the templated ones and what's been posted already.--Darth Sensitive Talk W! 01:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Is it possible to store a signature in your preferences? I looked in my preferences, but couldn't see anywhere to input a signature. --Toejam 01:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
"Nickname" is the place. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 01:22, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
hum... yes, that piece of line there was meant to mention user signatures using templates... like several people does. If the user use a signature that breaks this policy AND that is hardocded inside its preference options, then we could do nothing but keep warning and banning him until he changes his signature to something acceptable. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 03:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Nitpicking, or "how did you come to this number?

Hagnat, can I ask you how did you reach the conclussion that "17" characters and "3" weeks were optimal numbers to regulate how many characters can be used after your username and how many weeks after being warned/banned to be warned/banned again respectively? You know that if they were common numbers used in the wiki like round numbers (20 edits for example) or the 2 weeks normal period of voting I won't be asking anything... but I just have to know how did you reach these numbers! --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 04:11, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

i just like 'em :) --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 11:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I want 50 character limits. Make them nice and round. Change "chaging the text size" to "making the text size larger than 14px". Make other character besides "Alphanumerical characters (a-z,A-Z,0-9)" available. There is no reason to disallow characters from the greek alphabet, or other such characters. Please remove "the user can choose three characters that are not alphanumerical to use in his signature, but they must not be more than 20% of the characters used in the signature " entirely. That line is unnecessary.--Gage 19:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
That line is there to cover characters from the greek alphabet :P When i first wrote this policy, i was thinking about just restricting the max size you can change the text... but what if i changed it to become really really small, like this, i dont think you would like to see something like this, right ? I hope this helps to illustrate why i think that we should forbid changing the text size at all. And my idea was to limit the number of characters to 40, but 42 is so much cooler than the plain round 40 :) --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 19:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Hagnat. 50 characters are totally uneeded and would be just used to make unneeded statements on every page or having a ton of links on an user's sig when said user hardly actively participates in half of them. And the limit on unconventional characters covers a lot of bad faith signatures such as this one. MFC12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567 20:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Actually, there is no single 'unconventional char' in DarkStar signature there... there is a bunch of sup and sub tags there, but only alphanumerical characters. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 21:37, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Really? Then, how to avoid that? --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 22:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
We need to avoid that ? Dont you think this policy is already a lot restrictive ? --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 22:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I was just asking! If there's no simple way to restrict that, leave it alone. I suppose that by eliminating the use of colored backgrounds, most of the impact on such signatures and the aesthetic reasons to make them like that, are eliminated. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 22:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
Hagnat. How does "Alphanumerical characters (a-z,A-Z,0-9)" mean characters from other languages are allowed? Also, if you are going to make it 42 character you might as well make it 40 for simplicity's sake.--Gage 22:59, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I'd say he's got a sig in mind for himself which uses 42 characters. Cyberbob  Talk  23:02, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I like the number 42, and the number 17... that's all. 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything. 17 is a really odd number, in my opinion. Granted, 42 - 17 will leave 25 characters to be used by the nickname of a user, then users with nicknames shorter than that will not have any kind of problem with this policy. (actually, i dont think most users will have a problem with that... users with signatures longer than 30 should be shot in the foot.) --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 23:29, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
You can choose 3 characters from other languages to be added into your signature, gage, as per that line you asked me to take away. More than that is a nuisance for a wiki written in english. (hey, my spell checker doesnt recognize 'english' as a word in english... sweet..) --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 23:31, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I think you have to capitalize the word. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 23:54, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the titles and little comments in the sigs aren't needed. Why not do away with them. Besides, does anyone but Gage, Self-Proclaimed Benevolent Ruler of the Wiki and Alleged Stalinist use them? How about just your name and then a limit on your sup link length. Come to think of it, why do we have the sup links anyway? Do they ever get clicked by anyone? --Kiki Lottaboobs 07:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes they do, Kiki. Especially the ones to talk pages. Anyone without a direct link to their talk page in their sig ought to be shot in the foot too ;) -- boxy T L ZS PA DA 07:55, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't necessarily advocate commission of a felony assault for an inconvenience like not having a T! in one's sig. But I use sup links all the time, to get to talk pages quickly and to learn more about the people with whom I'm communicating. -- Atticus Rex mfu pif Δ 09:55, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The little comments are really useful, they show the rest of the community the things the user supports. And a shortcut for the user talk page is really handy (i still need to add mine...). About titles... there are several users that sign in a different name than its username. Like Sonny, who signs as Sonny Corleone but his username is Saromu, and Cyberbob, that sign as A Bothan Spy but his real user name is Cyberbob240. Titles are there to give people a way to have fun even while signing. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 14:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Da Policy

ok, i want to have this policy under voting as soon as possible... so i ask people to just say what they think the policy is lacking and if its ok for it to go as it is right now (14:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)). Below this line, just add a comment on how you feel about it, and what should be changed. Do not comment on other people comments. Thank you for your collaboration. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 14:03, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I just hate it. I want to use animated, colorful, stupidly long and blinking signatures. Why is that bad? It works on Uncyclopedia.--Thari TжFedCom is BFI! 14:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I hate to say it, but I don't like it either. It reeks of censorship. --A Bothan Spy Mod WTF U! B! 14:19, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
I hate it. Just give mods the right to change signatures that go too far. Make intentionally breaking the page a vandal banning offense. That would solve all our issues right there.--Gage 14:51, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, let's make the Mods decide what's good and what's bad for our eyes, as if your siggy above weren't horribly hedious. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 23:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The mods can be trusted with the responsibility of getting rid of sigs that break pages. Most of them, anyway.--J Muller 03:52, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
I like it. The censorship argument against this is silly. A signature is a functional device, it shouldn't be an expressive tool. All a sig reader wants is a basic indicator of who you are, as in "ID" not in some touchy feelie wholistic way. Sigs are indexical to your "expression" in that they link to your userpage. I personally find the "clutter" that invades discussion from overly elaborate sigs obnoxious.--The Envoy 23:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Could you stretch the policy to allow !"£$%^&*()+={}[];#:@\/<,>.? and | too? They can easily be typed on an English keyboard (with the possible exception of the pound sign, I don't know about foreign countries.) --Toejam 18:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there should be any restriction on the characters that can and cannot be used. That is just ridiculous. Take that out.--Gage 18:21, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I think we don't need to be using non standard characters. Cyrillic/arabic/hewbrew, though cool looking, won't show up on many computers except as the lovely blank boxes of no info. Maybe only limit it to standard unicode? Ideas? --Darth Sensitive Talk W! 23:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think there should be a restriction on symbols either. Mine are all html compliant in my sig, so they should work fine in any browser. Why then restrict them? --Ducis DuxSlothTalk 06:20, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Why shouldn't I be able to use Arabic? I use it in MSN, et cetera, and other non-Urban Dead settings, and the little boxes don't seem to be causing any harm. Paul Brunner 01:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't like it. It is unnecessary censorship put on a system that is not at all broken. --Wikidead 01:30, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Links within signatures

I think you should ban links that lead to somewhere differently than they're named e.g. if I put a 'talk' link on my signature, but link to someone else's talk page. Or if I link my name to my talk page and my 'talk' link to my userpage. Or would this come under 'impersonation'? Jonny12 talk . w(m)^∞ 21:11, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

No, impersonation has to do with putting words in other people's mouths either overtly or covertly. That would just be asshattery. –Xoid M•T•FU! 02:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah right, well I still think doing that should be banned. Jonny12 talk . w(m)^∞ 16:27, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

take over

can someone take over this policy, finish writting it up and put it for voting ? i'm rather busy with work and rl stuff that i cant finish it right now, and would love to see this for voting before saturday. (matthew, nothing personal, but i ask you NOT to take over this) --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 02:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I can do it.--Gage 02:38, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
erm, if you were waiting for my blessing, gage, go ahead, this policy is all yours. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 15:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Hehe, I'm cool with that. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 02:55, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

How To

If we have a policy on this, can we also get a "how to" page? I'm currently trying to figure out how to implement a link to my group in my signature, and its a PITA to have to re-invent the wheel. Yes, I relaise this info is accesable via "help"- a simple link to the relevant help section in the policy would do the trick. Its silly (IMO) to have a policy on something, and not explain how that something works. --Swiers 14:56, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do about that tonight. --Darth Sensitive Talk W! 04:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Here you go. Anyone want to look it over and revise it if I've botched something horribly? --Darth Sensitive Talk W! 04:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Image Height

A maximum cap on image height can come handy, considering that there are heights that, altough not wiki-breaking, could be extremely annoying. --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 03:25, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Read the current policy that this one is extending. It has a limit to 14px even though it really isn't enforced. - JedazΣT MC ΞD GIS S! 03:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
The sole idea of these policies is to have a way to ban those who abuse the system. I will never see if a signature has the propper size and complain unless its an annoying one. --People's Commissar Hagnat [cloned] [mod] 03:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
But then the guy that got nailed will be able to protest like "but X has a signature that doesn't comply too!". --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 03:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Then they can take it to M/VB if s/he doesn't mind looking like a whining little prig -- boxy T L ZS Nuts2U DA 11:40, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

New Revisions

Just for the record, I'm not a fan of the revisions as done by Gage, it removed a lot of substance. I'll still support it, but wish the bans on multi-images and gifs were still there. --Darth Sensitive Talk W! 03:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

CaptainM sig attracts a whole lot more of attention that his comments usually deserve with those 4 dancing gifs ^_^ --Matthew Fahrenheit YRC☺T☺+1 03:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Template Sigs Break The Wiki

At least, I think they do.

The suggestions discussion page is forever breaking - and I've been told that it's either due to the page length (?) or the amount of templates being used. Apparently, some security feature stops templates from being displayed if there are over a certain number on a page.

Because of this, many archived pages just don't look right: case in point.

Given this state of affairs, the more people who use template sigs - those that start with {{ and end in }} - the more chance there is that a page's template security feature will kick in and stop it working.

Now - as there's no real point in using special sigs beyond some kind of "look at my name" pissing match, why are they even allowed?

Disclaimer: my conclusions are based on what I understand happens from what I've been told by a particular mod. I may be wrong.

--Funt Solo Scotland flag.JPG 22:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Each template generates additional database queries and processing, so if you have a large amount of them in any place, I suppose it's logical that mediawiki stops rendering the templates, to prevent a sort of denial of service attack where people spam templates on a page, and mediawiki freezes up trying to lookup and render them all (that actually happened before on udwiki, iirc). This is also the reason why major wikimedia wikis, such as wikipedia or uncyclopedia don't allow templated sigs - to reduce the amount of processing done by the server. Every time you change a page using templated sigs, each and every sig has to be looked up and processed before inclusion in the page's cache, which isn't nice at all, and generates a lot of excessive database queries.
Also, you can have perfectly fine and fancy sigs, as long as you don't template them. They are going to be a bit longer on the edit page, though. --Daranz.t.mod.W(M)^∞. 23:11, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Given all of that to be the case, then, I propose that we disallow template sigs on this wiki. --Funt Solo Scotland flag.JPG 11:03, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Or require everyone with a template sig to use "subst:", which nobody seems to have mentioned yet? --Kevan 10:29, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
How would that be different than just using the the raw signature option in preferences? What would be the advantages of using templated sigs? -- boxy T L ZS Nuts2U DA 10:56, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Whenever someone edits the whole suggestions discussion page (rather than just a section), it breaks all the templated sigs, along with any other template on the page. It's a pain in the arse, and it's just happened again, Talk:Suggestions -- boxy T L ZS Nuts2U DA 11:25, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Templated sigs have a few very real concerns, other than just being annoying, which is what this policy seems to be aimed at. Perhaps it deserves it's own policy. One is the breaking long pages when there are too many templates on it, as discussed above, and there is also the issue that by changing your sig template you are changing every signature you have left on the wiki beforehand. This becomes a problem when:

  • users change their display name, and in a discussion other users refer to an old display name that doesn't show up as being involved in the discussion.
  • users status changes. Someone who isn't a mod is involved in a discussion, then months later becomes a mod and their backdated posts all seem to have been made by a mod as well.

Something to think about -- boxy T L ZS Nuts2U DA 11:52, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Irony

wtf u a idit an i don kno wut sigtures are but you idit an i say no --Grundo 23:04, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That is all. --SirensT RR 00:10, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

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