Tardis:Signature policy

This page discusses policy surrounding signatures. For help in creating signatures, please see our help page.

Our signature policy governs the use of user signatures on this wiki. It works alongside our guidelines about avatars to lightly define the ways in which you present your identity in various discussion arenas on the wiki.

How done

Shortcut:

T:SIG HOW

Users may "sign" their comments by typing four consecutive tildes ~~~~. This action will trigger the display of whatever is in the signature line found at Special:Preferences. If you have opted to create something fancier than the default configuration — either by introducing new code directly into the signature line at Special:Preferences or by calling a template — then your code must be functional to the following extent:

• it must create a clickable link to your user page
• it must create a clickable link to your user talk page
• Both links must be clearly visible as separate links, in both Wikia and Wikia Mobile skins. Generally, Wikia Mobile disregards <div> and <span> statements, leaving behind only the base link. Therefore, links which rely on color alone to distinguish them are not acceptable. It is better to use clearly different symbols for the user and user talk pages, or to just explicitly verbalise the link, as in this example of the default signature:

Taccer 07 ^{talk to me}

When required

Shortcut:

T:SIG WHEN

This wiki forbids users from adding their signature to a page in "normal" article space. But it requires users to sign their posts on all pages that have the word "talk" in their full page names — places like User talk, File talk and plain, old Talk.

As of December 2012, we also forbid the use of signatures in the forum, since the forum code now automatically supplies a signature for you.

For those wishing a more precise wording of the policy:

• signatures are required' in all odd-numbered namespaces, as well as 110, 112, 500 and 502 — except for namespace 1201 (the new forum namespace, whose main namespace is called ').
• signatures are prohibited in all even-numbered namespaces, except 110, 112, 500 and 502
• signatures are optional in the discontinuity index and on your own user page. You may put your own signature on your own user page, but you may not put it on someone else's user page. (Please note that user pages, in namespace 2, are different from user talk pages, in namespace 3)

What to do if you encounter unsigned comments

From time to time you will run across unsigned comments on a talk page. It's recommended that you don't post replies like "Sign your posts, dude". Instead, forum consensus compels you to make an effort to help identify unsigned comments as they are encountered. This can be done by using the following markup:

{{unsigned|UserName}} and {{unsigned-anon|numerical IP address}}

By putting in one of these two templates, you'll create a message like this:

– The preceding unsigned comment was added by TimeTraveler (talk • contribs) .

which will more subtly indicate that a signature should've been added while positively identifying the poster who failed to sign.

What your signature should look like

Shortcut:

T:SIG LOOK

As of February 2012, the only limitation on the visual style of your signature is that it must allow for a visually distinct link to your user page and your user talk page. Therefore, this means that if you distinguish between the two solely by the use of color, you must redesign your signature. Moreover, the two links must also not immediately abut one another; there must be at least one non-linked character, like a space, between the two links.

To put it more concretely, these kinds of signature are not acceptable:

• Mmmpieisgoodtalk
• B B

It must be at least:

• Mmmpieisgood talk
• B b

This ruling is for the benefit of mobile users, because the Wikia Mobile skin disregards all <div> and <span> statements — and, indeed, most HTML tags, full stop — which otherwise might help to distinguish between the parts of a signature like Mmmpieisgoodtalk.

Equally, the colors seen in B B are entirely stripped, leaving behind the unclear B B.

Furthermore, your signature may not contain a picture which is taller than 12px. It also cannot contain a link to a picture which does not exist on this wiki, as this will unnecessarily put user talk pages into the category, Pages with broken file links.