Reagrding the non-Latin characters, then why aren't they removed from the actual article namespace in articles like Wang Chong, Korea, and Japanese language. Chcknwnm 02:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Because they are in almost all cases preceded by the English version or transliteration, and because a reader can expect to encounter some foreign characters in articles on certain subjects. Signatures that do not display correctly, however, can be an impediment to identifying or referring to a given user, as well as to editing talk pages and responding to posts. Exploding Boy 02:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In my signature, I have Korean charcters. Without them, I can still be identified, as 'Chuck' is still there. When foreign characters don't render, they appear as blocks, and don't interfer with editing or responding that I know of. I don't think that it matters whether or not it is a foreign subject article, or a user signature, as users can be of forein heritage and/or have completely foreign names. Chcknwnm 02:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, in regards to your #1, that it was Tony's talk page and therefore more than reasonable: It is a Wikipedia page, not Tony's. The purpose of User talk:Tony Sidaway is for members of the Wikipedia community to be able to communicate with Tony. Tony is open to archiving the page, deleting comments that have been responded to, but not to alter others people's comments. Chcknwnm 03:07, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well the key is communication. This is better facilitated by improving the signal-to-noise ratio of the page: viz, editing the more ridiculous signatures to something less intrusive. The signatures play only one part in communication: identification of the author and the date and time of the comment. None of the other stuff plays any part in the communication, but is merely vanity on the part of the editor. When that gets in the way, of course it should be freely refactored. --Tony Sidaway 04:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Err, speedy delete? Why? Friday (talk) 04:30, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good question. I put the hang on tag while I went to see what G1 was. It says, "Patent nonsense, i.e. no meaningful content, unsalvageably incoherent page. This does not include: poor writing, partisan screeds, obscene remarks, vandalism, badly translated material, implausible theories or hoaxes." I don't see that here. Maybe Tawker could explain. Thanks, Chuck^(척뉴넘) 04:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Talked to Tawker. Was an honest mistake. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 04:45, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did Tony try to discuss the matter with the affected people in a civil way? Andjam 04:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

At some length . [1] [2][3]. --Tony Sidaway 04:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(after edit conflict (thought it important to add too)) Yes, he did discuss it civily...I didn't provide diffs, but if you look at his talk at User_talk:Tony_Sidaway#Just_curious, you can see it. However, he never did consede to requests, which is the reason for the RfC. And btw: I am grearful that Tony was civil, it's hard to find sometimes with dealing with problems like this. Chcknwnm 05:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, all were civil. I am not prepared to accede to the requests that I refrain from refactoring large, obtrusive and ugly signatures where they significantly degrade the shared discussion environment, however. Indeed I believe that this practice should be adopted wiki-wide. Thus the dispute continues. --Tony Sidaway 05:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad that you have discussed things.

You said on the project page "Both primary disputants above are complaining particularly about my editing of my own discussion page. This is of course utterly absurd.". If you're going to be going beyond your own talk page (eg, this page(!)), isn't that comment a bit of a distraction? (Also, is saying "utterly absurd" helpful?).

Also, if you're going to be doing this beyond your own talk page, wouldn't a more productive approach be to suggest (on their user talk page) that they change their signature, rather than "cleaning up" every one of their signatures? Andjam 05:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, be careful. It is most likely considered bad form to remove sigs from the talk page of an RfC about removing sigs. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 05:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Are you aware that your siganture takes up two lines even at a high resolution? (currently I'm at 1600x1200) If I go down to a more typically used resolution, it ends up being three and even four lines. Would you agree having a signature as long as your comment may be a bit much for those trying to comment on/edit talk pages after you? .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 05:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

pfft 3-4 lines? that is small compared to what mine used to be. Mine used to be 7-8 lines long. 我爱浮游生物 ^{(ILovePlankton)} 05:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. But do you agree that might be a stumbling block for others trying to edit? .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 05:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(after another edit conflict) Yeah, there is no set length, and if Tony is consistent, he'll change both Jareth's and ILovePlankton's. Here he is greeted with a problem. If he doesn't change those two (and Nathan's below too, now that I notice), that would be suspect of picking on certain people. If he does change it, he's providing another diff for the evidence section. To Tony: to solve the dilemma, you might want to put the sigs back on this page and just hold off while the RfC is being discussed. This reduces further problems. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 05:37, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Avoiding your concern with Tony's behavior, can you understand why several lines of signature might be a disadvantage to other editors? Have you read the siganture guidelines you presented as an applicable policy where it discusses those disadvantages? .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 05:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jareth do you wan't my honest opinion? If so I have never had troubles editing when some one has a long sig (I just went around it). 我爱浮游生物 ^{(ILovePlankton)} 05:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't generally either, but I do use a rather high resolution. The question is more about whether or not you can understand that it might be a difficulty to other editors, particularlly those who do not have the advantages of more modern equipment and higher resolutions. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 05:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I concede. Some users may have trouble with it. 我爱浮游生物 ^{(ILovePlankton)} 05:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So following that, would it also make sense that like user pages, signatures should conform to the guidelines enacted by the community? .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 05:55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Using logical reasoning, one should assume that if there is an RfC about an aspect of one's behaviour, that one should immediately stop said behaviour while the RfC is in progress. Well, one should assume, anyway. The problem with this statement is that all people aren't logical. — Nathan ^(talk) 05:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a wikipedia policy on chutzpah? Andjam 05:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages (WP:SIG) says:

"A 300 character signature, for instance, is likely to be much larger than most of the comments to which it will be appended and this is likely to make discussions harder for everybody to participate in. Both images and long signatures carry the danger of giving undue prominence to a user's contribution. Reduce it to the minimum necessary."

Well thankfully neither Nathan nor Chuck has such a long signatures as 300 characters! They're both less than 200 characters, I believe. Nevertheless they are both much longer than necessary and both rival in length, or even exceed, the quite long comments to which they are attached above (on this one occasion I have refrained from trimming the signatures so that other editors can see for themselves the obstacles this creates to easily recognising and reading comment text in the edit box).

I think it's reasonable to tidily trim a signature back to something we can all live with. I certainly don't think it's reasonable to complain about a trimmed signature in a shared editing and discussion space, as long as it doesn't prevent people recognising the username (with a link of course) of the commentator, and the date and time of the comment. All the rest is vanity, and moreover is often repeated many times on a page, mounting up to many kilobytes of noise. There should be no expectation that such noise be allowed to remain where it seriously degrades the discussion medium. --Tony Sidaway 05:40, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could you please tell us what kind of noise it is, I for one only hear my keyboard. 我爱浮游生物 ^{(ILovePlankton)} 05:47, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I use the term noise in its technical sense, as in signal-to-noise ratio. In editing a discussion on a wiki, the words of the discussion here are the signal, as are the useful parts of the signature. Additional text in the signature is noise; it adds nothing to the discussion and the effect of its presence is only to make it more difficult to locate the signal, and also means that less of the discussion (as opposed to unwanted text, or noise) is displayed in the edit box. --Tony Sidaway 05:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If my signature is less than 300 characters then (by your logic), you shouldn't have any reason to change it. It would be appreciated if you could please refrain from doing so, at least while this RfC is in progress. Thanks so much. — Nathanrdotcom 05:49, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(Oh, so many edit conflicts) I appreciate your stopping the trimming (even if it is just to show how 'annoying' our sigs are). The way I see it is this: When I see someone's sig as [[User:---]], I get the first impression that that person isn't unique enough to identify themselves with a specific signature. While signatures are allowed, and for the ones that don't violate the policies/guidlines, they should be allowed to stay, as an "image" of that person's character. Since I assume other people feel the same when they see a signature (that it shows who the person is), I don't want them to think that I don't have enough character to create my own signature, which is the image that is portrayed when Tony (or anybody else) changes my signature. User:Chcknwnm 05:54, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Out of curiosity, would you regard Grue's black background as signature "vanity" that wikipedia could do without? Andjam 05:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]