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]

I think the signature communicates a lot about the person. As someone who wants a more NPOV persona here, I keep my sig simple. There is the risk that we will have eye candy inflation though, and simple sigs will not catch the eye of the casual observer. Stephen B Streater 13:21, 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]

Oh yeah, I had multiple tabs open and I had one of those enter it in the wrong tab and hit save moments. (Yes Yes, I know, I can always hit Alt-D but IMHO its sometimes best to have a second set of eyes review a A7 CSD (which ironically was deleted in the timeframe I re-loaded the page) -- Tawker 06:56, 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]

Well, Nathan and Chuck did ask me to stop editing their signatures on my talk page. This is, as you say, a bit of a distraction. This doesn't in any way lessen its utter, blithering absurdity.

That's a misrepresentation of my words. I was saying you were engaging in distraction, not that Nathan and Chuck were. Let me put it this way: If you were only editing signatures on your talk page, then saying "they were complaining about what I was doing on my own talk page" might be relevant. But if you're also editing signatures outside "your" talk page, then saying that they were complaining about what you were doing on your talk page is true but not relevant. Andjam 14:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think we've gone far beyond the stage where signatures can be cleaned up by politely asking their owners, attractive as this idea is. Nathan, for instance, last month was approached about his then-obscenely large signature, which was about 730 characters in size and contained three embedded images. He said that as the signature guideline was a mere guideline and not policy, it was quite okay if he sat back and did nothing about it. He then took it to WP:ANI and called the people who approached him bullies, and asked for one of them to be warned and the other desysopped.

Your determination fix problems By any means necessary is what gets you so much criticism. Andjam 14:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was at this point that I intervened and blocked him. He subsequently trimmed the signature, though at one point he did also launch a misconceived RfC against me.

Blocking someone when they've made a complaint against you doesn't sound like a wise use of admin powers. Andjam 14:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In such circumstances, it strikes me that there is a more sensible, less intrusive way to deal with this. Talk pages are public spaces and they can always use editing to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. So the solution to the problem of the signature louts is simply to refactor the worst of the signatures. --Tony Sidaway 06:24, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If you're going to refractor someone's signature wherever you come across it, how is it less intrusive? Haven't you effectively "owned" his signature? Andjam 14:04, 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]

Not if it is only a guidline. 我爱浮游生物 ^{(ILovePlankton)} 06:10, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You don't believe community guidelines should be followed? .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 06:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, I believe guidlines should be followed, I believe they are called guidlines for a reason. ILovePlankton 15:37, 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]

"If my signature is less than 300 characters then (by your logic), you shouldn't have any reason to change it" No, that's a non sequitur. --Tony Sidaway 06:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please do explain. — User:nathanrdotcom 06:08, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes of course. I quoted a guideline giving 300 characters signature as an example of a size at which your signature would greatly dwarf nearly all comments made before it. It does not follow that I would not edit a 299 line character signature. You claim that the logic here is mine, but it isn't. It's a non sequitur introduced by you. --Tony Sidaway 06:34, 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]

This reasoning strikes me as somewhat immature. A person's uniqueness is not defined by the characters after his comments. If you want to see evidence of uniqueness, look rather at the words of his comments. --Tony Sidaway 05:59, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, immature or not, people reason like that (and I'm not sure they'd like to be called immature). As a side-note, why does everyone else get their sig changed to not have user and I get User:Chcknwnm. If you do change it, at least make it Chuck. (that last statement was in no way an endorsement of the changing of signatures). Chuck^(척뉴넘) 06:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh don't feel bad, it's worse when he changes mine. When mine gets changed, it's Nathanrdotcom. No respect for my preference of a small n on my username (if it's to be used), and no respect for my preference that my name be displayed instead of my username. Mr. Sidaway, will you please stop changing other user's sigs (for the same reason that people change their sigs when you ask them) out of respect? Thank you very much. — Nathan ^(talk) 06:04, 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]

Absolutely. It's extremely unsightly. --Tony Sidaway 06:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where is Grue's signature, I wanna see? User:Chcknwnm (Chuck) 06:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User talk:Grue seems like a good place to start. --Tony Sidaway 06:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How is a 1 inch black rectangle extremely anything? -Goldom ‽‽‽ ⁂ 06:12, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You need to ask? Actually, while it's very unsightly on the page, it's not a particularly noisy signature in the edit box. So it's not necessarily the kind of thing I'd be inclined to refactor. But it's still ugly. --Tony Sidaway 06:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(After 3 edit conflicts) His sig doesn't have images, doesn't go over 300 charters, or even 200, and doesn't expand beyond the line (on my brower at least), so I'd say nothing wrong. Definately a sig that identifies the user. User:Chcknwnm (Chuck) 06:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This:  Grue  would identify him better, don't you think? I mean, have you ever seen a white grue? ;-) Or maybe this one is special? ;-p Misza13 ^{T C} 15:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's an Albino one. (BTW, how big is 300 charters, Chuck?) Andjam 16:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. And not so revoltingly ugly that it forces people to close their browser windows in horror. Just distracting, and rather ugly. --Tony Sidaway 06:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not everything can be pretty (I learned that at the prom). My username for example, I find that very ugly (I made it when it was cool to write my name with no vowels (and no, my name is not Chicken Woman (that would be chcknwmn))). There is never a clear line on what's ugly and what's not, so changing things to fit your preference is inappropriate. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 06:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I think something like Grue or grue would look fine. It is possible that Grue thinks it looks okay because he is using a particular skin in which it blends nicely into the text. In other skins it does not. Nevertheless Grue's signature is small in the edit box and that is probably what matters most in this particular instance. --Tony Sidaway 06

55, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Err, until we have a CSD for "Anything that annoys Tony Sidaway", does it matter? LOTs of things about editing are annoying. Edit conflicts suck, but do we blow away other people's comments, or do we get along harmoniously with others? Tony, despite your good intentions and the ugly sigs, there is a practical issue here. People see what you're doing as a bullying move. Isn't this reason enough to cut it out? Throw your weight around elsewhere if you must, but picking on signatures because you personally find them ugly is a bit over-the-top, don't you think? Friday (talk) 12:39, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh that's nonsense. Refactoring is a lot nicer than the alternative: making people change their signatures. The subject isn't worth devoting that much energy to, whereas refactoring is a painless and friendly way to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of a discussion page. What are discussion pages for? Discussion! Not ever-growing heaps of text junk that serve no purpose. --Tony Sidaway 12:57, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is yet another alternative: leave it alone. I find tin wings on cars unsightly, but I don't wander through parking lots ripping them off, either. Seeing an intentionally distasteful car may lower my opinion of the driver's taste, but it needs go no further than that. I agree that people's sigs aren't generally worth spending time on, but you brought this on yourself when you chose to spend time changing them. Friday (talk) 13:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, you still haven't gotten the point: signal-to-noise ratio. --Tony Sidaway 13:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, be honest here. How many people (besides you) find signatures like Grue's distruptive or annyoing? How much is the community "slowed down" by them? Very little to none. Now how many people find other editors editing their own comments (this includes signatures) distruptive or at least rude? Many. How much time is lost by those people getting annoyed at this, trying to put an end to this or just getting fed up and do not contribute for that day? Quite alot. Besides, you are ignoring guidelines and policy again - and since you are an admin I expect better of you than "fuck process". CharonX/talk 14:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did I say that Grue's signature was "disruptive or annoying?" Someone (Andjam I think) mentioned it and asked my opinion of it. I replied that I found it "extremely unsightly" but "not so revoltingly ugly that it forces people to close their browser windows in horror. Just distracting, and rather ugly".

You falsely claim that I'm ignoring guidelines and policy. I believe that the relevant guidelines have been cited, and I am not ignoring any of them.

Now if there are some editors with extremely large signatures, and those signatures are edited to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of Wikipedia, I'm not that surprised that they're annoyed. The same selfish streak that makes them mess up the shared editing environment also makes them see improvements to the environment, at the cost of some trivial frippery in thier signatures, as "rude" and even "disruptive". Well that's silly but I understand that they might feel that way. -Tony Sidaway 14:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, for the last time, stop editing my signature. CharonX/talk 14:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Tony, While I don't disagree with the principle of what you quoted from WP:SIG, In playing devils advocate I have to point out that you wrote the first sentence of it. [4]. Couldn't people construe this to be a bit of a conflict? Regards User:Charlie_Huggard 06:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I did indeed draft the words of the guideline. If they were displeasing, I'm sure they would have been removed by now, for they followed quite a long discussion and straw poll. --Tony Sidaway 06:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could you address a few more of my concerns Tony?

First off, could you point me to the straw poll you're referring to? The comments you left on the talk page make reference to a poll on Images, I found one that addressed a particular signature at User:GeorgeMoney/sigpoll, but I'm yet to find one on Wikitext length of signatures in general. It would help me better understand your arguments.

If you are referring to the discussion surrounding the last RfC/you 3, do you see how others could percieve a conflict of interest in editing WP:SIG as your actions were central to the discussion?

Also do you see how others could percieve another conflict of interest in editing WP:SIG approx a day after performing actions that you seem to ex post facto justify by your own edits to the guideline? (The date on the diff provided for the change to ILovePlankton's signature is 15:12, 27 May 2006 whereas your edits to WP:SIG are dated 18:19, 28 May 2006)

Thanks Charlie^{( @CIRL | talk | email )} 07:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I refer you to the extensive discussion on the talk page, including numerous straw polls (not just one on images). You may also see the edit history of the guideline. The suggestion that the size of signatures was only mentioned as an issue after I had blocked Nathan is not only false, it's quite absurd. On 13 May the length guideline read:

Please try to keep signatures short, because very long signatures cloud up the page source in edit mode, making it harder for other editors to find where your comment stopped. Both images and long signatures carry the danger of giving undue prominence to that user's contribution. Reduce it to the minimum necessary.

I had never edited the guideline at that point.

Nathan's adamant refusal to budge on his signature did undoubtedly, however, contribute somewhat to the firming of views and the resultant change in the guideline. --Tony Sidaway 09:27, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tony. I'm sorry if my last comments came off as a bit harsh (I really didn't mean to be, but after an hour last night of trying to figure out how exactly to make my points, it's the best that I came up with). However I'll say that I'm now fully convinced your actions were correct. In the future I feel it would be helpful if you left a message for the user on their talk page when you change their signature, to help them work towards a good compromise between their current signature and the "plain-jane" signature (If they can be convinced to change their signature, it'll mean less work for you and others in the future). In a show of good faith I've even shortened up my signature some too. Many regards, Charlie^{( t | e )} 12:44, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Since you haven't looked at Tony's actions, is it appropriate to comment at this RfC (you comments are welcome of course, but would be taken in better light if you were aware of the whole situation)? As for us having ugly signatures, who is to determine what is ugly? I think that it's not the 'Chuck' part that is ugly. The green 'u' adds flavor. And the korean charcters (which are actually my name in case anyone was wondering), add some artistic value. If it's the edit box that looks ugly...don't they all? I mean, infoboxes are horrendous, as are things written with <div> tags. So I think that signatures being ugly is open to too much varied opinion (which is why there are policies on the matter, so that we know what's clear-cut) User:Chcknwnm (Chuck) 06:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I offer this possible explanation for Ral315's comment: he opened the RfC, looked at the signatures in the complaint, and decided to make a comment about them. --Tony Sidaway 06:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's times like this where I'm tempted to pull out my other signature. {{User:Carnildo/sandbox}}

Chcknwnm (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · nuke contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log), please do not remove other people's signatures. This is your first warning. Alphax ^τεχ 07:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm...not sure if I like being classified as a vandal, as I was reverting blanking, and an obvious attempt to provoke people at this RfC. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 07:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that's just the unfortunate template name actually, not a reference to you being a vandal. I belive Carnildo just got stuck in an edit conflict there. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 07:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No provoking intended. I keep that sig around as a humorous example of just how extreme signatures can get. --Carnildo 07:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh heh... Cute, There's one that even under my rules that one qualifies for being cleaned up Charlie^{( @CIRL | talk | email )} 07:22, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The "warning" was intended to be humorous as well. Alphax ^τεχ 07:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If it's all in good fun would you mind removing it? We can refer people to look at [5] if they want to see it in reference to this discussion. Regards, Charlie^{( @CIRL | talk | email )} 07:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC) (and thanks!)[reply]

Can we list these, please? - User:Aaron Brenneman 13:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

They speak for themselves. --Tony Sidaway 13:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've never seen his name in an article's edit history or in an article's talk page. He seems to spend all his time on userboxes. (Joking ... I think) Andjam 14:16, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's because Tony deletes all the articles ;-) Actually, his work in raising userbox and sig. issues is important too. Letting things flow along the path of least resistance won't always get us where we want to be. Stephen B Streater 14:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't done much article work in the past few months, but I have over eight thousand article edits (all of them by hand; I never use a bot or automation tool). At the moment I do a lot of clerk work for the Arbitration Committee and I'm also involved in arbitration enforcement. I'm a Mediawiki developer and produced a fix for a blocking bug, then promptly buried it when I thought about the ethical implications (knowing NOT to roll out after weeks of testing is, I think, one of my better points). More recently I've spent my energies as a developer on a tool for measuring vandalism on many Mediawiki sites. In lisp, because I can. --Tony Sidaway 14:52, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think that people may perceive the sigs differently. Perhaps younger people are more used to glitzy stuff and they can ignore it more easily, for example. So how about this first attempt at a resolution:

• We allow an option in "my preferences" which converts all sigs to a standard format like the default sig for that user.
  • Then Tony et al can read the debates clearly
  • Others et al can enjoy the eye-candy in peace

What do people think? Stephen B Streater 13:26, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A software change? Gosh. My initial reaction is "surely there must be more important things for the developers to work on." Friday (talk) 13:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There's no need for a "solution". There's no problem except a few editors who think that refactoring should not be permitted on their signatures. Tony Sidaway 13:33, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A software change by one programmer may take less effort than dozens of people taking time in this debate. Who knows, this may grow to be as time consuming as the userbox wars if we don't sort it now. Stephen B Streater 14:32, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to joke about putting a userbox in a signature, but that got me thinking - would putting signatures into a template be a possiblity? It wouldn't help with appearance (unless there was an option to ignore fancy signatures), but it would help with the editing problem. Andjam 15:41, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd envisage the resulting wikicode to look something like

nuke this category from orbit. {{User:Joeblogs/signature}} 12:34, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

Tony implies that only a small minority of editors object to his actions here- so far this doesn't seem to be very accurate. His continued insistance that this is about signal-to-noise ratio misses the point. Tony, the problem is that people have asked you to stop, and you've refused- preferring instead to continue your anti-signature crusade with renewed vigor. If certain individuals have truely obnoxious sigs, there are better ways to deal with that problem. Some signatures annoy you personally- we get it. Is this a battle worth fighting? Friday (talk) 14:17, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're still pretending that the problem doesn't exist. The point is signal-to-noise ratio. --Tony Sidaway 14:20, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many editors make stupid comments or do other things that I personally consider "noise". However it would be extraordinarily rude of me to go around editing people's comments for that reason. We don't all have the same standards, so we should take care when imposing our standards on everyone else. Friday (talk) 14:58, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It would indeed be silly, except in exceptional circumstances such as personal attacks, to edit comments. That's a straw man you're beating the hell out of.

Noise in this context is fairly tightly defined. Regular repeated text at the end of discussion edits that does anything more than identify the user and give a timestamp, and perhaps a talk link, is noise.

On imposing standards, I think the boot is on the other foot (as can be seen from the strong and growing support for refactoring signatures on this RfC). There are shared areas of the wiki whose primary purpose is discussion. We shouldn't inflict our taste in graphics, color or typography on other editors, and if we do, we shouldn't make enormously large and intrusive signatures that pollute the discussion with unnecessary noise. If we do, we shouldn't be surprised if someone improves things --Tony Sidaway 15:04, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The outside view by Andjam got me thinking. So far everything I've seen here just reinforces my belief that Tony Sidaway is a very polarizing editor - people who deal with him fall into one of two camps. In Camp A, there those who applaud his bold actions in doing what he thinks makes the encyclopedia better, and they don't care how many people he pisses off while doing this. In Camp B, there are those who see many of his actions as needlessly pompous, arrogant, and disruptive. I suspect that never the twain shall meet. The problem is, those in Camp A who stand around clapping are contributing to the problem- you're reinforcing Tony's holy-warrior approach when what he really needs is a large helping of humility and tact. Tony, do you see that even when you're right, there's a disadvantage to being so polarizing? Somtimes we have to piss people off to work on the encyclopedia- no reasonable editor is denying that- I've pissed off plenty of kids who's vanity articles I've deleted. But, we should still avoid pissing people off for no good reason. This is just common sense. Friday (talk) 15:31, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. Being able to work well with others is the hallmark of a good admin, and indeed is pretty much a requirement on RfA. --Fang Aili ^talk 15:36, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree, He shouldn't piss people off for no reason. ILovePlankton 15:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There will always be two camps in any issue, but to call a little bit of refactoring, immensely improving talk pages with each edit, "holy warring" is to gravely misread the issue. There is no problem for Wikipedia here except a few selfish editors who want to prevent share public talk pages from being harmlessly refactored to improve them. Of course they're pissed off, but that need not concern us as Wikipedians. They put their vanity before Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 15:43, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Such delicious irony. Putting your vanity before Wikipedia is exactly what I see you doing here. Your editing of signatures in this manner has proven far more disruptive than the signatures themselves. Friday (talk) 15:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

you may or may not believe it has been diruptive, but no matter what you think, it has been disruptive, if it hadn't then we wouldn't be here would we? ILovePlankton 15:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A number of editors don't like their signatures being refactored. That is an editing dispute. Disruption is something else entirely. Disruption is not a bunch of selfish editors moaning about their oversized signatures not remaining forever untouched in the place where they were dropped. --Tony Sidaway 16:29, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How is my signature oversized? Taking up 1.25 lines in my 1200 x 1024 (something like that) browser, and being only 164 characters (with spaces). That's about half of what the guidline says is too much. It's not unsightly, IMO. Unsightly would be Cyde's signature. It's not disruptive. Tony, let me ask you this. A month ago, you blocked Nathan for a "stupidly large signature". You stated that he was being disruptive, and was already asked to change his signature twice. Even though he wasn't clearly violating policy/guidlines, he could still be blocked because he was already asked to not be disruptive. Then I ask you why you shouldn't be blocked by another admin. Me and Nathan (two people) have asked you to stop changing our signatures. You have been informed that this is disruptive. By your way-of-doing, you should be blocked. If you don't think so, then you should seriously consider rescinding you support for the block of Nathan a month ago. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 16:50, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Here is my signature, for reference (please don't reformat this one): Chuck^(척뉴넘) . I would like to know honestly: 1)How many lines does it take up in the edit window, and to compare, how many does yours take up? 2)Have you ever found it to interfer with your editing. 3)If I were to put my sig at {{User:Chcknwnm/Sig}}, could I still sign with ~~~~?

I look at my signature like this. Not everyone is going to see my previous comments on a talk page, and thus not see my signature. My signature prevents me from, at the end off every message, writing, "Let me know if there's anything else. If you want to know where I'm coming from on this, check out my userpage. To know if this is normally how I edit, check out what I do. The reason I'm so civil when I talk is because I'm a member of Esperanza." Now jee, that took up three lines. My normal signature only takes up 1.25 lines (IMB). Chuck^(척뉴넘) 16:42, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, the code for your sig takes up about 2.5 lines of screen space on my browser. And yes, signatures and the rest of other people's comments sometimes do mildly interfere with my editing. But, considering I'm not the only editor on this wiki, that's life. A mature editor deals with such annoyances without making a big deal out of them. Friday (talk) 16:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Answers to questions, 1)about two lines, probably less on my computer at home. 2)No, never. 3)I don't know. The only thing that I question (in your sig in particular) is the use of the Korean characters. They don't render correctly on some browsers, and I personally would not want to make people look at gibberish. I had some Chinese characters in my sig for a spell and only found out later that they didn't render correctly for some people. No one mentioned it. --Fang Aili ^talk 16:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could this be more about newer editors though? Its a bit easier to read and find the end of text, even when its linked than to understand a long blurb of code at the end of a post. Wikisyntax can be confusing enough. Consider which namespace you're using as well. Even much smaller sigs on pages like WP:CP can be obnoxious when trying to process the reports. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 16:56, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, most people will be reading the text on the rendered screen, and there, there is certainly no problem with the sig (unless the Koreab characters don't render, but then they're just blocks and not terribly unsightly. There are numerous articles with Asian characters in them, so that shouldn't be a problem), and when they go to edit they will most likely be looking to place their comment above another, not below. That's the easiest way to edit (as the beginning of the edit below with usually have a ':' or '*' or some other thing to signify it.), and is probably in common practice. Chuck^(척뉴넘) 17:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Right, but we're talking about editors here. We love the readers, of course, but the editors make the encylopedia; several lines of html code could be disruptive and confusing interspersed in the discussion. Additionally, Korean and other non-latinized characters don't render well in quite a few cases (I.E. 7.0, non-Windows OSes and non-default skins for example). Do you really think sthat most editors would top post? I haven't found that to be common practice on Wikipedia. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 17:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that newer editors could have trouble with it, though I think this is a minor point. New editors have to contend with much that is unfamiliar. I personally don't recall being confused by signature code at all, and I'm not a coder. I've always just gone to the next blank line and started typing. On WP:CP there are the astericks, which make it easy (for me) to determine what's what. As a side note, I consider my signature to be fairly basic, compared to many, though I am still open to discussion on this. But what this RfC is about is Tony's unwillingness to stop his behavior, even amidst pleas for him to do so. --Fang Aili ^talk 17:06, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can say from answering Wikipedia helpdesk tickets for quite some time that many new users find the code in signatures confusing. Also, working at things like WP:CP and other such lists, sigs (sometimes even not quite so large ones) are quite disruptive and require extra time to pick out each entry (there are no spaces between entries ;) ). I guess my concern is, I really don't see any particular reason to get bent over a signature being refactored. Now, if someone came along and did so to my userpage, I'd be miffed, but general cleanup to help the encylopedia work better shouldn't be something to be pleading about, should it? .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 17:13, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps reading the talk page guidelines would help then? Refactoring is a form of editing whose goal is to improve readability while preserving meaning. It is a stronger term than copy editing and can include removing superfluous content, summarizing long passages, and any other means that alter the presentation of information. This is not vandalism, accumulation can make understanding an ongoing discussion difficult and may discourage potential contributors from involvement. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 16:46, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If a discussion has become lengthy in such a way that it obscures meaning and hinders further discussion, an editor is encouraged to summarize it in such a way as to preserve all significant detail. It is the editor's responsibility to ensure credit is given to those who posted the original commentary. (Wherever possible an editor should use the original signatures of all of the parties involved.) I believe the last part is the most important. User:Chcknwnm (Chuck) 16:53, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. But when signatures obscure discussion for those attempting to edit, especially new users and some project space areas, that would be a good case in qhich you should not. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 17:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So you're going to cite a guidline, but when it turns against your POV, it's not needed? User:Chcknwnm (Chuck) 17:02, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uhm, no. I was attempting to apply common sense to Wherever possible and give a case where it might not be the best idea. Rules aren't suicide pacts. .:.Jareth.:. ^babelfish 17:19, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a guideline, but a technical help page (not that this really matters). The sensible thing to do when refactoring is to keep the important bits of signatures, such as username and timestamp. The "original signatures" should actually be construed as meaning that; the heavily customized signatures that are now unfortunately so common on Wikipedia are of quite recent origin, and it was never the intention of the technical help document to encourage people to leave useless material on the talk page. Refactoring is the time to get rid of that if it's causing a problem. --Tony Sidaway 17:25, 1 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]