Help:Signatures

Signatures are a piece of code that editors can use to identify themselves across a wiki's numerous discussion pages. It is imperative that you leave append a signature to every message you leave on a discussion page to aid other editors in identifying and dating your messages without having to check the page's revision history. Signatures are most commonly left by typing four tildes (~~~~).

Signatures are typically stored in a text field in your preferences and are limited to 100 characters, although this limit can be bypassed by making a signature template (see § Signature templates). . When typing four tildes, the content of this field will be substituted, followed by a substitution of a timestamp.

Requirements

• Signatures must clearly state the username they belong to.
• Signatures should not be obtrusive:
  • A signature's font size should not exceed the standard font size used for the body of pages.
  • Signatures should not contain images that would cause the lines above and below to be moved out of the way, nor use an excessive amount of images.
  • Signatures should not use colors that would create poor contrast or be difficult to see, such as overly bright or overly dark colors.

It is mandatory for signatures to include:

• Your MicroWiki username, linked to your user page.
• A link to your user talk page.

While not necessary, it is helpful to also include a link to your contributions. This can be implemented with [[Special:Contributions/Your username here, sans "User:"|Link mask]].

Signature templates

Users are allowed to bypass the 100-character limit of the signature field in preferences by creating a signature template—limitless customization with the convenience of a regular signature. This is useful if your signature code is long and can clutter up discussions, or if you want to better keep track of talk pages you've participated in. It is neither necessary nor recommended to substitute signature templates, as there are reasons certain users prefer them over traditional signatures; substituting signature templates interferes more than it helps. Signature templates are allowed as long as they:

• Follow the requirements defined above.
• Are contained to a subpage of the their creator's User page. Signature templates cannot be in the Template namespace.

Instructions

1. Create a subpage of your user called "Signature": Special:MyPage/Signature
2. Create and save your signature template. Express yourself! (But remember to follow the requirements!)
3. Create another subpage of your user called "Sig": Special:MyPage/Sig. (Really, it can be called anything you want, but naming it "Sig" helps keep things organized.) This will be the containing template that bypasses the software's signature substitution.
4. In this new /Sig subpage, simply call your signature template via a transclusion, and nothing else: {{User:Username/Signature}} Save this page.
5. Go to your preferences, and scroll down to the signature text field.
6. Delete the contents of this field, and replace it with a transclusion of your container template from step 3: {{User:Username/Sig}}
7. Make sure to tick the box that says "Treat signature as wikitext (without an automatic link)." This is crucial to your template working properly!
8. Save your preferences.
9. Test out your new signature! This can be on your main user page, in your personal sandbox, or in the public sandbox. Type four tildes and save the page. If your followed the steps above, you should see a transclusion of your signature and a timestamp. It should look something like this in the source code: {{User:Username/Signature}} 06:59, Wednesday, November 13, 2024 (UTC)

See also

• Help:Talk page