Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Signature Shops

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was Keep. — xaosflux ^Talk 07:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Signature Shops

• NikoSilver's signature shop: main, Avg, DanDanRevolution, Earth KING, Fortunecookie289, FunkyFly, Hellenic Republic, Huntster, Ian13, Jeremie@theLab, Jorcoga, Killfest2 (Daniel.Bryant), Kind suggestions by Andypandy.UK, Politis - Mystic, ProhibitOnions, Reaper7, Sean gorter, Telex, TodorBozhinov, and Ανδρέας.
• Sean Gorter's signature shop.

• Delete. The WP:NOT policy states that Wikipedia user pages are to be "used only to present information relevant to working on the encyclopedia" (cite) and that Wikipedians' user pages are not ours and exist "to make collaboration among Wikipedians easier, not for self-promotion" (cite). The WP:USER guideline (guidelines are actionable and agreed upon by consensus — cite) states that user pages should not contain "things pertaining to 'entertainment' rather than 'writing an encyclopedia'"; this applies to user subpages as well (cite). The signatures produced by the nominated pages in question are often "distracting, confusing, or otherwise unsuitable" which are resultingly "disruptive to discourse on talk pages," in violation of the WP:SIG guideline, and they violate the request in said guideline with regards to "users with vision problems." Additionally, for one of the two users, he has an inordinately large amount of his project participation focused on his signature shop (11% of his total project participation — 129/1149). — Whedonette (ping) 03:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep (for my subpage). Rationale:

1. The whole idea of the "shop" is to compile useful code tricks in one place, rather than in many different talks, for future reference. Those tricks are used to primarily reduce code size. In many instances, pre-existing huge-coded sigs were cut down to the shortest possible. The "shop" actually helps in reducing (rather than increasing) code length. (Examples: Sirex98, admin ProhibitOnions, admin Ian13, Jorcoga, and sometimes outside the signature shop, like in Tony esopi patra). Those code tricks are also used in various other contributions of mine, such as in my contributed templates.
2. There is a note on top of the page (per Adypandy.UK's suggestion) to read WP:SIG before asking for one.
3. None of the users who have asked for a sig has been contacted by me. The subpage is not "advertised" anywhere. Self-promotion is not an issue, and I consider my other contribs of value.
4. None of the sigs produced in the shop ever violated the WP:SIG guideline (of its time) in any way. If one may have, it would have been despite my strict consultation against it, and at the user's own persistent request. Check here for a case-by-case analysis.
5. Most importantly: "Entertainment" (whatever relevance the term may have to signature and self-identification), is a valid motive for human contribution to this project. I feel that users may actually be more productive when they are not treated like article-writing-robots.
6. Precedents of really worse material in user subpages have survived MfD. Also, the signatures that can be seen eg. at any instance of the WP:RfA page (which is one of the most serious processes in WP), are far more coded than the ones I help produce.
7. I myself have (admittedly quite recently) set the example to other users, having the shortest possible sig: NikoSilver 12:23, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. IMO these signature shops are not advertizing and are not in contradiction with the encyclopedic purposes of the current project. I don't think that their existence entails any serious problem.--Yannismarou 17:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete both and all subpages listed by nominator as blatant violations of WP:NOT, and since they exist solely to violate WP:SIG:

  In consideration of users with vision problems, be sparing with color. If you must use different colours in your signature, please ensure that the result will be readable by people with color blindness. (WP:SIG §4.1.1.1)

• These signatures also almost always violate WP:SIG:

  Long signatures with a lot of HTML/wiki markup make page editing more difficult. A 200 character signature, for instance, is likely to be larger than many of the comments to which it is appended, making discussion more difficult:

  • signatures that take up more than two or three lines in the edit window clutter the page and make it harder to distinguish posts from signatures,
  • long signatures give undue prominence to a given user's contribution (WP:SIG §§4.1.4-4.1.4.2)

• Indeed, most carry over 200 characters, and one 330. One even contains an image:

  Images of any kind should not be used in signatures. (WP:SIG §4.1.2)

• ST47Talk 18:29, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• WP:SIG used to state 300 chars before it was changed. None of the sigs exceeds that (don't let ProhibitOnions confuse you, it shows two sigs in one block, the latter far smaller exactly because of the change)
• Vision problems are not an issue, all sigs have high contrast.
• The picture secret: User:Hellenic Republic was my publicly admitted sockpuppet. He signed 4-5 times in my and his talk all in all (and hasn't ever again since late May).
• I have really contributed (and still contribute) in decreasing code size since notified by User:Andypandy.UK. Check them one by one, and check my advice to the "clients".
• This is part of my talkpages. Had it been loose inside the archives, nobody would have noticed, but it wouldn't help me either in fixing code problems in dozens of templates (and article tables) I've created. I need that archive as a quick reference. NikoSilver 19:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Better to have shops making good, policy-following sigs than users making their sigs as ugly as a MySpace profile. -- Chris is me _(u/c/t) 20:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

  But, as I've stated above, they in no way follow policy. One is 5 lines long! I urge that administrators and users crack down on these annoying and disruptive, bright, signatures. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, WP:NOT myspace, and it's not a toy nor a contest. The goal of a signature should be identification, easy links, where necessary, and time stamping. Images and 5 lines worth of code are completely unnecessary. In response to niko above, I saw that there are 2 sigs there, the first one is still rather large. You can let people ask on your talk, if you must, but you definitely do not need to invite it. ST47Talk 23:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

  The first one was changed exactly because it was big (I didn't know back then when I created it). Afterwards, the admin User:ProhibitOnions had made another less flashy himself, and I further reduced the code size! I have more than 8000 edits in WP for over a year now, and none of them invites anyone in my "shop". Again: I just moved all relevant requests from my talk to one place, for easy access. I need the archive for contributing in templates and articles (check my FA successful nom Macedonia (terminology) and all its templates for example to undersatand that I do use parts of these codes!). No "client" has been served for months (it's actually become boring for me). How would you feel if one MfDed your talk archives? NikoSilver 00:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

  Ok, you've explained the worst one. What about the ones that take 3 lines? Why do you need this page up in order to make FAs? That just doesn't make sense. And this is in no way similar to a talk page archive. Does the content there violate policy and annoy wikipedians? ST47Talk 00:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

  All sigs (including those with the three lines or so) that I made after I found out about WP:SIG by Andypandy were within the WP:SIG limits of the time that I made them. I need the page because I easily copy code from sigs that I remember within tables and templates (check many of them here). Indeed, I moved most of these comments from selective parts of my talks when I first compiled it. Why would the content annoy Wikipedians? Not only did I give them signatures to express themselves, but I also reduced long codes whenever I could. We are not article-writing-robots here! I really valued my previous sig when I used it! It was ME, and it helped ME feel better and contribute better! (see self-identification) Annoying? I actually find it quite helpful when I want to spot a particular comment within a huge debate if the undersigned has a colorful sig. And anyway, I respected WP:SIG and it is evident in every single sig I created after I was aware of it. Please don't vote to delete parts of my talk archive! NikoSilver 01:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. This isn't the place to discuss the virtues of signatures. Nor are these pages advertising. As a beneficiary of one of NikoSilver's distinctive but tightly-coded, image-free, and policy-compliant signatures myself, I don't see any reason to dig through userspace to remove what are clearly intended as coding examples. The popularity of signatures on Wikipedia is clear, and Niko has been very clever at paring down code to a minimum (note that much of the code in longer signatures is due to links to the user talk page, e-mail, and contributions, all of which are useful and germane, and which would be just as long in a "plain" signature containing them). Niko's decision to break out conversations regarding his signatures into separate articles might be a bit unusual, but "my" page consists of a conversation we had in which I said thank you and giddily tried out my new sig. If you'd like him to make it a "proper" talk archive, I think the appropriate step would be to ask first. Anyway, here we go: ProhibitOnions ^(T) 00:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep until signatures are banned altogether.   /FunkyFly.talk_  04:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep inasmuch as this keeps it out of Wikipedia: space, although I have a strong dislike for long signatures --BigDT 05:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep I got my old signature from NikoSilver and I run one of the signature shops you have nominated. Right now, I have a customer who hasn't replied to one of my givings for his/her request. ~~ Sean gorter ^{(Talk to me|Get a cool signature)} 09:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep These pages are a valid use of userspace. They build community by allowing people to 1. express themselves, and 2. teach code to eachother. Sean made me a signature a few months ago which I no longer use for several reasons, but examining and dissecting that signature taught me a lot about code, which makes it easier to work with templates, infoboxes, etc. The sig that Sean made me did not violate WP:Sig; it was under 250 characters, didn't blink or flash or anything like that, and no one complained about it the whole time I was using it. I see one of the complaints above is about Sean's lack of mainspace contributions. However, I get the impression that Sean is very young. I don't know his exact age and I could be wrong, but that's the impression I get. He loves Wikipedia and is here because he wants to help. However, in many ways Wikipedia is fairly complete and it takes someone with advanced research and writing skills to really do much to improve it (hence all the articles on every pokemon ever). Sean wants to help and is doing so the best he can with what he has. His efforts in the signature shop and the now-defunct-Esperanza reflect his desire to help. Lately (over the past month or so) he has been contributing a lot more to the mainspace than he had been, fixing simple typos and such. He is, and will be even more so in the future, a valuable member of Wikipedia. Niko is also a valuable member of Wikipedia, with featured articles under his belt. His experiments with coding signatures have helped him learn to code templates. His signatures follow all the sensible rules outlined in WP:SIG. Basically - this sort of thing is not a violation of userspace; rather it is exactly what userspace was meant for (see WP:USER where it says, "It's also good for experimenting with markup"). ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 15:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, Keep, Keep I think this shouldn't be deleted. While the user pages in our names are technically not ours, this isn't doing anything inappropriate - The RSJ (Sign my book) (CCD) 02:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I'd actually like to see this as a more official Wikipedia project, and I think it's great that NikoSilver and Sean Gorter took this initiative to help others in this way (if one of the guys spent 100% of this edits on this project, I don't see why that would be a mark against him). Perhaps they should consider making this a formal WIkipedia project. I don't think the example signatures are disruptive Bwithh 03:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Clarification: The "(for my subpage)" quote next to my keep vote above, does not mean of course to suggest that Sean's shop should be deleted; rather that the arguments presented right below, apply to my shop, as I am not familiar with Sean's case to such detail. My vote applies to both shops. As a final note, I find it rather embarassing that I had to defend this marginal activity of mine (compared to my overall contribs in the project), which has mainly helped me a lot in learning code tricks, and more importantly has helped me relax and contribute more. NikoSilver 13:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and those "signature shops" are a childish distrubtion. "Learning code" and getting entertained can be done on other websites rather than Wikipedia. I seriously disagree with the above comments by ONUnicorn, please don't judge this by the quality of the signatures or their creators. Yes, user subpages can be used to experiment Wikiscript but this is an unacceptable type of experimenting. Michaelas10 (Talk) 18:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Then why are you using one of Sean's signatures? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 19:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

My own decision is irrelevant to the discussion. Michaelas10 (Talk) 19:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete at the end of the day, how does this help Wikipedia? Arjun 02:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • It helps wikipedians become more productive by not being treated as members of the Outer Party. It also helps them learn code tricks, and crack a smile once in a while. NikoSilver 10:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Umm, how do user pages in general help Wikipedia? The RSJ (Sign my book) (CCD) 22:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. While I understand the criticism of big colored sigs and would join in a request to Sean to consider closing down his "shop" (I understand Niko already has done so), there's nothing wrong in keeping the pages around for reference, as they are essentially just talk page archives. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Tag historical? Heh. Would suggest that the "shops" stop "operating", and so conditionally on that point keep as archives of a past experiment (sorta like rejected policies). However, if they continue, it's just distracting from the main aim of Wikipedia, and should then be deleted. – Chacor 08:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I definitely do not intend to shut down my shop (although I can't really promise I can devote time in this). Anyone with problems regarding their sigs can visit it and be helped to sort it out. The shop adheres to the WP:SIG policy and urges users to shrink their codes. Fut.Perf. can reconsider his vote if closing the shop was a condition for it. NikoSilver 10:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the clarification - what I meant was that you seem not to have been selling any new ones since October or so, right? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Well, business has been a little slow lately, plus we have Sean's increased competition now, but we manage... :-) Admin ProhibitOnions had a few problems adjusting to some proposals in the talk of WP:SIG last December (which btw I find extreme, bigoted, authoritative, and WP:CREEP) and I decided to help him reduce the code quite a bit (here). I'm sure we all prefer his sig being 227 chars long than 344 that it used to be, right? NikoSilver 11:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per ONUnicorn Fiddle Faddle 09:46, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Intensely irritating as I find long signatures (and it is interesting to note that most of the people voting keep have signatures that take up at least three lines), this is being kept in userspace, and is not harming the encyclopedia such that I would take it to MfD. USER says "The Wikipedia community is generally tolerant and offers fairly wide latitude in applying these guidelines to regular participants." Only IF "user page activity becomes disruptive to the community or gets in the way of the task of building an encyclopedia, it must be modified to prevent disruption." I do not see that to be the case here. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 09:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete these serve absoloutely no purpose for the encyclopedia, they only succeed in encouraging excessively long sigs which add nothing of value. We are no myspace, we do not need flashy advertisments of a users presence. Viridae^Talk 10:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Encourages violation of WP:SIG. I hate long signatures. --Deskana (For Great Justice!) 11:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • "Encourages WP:SIG violation"? You mean like this, like this, like this, like this, like this, or like this? :-) NikoSilver 14:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, WP:NOT. — Nearly Headless Nick 11:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Rebecca 13:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete WP:NOT. Crimsone 14:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Adds nothing to the encyclopedia, except yet more stupid signatures. --kingboyk 14:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • No, it promotes extremely stupid signatures to acceptably stupid signatures! Check diffs right above! NikoSilver 15:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• I very reluctantly vote Delete. The user is obviously talented, but his creations do not help Wikipedia improve as an encyclopedia. Xiner (talk, email) 14:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. At the very least they're a pointless distraction but, as has been pointed out, they're responsible for some ludicrous and disruptive signatures (some of them unreadable, incidentally). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete reluctantly, as I admire the creativity, but these sigs need to be removed, not made. They're an impediment in edit boxes. Tyrenius 14:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Tyrenius, please! I'm really trying to help those guys adhere to WP:SIG, while maintaining certain graphic in their sigs. I myself have been using the absolute minimum for a sig to set the example since 2 months now, and I never produce a sig that violates it! Actually I haven't created a new sig from scratch since last October, but I do need the archive because it helps me with code in my other "decent" contribs! NikoSilver 15:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I suggest you find another solution for whatever code is necessary for you. Maybe store it on a sub page with a different title and <nowiki> it. "Signature shop" is classic BEANS! Tyrenius 15:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I pheel one sduck right ub my ndose right now... :-) In any case, when I started the "shop" I intended to practice while helping people out (and I had no idea about WP:SIG, which btw was much more lenient back then -eg. 300 chars). Now business is slow, but whoever comes in usually arrives with a hideously long and ugly sig, and comes out with an acceptable one. I don't understand why this is judged as not being helpful... Renaming won't attract hideously long sigs, and I won't be able to help (like here). NikoSilver 15:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, literally harmless and even if it is deleted, the main business of the institution likely shall continue where it all began - on the user's talkpage. If people aren't allowed to modify their signatures, then the developers should abolish the feature. [and now my favorite way of expressing an argument] until I see similar changes on pages such as this, I will not support these pages' deletion. //Dirak 15:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

  I don't see the analogy between these pages and the one to which you link. The latter concerns user pages, and doesn't affect other users. The former involve some unreadable signatures whose code can be anything up to seven lines long, which creates all sorts of problems and inconveniences. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

  "Personally I find your signature more distasteful and silly than any of the ones I helped produce. I also notice the fact that both 'Μελ' and 'Ετητης' mean nothing in Greek, apart from confusing non-Greek speakers that you have some relation to Greece. The community should force you to change this misleading sig or we should have your talk archives deleted!" (-silly threat huh? I know, I hear it a lot lately...) I don't mean anything of the above quote. I just quoted it to show you how I feel by having to deal with all of you here who want to delete an innocent subpage of mine. Also, be aware that in my shop I mainly reduce the size long-coded sigs, that your "7 lines long" comment is an untrue exaggeration and that Greek is far more unreadable than high-contrast letters on low contrast background or vice - versa! Finally, are you saying that WP:NOT applies only to my subpage and not to anyone else's? If there was a problem with such long signatures, the software wouldn't permit them to be used. If you don't want long signatures, take it up with the developers! (or to WP:SIG, because I follow it) :-) NikoSilver 20:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

  First, your claim: "your '7 lines long' comment is an untrue exaggeration" is disingenuous at best, given this edit. You turned an understandable mistake into what looks like a deliberate lie on my part. Secondly, I leave it to others to judge readability; I can't read many of the sigs on these pages (and it isn't only yours — though I couldn't make out the User name on:    Avg    until I looked at the code). My name is clearly visible in my sig; the Greek characters are additional, and are a play on a genuine Greek root, turned into a Greek name. The stuff about misleading readers into thinking that I have relation to Greece is absurd; I don't understand why you think that you help your case with this sort of thing. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 05:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

  Strike lieing insinuation, which was unintentional; glad we sorted this out. Avg's sig was already prepped by him and was reeeealy worse, not to mention it's one of my first and I had no idea then. As for the Greek, as I said, it was just a way of making you feel the way I do now, (although being a native Greek speaker, I really can't see the word game behind Μέλι, Έτη and μελέτη, but it's yours, so do whatever you like). Finally, people's personal liking or disliking of the sigs produced should be completely irrelevant to this MfD, as long as I have proven¹²³⁴⁵⁶ that I urge people to follow WP:SIG, and that I myself set the example, not to mention that my other modest contribs were largely inspired by my not feeling as a member of the Outer Party, and cracking a smile once in a while! I also note you didn't respond to the WP:NOT policy applying to everybody else; and to that if you don't like long signatures, you should take it up with the developers or to WP:SIG, because I follow it. If you feel that WP:SIG does not meet your personal standards, then you should unleash your rage there; not on my subpage. This is unfair. NikoSilver 14:01, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

  First (working back), I haven't unleashed the rage I don't feel; I've given my opinion in a discussion. Secondly, you have on display Avg's sig, which is pretty well unreadable. You might have shortened the code slightly, but aside from that not being the same as "shortened it enough" (and in any case that one isn't terribly long), it's only part of the problem. The guidelines on signatures clearly say that colours shouldn't be overdone and that the readability of a signature shouldn't be compromised, if only out of courtesy to editors who have problems with their sight. Thirdly, I explain the origin of my User name at my User page. Yes, I assume that it's based on "μελετάω" (perhaps with a nod to "Μελητίδης"); no, I doubt that it has anything to do with honey or years — it simply breaks up and changes the word in order to make it look like a name.
  If you want to continue with this discussion, though, I think that it would be better continued on our Talk pages. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:48, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

  As I say below and above, I was not familiar with WP:SIG when I modified Avg's,^[1] nor was the guideline so strict (in other cases that may exist).^{(eg. 300 chars)} In any case, I did not intend to do "harm", only to help. As I also said your name/sig is irrelevant, so let's please not go {{Round In Circles}}. I would be grateful if you could respond to my other remarks (ie. WP:NOT applying to others, WP:SIG being the place rather than here, and most importantly the human vs article-writing-member-of-the-Outer Party bit). NikoSilver 16:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

  First, when you became aware of WP:SIG is irrelevant to the fact that his sig is displayed on your page – presumably for people to copy – now. Secondly, the guideline isn't strict; it simply asks for restraint and consideration. Thirdly, I don't think that anyone is accusing you of intending harm; I've certainly said nothing to imply that. That your page does, or at least very well might, cause harm is another matter; the number of peculiar, distracting, overlong, and unreadable sigs has been growing, and it's at least possible, if not likely, that that is in part a result of users finding pages like yours and imitating and extending/changing what they find. Oh, and fourthly, I didn't respond to your point aboutWP:NOT because I didn't see what you were getting at (still don't). And now that really does have to be the end of it here, or we'll fall off the edge of the screen. I'll respond to further comments or questions on my Talk page. This page is surely nearly at the end of its life anyway. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

  Indeed. I'm dropping it. NikoSilver 18:20, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - As a proud owner of a NikoSilver signature I find very bad form to not only criticise but even act against a user's effort to help the Wikipedia community with no personal gain whatsoever. Moreover, this page is located in his personal space, it is not advertised and does not violate WP:SIG. --   Avg    18:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • COI! :) Seriously, wading through your signature confirms it. This is no disrespect to NikoSilver's good motives. Actually, we don't have personal space, only user space, and it is advertised on his main user page, as it happens. Tyrenius 19:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Response copied from his talk: Well, now you got me! I see "clients" piling up for me from everywhere! Man, how popular my userpage is! Hey Tyrenius, no hard feelings, but I find all this quite exaggerated. Do you want a siggy maybe to relax? (oops one more advertisement, man I'm pulling customers by their sleeves too!) :-) NikoSilver 21:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Honestly, I just flipped a coin this time. —ptk✰fgs 18:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete doesn't help build a free encyclopedia, encourages "silly" signatures. --pgk 19:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, any signature involving my user name would have to be somewhat silly, wouldn't it? And I didn't use his shop... AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Not sure why you believe any signature of your would be somewhat silly. Your sig as it stands isn't "silly", taking up less than a line on my screen, though the superscript breaks vertical spacing (a minor gripe). --pgk 19:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

My user name is in itself silly. As are those of User:Crzrussian, User:Geogre, and a number of other respected editors. Therefore, the signatures are bound to be silly, without any special formatting. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 20:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well we'll have to disagree as to if your user name (or the others you list) is in itself silly (Yes I understand the play on words with anonymous). But the quotes around the word are there for a reason "In a similar sense, quotes are also used to indicate that the writer realizes that the word is not being used in its accepted sense.". I was trying to encapsulate the issues of signatures being problem in edit boxes when excessively long, distracting if excessively colourful, big, flashing etc. and the various other descriptions as above in the one word "silly" without the need to write much on the subject, I guess I failed. --pgk 20:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry pgk, but how exactly does this, or this, or this, or this, or this, or this agrees with any of your remarks above? People, have you even seen even one of the diffs I provided? I help reduce uglyness and huge sigs! See mine: NikoSilver Sheesh! 20:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

How do any of your examples dispute what I said above? Where is the encyclopedic value which was my first point addressed? I find some of them visually distracting, yes. As to your efforts to reduce the length, just because they were worse before you did some work on them doesn't mean they aren't still needlessly long. On many occasions when I've been looking at WP:AIV and you see a report like {{ipvandal|192.168.0.1}} listed followed by reems of junk, I find it more difficult to edit, the same situation occurs with short comments on talk pages where those sigs (even your reduced size ones) absolutely swamp the real content. Finally yes I've seen your sig, if your page just listed how to make a sig like yours currently is, then there would be no issue. --pgk 21:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Glad you admit that your "excessively long" doesn't apply. I never exceeded the limit of WP:SIG of its time -eg.300 char limit. Let's see the rest now:
• "Distracting" compare that with "attracting" when you want to find someone's comment in huge debates.
• "Excessively colourful" like most of the voters now in WP:RfA I suppose (don't tell me it's not a serious WP process).
• "Big" never used it, never will, so delete someone else's.
• "Flashing" same here.
• "Building an encyclopedia" I feel that it does help building an encyclopedia because it makes contributors feel self-identifying humans and not article-writing members of the Outer Party!
• Also, "silly" signature is yours which means absolutely nothing (there how do you feel now?). Maybe we should delete your talk archive too, because that's what this gets down to, since I just moved all the relevant talks in one place to have better access on different codes (which I use in my other"decent" contribs -do check them).
• And now seriously again: I do understand your consideration and your trouble in AIV and I am helping you to the extent that WP:SIG allows me. Please don't break it on me if that guideline does not satisfy your personal standards. It's unfair. NikoSilver 00:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Harmless at worst, occasionally useful. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 19:51, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - project is directly related to one of the features of wikipedia. Critisim of individual sigs should be caried out in RFC, not MFD. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 20:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. I am not a little surprised this MfD came up. It provides editors with a bit of colour, and this service is provided irrespective of the editorial inclinations of different users. Politis 20:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Encourages insane signatures. --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Carnildo (talk • contribs) 16:50, January 10, 2007
  • Deleting prime example of Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point from someone who really should know better. With porn links yet. AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 21:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

And exactly how do these encourage "insane signatures" of which, I take it, the above is supposed to be an example? ~ ONUnicorn^{(Talk|Contribs)}problem solving 20:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• • No it doesn't¹²³⁴⁵⁶ (and there are more refs where these are coming from). NikoSilver 20:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. I cannot see anything bad in this page. It can be very useful to Wikipedians who want to improve their signature Hectorian 00:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Surely we have better things to do than police the formatting of signatures. This nomination for deletion is a disruptive waste of time. ·ΚέκρωΨ· 02:43, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep I don't particularly like some of these sigs, but as long as they're legal, people should be able to share their sig-building techniques. To say "sigs are allowed, but you're not allowed to show people how to make sigs" seems to be contradictory. Besides, if someone wants to make a red and green sig with a box around it, they'll figure it out eventually - deleting pages like these just mean they have to waste more time making their sig. Why not share that knowledge? There's no need for every new sig-user to reinvent the wheel. Quack 688 03:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep No one has demonstrated harm to Wikipedia by using these sigs, though the length may occasionally be irksome. Furthermore, no policies are violated. This MfD is a solution in search of a problem. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 04:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep A lot of people around here would want their sigs look better and Sean and Niko come to their aid. What is wrong with that? Moreover, the shops actually help some users shorten their signatures (Please look at the diffs provided by NikoSilver). Sean and Niko have proved to be well aware of Wikipedia policies on this matter, thus I take the view that as long as their signature shops don't contravene the rules, there's no reason whatsoever to protest against them. Arfan (Talk) 09:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Harmless. --Howard the Duck 09:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

It distracts from the encylopedia, that's a harm. Michaelas10 (Talk) 12:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Aargh my eyes are distracted by Michaelas10's sig!!! Seriously, the one that is distracting us from creating an encyclopedia are issues like this, which shouldn't even be an issue. The signatures don't even appear on article pages. And as per FunkyFly, unless all colorful sigs are banned and are replaced by the standard blue links, this should stay. --Howard the Duck 15:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Let me explain myself further, what I ment is that things like "shops" distract people from contributing to the encyclopedia and focus on the appearance of their signature's instead. Actually this kind of focus isn't even good for the signatures themselves as it results in them being very colorful and difficult to read. We have previously removed similar distractions, such as the Esperanza userpage award and the coffee lounge. Users are always welcome to change their signature's basic format through their preferences. Michaelas10 (T|C) 16:50, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

But you didn't register here just to have a fancy sig, don't you? I'll bet the amount of time "designing" these sigs are microscopic when compared to general encyclopedia work, like reverting, etc. Also, lets remember that the editors here are humans, and as humans, we think of ways to stand out, and another way is to have colorful signatures. It wouldn't really be a big deal, since the sigs don't appear on the mainspace, and they are actually useful (you can recognize Transhumanist's signature miles away, so even without reading his comment, "hey it's him") --Howard the Duck 17:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment-It depends on individuals. A lot of users would still want their sigs look colorful and unique even if shops like these don't exist. This is a simple result of the fact that (I might repeat per FunkyFly and Howard the Duck) colorful sigs aren't banned. Thus those people will waste more time trying to figure out how to use the complex code to create their signatures. Please consider carefully, this case is the exact opposite of what you think. If people have a place to make requests for their signatures, they won't have to spend more time working on the code themselves and instead use that time to contribute to Wikipedia. This shop is not distraction in the slightest. Arfan (Talk) 17:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

delete The WP policy on signatures would be a good one if it were observed. Some of the most active WP is various discussions use fancy sigs, and it greatly decreases the readability of the discussions and emphasizes the personality rather than the arguments. Pages like this are a contributor to the problem. That people can do even worse unaided is not much of a defense. DGG 04:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment I would kindly advise you not to wrongfully accuse others of ignoring the WP policy. The shops run according to WP:SIG, none of the signatures created by them ever crossed the line into the violation of the length allowed or contained images or external links, etc. The signatures go well with every point of WP:SIG. To the best of my knowledge, a Wiki policy that imposes a ban on fancy sigs is nonexistent. Thus I'm quite interested to know if you could point out a policy on signature that these shops have contravened. Arfan (Talk) 05:07, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Arfan. I'd also like to add here the element of intention. If one or two of the signatures produced don't manage to follow WP:SIG to the letter, then it was not my intent when I created them. If they exist then they are a result of me not knowing about the existence of the guideline in the beginning of my activity^[1], or the guideline itself being much more lenient back then, ^{(eg. 300 chars)} or to an honest oversight. NikoSilver 14:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I also say, harmless. This is being too dictative, going so far as to try to delete something so petty! Must we argue over this? I haven't seen anything in WP:SIG that says sig shops are not allowed. The sig shop is just a place where you request a signature to be made. And besides, the creator of the sig sticks to WP:SIG, they are under 250 characterse! Goodness! Does it really matter? As long as they follow that character restriction and the colors, it is harmless. And besides, I haven't seen any signatures made that color blindingly horrible. Jeez... >:[ --Tohru Honda13^{Sign me!} 05:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep What harm is this doing anyone? None. What good is it doing? Quite a reasonable amount; people with little time or skill to make their own sig can get one made for them. I might well end up at one of them; as you can see for yourselves, I have half-built one and then gone of and left mine as it is now, half-complete. Therefore, per WP:IAR, these are perfectly reasonable - in fact, comendable - enterprises, and should be endorsed, not discouraged. Blood Red Sandman Open Up Your Heart - Receive My EviLove 22:32, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - I'm against things being deleted in people's userspace. I am also against the increasingly ridiculous signatures on Wikipedia, so maybe that's a seperate issue that should be addressed...-137.222.10.57 00:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.