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)[reply]
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.
There is a note on top of the page (per Adypandy.UK's suggestion) to read WP:SIG before asking for one.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.--Yannismarou17:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)
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. NikoSilver19:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Better to have shops making good, policy-following sigs than users making their sigs as ugly as a MySpace profile. -- Chrisisme(u/c/t)20:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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. ST47Talk23:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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? NikoSilver00:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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? ST47Talk00:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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! NikoSilver01:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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 solving15:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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 - TheRSJ (Sign my book) (CCD) 02:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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 Bwithh03:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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. NikoSilver13:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and those "signature shop" 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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. – Chacor08:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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. NikoSilver10:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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? NikoSilver11:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. ViridaeTalk10:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
Delete reluctantly, as I admire the creativity, but these sigs need to be removed, not made. They're an impediment in edit boxes. Tyrenius14:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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! NikoSilver15:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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! Tyrenius15:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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). NikoSilver15:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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. //Dirak15:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
"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! :-) NikoSilver20:44, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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. --Avg18:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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. Tyrenius19:27, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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). --pgk19:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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. --pgk20:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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. Politis20:36, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
