Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Signature Shops

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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)[reply]

Signature Shops

  • Delete. 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
    ]
  • 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
    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
    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)[reply]
  • 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)[reply]
  • Delete both and all subpages listed by nominator as blatant violations of
    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)[reply]
Then why are you using one of Sean's signatures? ~
problem solving 19:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
My own decision is irrelevant to the discussion. Michaelas10 (Talk) 19:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[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). --pgk 19:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[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. --pgk 20:19, 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]
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)[reply
]
  • 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)[reply]
And exactly how do these encourage "insane signatures" of which, I take it, the above is supposed to be an
problem solving 20:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply
]
It distracts from the encylopedia, that's a harm. Michaelas10 (Talk) 12:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply
]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
Comment I would kindly advise you not to wrongfully accuse others of ignoring the WP policy. The shops run according to
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)[reply
]
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)[reply]
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.
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