Guild Wars Wiki talk:Sign your comments/Draft070723

Discussion

An initial attempt at a draft to get the ideas into something more concrete. While I tried to include what was discussed, I might've missed some. Aside from quite a few rewording, the primary changes are:

• One 50x19 image only.
• Max sig length (in editing mode) about 150 characters.
• Max sig length (as rendered) about 150pixels, I used keyboard buttons as a general reference.
• Expanded and clarified mention of using shortened versions of a username to sign and about the prohibition of impersonation.

Also tried to relax to tone of the policy. The "general-ness" of the numbers is to take into account the differing username lengths. Personally, I'd rather it be not so fixated on the numbers. I was thinking of adding a section of policy violation as well and that the user is obliged to change his or her signature if there are several users voicing complaints about the garishness of it or its length, but I think I've used too much time for drafting this already. So feel free to edit it or talk about it more here. -- ab.er.rant 16:04, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I doubt 50px is enough room for most people to fit their name in a readable fashion.    [riVen]  17:26, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The 50px is for the image width, not entire signature. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 19:29, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I know that. Read the part on images again, says you're allowed to put your name in the image instead of as text, but 50px is not enough room for most people to fit their name in a readable fashion. So, people that want their name as part of the icon get shafted again.

This draft doesn't achieve anything, except for being more restrictive when it comes to rendered width of the sig (which I am neutral on, it may be a good thing, it may not be needed, I'm not sure). What it doesn't solve is the complaint that it is apparently confusing for new users to find their way through shitloads of signature code in edit mode. This draft still allows for 150 characters of code. Personally, as I have explained here, I don't see how it could possibly be confusing, since every new comment is (generally) delimited by one or more colons and reading comments should be done in normal page view, not code view. (And if someone chooses to read through comments by using diff, as someone pointed out here, than that is their choice, and their responsibility to deal with the consequences. Diff was obviously not made to read people's comments, it's a tool to highlight differences between versions/pages.) However, if people feel that this is really an issue, than 150 chars is just as confusing as, say, 220. If we really want to keep things tidy, then a much stricter limit of, for example, as LordBiro suggested here, 50 chars would be needed. However, in that case, there would also be a need to allow for icons wider than 50px to make sure usernames actually fit in the icon, as I mentioned earlier.    [riVen]  20:40, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

But how many pixels would it take for everyone's name to fit? I understand that sometimes 50px isn't enough, but instead of typing the entire name, people can also choose to use a slightly different image without the entire name. There are virtually no limitations to the length of usernames on the wiki and if we just allow everyone to create a picture with their full name in it, perhaps someday you'll see someone using 1 entire screenwidth's worth of space for a sig-image. I don't think it is possible to go without putting a limitation for the image width, and I think 50px is a good starting point.

Regarding the rest of the signature. Besides making it (perhaps marginally, that's debatable) less confusing for inexperienced wiki-contributors, there is also the idea that the comments should be more valuable than the signature. Sure it is really nice to show of your CSS coding skills, but on the other hand: in the near future you'll have an entire userspace to show that (see the revised, under discussion, User page policy draft). Is a signature THAT important for some people, personally I care more for the message. (I hope more people will respond who favor more leeway in signature allowances, too bad not too many people are interested in letting their voices be heard.)

On the other hand, I can understand why having more than 150 characters for your signature wouldn't be a big problem regarding content-size. Since A.Net is providing the servers, virtually any serverspace we need can be used. So even having signatures of 1000 characters wouldn't fill up the space allocated for this wiki.

Now, let's hope more people are inclined to respond to this issue. --  (CoRrRan / talk) 21:22, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

But if total width of, as proposed in this draft, 150px is allowed to be allocated to a signature (excluding timestamp), then why restrict the icon width to only a part of those 150px? Who cares if you fill up that 150px with part icon part text, all text, or all icon?

On a sidenote, I did not realize (nor expect) that there was no length limitation for usernames.    [riVen]  21:38, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I've added in Riven's valid point regarding the width limit of an image against the width limit of the signature, so the TOTAL width of a signature should be about 150 pixels, including all image and text (any "-" as well), but excluding the time and date. I have no idea how that extra image width will affect image file size so feel free to bring that up if you feel there should be a limit on image file size. But personally, it shouldn't matter too much, and if that user's icon couldn't load up for a slow connection, then that's the signer's problem if someone doesn't see who made a particular comment.

As for the total number of characters, I made the 150-character limit as a reference point. I do feel that having a 70-character difference (to the arbitrarily proposed 220) is significant. I worded it loosely to allow for lengths caused by long usernames, but in general, if someone can't keep the general length of their signature to about 100 characters (minus the image link and minus the username), then that user should really consider converting his sig to an image. As for long signatures not disrupting edit mode, that Riven, if really just your opinion and I'm fine with that. But I also feel that if there are users who find long signatures to be annoying then I see no problems with trying to come up with a soft limit to mitigate and prevent potential problems with not having any limit. You could propose for a longer limit but I feel the current limits help keep signatures simple and easily readable. -- ab.er.rant 01:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. On a sidenote, I never wanted to push for a more-than-150-characters-limit in the first place (although not for code readability reasons), since I feel that if one needs that many characters, one is better off putting it all in an image anyway--but that is not an option either according to current policy.

Come to think of it, an even more perfect solution than the current draft would possibly be to directly relate the allowed width in pixels to a user's username lenght. Say, a 19px (rounded to 20) base width to allow for an icon-without-username like in the current policy, and an additional, say 10px (or whatever) for each character of one's username. This calculated space could then be filled by the user, just like in the current draft, with an image, text, or a combination of both. I'm not actually suggesting this, I think the current draft is fine, it's just a thought (maybe useful if problems arise in the future).       04:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about allowing relative width. Relative max number of characters might be fine, but relative signature width is not. Take a look at my user page history and you'll see really long usernames. Granted that these are just vandal accounts, it's still a potential for problems for legitimate users who want to create really long usernames (for example "User:Guild Wars Wiki is definitely my favourite wiki"). It might be highly unlikely, but I feel that in such cases, I'd probably ask that user to create another account with a shorter name and use the shorter name for their signature instead, rather than allowing them to create long signatures that's more than likely to irk other users. -- ab.er.rant 05:00, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I just read through this draft, and I think it's a good change. It makes those wanting an image happier, and those not wanting a lot of code happier. I don't see any big problems, and I would also like to keep the 150 characters/150 pixels limit, just so there is a limit, for cases like Aberrant described. - anja 09:46, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I absolutely hate the proposal to increase allowed image width. I absolutely hate images in signatures at all. They're distracting and serve no purpose. Be cute in userspace, don't fill the whole wiki with the icon of your choice. I don't expect my dissent to change anything, but I want it on record. —Tanaric 22:14, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to make it more clear, would you rather have all the code instead to get the same look, or would you rather have a more simplistic view on what should be allowed as signatures? (No images, not much formatting, etc, just as examples) - anja 22:32, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep, that's exactly the point of allowing images Tanaric. I personally would rather see a simple image link in edit mode than about 2-3 lines of signature text. And actually, your posting of your opposition does change things. It means we don't have consensus to change the policy, which means we go back to telling people that their signature text is too long, or that they're using too many colors, or that their icons are too width... *shrugs* just like user pages, relaxing rules on these things reduces the need to complain to them on their user talk pages. -- ab.er.rant 03:18, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out something: 150px of text is 150px of signature that can be word-wrapped. 150px of image is 150px of signature that cannot be.

Personally, I'd rather keep images in signatures limited to a small square (i.e. 19x19 or such), and the entire signature limited to a reasonable width (150px, 200px, something in that ballpark). Icons can help you locate a particular user's contributions on a page, but 19x19 is plenty to accomplish that and further embellishment of signatures is really just frippery. I'd have to agree for the most part with Tanaric on this one. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 03:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to add a quick note: I also fully support Tanaric's position on image width. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 04:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The edit text thing really isn't so important to me. Barek has a very modest signature and it still takes up more than one line on my screen -- I learned long ago to navigate edit pages by scanning the left column and minding the colons. I don't like images in signatures because they're annoying to read. Personally, I wish you'd all just use the default signature, preceded with the dash of your choice. :) —Tanaric 17:35, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Interlude

Domo arigato, I approve this policy.

Yeh, it's pretty good. Lets out the artist in me.

Watch me do the moondance!

Whoa, that's pretty sweet, where'd you learn moves like that?

At that igloo near my place; there were a bunch of bees and penguins tangoing around, they taught me.

O_O Teach me too, please.

Haha. Ok ok. ;)

--Dirigible

My eyes, they bleed. MisterPepe talk 03:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Domo arigato. (Aiiane - talk - contribs) 04:07, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Nice demonstration of why I support 19x19 images. If changes are made, I would rather see it in character length. To be honest, I have better things to do with my life than counting characters and would only address blatant violations on that part - but big images are just distracting in talk pages and serve no purpose other than being distracting vanity plates. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 04:16, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'd say Dirigible's 3 examples are blatant violations of this policy because it specifically says no background colors ;) I'd just like to add that the issue here is not really about enlarging the icon but more about reducing the length of someone's signature when in edit mode. It's a little annoying to see 1 line of comment, followed by 3 lines of signature... -- ab.er.rant 04:57, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought there was no need to answer to this one, but Riven calling the example invalid made me change my mind, obviously some clarification is needed after all. Neither the current GWW:SIGN policy nor this proposal would disallow any of the three signatures above, since the "no background colour" statement is in the text-related part of the signature section and not in the "Image" one; it's most certainly not a "blatant violation". If you really mean to suggest that it'd also affect images, then you'll have to give me a good definition of what exactly is a background colour in an image. Is the reddish here a background colour? The yellow here File:VallenIconwhitesmall.JPG? The purple behind the text ? And even if you somehow added to the policy that background colours in images aren't allowed, what if I use a background of grass in my image? What if I put a volcano exploding? Just look at this one for a signature that can be irritating without "background colours". A monstrosity of 150x19px is bound to be irritating, that's all there is to it. --Dirigible 04:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

No consensus

It should be pretty obvious that we won't get consensus for this draft then. I'd still like to see some of my rewordings to get into the original policy though. -- ab.er.rant 05:08, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Giving up after 3 days, barely 2 pages of comments and two faint dissenting voices? Muahahahahahahahahahaha. =P --Xeeron 19:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

LOL! Good point! -- ab.er.rant 01:06, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I think all of your other rewordings are great, but that the size changes were unsupported. If you don't believe we will reach a consensus to make these changes, why not consider removing them, and trying to get a consensus on the rewording. I think it had made a lot of things much clearer, and I especially like the note that says to clearly display your username because that isn't in the existing policy! - BeX 03:40, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I would say this change proposal failed. So... what should I do with it? Tag it with "reject proposal"? Or is "rejected proposal" only for new proposals? See the new draft here. -- ab.er.rant 10:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't there another name for policies that failed to gain consensus? - BeX 10:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Right now, it seems Category:Rejected policies covers it as well... hmmm... -- ab.er.rant 10:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)