Signature templates on central

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Ref: Wikipedia:WP:SIG#Transclusion_of_templates

I've noticed that this wiki (being the Central Wikia wiki) is starting to get busy, with more interaction from a wide variety of Wikia users. This has several advantages, but also several disadvantages. One of those disadvantages is that many users bring along their habit of using templates for signatures to Central.

While signature templates are tolerated on some Wikia (and especially on Uncyclopedia), it should not propagate beyond where a wikia's community has deemed it okay. It (along with any transclusions, but a bit moreso as these never go away, in talk archives) is a minor but measurable server resource drain (in fact, the software actively attempts to subst any templates, to prevent this), and it is a pain to ~~nip in the bud~~ fix later rather than sooner.

As it is just now becoming a bit widely distributed here (but still less than 20 users), I am therefor proposing that we of the Central Wikia Cabal discuss whether to illegalize template signatures.

If agreed upon, the following user signature transclusions will need to be subst:'d:

This may seem a bit unfair, evil, cabalistic, and other negative adjectives as well, but template signatures are somewhat of an unnecessary abuse of the MediaWiki system, IMHO (and my opinion on this has changed over the last year or so, I am of course quite guilty of helping propagate this behavior on Uncyclopedia). However, A feature coming next week might help people customize their wikia-wide signatures a bit easier. --Splarka (talk) 00:49, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

In vote against illegalizing them I'll explain the reason or two I use a template instead of a full signature:

I administrate 4 different Wikia and am active on central. To me it's always been a little pesky when communicating with staff or other users on other Wikia where one side of the conversation is on my talkpage on one Wikia, and the other end is on their talkpage on another Wikia. The annoyance comes in replies because you need to type some change into the addressbar itself. What I though I'd find nice is if the talkpage link inside of a signature would just lead back to a Wikia where that person would be active.

So when I randomly decided to add myself to the Wikians page. I found a good idea for my own signature. I ended up creating one which had links to my local userpage and talkpage, and userpages and talkpages on the wikia I am active on. So this way anyone could simply use one of the lettered links after the talk link to reply on a active talkpage of mine. Much easier than navigating back to wherever they started the conversation.

The issue with this is when I placed my signature into my preferences. I use a vandalism template on The Gaiapedia and one of the required parameters there is a signature so that a user will know who is giving out the warning. Unfortunately after I saved the page when I gave out a warning, I realized that the pipe I used in the signature broke the template. And because of this, to make sure I didn't break any templates, or anything else I had to sign I changed my signature into a template.

There are also reasons that my sig might change. I am part of the Wikia Anime Project and because the project is growing my signature may need to be updated later on to include new wikia to link to.

I also may want to add some Wiki specific content to my signatures. Such as how Leon adds a link to his smartsig system in his signature to inform other users on how to make a wiki specific signature. To do this I'd actually change User:Dantman/sig to include another transclusion other than User:Dantman/sig.main which is mirrored exactly on all wikia I go to.

The last thing to think about, is when users use a lot of code to add something either style wise or functional to their signature. This could be coloring that other users use. Or more legitimately the code I use to add the functional links to my signature.

Would you rather reply to a comment where this is the signature:

{{:User:Dantman/sig.main}}

Instead of this:

[[User:Dantman|Dantman]]<sup>([[w:User:Dantman|C]][[w:c:gaia:User:Dantman|G]][[Anime:User:Dantman|A]][[w:c:naruto:User:Dantman|N]][[w:c:inuyasha:User:Dantman|I]])([[User talk:Dantman|talk]]|[[w:User talk:Dantman|C]][[w:c:gaia:User talk:Dantman|G]][[Anime:User talk:Dantman|A]][[w:c:naruto:User talk:Dantman|N]][[w:c:inuyasha:User talk:Dantman|I]])</sup>

~Dantman^(talk) 01:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Size should also be considered. The effect caused by signature transclusions is proportional to how large the wiki's communication space is (i.e, talkpages and forumpages). It is true that central is big, but the rules against signature templates on Wikipedia were created because of it's sheer size. But Central is only a fraction of a size of Wikipedia and Central will never become that big. It may be measurable, but removing signature transclusions on central won't make much difference. ~Dantman^(talk) Mar 20, 2007 _@ 07:24 ^(UTC) 07:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Transclude the template of the signature. Take a look to User:Leon2323/smartsig --Ciencia Al Poder^{talk-@WikiDex} 16:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

All you need is a good, global sig. See Angela's, Splarka's or mine for an example. No need for signature templates. Grr...I really dislike them. --Jack Phoenix _(Contact) 17:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

There you go. A new signature which works differently. If User:Dantman/sig exists it uses that. And if not it uses a default signature (Which actually looks just like that at the moment. But allows for change.) But instead of a strait template it uses included substs. It also uses parserfunctions in a way in which on wikia which I have userpage/talkpage it will just link there. But if there is none then it will instead display a link to my Animepedia userpage/talkpage and just to stop from any issues arising from directing elsewhere it will also make a local link. The parserfunctions used also use included substs so the end result is a small ammount of code. Though, do note that to do that, I was forced to subst all the already existing signatures, which means that a number of users are going to get a "You have new messages" and a number of old forum articles are going to be brought up. ~Dantman^(talk) Mar 21, 2007 _@ 04:44 ^(UTC)

Well, to be fair add user:chixpy/Firma and User:chixpy/Firma2 to the previous list... ("Firma" means "signature")

If anyone asks about why two...: the second is the page SUBST'ed by my preferences sig... --@ Chixpy 07:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

User:Chixpy/Firma would be the one to add. You'd generally use 2 templates just to bypass the automatic subst. I don't know how you'd do it otherwise. Though, if you do half to subst your signature in the future it would be good to remove the large code used for the formatting. Large code was one of the reasons why I'd transclude a signature instead of subst it. ~Dantman^(talk) Mar 21, 2007 _@ 08:02 ^(UTC)

The other ways to bypass it without a second page... are with JavaScript redefining the sig button (or deleting it and re-adding could be more easy...) or (new in 1.9) adding a new one with the old one together with:

mwCustomEditButtons[mwCustomEditButtons.length] = {
     "imageFile": "/skins/common/images/button_sig.png",
     "speedTip": "Signature 2",
     "tagOpen": "{{special:mypage/sig}} ~~~~~",
     "tagClose": "",
     "sampleText": ""};

And there some useful reasons to use the feature of page transclusions for a sig... but they don't compite with the extra work for the server... ¬¬U @ Chixpy 08:47, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

What's the problem of using smartsig? It's much easier and there's o need to add a new button. Furthermore, the signature is customizable in each wikia, and a default signature will be used if no signature page has found. --Ciencia Al Poder^{talk-@WikiDex} 19:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

As stated above, the main drawback to subst'd sigs can be solved by simply having a simple sig. Here is an alternative option: one can set their signature in Preferences to something like this (obviously personalized for me, but you get the idea):

{{subst:#ifexist:User:Splarka/sig|{{subst:User:Splarka/sig}}|--[[w:User:Splarka|Splarka]] <small>([[w:User_talk:Splarka|talk]])</small>}}

And then, anywhere they need a more customized signature they can create that template, and anywhere they are allowed template signatures they can create two, or use the javascript trick. And, anywhere they are just passing through, they need not create any signature page. --Splarka (talk) 00:28, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Another thing to note is that you can make transclusions subst other transclusions to. This is in my preferences.

{{subst:#ifexist:User:Dantman/sig|{{subst::User:Dantman/sig}}|~{{subst:#ifexist:User:Dantman|[[User:Dantman|Dantman]]|[[Anime:User:Dantman|Dantman]]<small>-[[User:Dantman|local]]</small>}}<sup>({{subst:#ifexist:User talk:Dantman|[[User talk:Dantman|talk]]|[[Anime:User talk:Dantman|Dantman]]|[[User talk:Dantman|local]]}})</sup><small>{{SUBST:CURRENTMONTHABBREV}} {{SUBST:CURRENTDAY}}, {{SUBST:CURRENTYEAR}} <sub>@</sub> {{SUBST:CURRENTTIME}} <sup>(UTC)</sup></small>}}

And inside of User:Dantman/sig

{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>:User:Dantman/sig.main}} {{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>:User:Dantman/sig.time}}

inside of User:Dantman/sig.main

~{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#ifexist:User:Dantman|[[User:Dantman|Dantman]]|[[Anime:User:Dantman|Dantman]]<small>-[[User:Dantman|local]]</small>}}<sup>({{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>#ifexist:User talk:Dantman|[[User talk:Dantman|talk]]|[[Anime:User talk:Dantman|Dantman]]|[[User talk:Dantman|local]]}})</sup>

And User:Dantman/sig.time

<small>{{<includeonly>SUBST:</includeonly>CURRENTMONTHABBREV}} {{<includeonly>SUBST:</includeonly>CURRENTDAY}}, {{<includeonly>SUBST:</includeonly>CURRENTYEAR}} <sub>@</sub> {{<includeonly>SUBST:</includeonly>CURRENTTIME}} <sup>(UTC)</sup></small>

If you look, you'll notice that if you place a subst: inside of a includeonly then when saved it will not subst, but when you subst that template the templates it substs will be substed to. So basically in this, when User:Dantman/sig exists then it is substed and here on wikia (and for the most part other wikia) it substs what is inside of sig.main and sig.time. Which intern use the same trick to subst the result in. The end result is that this large code gives a nice small result. ~Dantman^(talk) Mar 22, 2007 _@ 01:37 ^(UTC)

~[[User:Dantman|Dantman]]<sup>([[User talk:Dantman|talk]])</sup> <small>Mar 22, 2007 <sub>@</sub> 01:37 <sup>(UTC)</sup></small>

I didn't notice this thread and I think I should give my opinion. SMARTSIG wasn't meant to be used for signature templates. It was basically meant to do what Splarka said above. However, I find it useful for a signature to be a template (length being the obvious reason). I usually have a complicated signature (just to make it more interesting) and really long signatures will clutter up the page. I suggest that if a wiki doesn't permit signature templates, then that's fine. SMARTSIG offers that flexibility. A signature can be created that is a signature template on one wiki and a normal signature on another wiki. Of course, if the templates are causing a huge problem due to the processing, then signature templates should probably be abolished. But I don't personally see anything wrong with the templates apart from that. About the JavaScript thing, {{Special:Mypage/sig}} results in Special:Mypage/sig. It doesn't act like a template at all, merely doing the same as [[Special:Mypage/sig]]. One thing I discourage is putting your signature in Special:Mypage/sig as people may vandalise it. Better to put it in Special:Mypage/sig.css or Special:Mypage/sig.js where no one can edit it. "However, A feature coming next week might help people customize their wikia-wide signatures a bit easier"… I don't see what could be done to help people customize their Wikia-wide signatures a bit easier but I'm going to see what that's all about ☺. --Leon:2323 | SMARTSIG | Contribs 19:27, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

The feature will be wikia-wide user CSS and JS. It will simply be extra <style> and <script> tags in the monobook skin that loads (for registered users) two pages from the central wikia which are in your user space. --Splarka (talk) 23:57, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I always wondered why you had your sig at sig.css. I didn't know that a user's .css and .js couldn't be edited by other users. I guess it's just me being way to used to having sysop powers nearly everywhere I go. I guess I could move some of my stuff. But I don't think I will. After all, if I do then I can't use my bot to make sig.main work everywhere. But with how closely I watch the recentchanges I'm not to worried about changes to my sig anywhere other than central. ~Dantman^(talk) Mar 23, 2007 _@ 02:08 ^(UTC)

I fail to see how the Wikia-wide user CSS and JS will help with signatures. --Leon:2323 | SMARTSIG | Contribs 18:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Combined with Help:Custom_edit_buttons it could, for example, create several signature buttons that insert html directly on the edit page... globally. --Splarka (talk) 03:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That solves the problem about having wiki-specific signatures but what about the length of the signature? I think that maybe the signature could be stored in the memory as the full signature but in the edit sceen it says something like __SIG:Leon2323__. This means that the full signature isn't seen by an editor (only a shorter version) but the full version is still there. Maybe there could even be something in Special:Preferences that could allow users to choose between showing the full sig or the short one. I'm just giving an idea. Feel free to build upon it. --Leon:2323 | SMARTSIG | Contribs 13:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

...And wikis where sig templates aren't sanctioned, people can just use "normal" signatures. --Splarka (talk) 03:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dantman and Leon2323... Slade (msg) 00:54, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

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