If you are new to editing Wikipedia, you might be on the wrong page. This page is not meant for general questions or discussions about articles. This page is specifically for discussions about the Wikipedia page Wikipedia:Signatures. To discuss an article, please use that article's talk page instead. For help with using and editing Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:Teahouse.

Wikipedia Help NA‑class High‑importance

This page is within the scope of the Wikipedia Help Project, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's help documentation for readers and contributors. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. To browse help related resources see the Help Menu or Help Directory. Or ask for help on your talk page and a volunteer will visit you there.Wikipedia HelpWikipedia:Help ProjectTemplate:Wikipedia Help ProjectHelp articles NA This page does not require a rating on the project's quality scale. High This page has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Archives

Index 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

A training tool within the framework of Wikipedia:Education creates discussions on Talk pages on behalf of student editors, and publishes a comment on the TP with a sig that is not the userid of the editor running the tool. There is a question as to whether this is compliant with the guideline, in particular, the policy section at § Signature forgery. Your feedback would be appreciated at this discussion. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 23:00, 18 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) § RfC: applying signature validation retroactively. Frostly (talk) 04:30, 12 January 2024 (UTC)— Frostly (talk) 04:30, 12 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

...is at User:HouseBlaster/sandbox. Comments welcome. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 22:16, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I adapted a message that a few of us have been using for three years or so. It has worked well; I have had a number of comments thanking me for the detailed instructions or saying that they worked. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! The new version suggests that a replacement signature is provided, but that is not the case. If someone wants to go through and do that for all 300+ people on the list, be my guest. Otherwise, I think it be changed to say (in kind language) "either figure out how to fix your signature on your own or ask for help". HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 22:50, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone ahead and  Done the above. @Jonesey95: does it look alright to you? HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 00:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good catch. The message looks great now. I used to provide fixed custom signatures for each editor when I delivered this message. See this talk page for an example. We're not going to do that with this message. How was the list of editor recipients created? I'm curious about the criteria. Also, does the "Learn more" button appear automatically for editors who have an invalid signature, even before they click Save? – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:49, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The list was created at phab:T356168 (with a massive thank you to Matma Rex!). The Learn more button appears automatically. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 01:54, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I poked around that task and some of its links, but I was unable to find a set of criteria that were easy for me to parse. I did a bit of spot-checking, and I didn't see any errors. I was expecting there to be a lot more than 300 active editors with font or tt tags in their sigs. We'll see. We may need to repeat this process once every month or two for a while; infrequent talk-page posters appear on and disappear from the toolforge signature report. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:13, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The list comes directly from MediaWiki; if they are not on that list they either have not edited a discussion in the past three months or they do not have an invalid signature. I know some people create a template and use that instead the standard ~~~~; their signatures are not technically "invalid". HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:15, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95: if there are no further objections, would you be able to send out the message to everyone at User:HouseBlaster/invalid signatures? HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 23:25, 1 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I will be away from Wikipedia for the next couple of days. Please ping me again on Sunday or Monday. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:39, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95: would it be easier if I ask at WT:MMS? HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:40, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That would be fine with me. You might also mention that this message will need to be re-sent (to smaller groups of editors) every month or two for a while. – Jonesey95 (talk) 02:49, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Jonesey95: it shouldn't need to be resent, because in a month all of those editors with invalid signatures will no longer have invalid signatures. HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 02:50, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The change has been deployed :) HouseBlaster (talk · he/him) 21:07, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hooray! I look forward to not seeing font tags in newly posted signatures. – Jonesey95 (talk) 21:47, 5 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed my signature months ago. --ZacBowling ^(user|talk) 04:50, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ZacBowling, unsurprisingly, bots are imperfect. Express your concerns to the bot operator. Cullen328 (talk) 04:52, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, telling a bot to go away (begone) is ineffective. They do not respond to random editor comments. Cullen328 (talk) 04:59, 3 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]