Community Portal/Signatures

Decision: Signature should go at the end of a post, either starting at the last line or on the next (empty) line.

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Before the Community Portal was lost, we had been having a debate about where signatures go in discussions. While the discussion had not been closed, no input had been made for a while. The voting, as I remember it, was 4-3 in favor of putting signatures at the end.

The primary argument for putting signatures at the front of posts was so that we know who is talking before we start reading.

The primary arugments for putting signatures at the end of posts was because this is how things are generally done in letters and the like, and because it definitively ends our post (so someone after us with sloppy signing won't be confused for part of our post).

Feel free to make any comments you like, as to whether we should consider this poll closed (in which case I will move my signatures), if you have anything more to add, or if you feel that either side was misrepresented. --DragoonWraith TALK 00:02, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

I think we should close this discussion next monday. I don't think we'll see any more votes. --Qazaaq 09:50, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

Sounds fine to me. By the way, please include a space between your post and the previous post. --DragoonWraith TALK 20:03, 27 June 2007 (EDT)

It's Monday. :) --Wrye 17:36, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Yes it is, I think moving the signatures on this page is a good idea and all old signatures you come along. --Qazaaq 18:31, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Alright. For the sake of clarity, I will change all of my signatures on this page, and I'll use the end from now on. I'm not going to change every instance of my signature however, as it is probably the most common non-word string on the Wiki at the moment (I know it's the most common link...)--DragoonWraith TALK 19:22, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Just moved all of my signatures... perhaps we ought to put a return before our signatures if they're at the end? I see a lot of signatures wrapping, making it somewhat difficult to read. --Dragoon Wraith TALK 19:28, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

Sounds like a good idea, will do that in the future. --Qazaaq 20:17, 2 July 2007 (EDT)

I'm strongly in favor of preceding posts with your signature, on a separate line, with the date. These are not personal letters written by a single person. When I receive a letter in postal mail, I first look at the end of the letter to see who wrote it. No big deal, only one place to look, always.

But these are not single posts written by a single author. Most other kinds of postings in the e-World are preceded by the author's name--email, bulleting boards, newgroups, etc, and they have decades of precedence. I always see the poster in the corner of my eye whenever going down posts in discussions so I can easily skip the ones from people I want to ignore and pay attention to the ones I respect. Having to search for the bottom of each post to see who wrote it, then search for the beginning of that post if I want to read that person's post, is cumbersome to say the least. And it's even worse when the sigs aren't on a separate line! You have to look all over the page for sigs now.

There is a possible exception to this rule though, and that is when an article is expected to have been written by a single person, like a tutorial or help page. It makes it more formal looking and exclusive to sign at the bottom. My preference is to still sign it at the top so I don't have to scroll to the bottom to see if it is by a person I would want to read, but I can compromise in this case if I have to.

--Tom Supergan 10:05, 19 July 2007 (EDT)