Help talk:Signatures

Previous page history was archived for backup purposes at Help talk:Signatures/LQT Archive 1 on 2015-07-10.

I recently noticed that the default signature on Commons includes localized text for the talk page link, e.g. [[User:CalendulaAsteraceae|CalendulaAsteraceae]] ([[User talk:CalendulaAsteraceae|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:Talkpagelinktext}}</span>]]), which I think is a great feature for a multilingual wiki.

Based on this discussion, it looks like this has been the case since 2021, and, as was brought up at the time, the fact that all parser functions in signatures are automatically SUBSTed means users cannot both customize their signatures and have their talk page link localized.

For example, I would like my signature to also include a link to my contributions page, like so: —[[User:CalendulaAsteraceae|CalendulaAsteraceae]] ([[User talk:CalendulaAsteraceae|<span class="signature-talk">{{int:talkpagelinktext}}</span>]] • [[Special:Contributions/CalendulaAsteraceae|{{int:contribslink}}]]), and the automatic substitution means that the text of my signature is only available in English: —[[User:CalendulaAsteraceae|CalendulaAsteraceae]] ([[User talk:CalendulaAsteraceae|<span class="signature-talk">talk</span>]] • [[Special:Contributions/CalendulaAsteraceae|contribs]]).

I completely agree that i18n must not be an afterthought, and if the software itself is interfering with localization, that's a problem. How feasible would it be to add an exception for localized text to the automatic SUBSTing of parser functions, and what is the appropriate way to propose this?

How can someone add a template to their signature without having it automatically adding the SUBST: to it (or bypass it even if it is added works too).

This post was posted by 71.208.90.243, but signed as Peckham33.

I'll answer your question with a question: Eugh! Why would anyone want to do such a thing?

Eugh! Why not?

In our corporate wiki we would like to have a Template:Comment that adds a simple box with a special "comment" format on any given article, and we'd like to have a signature appended to it. Something like:

{{comment|This should be reviewed by the legal department!}}

Most our users have a hard time with wiki syntax so making it simple would be much better than asking everybody to "remember to sign all your comments" (this is how we operate today and, well, most people never sign).

We often nest comments like this:

{{comment|This should be reviewed by the legal department!
      {{comment|yes, we are looking into it!}}
      {{comment|also submit to marketing after you are done...
          {{comment| ok, will do}} 
      }}
 }}
   

Before anyone says anything, no, we do not like to use discussion pages, since we want these comments visible in the main page.

Any thoughts on this would be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance...

The original question was about adding a template to a signature.

You're saying on your corporate wiki people forget to sign, so you're using a template instead of a signature. Did you have a different question about doing that? Did you want to ask how to add a signature to a template? (That's the other way round from what the original question was ...and a more sensible thing to want to do)

This is my question too. Is it possible to add signature in template? I need to add signature in comment template, which highlights the changed text and popup comment when mouse is moved over. History is not good at this case.

• ~~~~ turns to words when we save template and therefore template returns the same user and timestamp every time;
• {{REVISIONUSER}} - {{REVISIONTIMESTAMP}} changes (updates) the signature (everywhere in text) on every edit.

The only solution I have found for now is to add signature manually

The answers below were meant for you.

Yup, I have done it with:

Tgeorgescu (discuție) {{subst:#timel: d F Y H:i:s}} ({{subst:#ifeq:{{subst:Daylight saving in time zone}}|1|EEST|EET}})

It does not show well, I try again:

[[Utilizator:Tgeorgescu|Tgeorgescu]] ([[Discuție utilizator:Tgeorgescu|discuție]]) {{{{{|subst:#timel: d F Y H:i:s}}}}} ({{{{{|subst:#ifeq:{{{{{|subst:Daylight saving in time zone|EET}}}}}}}}|1|EEST|EET}})

That would be:

[[User:Tgeorgescu|Tgeorgescu]] ([[User talk:Tgeorgescu|talk]]) {{{{{|subst:#timel: d F Y H:i:s}}}}} ({{{{{|subst:#ifeq:{{{{{|subst:Daylight saving in time zone|EET}}}}}}}}|1|EEST|EET}})

It had an error. Correct is:

[[User:Tgeorgescu|Tgeorgescu]] ([[User talk:Tgeorgescu|talk]]) {{{{{|subst:#timel: d F Y H:i:s}}}}} ({{{{{|subst:#ifeq:{{{{{|subst:Daylight saving in time zone}}}}}}}}|EET|1|EEST|EET}})

Thank you for reply, Tgeorgescu! In this example user name is a constant, but we need a variable. The template should add current user name to signature and save it as text, which means ones it is saved it would not be changed on any next edits.

Is it possible to automatically incorporate a user signature within a template (not a template within a signature) - for example, on a non-talk page, the user employs a template like {{Journal|some journal text}} that formats their entry according to the template but then auto-adds a signature as well? I tried --~~<includeonly></includeonly>~~ but that just prints the tildes themselves, doesn't resolve to the signature. Any ideas?

This is only possible if you subst: the template ({{subst:Journal|some journal text}}). See the subst: modifier in Help:Templates.

I see how on Wikipedia's Help desk there's a signature button not only on the talk page but on the base page too, which is very useful to encourage users to sign their requests (nobody bothers typing tildes). I wonder how it's done.

No, this is controlled by Manual:$wgExtraSignatureNamespaces, by adding NS_PROJECT to the array.

fyi, the timezone is set based on the server timezone it seems.

 cat /etc/timezone

if server is UTC:

User-Tilo (talk) 17:34, 8 August 2018 (UTC) 

If server is PDT

User-Tilo (talk) 15:35, 8 August 2018 (PDT)

What does it do in the page? I believe Help pages are supposed to be applicable to any wikis or to wikis using extensions the pages describe. Not every wiki uses Flow and few new wikis are expected to do it given the extension's status. I suppose this section should be moved to Help:Extension:Flow or removed. --Base (talk) 16:30, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to link to a css stylesheet from within the signature? If I put "{{#css:/wiki/user:myname/signature.css}}" then it doesn't apply the stylesheet and if I do <link rel="stylesheet" href="mysite.com/wiki_style.css"> then it says "html errors" (I assume because stylesheets are only supposed to be referenced inside of <head>. Any help?

The facts: The same rules apply as elsewhere in the wikitext of any wiki page. Normal wiki users are not allowed to link off to bring in some other stylesheet. That would be a security issue. You can do inline CSS within HTML tags. See Help:Formatting#HTML tags.

The opinion: Eugh! Why would you want to do this? Custom signatures are silly and annoying, and stylised ones particularly so.

how can i make my signature unique

If everyone just signed with their username (and stopped arsing around with fancy signatures) then that would be unique. ...Just an idea :-)

It seems odd to me that MediaWiki imposes a European dating format on all signatures. Does anyone know how to change the timestamp for signatures so that it uses ISO 8601? For example, is there some setting that can be imposed through the LocalSettings.php file?

Instead of:

07:00, 13 August 2016 (UTC)

I would like to have:

07:00, 2016 August 13 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be any setting for that. However it seems sensible to allow it to be configurable in LocalSettings.php similar to $wgAmericanDates but having full control over the date format, at least for signatures. Feel free to fill a task about that

Thanks. I went to Phabricator and did a search. No one seems to have talked about this. But when I wanted to create a task, it seems I need to create a fresh account there. Frankly, I lost interest at that point. I don't have the time to follow up on this. And if no one else is interested, then it's likely to be a long time before this relatively simple and sensible change is implemented. And I guess I'll just wait.

Would it be able to have a parameter showing the last user modifying the page much like the information on "View history" on the actual page?

I would like to include it in my infobox like

{{Infobox

|LastModifiedBy = SignatureOfTheLastEditedVersion

}}

You can display the name of the last user that edited the page with {{REVISIONUSER}}, but not the signature of that user (in case the user has a custom one). See Help:Magic words#REVISIONUSER