User:John Reid/sigs

I believe that over-elaborate and deceptive sigs are a sign of immaturity, if not of intent to do outright mischief. I tend to oppose nominees for adminship who display these unwise sigs. A sig (the wikimarkup substituted by the MediaWiki engine for a string of three tildes) is set by the user and no policy has been shown to govern it. Therefore my position on sigs is merely my private opinion and carries no weight whatsoever nor does it require justification. Here I provide as much elaboration as may be needed.

The engine provides as a sig, by default, markup that echoes one's username linked to one's userpage. Various users have demanded that sigs also link to user talk pages, for convenience in making comments. I feel all modifications, elaborations, extensions, or decorations past that point to be questionable. They may be acceptable but each such addition meets with my increasing disapproval. Images, superscripts, colors, and links to other pages are all unnecessary and are often burdensome to other editors. I don't like them. Visible sig text that varies from one's username is deceptive as well as unnecessary; I really don't like these. (Example: Bar.) One is given the opportunity to choose an alias when registering on wiki; another layer of anonymity is of no value. Worst of all are special characters -- those with ASCII values greater than 127 -- and the absolute worst are double-byte characters. These screw up my editing workflow and if I corrupt them while refactoring a page then sorry. (I can think of even worse things to do with a sig but WP:BEANS.)

That said, I strongly oppose any but the most basic rules governing sigs. I prefer that wide latitude be given to all users and that they enjoy this latitude to the fullest possible extent. I'm happy to pay the price in inconvenience in exchange for this simple and direct way for users to advertise their characters. In the same way, I like to live in a world that permits a great deal of latitude in dress and grooming. When I see a person approaching me on the street who is dressed badly or in some extreme fashion, I am warned that he may not be entirely rational. I avoid him, do not take what he says seriously, and thus save myself much trouble. If we were all forced, as the Chinese were during the Cultural Revolution, to wear identical clothing, then I might have to work harder to distinguish fools and troublemakers. John Reid 01:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)