User:Peterstrempel/signatures

As an inveterate tinkerer and W3C specifications junkie, I couldn't help but try to test the limits of what's possible with HTML on Wikipedia. My user page has gone through several incarnations, and probably will continue to do so, but the Wikipedia signature presents its own challenges that have me as content as a cat with a ball of string (or soon-to-be-dead rat).

First incarnation
Peter S Strempel | Page | Talk Hummm. Loud, ugly, ungraceful. Says wanker all over, innit.

Second incarnation
Peter S Strempel Page &#124; Talk Ooooh. Arrogant, obnoxious, a real eye-sore. I like it. Well, not really. After seeing it on a few pages it was just a fucking nuisance.

Third incarnation
Peter S Strempel Page &#124; Talk This smaller version was only slightly less obnoxious.

Fourth incarnation
Peter Strempel |  Talk

Peter Strempel |  Talk Peter Strempel |  Talk Peter Strempel |  Talk

Peter Strempel |  Talk

Jury's still out, but it seems to suggest: 'I'd like you to think I'm more sophisticated than I really am'. I could live with that. After all, where I clip my toenails is none of your business, eh?

Fifth incarnation
Peter S Strempel &#124;  Talk

Same as above, except with shadow attribute for the text.

My thinking started to be more about how to distinguish my signature from blocks of text in the rather lengthy discussions I was participating in. Jim Wales was one of many people who took exception to the span tag that accompanied my signature in the editing window, but I think that has more to do with limitations on the editing function than my narcissism. It also seems to have more to do with Mr Wales' recent conversion to minimalism a la Jakob Nielsen, which I toyed with in the early 200s and discarded as being too dogmatic.

Nevertheless, over time I came to think that this signature was still too jarring, regardless of the fact that many other editors have far more ostentatious ones.

Sixth incarnation
Peter S Strempel |  Talk

A variation on the fourth incarnation with fewer attributes.