User talk:Dinoguy1000/signature

At my RfA, several people commented that my signature is annoying and even unintelligible to those who lack the proper fonts. However, I'm not big on trying to think about stuff like that, so I figured I'd put the collaborative nature of Wikipedia to work for me. =D Do you have ideas for how my sig could be improved?

Discussion
I'd just like to comment that your first colorized sig might make more sense than the current one; it's still kind of fancy, but it doesn't have foreign characters which some browsers can't read. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC) (Dinoguy1000) 00:00, 0 January 1970 (UTC)
 * As long as you have the appropriate fonts installed (and Windows XP SP2 or newer, Mac OS X 10.1 or newer, and most Linux distros do), then there shouldn't be a problem. ··· 日本穣 ? · Talk to Nihonjoe 18:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I have the right fonts, but some people don't. This was brought up during the RFA. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * If I had enough space at my disposal, I'd add a link to Help:Japanese, similar to how Nihongo does it. However, I'm pretty much at the sig length limit (only have 5 more characters, then it maxes out). =P 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 19:57, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * How about: ダイノ ガイ 千 ?(Dinoguy1000)
 * It removes what appears to be an extra style and some of the non-linked characters. Now, I don't know Japanese at all so I don't know whether or not the non-linked characters have a meaning or not, but if they do removing them could make sense. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 20:11, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * "「」" are Japanese quotes, "？！" are fullwidth versions of "?!", and the  style in my user talk link is to keep the text from getting bolded on my user talk page (otherwise you'd get ガイ, which may or may not appear differently from normal depending on your OS, browser, supported fonts, and whatever blood sacrifices you've performed for/to/on/because of your computer as of late =) ). In short, the general idea behind my current signature is "Dinoguy1000?!", as in, shock and/or amazement horror. And as for the help link, I was thinking of linking "Dinoguy1000". Thoughts? 「ダイノ ガイ  千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 20:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Linking "Dinoguy1000" was my original thought, but I wasn't sure if you'd like that or not. I see your point on the user talk page links; in that case, could you clarify what  does? Your signature doesn't break at the ends of lines even without it (I gave it a few tests) because there aren't any spaces. I personally am kind of neutral on the quotes and punctuation; they seem kind of "extra". I don't sign as , but that's really just a personal choice. –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 21:40, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
 * As I recall, I added it because "(Dinoguy1000)" was wrapping, and it really didn't look too good... or something. Let's see... 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」
 * Yeah, that would be why... it looks like crap. Maybe I should just stuff my sig into a template and see how long I can get away with it before someone complains? =D 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 17:28, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest not. :) Maybe an &amp;nbsp; between the characters and the (Dinoguy1000) would remove the need for that style? –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 17:56, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Nope, playing with the browser window width shows it just wrapping after various kana (in Firefox, too, which means many other browsers probably do it too): 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」 (Dinoguy1000) 00:00, 0 January 1970 (UTC) 「ダイノ ガイ  千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 18:58, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

We may have a winner (for now); G.A.S's version has a link to Help:Japanese (via a shortcut) while still retaining all the current styles and displayed characters. (TBH, I thought about going with a redirect myself, but wasn't sure about always seeing my name in green (since I have styles in my monobook.css to color redirects green)) 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 08:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)


 * H:JP is a cross namespace redirect from main space though, and since it was created recently and apparently only for this purpose it should really be deleted again. In any case, I wouldn't use it in my signature, chances are pretty high that it will be RfDed. Amalthea  22:20, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * And, IMHO, I think it's really annoying anyway. If I see your name as part of your signature, I expect that I can point on it and get a popup of your user or talk page, not Help:Japanese. Amalthea  22:24, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Bah, party-pooper... =D Any suggestions? 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 22:27, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * None that you'll like. :) Amalthea  22:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I was aware that H: is a pseudo namespace, but my reading of WP:SHORTCUT only says that it is rarely used, not discouraged. In any case: it fits the naming scheme of the other "Japanese" shortcuts: WP:JP and MOS:JP, as such I would rather keeping it:) G.A.S talk 05:42, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I can live with it if it's an old link, or one that is frequently used. If it's purely used in a signature then the pollution of namespace argument has more weight, I'd say. In any case, Help:JP needs only three more characters, that should work just as well. Amalthea  09:22, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * In which case I ask that Dinoguy removes the link from the signature for now. We can still easily use WP:AWB to cleanup the redlinks if the shortcut is deleted at this stage. G.A.S talk 17:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Update to sig posted which addresses your concern. G.A.S talk 17:28, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Done, how's it look? 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 02:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * How about Nihonjoe's method ( ? )? G.A.S talk 17:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I'd actually prefer this, if there were some obvious, easy method to make it fit in better with my sig (that and, once again, I'm riding the wall with my sig limit ;) ). 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 02:00, 16 May 2009 (UTC)
 * See above. Just could not fit the ... tags, but you will hardly notice the difference. :) G.A.S talk 05:26, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Eh? What tags? Or did you mean the parenthesis? We could swap the location of the user and talk links, and then cut the "Talk to" part, which would give back a few characters to play with further... In any case, I added a "remix" of your version with a couple of things rearranged; thoughts? 「ダイノ ガイ  千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 20:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC)


 * tags - I wondered if you would figure it out - have a look at Nihonjoe's signature.
 * I actually prefer the remix;).
 * Would your proposal win enough characters to color "ダイノ" blue again? (I cannot count the characters needed right now, but I doubt it). Nope.
 * G.A.S talk 22:51, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Aah, I see, he uses it on the "Talk to Nihonjoe" text. I'll put up a sample of my remix with the same effect (yeah, it'll absolutely murder the sig limit =) ). 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 02:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Or not... ^_^ G.A.S talk 04:46, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Aagh, unquoted attributes! It burns us! It buuuuuuurrrns ussss! =D ···「ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? Talk to Dinoguy1000 10:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ^_^ (Have a look at the page's source (Firefox→View→Page Source): Mediawiki puts them back automatically.) G.A.S talk 10:47, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Still, I *really* don't like it, it goes against every tenant of high-quality HTML/CSS coding I've ever learned. =D ···「ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? Talk to Dinoguy1000 22:12, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * But you aren't writing HTML here, you're writing wikicode, where unclosed tags and quoteless attributes are and always will be perfectly fine. :) Amalthea  22:22, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I tend to think of it as making full use of Mediawiki's features: How do we get as much coding as possible in as little wikicode as possible. Though ultimately, it is up to you. G.A.S talk 05:23, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * My personal view is that, for pseudo-XML wikimarkup (small, span, sup, code, ref, poem, etc.), there's really not much point in taking advantage of such features - and considering how little coding I do in straight (X)HTML any more lately, I also think of it as potentially shooting myself in the foot - some of these tricks are bad practice in HTML, and I originally had some of these bad habits back when I first started coding in HTML, so I'm afraid I might fall back into the habit. =) However, when wikimarkup diverges wildly from XML-style (pure markup tables, links, etc.), all that goes out the window and I'm willing to use horribly ugly code if it achieves the desired effect (though personally, I much prefer beautiful code, which is why I typically refrain from mixing the pseudo-XML markup and the pure wiki markup when possible - if you mix stuff like tables, it just looks horrible). Now that that mini-rant is out of the way, though, maybe I should go and finally test what happens if I try having in the signature field. =D ···「ダイノ ガイ  千？！ 」? Talk to Dinoguy1000 19:15, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * ...and what do you know, it works! See also User:Dinoguy1000/signature, which is what I tested with (and yeah, I already full-protected it, to prevent any idiot anons/new users from messing with it). I guess I'll use it until someone complains. =D ···「ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? Talk to Dinoguy1000 19:20, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * You can now even replace the "? " with "? · ";) I actually considered subst:'ing but refrained from mentioning it... obviously they have not enabled the signature cleanup extention on en.wiki, or it ignores subst:. G.A.S talk 20:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I noticed that you have not colored "ダイノ" blue again? G.A.S talk 20:48, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That would be because I'm lazy. ;) ···「ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk to Dinoguy1000 15:47, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Buuuuut ... it's longer than WP:SIG allows now. Please undo that, or use the syntax from above that stays within the limit. Amalthea  16:15, 30 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Okay, how's it now? (yep, finally gave up on my "neat code" crusade ;P ) ···「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk to Dinoguy1000 20:43, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Err, still too long with 283 characters? Amalthea  21:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Gah, it's not faaiiirrrrrr! T~T Do you see any ways to shave off more characters, then? (I could cut the "···", since I wasn't actually the one who added them...) ···「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk to Dinoguy1000 22:00, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If you insist on the non-boldedness, then only by cutting both one of the colors and the dots. But I'm growing a bit weary of sig tweaking, so maybe I just don't see it. Amalthea  22:23, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This indenting is going to break my (personal) record:D. You can remove one character by moving the undefined tags inside the "?" and "Talk to Dinoguy1000" links as I have done here, and you can replace " · " with "・" for another two characters. I wonder else what we are missing? — G.A.S talk 05:38, 2 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't look at me to unindent, I kinda wanna see what happens when it extends beyond the edge of the screen. =D The problem with moving the sup tag inside the links is that it makes the bullet drop and look like a superscript period: ? · Talk to Dinoguy1000. Instead, I just removed the "···" (a shame, I've grown rather attached =D ) and tweaked the "Talk to Dinoguy1000" text. Not there yet, but I get a few characters back, at least. 「 ダイノ ガイ 千？！ 」? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000 18:26, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

H:JP
Can you go through the couple of uses of H:JP so we can delete the XNR again? Else I will. Amalthea 20:18, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Feel free to, I'm feeling lazy (and hungry; Chinese is sounding really good right now =D ). 「ダイノ ガイ 千 ？！」(Dinoguy1000) 21:07, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

My Suggestion
I think that you should do one of the colored signatures with English writing, as it makes you more easily identifiable and it is not confusing for the user that is trying to contact you. Logan | Talk 20:56, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

missing span tags
Would you mind adding closing span tags to your sig so as not to add to the lint errors. -- WOSlinker (talk) 18:57, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

From 「 ディノ 奴 千？！」☎ Dinoguy1000 To 「 ディノ 奴 千？！ 」☎ Dinoguy1000