Help:Signatures

Users can easily sign their posts at the end of a comment. Signing is normally done on talk pages only, not on conjointly written articles.

There are three default options. Four tildes are a full signature, which should be used for most signing. Typing three tildes results in a username-only signature (without timestamp). Typing five tildes results in a pure timestamp (without username).

If you edit without logging in, the link to your username will be replaced with a link to your temporary account's contributions and talk page. Usernames and temporary accounts are also stored in page histories as a record of who wrote what, so others can always verify signatures.

The common format to type a signature – two hyphens (or a long dash) followed by four tildes (-- ~~~~) – is derived from the computer network Usenet, where two hyphens mark a signature block. Note that the hyphens or dash are not inserted automatically and have to be entered (unless you customize your signature to include them, see an example in the next section).

The actual signature string, the tildes, automatically get substituted with username (linked to the appropriate user page) and timestamp (time/date), when you save a signed edit. This helps other users to follow the chronological order of discussions, and to identify the author of a particular comment.

If you don't find the tilde on your keyboard, you can use the signature button 👁 signature button
of the default edit toolbar as a typing aid.

Signatures do not work in edit summaries (they do not translate from ~~~~ there).

Note that timestamps are currently formatted by default and saved according to the default local conventions (language, script, date and time format) used on each wiki, and not according to the conventions of your current preferred language.

Registered users can customize their signature (the part between the two hyphens and the timestamp) by changing the field "New signature:" in their preferences. Remember that the primary purpose of a signature is user identification to facilitate communication, they are not an expression of your creativity.

By default, anything you enter there will simply replace the title for the link to your userpage, while still displaying the talk link afterwards.

To use a special linking (without this automatic link), you have to enable “Raw signatures.” Then you can add wiki markup and also HTML (as far as allowed on the wiki) as you like, but the maximum length is 255 characters and the signature must meet the signature guidelines. If you enable “Raw signatures” but don't add any customized signature string, you'll sign with your unlinked username, which is disallowed.