Minecraft Wiki talk:Talk page guidelines

I would like to revisit an earlier discussion about closing and archiving topics. There have been several instances over the years where I've felt that discussions have been closed or archived too zealously where further constructive discussion may have been possible. I added a sentence to the documentation of {{close topic}} and {{forumheader}} encouraging people to leave reasoning when closing discussions, but it would be better to have actual guidelines for it.

Therefore, I'd like to suggest a new section on closing/archiving discussions, using the following wording originally proposed by KnightMiner in the previous discussion with some additions and changes. I'm not sure whether it should mention any hard time limits, or additional privileges for admins (e.g. closing disruptive discussions, or reopening discussions deemed to have been unnecessarily closed).

–Sonicwave ^talk 05:22, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

As most users oppose to remove reply to an very old topic in Minecraft Wiki:Forum/Clarification on MCW:TALK§4, combining User:Simanelix's suggestion, I propose to modify the talk page guideline rule 4 as following:

• Do not edit archives. They are called archives for a reason. Instead of replying to an archived topic, start a new topic with an optional link to the old one.
  • Be careful when replying to an old discussion in general. If a discussion hasn't had any comments or replies in the past year, consider starting a new (updated and revised) discussion on the same topic as the original with an link to the old topic.
  • If there is an unanswered question in an old discussion, and you know the answer, feel free to add the answer to the discussion for future readers to refer to.
  • You should specifically avoid adding 👁 Image
     support and 👁 Image
     opposition to old proposals, since they tend to be very outdated and you are likely to break the context in a way, confusing future readers. Make sure to take a look at the signature date or use the version history in order to find out how outdated the proposal is.
  • If your reply obviously breaks the context at that time, your comments might got removed.

👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 03:14, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, I can think of exceptions. I see no problem with gnomish maintenance edits, such as correcting a wikilink to a page that got moved without leaving a redirect behind. Or adding an appropriate archive header to an archive page that is missing one. ~Anachronist (talk) 03:46, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, maintenance edits are always exceptions. 👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 04:54, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I add "except for the purpose of maintenance" to the first sentence.

• Do not edit archives except for the purpose of maintenance. They are called archives for a reason. Instead of replying to an archived topic, start a new topic with an optional link to the old one.
  • Be careful when replying to an old discussion in general. If a discussion hasn't had any comments or replies in the past year, consider starting a new (updated and revised) discussion on the same topic as the original with an link to the old topic.
  • If there is an unanswered question in an old discussion, and you know the answer, feel free to add the answer to the discussion for future readers to refer to.
  • You should specifically avoid adding 👁 Image
     support and 👁 Image
     opposition to old proposals, since they tend to be very outdated and you are likely to break the context in a way, confusing future readers. Make sure to take a look at the signature date or use the version history in order to find out how outdated the proposal is.
  • If your reply obviously breaks the context at that time, your comments might got removed.

--👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 07:45, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

That has a number of grammatical errors, but easily fixed.

For context, the rule as it stands now is:

Do not edit archives. They are called archives for a reason. Instead of replying to an archived topic, start a new topic with an optional link to the old one. You should also generally avoid replying to topics with the last post over a year ago, as your answer is likely not the case back then.

The additional points proposed are unnecessary. They are adequately covered by the last sentence in the current rule, which should be rephrased to "You should also generally avoid replying to topics that have been inactive for over a year." ~Anachronist (talk) 18:25, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Since this is a guideline, we should guide new editors in detail instead of writing the guideline ambiguously, so I think the additional part is necessary.👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 02:07, 28 April 2024 (UTC)

Since the creation of this page in 2015 there has always been this line:

• Your signature may not contain a template unless it is always substituted. The resulting code must be no more than 250 characters.

My proposal is to simply remove the above line. There is no reason to advise people to substitute, and there is not really a reason to limit the characters if the signature is not substituted.

I see no reasoning for this listed anywhere, and the subst requirement heavily bloats the size of responses and makes viewing talk pages in editor extremely frustrating. I'm not sure where the requirement originated from, but it is not required from a technical level at this time.

Here is a section of a current talk page as seen in source editor:

If topics were collapsible, then it'd be a lot easier to scroll through the page. What do you think? -~- <bstyle="border:2px solid #0ef"> [[User:Nerdyguy2000|Nerdyguy2000]] </b>&nbsp;<bstyle="border:2px solid #ef0"> [[User talk:Nerdyguy2000|talk]] </b>&nbsp;<bstyle="border:2px solid #f0e"> [[Special:contributions/Nerdyguy2000|edits]] </b> 23:48, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

:If the page gets to the point that you're wanting collapsing that's a good sign the page should be archived instead. <bclass=nowrap><bstyle="border:1px solid #10a"> [[User:Nixinova|Nixinova]] </b> <bstyle="border:1px solid #06f"> [[User talk:Nixinova|T]] </b> <bstyle="border:1px solid #0af"> [[Special:Contribs/Nixinova|C]] </b></b>  03:40, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
::... Then should it be archived? -~-<bstyle="border:2px solid #0ef"> [[User:Nerdyguy2000|Nerdyguy2000]] </b>&nbsp;<bstyle="border:2px solid #ef0"> [[User talk:Nerdyguy2000|Talk]] </b>&nbsp;<bstyle="border:2px solid #f0e"> [[Special:contributions/Nerdyguy2000|Edits]]&nbsp;</b> 13:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
:::It may be time to archive. I tried to look at the admin noticeboard archives to see if I could come up with something quantitative, but there is a lot of variability in terms of the number of topics and the page length (in bytes) the noticeboard had before it was archived. I guess it usually gets archived when it "feels" too long. I was wondering if we should make the page like the forum with "active" and "closed" topics, where "closed" means that an admin addressed the issue, or an admin determined that it wasn't an issue needing admin attention. [[User:Rampage455|Rampage455]] ([[User talk:Rampage455|talk]]) 15:50, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
::::Hmm. That sounds good. Plus issues without a reply would get attention, at least eventually. -~-<bstyle="border:2px solid #0ef"> [[User:Nerdyguy2000|Nerdyguy2000]] </b>&nbsp;<bstyle="border:2px solid #ef0"> [[User talk:Nerdyguy2000|Talk]] </b>&nbsp;<bstyle="border:2px solid #f0e"> [[Special:contributions/Nerdyguy2000|Edits]]&nbsp;</b> 23:12, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
:::::{{c|I support}} the idea. Also, I think we should wait until the end of the month for archiving so we archive the entire month, not just most of it. <spanstyle="font-family:minecraft">[[File:ArduFish123Profile.png|link=User:ArduFish123|128px]] ([[User talk:ArduFish123|talk]]|[[Special:Contributions/ArduFish123|contributions]])</span> 08:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
:::Its usually archived when there are ~40 old topics to archive, so I'm waiting until all the August topics are resolved then I'll make an new archive. <bclass=nowrap><bstyle="border:1px solid #10a"> [[User:Nixinova|Nixinova]] </b> <bstyle="border:1px solid #06f"> [[User talk:Nixinova|T]] </b> <bstyle="border:1px solid #0af"> [[Special:Contribs/Nixinova|C]] </b></b>  05:13, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
::::I wish we could have an {{W|User:Lowercase_sigmabot_III|auto-archive bot|newtab=1}} like we have on Wikipedia. It would be useful more more pages than this one. ~[[User:Anachronist|Anachronist]] <small>([[User talk:Anachronist|talk]])</small> 05:35, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
:::::That's definitely possible to set up. I've been wanting to revive [[User:violine2202|my own bot]] anyway, and I could definitely try to implement auto-archiving. &vert; [[User:Violine1101|violine1101]] <sup>([[User Talk:Violine1101|talk]])</sup> 11:22, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
::::::The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lowercase_sigmabot_IIIlowercase sigmabot III] is standard throughout Wikipedia. It's on Tooolforge and operated by a user whose username is a single Greek letter "Σ". You might want to introduce yourself on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:%CE%A3 and ask (a) if the currently running bot instance can be used on minecraft.wiki or (b) if the source code is available for you to implement on minecraft.wiki. ~[[User:Anachronist|Anachronist]] <small>([[User talk:Anachronist|talk]])</small> 16:33, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Here is what it could look like if users were not forced to subst their signatures:

If topics were collapsible, then it'd be a lot easier to scroll through the page. What do you think? {{User:Nerdyguy2000/Signature}} 23:48, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

:If the page gets to the point that you're wanting collapsing that's a good sign the page should be archived instead. {{User:Nixinova/Signature}}  03:40, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
::... Then should it be archived? {{User:Nerdyguy2000/Signature}} 13:54, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
:::It may be time to archive. I tried to look at the admin noticeboard archives to see if I could come up with something quantitative, but there is a lot of variability in terms of the number of topics and the page length (in bytes) the noticeboard had before it was archived. I guess it usually gets archived when it "feels" too long. I was wondering if we should make the page like the forum with "active" and "closed" topics, where "closed" means that an admin addressed the issue, or an admin determined that it wasn't an issue needing admin attention. [[User:Rampage455|Rampage455]] ([[User talk:Rampage455|talk]]) 15:50, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
::::Hmm. That sounds good. Plus issues without a reply would get attention, at least eventually. {{User:Nerdyguy2000/Signature}} 23:12, 28 August 2024 (UTC)
:::::{{c|I support}} the idea. Also, I think we should wait until the end of the month for archiving so we archive the entire month, not just most of it. {{User:ArduFish123/signature}} 08:35, 29 August 2024 (UTC)
:::Its usually archived when there are ~40 old topics to archive, so I'm waiting until all the August topics are resolved then I'll make an new archive. {{User:Nixinova/Signature}} 05:13, 31 August 2024 (UTC)
::::I wish we could have an {{W|User:Lowercase_sigmabot_III|auto-archive bot|newtab=1}} like we have on Wikipedia. It would be useful more more pages than this one. ~[[User:Anachronist|Anachronist]] <small>([[User talk:Anachronist|talk]])</small> 05:35, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
:::::That's definitely possible to set up. I've been wanting to revive [[User:violine2202|my own bot]] anyway, and I could definitely try to implement auto-archiving. &vert; [[User:Violine1101|violine1101]] <sup>([[User Talk:Violine1101|talk]])</sup> 11:22, 18 September 2024 (UTC)
::::::The [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lowercase_sigmabot_IIIlowercase sigmabot III] is standard throughout Wikipedia. It's on Tooolforge and operated by a user whose username is a single Greek letter "Σ". You might want to introduce yourself on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:%CE%A3 and ask (a) if the currently running bot instance can be used on minecraft.wiki or (b) if the source code is available for you to implement on minecraft.wiki. ~[[User:Anachronist|Anachronist]] <small>([[User talk:Anachronist|talk]])</small> 16:33, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 16:00, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Oppose — The unsubstituted template can be edited, which would affect all messages that have been signed with it. Also, to my knowledge, trying to enter a template invocation into the signature would cause the wiki software to forcibly add substitution for it. BabylonAS 16:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on why allowing signatures to be edited is a bad thing? Also the forced subst can be disabled. I believe the above example shows that there is a great benefit to allowing users to express themselves in their signatures without severely bloating talk pages. Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 16:18, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Signatures are a part of talk page messages, and by editing signatures on old comments, you are editing the message itself, which in many cases is undesirable, especially if there are replies or any other kind of reaction to the message, and is outright disallowed if the message is in an archive. Also, depending on how active the user is, signature changes would prompt an update to a large amount of talk pages which might impact server performance. As for talk page bloat, the 250 character limit serves to prevent just that. BabylonAS 16:27, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

1. I disagree with your premise that the signature is "the message itself". Signatures are not treated by users as part of the message, and are more akin a bit of metadata tacked on at the end.

2. I think you are not understanding how many unique pages people talk on, or how often they change their signature. Using Special:WhatLinksHere/User:BabylonAS?limit=500 as an example, lets assume that every single link to your user page is from your signature. That is 203 pages. To put that in perspective, other wikis on our same hardware are easily parsing over 4,200 pages every single day.

3. Its not working. Look at the example above, wading through the styles and links is absolutely awful, regardless of the 250 character limit. Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 16:40, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Oppose per BabylonAS. It's a common sense that signatures should be static. Template revision may cause unexpected explosion of a lot of signatures. 👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 16:28, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

What do you mean "unexpected explosion"? Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 16:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Explained on Discord 👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 04:06, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

And for those not on Discord, you can view it on Zulip. -- 👁 Image
MarkusRost (talk) 04:16, 5 February 2025 (UTC)

Oppose. I can't see any advantages in making your signature a template.--Arina (she/her) 16:34, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Personally I think the more accurate edit byte count and the cleaner talk page wikitext are advantages. Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 16:43, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

the more accurate edit byte count - what do you mean? Bytes added by an edit? How's that even useful? cleaner talk page wikitext - syntax highlighting exists if someone forgets about what part of page's source they're editing.--Arina (she/her) 16:46, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

It is useful to be able to gauge the size of a comment by the bytes added, especially when viewing recent changes off-wiki like on Discord, but you can't do that so well when signature size can drastically vary the bytes added. Syntax highlighting makes it possible to navigate talk page source, but it is not a complete solution. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
16:48, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

When viewing the history the byte count is shown as a number like (+396), and its a useful indicator of how much content was added to the page. Its a small thing, but the substituted signature adds about +250 to that number, making even the shortest of my messages look like they are much bigger than they really are.

As the original example shows, multiple inline styles and embedded images make the source look very messy, for what simply should be a users expression of themselves through a signature. I think custom signatures are great and help us show a little about ourselves in this online space, but I don't think they should be detracting from our ability to use the space effectively. Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 16:51, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Well, one can just... not use complex markup. My signature is just one tag with a bit of CSS. BabylonAS 16:54, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

multiple inline styles and embedded images make the source look very messy, for what simply should be a users expression of themselves through a signature. - a better solution to this would be to completely forbid all images and HTML in signatures so people won't misuse them, but that won't pass anyway.--Arina (she/her) 16:55, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Soft support (assuming the "no technical reason" argument is true, which seems to be disputed): The signature isn't part of the message, it comes after the message to refer to the user that wrote it. I don't see a reason that e.g. a username change shouldn't be allowed to be reflected on old talk pages. This of course requires that signatures are always clearly identifiable as such. -- jacobsjo (talk) 16:36, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

What if replies to old comments mention the user by their then-contemporary username? BabylonAS 16:38, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Also (sorry for very late post), username changes via templates would invalidate existing comment permalinks, given that DiscussionTools is a thing. — BabylonAS 06:57, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't see a reason that e.g. a username change shouldn't be allowed to be reflected on old talk pages - there is almost always a redirect from old username to new so that's not really a problem.--Arina (she/her) 16:39, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

- 👁 Image
StizzurpXDD^(talk) 16:38, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Support, I think the benefit of drastically cleaner source text on talk pages outweighs the negative of old revisions having new signatures. - Harristic / Talk 👁 Image
16:42, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Oppose as I'm not a huge fan of signature templates in general. They don't work well with our shared preferences across all language wikis, resulting in comments with broken signatures unless you use {{subst:#ifexist: in your preferences. I consider the length limit important as well, as it enforces the display rule to Keep signatures concise. Signatures are to identify the user, user pages can be used for lengthy descriptions. -- 👁 Image
MarkusRost (talk) 16:52, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

For the record regarding my edit you linked; I purposefully ignored that my signature would break because I believed that person was in imminent physical danger. Also if I wasn't using subst then the signature would have retroactively fixed itself. I'm not opposed to keeping a length limit in place, I just didn't suggest it because it will be almost impossible to moderate and doesn't actually change anything if subst isn't forced. Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 16:56, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

Yes, the main issue I see with signature templates is their near inability to be moderated in regards to the display guidelines. Specially changed made long after a comment might remain unnoticed for a long time. However at the same time, fixing those issues once discovered is pretty easy with the templates. Changing my stance to 👁 Image
 Neutral. -- 👁 Image
MarkusRost (talk) 19:33, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Comment sources of talk pages look messy. I think that the limitation is too low (in my signature I cannot have link in my first image) 👁 Image
Miner(👁 Image
talk 👁 Image
contributions) 16:57, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Support removing the requirement to subst signatures. Removing this restriction doesn't force anyone to switch to using a template, it just adds another option for those who prefer it. - Im Wired In (talk) 18:06, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 👁 Image
Oppose complete removal, Support change. Signatures should be mostly substituted, yes. They need to stay the same if a user changes their signature. But it'd be nice if there were a few specific templates that weren't visually changed but are allowed in signatures to decrease byte count. For one, the user link template is useful to make the length not as excessive, but isn't allowed of course. Also, if there was a template with the default signature and some parameters, many signatures could be shorter. Also, if there's a way to transclude a specific revision of a page, that'd solve the whole issue. -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  23:43, 4 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Support - As per the reason given by the proposer in Discord. - 👁 Image
StizzurpXDD^(talk) 18:14, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Oppose per BabylonAS and Wilf. Additionally, if signatures remain unsubstituted and one makes a change to their signature, that'll invariably cause performance issues as MediaWiki will have to rerender these pages (especially with frequently-used signatures, e.g. Nerdyguy's). Let alone caching. DarkShadowTNT (talk) 18:36, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

Performance issues are really not a concern, even your example, Nerdguy2000, has his signature on only 497 pages. As stated above, the added load of page parsing from signatures changing is absolutely negligible. There have been over 500 edits on this wiki in the last 6 hours, not counting any pages that get re-rendered from those changes. Mudscape 👁 Image
talk 19:08, 12 February 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Note: due to our shared preferences across all language wikis, this change can only be made globally. So this discussion will need to be repeated on Meta:Forum should we decide to change that here. -- 👁 Image
MarkusRost (talk) 11:09, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

It would be better to move this discussion to Meta wiki instead of starting the discussion from scratch because there wouldn't be any new arguments. - 👁 Image
StizzurpXDD^(talk) 12:13, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

I forget about the global preferences and there's one more reason to oppose the initial proposal. What if there's no such template in other languages, or there're usage differences? 👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 14:29, 13 February 2025 (UTC) (Last edited on 14:31, 13 February 2025 (UTC))

👁 Image
 Strong oppose: Comments should always look as they always has been. This is especially helpful when someone changes their signature, as then you can instantly know roughly what "broad time period" the comment was made in without having to read the timestamp, which is useful in a quick page scan. --MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 11:26, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

Is there a consensus right now I'm not aware of? The page still says that signatures must be substituted, but I see on some pages (e.g. the MCW:ANB) many signatures are non-substituted templates. --MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 01:53, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

I don't think there's a consensus so far, so we should still substitute them according to the old guideline. 👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 03:17, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

So should I substitute every instant of unsubstituted signatures in MCW:ANB? I'll do that now as that's what I'm assuming what you mean, but please revert that if I'm misinterpreting. --MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 03:18, 31 August 2025 (UTC)

Those are from me and MCBP7 I think. -- Simanelix ^(T|C) 18:02, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Oppose, it's important that talk page messages are unable to change without interaction after they are posted. This adds more of a maintanance cost to talk page messages, and hides the authorship if the template is deleted.  Nixinova  T ⁄ C  12:17, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

It the template name is clear enough it is technically not hiding it. Also, templates should not be removed anyways. -- Simanelix ^(T|C) 18:03, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Support as the number one signature user. I also like readability in the sourxe. The signature is not part of the user name message. It is combined with the timestamp in ~~~~. I think it is intuitively part of the message suffix, not the contents. And the suffix being so long on every page is very annoying when sitting through comments on the CF specifically. But also annoying in general. And it makes it even more annoying to write JavaScript code to analyze comments and figure out who authored them. It would be a lot more clear and a lot less ambiguous if users were actually forced to either use the default sig or use a specific template with a consistent name, like {{User/sig}}. So I support inverting the current rule to require signatures, not just allow them. -- Simanelix ^(T|C) 18:10, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

If you want more readability, maybe tone down on signature customization? Speaking of readability, those fixed colors are hard to see in dark mode. Also, the fact that MediaWiki (under default configuration) forcibly substitutes templates when trying to use them in signatures clearly indicates they are not supposed to be used. Whoever has disabled that for Weird Gloop wikis are infringing on the MediaWiki devs’ intent. — BabylonAS 19:53, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

I thought that what I'm doing with my sig is actually exploiting an oversight made by the mediawiki devs. But idk. -- Simanelix ^(T|C) 07:41, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

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 Soft support allowing templates in signatures. 👁 Image
 Oppose what Simanelix said about requiring them. 👁 Image
NmF (talk) 18:13, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Very weak support. I'm not against removing the rule, but I don't have any strong feelings in support either. If it was removed I'd probably leave my signature as is, except maybe replacing the link with {{u}}, which is why I'm giving very weak support instead of neutral 👁 Image
amethyst_hhh👁 Image
18:16, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Soft oppose. In addition to the other concerns mentioned by other users above, these signature templates would be mass-vandalism targets, since they can be edited by anyone and would be (usually) transcluded into many pages. -- 👁 Image
Mitsos [ talk | edits ] 18:19, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

What if we made it so other users can't edit them? Sounds like it's own can of worms, but it is already done for user.css. Though that is a different thing. -- Simanelix ^(T|C) 18:56, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

The way it could be done is if it was somehow possible to transclude revisions... -~- Nerdyguy2000   Talk   Edits  19:01, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

Another workaround is to put the signature template in a CSS or JS file, and then transclude it into your signature. This way, it will still function like a normal template, but only you can edit it because of the .css / .js extension. I currently use this method for my signature (User:Mitsos/MitsosSignature.css -- though I substitute it instead, with {{SUBST:User:Mitsos/MitsosSignature.css}}).

This method is quite hacky though, so I don't recommend it -- and if your signature contains any images or transcludes other templates, it would still be a vandalism target, since anyone can upload a new image in place of the one you use and anyone can edit the other templates (unless they are also protected). -- 👁 Image
Mitsos [ talk | edits ] 19:12, 1 November 2025 (UTC)

This would be cool. Especially since it would make old revisions of pages show as they once were. Or it could. But that would be super complicated. No one is gonna do that. -- Simanelix ^(T|C) 07:45, 4 November 2025 (UTC)

I strongly recommend moving this discussion to meta wiki and setting up a global policy about signature because personal signature settings affect globally. Supposing that English wiki allows unsubstituted templates while other language wikis disallow, it would cause much trouble. 👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 07:02, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Well, this topic has died down. But it definitely belongs on meta wiki. Since the subst rule applies globally. It works make sense in terms of scope. -- Simanelix ^(T|C) 12:58, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

Which meta talk page would this be moved to? --MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 13:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

meta:Forum 👁 Image
Wilf233_zhMCW（论·功） 13:11, 14 November 2025 (UTC)

I've proposed a global signature system at meta:Forum:Global signature system. | violine1101 ^(talk) 16:37, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

So it says "You may not link to another user's page, and other internal links not directly related to your general information should be avoided." which, yeah that makes sense. But, can an alt account link to a main accounts page? It is technically the same user, as it's the same person, but I want to check if it's okay before I do it. apologies if this is isn't where i should ask 👁 Image
amethyst_hhh👁 Image
04:08, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure what this guideline specifically says, but IMO you can just MCW:IAR here, if linking to the main account improves clarity. ‑‑MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 04:50, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Since the above topic was closed, the sentence "The code generated by your signature must not be longer than 100 characters." was added to the Signatures section. This now means tons of signatures are technically against this guideline, because they do not use templates. I propose the text "If you are not using templates in your signature, the resulting text must be no longer than 255 characters" be added as a sub-bullet to that, to reflect what was previously enforced. 👁 Image
amethyst_hhh👁 Image
06:44, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

👁 Image
 Support, as the 100-character limit is currently unenforcable due to so many previous signatures being longer. ‑‑MinecraftExp123^{(talk|contribs)} 08:06, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I feel like at the moment the limit is too low, so I've changed it back. But I'd really like to encourage people who have long signatures to use the global signature template instead, but maybe this doesn't need to be a hard rule. | violine1101 ^(talk) 12:54, 29 March 2026 (UTC)