Durmstrang Institute Roleplay Wiki:Policies/Signatures

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Always remember to sign messages you leave on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~) This lets readers know who said what and makes discussions easier to follow. Signatures are also used for voting on things and in debates and various other things around the wiki, because of this it is important that they are properly coded and remain tasteful and appropriate. It would be better to have a boring signature, than to have one that is coded so poorly that it breaks the coding of everything around where it is used.

In general, you should only sign your own posts, but if you see a post which someone has left unsigned, then you may add the code "{{Unsigned|User|Time}}" to the end of that post. Find the name of the user and the time at which they posted the message by viewing the page's history.

## Guidelines

* Signatures **must link to the user's user page or the user's talk page** if he or she prefers not to have a user page on this wiki. Signatures may link to both if the user so desires. The name does not need to be the user's exact account name, but it must be a name by which the user is widely known. Without this provision, signatures do not provide the useful ability to identify a comment from a certain user on a page.
* Signatures **cannot contain more than two images**, since signatures with more than this can cause computers to load them slowly.
* Images contained in signatures **may not be higher than 60 pixels**. Users can scale images to 60px high without distorting them by using the code: [[File:Example.png|0x60px]]. It will **only** work properly if you use the full 0x60px, if you just use 60px, it could still be exceeding the 60px height.
* Signatures **must not** contain line-breaks. This results in a line break when the signature is used, which interferes with formatting and other page code.
* Signatures that use HTML tags must be balanced. This means that every <span> must have a matching </span>. You can tell if your signature is balanced by typing something after it. If it is plain text, then your signature is balanced.
* Signatures must not be excessively long. There is no set limit for how long is too long, but use common sense. In general it would be preferred if, when the signature is standing alone with no other text before it, it doesn't exceed two lines.
* Please remember to **always sign** talk pages and forum discussions, claims, votes, etc.

## Creating a custom signature

### Basic method

1. Go to your preferences page.
2. Add HTML or wiki mark-up to the signature field to create the look you want.
3. Check the "custom signature" box directly below the signature field.
4. Click the "save" button.

### Advanced method

1. Create a template page in your user space. The title of this page should be based on your user name, so if you are **User:Template:Username**, your template page would be **User:Template:Username/sig**.
2. Add HTML or wiki mark-up to your template page to create the look you want.
3. Go to your preferences page.
4. Enter the code "{{SUBST:User:Template:Username/sig}}" in the signature field.
5. Check the "custom signature" box directly below the signature field.
6. Click the "save" button.

### Two Page Method

1. Users are **strongly** urged to use this method as it replaces 5 inches of coding with less than 50 text characters.
2. This method makes your signature leave no coding on the page that it is posted on, save {{User:Template:Username/sigreal}} and a time stamp on the page.
3. Create a page in your user space. The title of this page should be based on your user name, so you are **User:Template:Username**, your first signature page should be **User:Template:Username/sigcoding**.
4. Put all of your signature coding onto **User:Template:Username/sigcoding**
5. Now make a page called **User:Template:Username/sigreal** Then type **{{User:Template:Username/sigcoding}}** onto it.
6. In your preferences page, go to the section **My Info**, then find the sub-section **Signature**.
7. In the signature field, type in **{{SUBST:User:Template:Username/sigreal}}**
8. Click the Save button.