Wikipedia:Don't use a billboard signature

This is an essay on the conduct policy.

It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article, nor is it one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community. Some essays represent widespread norms; others only represent minority viewpoints.

Shortcuts

This page in a nutshell: Discussion pages are about discussion. Do not highlight your signature to draw attention away from discussion to focus on your name.

It is standard practice on Wikipedia to sign talk page comments, adding information about who wrote it and when it was written. Registered users can customize their signatures through their preferences, affecting how their signatures appear to other users. Some users change their signatures for functional reasons, and others customize it for stylistic reasons, as a means of expression.

A signature should not, however, distract from the discussion itself. When you use text highlighting or other CSS to turn your username into a billboard, you pull editors' concentration away from the substance of the talk page to instead focus on your name. A better place to use extensive highlighting, colors, and other styles is on your userpage to which your signature links, not every instance of your signature.

What the guideline says

Wikipedia:Signatures says:

Your signature must not blink, scroll, or otherwise cause inconvenience to or annoy other editors.

The guideline says to avoid enlarging the text, adding line breaks or horizontal rules, to use subscript and superscript sparingly, to ensure it's big enough to read, and to use color sparingly.

One reason to use color sparingly is for accessibility reasons. Using different colors in your signature can affect some people's ability to read it if the contrast between the text and background is not sufficiently high.

Using a billboard signature inconveniences and annoys other editors, but is not directly related to accessibility, and the guideline does not specifically address text highlighting.

Avoid text highlighting

The most common way to "cause inconvenience to or annoy other editors" with a signature that is not listed in the guideline is through text highlighting.

A highlighter is a device which intentionally draws attention to only part of a passage of text by surrounding it with a bright color (defined in terms of difference with the background on the rest of the page). Highlighting your name draws people's attention away from discussions to focus on your name. Even when the contrast between characters and background is sufficiently high to meet readability standards, the contrast between the default background and the background of a signature is very distracting.

What to do if you see a billboard signature

In practice, Wikipedia's guidelines about signatures are enforced inconsistently, and the community has shown reluctance to codify additional specific restrictions. Therefore it is not sufficient to simply link to the guideline and demand someone change their signature. Ask politely, and explain that it is distracting. Remember that although the effect of a billboard signature is distraction from discussion and undue focus on the signature itself, users often do not design a signature for this reason. Signatures are a means of personal expression, and a user with a distracting signature probably does not realize that it negatively affects other people's ability to engage with or focus on discussions in talk pages.

Seeing your own signature

Some people use a nonstandard signature to facilitate finding their own posts on a page. For this, there are ways to highlight your own posts so that only you see the highlighting. One script which makes this easy is PleaseStand's comment highlighter.

Examples of billboard signatures

These are real examples, but the usernames (and some other identifying details) have been changed. In many cases, the user has already changed their signature to something different. This page is not intended to call anyone out.