Help:Signatures
Signatures provide attribution for users' posts on talk pages. This helps other users identify the author of each post and to see when those posts were made.
Signing your posts
When writing on a talk page, sign and date your post by adding four consecutive tilde characters (~~~~) at the end of your comments. This sequence will become your signature when you save the page.
The preferred way to sign is to include both your username and the current date and time. This is accomplished by typing four tildes, as previously mentioned. Typing three tildes results in your signature without a timestamp, while typing five tildes results in just the timestamp.
| Sequence | Wikitext (after saving) | Rendered |
|---|---|---|
~~~~
|
[[User:Example|Example]] ([[User talk:Example|talk]]) 02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
|
Example (talk) 02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC) |
~~~
|
[[User:Example|Example]] ([[User talk:Example|talk]])
|
Example (talk) |
~~~~~
|
02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC)
|
02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC) |
Custom signatures
You can customise your signature from your preferences. To add custom text in place of your username, enter it in the "New signature" field. By default, the text you enter here will be linked to your user page.
Further customisations
To fully change the structure of your signature, you must enable the "Treat signature as wikitext" setting. By doing so, anything entered in the "New signature" field will be treated as wikitext and rendered in place of your default signature.
The following are examples of wikitext signature customisations you might do:
| Description | Wikitext | Rendered signature |
|---|---|---|
| Include dashes before your signature | -- [[User:Example|Example]]
|
-- Example 02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC) |
| Using custom link text in your signature | [[User:Example|Preferred sign name]]
|
Preferred sign name 02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC) |
| Your signature, followed by a link to your talk page | [[User:Example|Example]] ([[User talk:Example|talk]])
|
Example (talk) 02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC) |
| Your signature, followed by abbreviated talk and contributions links | [[User:Example|Example]] ([[User talk:Example|t]]|[[Special:Contributions/Example|c]])
|
Example (t|c) 02:59, 1 December 2024 (UTC) |
Unsigned posts
If you forget to sign your own post, simply edit the talk page again and add your signature. As long as not much time has passed and no one has posted after you, it won't matter if the timestamp isn't accurate to the minute.
To provide attribution for a post that someone else forgot to sign, use {{unsigned}}.