Signing your posts on talk pages, both in the article and non-article namespaces, is a good practice and facilitates discussion by helping identify the author of a particular comment. Other users can then navigate to a talk page and address their comments to the specific, relevant user(s). Discussion is an important part of collaborative editing because it helps all users to understand the progress and evolution of a work.

• To sign a message: type four tildes (~~~~) or press the signature button ( ).
• When editing a page, main namespace articles should not be signed because the article is a shared work, based on the contributions of many people and one editor should not be singled out above others.

Modifying your signature

When signing with -- ~~~~, your default signature will appear with a link to your user page and a time-stamp, like this:

--Catharine.Au 11:50, 18 March 2011 (EDT)

This default signature can be customized by modifying the Signature option in your Preferences.

To display your department acronym, along with your name, you can use the {{sig}} template. Make sure that you put a check mark next to Raw signatures (without automatic link). Here is an example of the code to follow:

This will appear like this when used:

Creating a signature page to link to your signature

The advantage of the following technique is that it is dynamically updated. If your signature ever changes (for example, if you change departments), every signature you've ever left on the wiki will show as your current signature.

1. Create a subpage for your signature. You can use this one as an example: User:Todd.Lyons/sig (click to view code)
2. Once you've created this page, go to your Preferences page (near the top right of your screen), and in the "Signature" entry box add {{SUBST:nosubst|User:your.name/sig}}, inserting your own username.
3. Tick the Raw signatures checkbox just below it, and you're done!
4. When leaving a message, use the 4-tildes or signature button ( ) to use your signature as usual.

Now, when you add your ~~~~ signature to a page, when you look at in in edit later, it will only display this: {{User:your.name/sig}} instead of three lines of wiki text.