Eng:Signature

A signature (often shortened to "sig" or "siggy") is a feature on the Scratch Forums which allows a Scratcher to have a certain piece of text (often marked up with BBCode), and even images, appear automatically below each of their forum posts.

Creating a Signature
To create a signature, scroll down to the bottom of the home discussion (forum) page and click the "Change your signature" link. There, you will be brought to a webpage in which your signature can be edited in the provided text box. See the example content section for some ideas or inspiration.

New Scratchers often mistake signatures as text actually typed at the end of each post ; they might add their signatures manually, usually separated by a line of underscores to look like the official signatures.

Restrictions
There are a number of restrictions on forum signatures:
 * Images cannot exceed 150px in height, as images higher get cut off.
 * They must follow the Community Guidelines.
 * Images can not be added by New Scratchers.

Signatures may however contain the following: Interestingly, images were allowed in signatures when they were temporarily disabled on the forums in early 2012.
 * BBCode markup, including images and links

Example Content
Scratchers have been extremely creative with their signatures. Some interesting uses are:
 * A favorite quote
 * A banner (one can ask for a custom banner on the Requests forum or make it themselves)
 * An advertisement for a project
 * A "navigation bar" signature with links to the user's profile page, recent project, wiki talk page, etc.
 * Very funny pictures
 * You can also use the [scratchblocks] feature in your signature too.
 * "Project pick of the week" signatures which advertise a project each week
 * PHP-image based signatures which use PHP APIs to display up-to-date statistics
 * This is no longer possible because of the restricted image hosting and abuse.
 * Adding internet counters from http://internetometer.com/
 * Adding hidden text under the signature that it can be only seen by a device formatted for it or by Inspect Element.
 * Some trend activities

Wiki Signature
A signature when signing on a Wiki talk page can be made with 4 tildes (~). This shows the user's avatar, username, date, and a link to his/her user talk page and contributions.

Custom Wiki Signatures
To make a custom signature on the wiki, create a subpage of your userpage containing only the signature. Once you have done that, instead of the ordinary, use   to include the signature and timestamp.

Custom Signatures are allowed on the wiki, but discouraged. However, it's important that they follow the rules for Custom Signatures, outlined here.

Evil Kumquat Trend
Several users have replaced their signatures with messages saying their signatures were eaten by evil kumquats. This trend was created by cheddargirl during the Scratch 2.0 beta.