From Test-Scratch-Wiki
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 [[Eng:#Example Content|example content]] section for some ideas or inspiration.
New Scratchers often mistake signatures as text actually typed at the end of each post[1]; they might add their signatures manually, usually separated by a line of underscores to look like the official signatures.[2]
Restrictions
There are a number of restrictions on forum signatures:
- Images cannot exceed 150px in height, as images higher get cut off.[3]
- They must follow the Community Guidelines.
- Images can not be added by New Scratchers.
Signatures may however contain the following:
- BBCode markup, including images and links
Interestingly, images were allowed in signatures when they were temporarily disabled on the forums in early 2012.
Example Content
- 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.
Scratchers have been extremely creative with their signatures. Some interesting uses are:
- "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
- Main page: Scratch Wiki:Custom 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 {{User:YOUR NAME/Sig}} ~~~~~ 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
- Main article: Evil Kumquat
Several users have replaced their signatures with messages saying their signatures were eaten by evil kumquats.[4] This trend was created by cheddargirl during the Scratch 2.0 beta.[5]
