Voting:Level 5's and Up/Amendments to the Sig Policy - Passed

Original:
The original general wording of the policy for this, outside of a brief explanation how to make a set them up, was:


 * Because signatures on the wiki are for the purpose of letting other users know who has left them a message or who has voted, they should be easy to read, they should ideally include the user's name, they should include at the very least a link to the user's user page and/or talk page, if images are used they should remain tasteful and within a reasonable size and the signature itself should be a reasonable size. Please remember, this is a signature to let people know who you are, not your user page.

Apparently this isn't going to do, or perhaps there is less common sense in the world, that we are now being forced to be a bit more specific and strict on signatures.

New Amendments:

 * 1) Signatures must link to the user's userpage or the user's talk page if he or she prefers not to have a user page on this wiki. Signatures may link to both if the user so desires. The name does not need to be the user's exact account name, but it must be a name by which the user is widely known. Without this provision, signatures do not provide the useful ability to identify a comment from a certain user on a page.
 * 2) Signatures cannot contain more than two images, since signatures with more than this can cause computers to load them slowly.
 * 3) Images contained in signatures may not be higher than 55 pixels. Users can scale images to 31px high without distorting them by using the code: Example.png
 * 4) Signatures must not contain linebreaks. This results in a line break when the signature is used, which interferes with formatting and other page code.
 * 5) Signatures that use HTML tags must be balanced. This means that every  must have a matching   . You can tell if your signature is balanced by typing something after it. If it is plain text, then your signature is balanced.
 * 6) Signatures must not be excessively long. There is no set limit for how long is too long, but use common sense. In general it would be preferred if, when the signature is standing alone with no other text before it, it doesn't exceed two lines.
 * 7) Please remember to always sign talk pages and forum discussions, claims, votes, etc.

Explanation:
will break up a # on a voting page
 * 1) The point of a sig is to say who you are and to link to your talk page so a message may be responded to, it should also be plain who is leaving the message without having to try to sort through links, so having either a clear nickname everyone knows you by, or part to whole of your user name visible helps.
 * 2) There's no need to have excessive image use in a signature, it also makes them unnecessarily long
 * 3) A 55px height is more than fair, some wiki's set limits of 31px and no gifs, however we are fine with gifs, but not fine with the absurd excessive heights of some people's images
 * 4) Line breaks
 * 1) When html isn't done properly, it can not only mess up #'s on vote pages, but mess up a person's entire talk page

In short, signatures are to inform a user, who is leaving them a message on their talk page, without having to go into the edit history of the page. Also, to vote on things for the wiki, whether it's polls or to vote on official things like powers, images, policies. Sigs are not an extension of a way to beautify a user page, spam images, etc. We've tried to maintain an open ended policy on some of this, but are constantly running into issues, absurdly sized sigs and sigs that break pages and #'s. We still won't have as harsh policies as some wiki's, but as just asking people use common sense hasn't worked, we need to be a bit stricter.

Comments
If you see something that could be added and also addressed with sigs, please let me know, also if you see something you disagree with, it is more helpful if you comment why you are voting no, so that it can be addressed and possibly altered. Please remember, the main purpose and most important purpose of signatures is not an extension of something else you can over-beautify. They serve a very real and very practical purpose for this wiki and should be treated with respect.