Editing Encyclopedia:Signatures (section)

==History==
[[UseModWiki]], the wiki software in use on the English Wikipedia from its inception to 25 January 2002, did not have markup to create a signature, so signatures had to be made manually where desired. (c.f., for example, several such signatures in [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Larry_Sanger/old&oldid=6644889 this diff] ''et al.'') The modern tilde feature was a part of the earliest MediaWiki coding from mid-2001; the original developer of MediaWiki, [[User:Magnus Manske|Magnus Manske]], intended it to resemble scribbled physical signatures like that of his father.<ref group="Note">See [https://web.archive.org/web/20190509070733/https://twitter.com/MagnusManske/status/1083507467802365952 this Twitter <!-- It was called Twitter at the time --> exchange] for further information.</ref> Images in signatures have been banned since 2006, but had been discouraged beforehand.

The concept of {{strong|not}} signing one's contributions to the main namespace has also not always been here. The first ever revision to the page [[WikiPedia]], from 15 January 2001, indicated that "You can [write an article] anonymously or give yourself credit," and indeed several pages from early 2001 have signatures at the end of them, such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=AlchemY&oldid=233236 here] and [https://reagle.org/joseph/2010/wp/redux/TestThreePhasePumps/981560160.html here].