Editing Encyclopedia:Signatures (section)

==== Standard signature ====
{{anchor|Using four tildes}}{{Shortcut|WP:4TILDES}}

There are three ways to sign your posts manually:

# At the end of your comments simply type four [[tilde]]s (~), like this: <code><nowiki>~~~~</nowiki></code>.
# If you are using the [[Help:Edit toolbar|edit toolbar]] option (by default, it appears above the edit box), click the signature icon<ref group="Note">If your browser is set to not show pictures, the button will be called "Your signature with timestamp".  If the browser's settings don't allow JavaScript, the buttons will not appear.</ref> <span style="background-color:white;padding:0 0.1rem">[[File:OOjs UI icon signature-ltr.svg|22px]]</span> to add two hyphens and four tildes like this: <code>{{nobr|<nowiki>--~~~~</nowiki>}}</code>.
# Use the [[WP:REPLYTOOL|reply tool]] or [[WP:NEWDISCUSSIONTOOL|new discussion tool]]. Both of these features will automatically insert a signature, without needing to add any wikicode.

The four tildes will be automatically replaced with your signature after you have published the changes, as follows:

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Wikimarkup !! Resulting code !! Resulting display
|-
| <code><nowiki>~~~~</nowiki></code>
| <code><nowiki>[[User:Example|Example]] ([[User talk:Example|talk]])</nowiki> {{CURRENTTIME}}, {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} (UTC)</code><ref group="Note"> The actual code is slightly more complicated, turning the talk page link into a link to the top of one's talk page when used at one's talk page itself. It can be found at [[MediaWiki:Signature]].</ref>
| [[User:Example|Example]] ([[User talk:Example|talk]]) {{CURRENTTIME}}, {{CURRENTDAY}} {{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}} (UTC) __NOTALK__
|}

Since typing four tildes adds the time and date to your resulting signature, this is the preferred option for signing your posts in discussions. In most talk pages, the timestamp will automatically be rendered as a [[mw:Help:DiscussionTools#Talk pages permalinking|link to the specific comment]] it is part of.<ref group="Note">If the link to the specific comment breaks, you can use [[Special:FindComment]] and [[Special:GoToComment]] as described at [[mw:Extension:DiscussionTools/How it works#Permanent links]].</ref>

Note that if you choose to [[Wikipedia:IPs are human too|contribute without logging in]], regardless of whether you have [[Wikipedia:Why create an account?|an account]], you ''must'' still sign your posts. In this case, your [[IP address]] will take the place of a username, and will link to your contributions history. Your IP address will look like something similar to {{samp|192.0.2.213}} or {{samp|2001:DB8:CEEE:21B:DB60:07FE:4277:63FF}}.

If, for some reason, you are not getting the above results when signing, see the [[User talk:SineBot|SineBot Frequently Asked Questions]] for tips.