Page talk:Alexander Hamilton's commission to take rank as Colonel.jpg

Signature

The signature of Benoit is missing the note of him being President of the Continental Congress. It looks the file we are using for the signature came from a different document--BirgitteSB 22:45, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Good point, I can upload the one from the document tonight, also, was looking for an image of the seal, if it is just a generic one used in the document. Any suggestions? - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:47, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Related, what is your opinion on the uniqueness of the signature per document? If it is "generic" enough, should we use a generic one? In this case, each signature has a unique underline; enough difference to upload one for this document, or trivial enough to use the clean svg one? - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:49, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I am answering my own question, but if we keep the signatures (perceived as unique enough to use an image) only, then can we just add the adjacent bit of his being Pres as plain text? - Theornamentalist (talk) 22:55, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

(ec)I don't know about the seal. I did a very cursory search and found this as a possbility of what the seal depicts. But I can't be sure that this is it. I don't have a strong opinion about signatures in general. In this case there is a word missing, but I would have validated this otherwise.--BirgitteSB 23:05, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

In 1783, the "Army" (Department of or otherwise) had not come into existence yet. The seal is probably one used by the Office of War if not the Secretary of War himself (very similar to the one used now. see File:WarOfficeSeal1.gif). I may be way off since this issuance was resolved during a session of the continental congress and they might have had their own seal or something. Again, User:Clindberg, would be my touch-stone to turn to for such official seal questions & usage issues. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:55, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I've been through this signature question a little bit so here' my 2 cents....

We (i.e. the Executive Order WikiProject) have come to accept and agree that in the Page: namespace such signatures, cursive or otherwise, means little in differentiation in relation from the rest of the main content text, cursive or otherwise, being transcribed.

Because proofreading a transcription is the task at hand more so than subjective esthetics on WS, it makes sense to continue using plain text (usually small caps or all-caps) instead of an image for signatures found in the Page: namespace at the very least by unwritten rule (The current GPO and similar manuals of style seem to concur with this logic more often than not in case it matters).

Post-transclusion works from the Page: namespace to the main namespace is a different story. Here the question of side-by-side verification of plain-text to source-image file is assumed to have been fully completed then properly vetted already. At this point, signature images (and I suppose official seal images and the like) are OK as part of a final or full end product. While this posses additional concerns and effort, different but consistent practices dictated by the namespace in question makes far more sense as a pseudo-policy and should be permissible if desired. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:21, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Is there a particular template you use to achieve this behaivior?--BirgitteSB 00:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Early attempts on my part were anything but useful or functional considering my still developing skill sets. Not long after, User:Clindberg tried to set one up for the 44 U.S. Presidents, but development never really materialized. Its been on my to-do list ever since.

I guess the outstanding issue now is not so much how to get 1 template to do 2 different things depending on the namespace its in (got that figured out a month or two ago) but how to get an image to display consistently not only in relation to the main body as most signatures will but account for all the variation in width, height, resolution and format automatically so there is little differentiation when viewed between an 1863 Proclamation or a 1963 Proclamation for lack of a better example. -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:42, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe a template to translude the image of the signature in the mainspace, but only have text in Pagespace? - Theornamentalist (talk) 00:34, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly what "we" were going for but the above considerations have kept it pretty much on the back burner. Ideas? -- George Orwell III (talk) 00:42, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I made this, has plain text in page, signature image in main. It's being used now for B Lincoln. What do you think? - Theornamentalist (talk) 00:58, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd rather start from our now refreshed base template from earlier if possible (see your Sandbox). Plus, in my opinion, we should focus first on the Primary signature rather than the not-always-the-case Secondary witness or seal affixer. I'll see if I can't find find better/other examples to test with beside this one in a bit. -- George Orwell III (talk) 01:36, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Looks good; as far as which to include as opposed to who to keep as plain text, unsure. I find it safer to use any at this point, but I haven't done extensive work in this arena. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:22, 3 July 2011 (UTC)