User blog comment:Rappy 4187/Technical Update: August 27, 2013/@comment-3279487-20130827193746/@comment-3441771-20130829095052

@Kirkburn: That doesn't make a lot of sense. If you give 'em an inch, they'll take a mile. Old signatures (templated, I assume you mean?) could take up a lot of space sever side, but not in the talk page. This is what I was getting at: Wikia's so close to all their flashy gadgets that they're in the process of forgetting they run MediaWiki. In source mode I don't want to have to avoid 1200 characters all the time. Heck, when I had a templated signature awhile back (and stuffed it up) I ended up with complaints for it adding about half of the new upgrade's character limit to a forum.

Look, it doesn't really make a scrap of difference to me, right, but I think this is overcompensating. As for communities, what are they meant to do really? In the past admins could've deleted signature templates, now they have to block the user if it really is that bigger deal to them. My prediction is that (if the vast majority of users still know sigs exist) you'll get rid of this one day because it will be abused.