Related: T278442: Enable more signature flexibility in discussion tools and the tasks linked there.

To clarify, this behaviour is exhibited when replying as well, not just when creating a new section.

In T279578#6981997, @Tenryuu wrote:

To clarify, this behaviour is exhibited when replying as well, not just when creating a new section.

Agreed, @Tenryuu. I've updated the task description to include the Reply Tool case.

I have need for this when copying entire sections to be archived. Doing this manually means that I can't use the new section link unless I disable DiscussionTools on the new section. Being able to suppress a signature when making a new section would be ideal for me. If concerned about newbies removing their signature without meaning to, then perhaps it could be hidden behind a preference that means new users are much less likely to accidentally not sign a post.

As of 2025, the lack of this feature is one of the most common reasons I end up needing to disable DiscussionTools while editing. (Various talk page templates, such as new year's greetings, don't play nicely with it, not just welcome templates.)

Given that there's already an "Advanced" dropdown menu, the design for this feature I'd expect would be to add a checkbox with "Add my signature and timestamp" (or something similar) that can be unchecked. Perhaps if a new user (someone with few edits in discussion namespaces) unchecks it, a warning message noting that comments are generally supposed to be signed could be displayed.

In T279578#11488637, @Sdkb wrote:

(Various talk page templates, such as new year's greetings, don't play nicely with it, not just welcome templates.)

Neither do they play nicely with the reply tool – if someone tries to reply to the greeting, the reply appears in the middle of the box. So instead of forcing the new topic tool to add a comment that cannot be recognized by the reply tool, the template should be made compatible with both tools. Maybe there could be an explicit comment marker class (there are already two CSS classes that control DiscussionTools), which, when applied to the outermost <div> of the greeting, would tell DiscussionTools that the comment ends at the end of the <div>, not right after the signature. That is, the template would be changed:

-<div style="border: 2px solid red; background-color: #FFFAF0">
+<div class="mw-talkcomment" style="border: 2px solid red; background-color: #FFFAF0">
 <div style="float:left;vertical-align:middle;">[[File:Snowman icon.png|175px]]</div>
 <span style="font-size: x-large; padding: 0; vertical-align: middle; height: 1.1em;">'''Happy [[New Year]]!'''</span><br/>
 <div style="margin-left:177px;vertical-align: middle; border-top: 2px solid green;">'''Hello {{{{{|safesubst:}}}BASEPAGENAME}}: Thanks for all of your contributions to Wikipedia, and have a great [[New Year]]!''' {{{more|{{{2|}}}}}} Cheers, {{{1|~~<noinclude />~~}}}</div>
 <br><br>
 <small style="margin-left:15px">Send New Year cheer by adding {{tls|Happy New Year snowman}} to people's talk pages with a friendly message.</small>
-</div>{{clear}}
+{{clear}}</div>

(class name up for debate; the {{clear}} moved within the <div> so that replies don’t appear above it), and then the Reply link would appear right after the signature, but the reply itself would appear below the box; and the new topic tool wouldn’t add a second signature when posting this template.

I think editors would probably be open to that solution, so long as it didn't affect the appearance of the boxes. Given that a manual option for suppression is still needed for the other use cases, though, it would require (a small bit of?) additional development work to implement.

Perhaps a little 'NO SIGN" button, maybe right justify it to keep it away from the others?

class="mw-notalk" can be used in this case to improve the behavior of the reply tool, by marking the little bit of instructions that follow the signature as not part of the comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template:Happy_New_Year_snowman&diff=prev&oldid=1330802985

The result is that posting the template with the new topic tool doesn't add extra signatures: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Sdkb&diff=prev&oldid=1330803395 and using the reply tool on that section adds replies in the correct place (below the template).

It’s a bit of mystery to me how the tool finds the correct place with it, but apparently works. Well, mostly – the reply appeared above the {{clear}} template rather than below it. Would moving the template within the <div>, as I suggested above (T279578#11488746), fix this, or would it confuse the tool even more?