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I'd like to be able to sign my questions and comments digitally, as in an actual digital signature with, for example, GPG.

Some posts I make may contain ideas that I want people to know came from me. The main aim is to gain recognition for my contributions by proving my identity globally, beyond Stack Exchange.

Am I allowed to do that in the Stack Exchange Network? Should I do so?

18
  • 1
    As in with PGP or some other means of cryptography?
    – Undo
    Jan 10, 2014 at 23:07
  • No. If you have any specific suggestion in mind, feel free to explain and suggest. Jan 10, 2014 at 23:11
  • 30
    Remember by posting on stack exchange you're permitting community editing, I'm not sure thats wildly compatible with being a control freak Jan 10, 2014 at 23:11
  • 4
    why.......?????
    – Doorknob
    Jan 10, 2014 at 23:34
  • 2
    Not quite understanding all of the downvotes. This seems to be a legitimate question someone might have who is used to digitally signing their posts in other venues. Better that it's asked and explained why it's not allowed than for someone to come along and just start doing it.
    – ale
    Jan 10, 2014 at 23:43
  • 2
    Although, @user56518, it would be good if you could address the first couple of comments here to clear up some ambiguity in your question.
    – ale
    Jan 10, 2014 at 23:44
  • 4
    @AlE. if the OP is referring to an actual digital signature, that would be a really, really weird idea, I guess that's the main reason for the voting.
    – Pekka
    Jan 10, 2014 at 23:45
  • 2
    @Pëkka: I don't disagree about the weirdness of it.
    – ale
    Jan 10, 2014 at 23:46
  • 1
    @AIE I think a lot of the downvotes are of the conventional form; its somewhat unclear what the OP actually means by this, how it would work Jan 10, 2014 at 23:50
  • @Pëkka Yes, I mean an actual signature. I hadn't thought of the editing as I'm a new user, but as AIE said, that was the point of the question: to learn before actually doing something. Jan 11, 2014 at 12:55
  • 1
    Would this be prove to others that it really is you posting or to lock others out from editing? Jan 11, 2014 at 12:57
  • 1
    @RichardTingle, Yes some posts I make may contain ideas that I want people to know came from me. It may sound weird, but is that not a valid reason to use signatures? It's not like I want to censor other people, or ask for money for my ideas (the control freak part was actually a joke). All I want is the recognition, but if it can't be done, I'll just not share, or live with it. Jan 11, 2014 at 13:05
  • 1
    Sure, but that is only for StackExchange users. I'd like to be able to prove my identity globally. Jan 11, 2014 at 13:17
  • 1
    Because of the community edited nature of stack exchange i'm not sure this would work but I understand what you're trying to say Jan 11, 2014 at 13:29
  • 1
    That's fine by me. Anyway, thank you for your answers! Jan 11, 2014 at 14:01

3 Answers 3

32

No.

  1. Signatures in general are not allowed.
  2. Posts are subject to editing by the community. Edits would invalidate the signature.
8

You can! All your posts are automatically 'signed' by the fact that they are posted by you. So you shouldn't add anything like a signature to your posts per se (as @robertharvey answered).

But there is a field on your profile you can edit, and add, for instance your GPG signature.

So yes, you can 'sign' your posts (with the same signature), but put it where it belongs: not below the question/answer, but put it once in your profile :)

0
6

The site offers no way to do this. Nothing is stopping you from adding some sort of signature to your posts, but I suspect these will be removed by people in edits, as they add nothing of worth to the site.

I also question what you would actually gain from doing this?

3
  • Thanks! See the comments to my question for the answer to this. Jan 11, 2014 at 14:11
  • [±Unrelated] Would be useful in some times to tell people to read my profile about what license to use on whatever I publish on Stack Exchanges websites. I just found out they use CC BY-SA by default. On my profile, I wrote for people to use what I write with the license WTFPL, so would be interesting to be able to put that in an auto-signature like "If you have concerns about licenses on what I post, please read my profile biography.". I could publish a big thing and let people copy-paste it into their projects. But they may not remember to check if they can on my profile. So it would be cool
    – Edw590
    Dec 24, 2020 at 0:56
  • @DADi590 I'm fairly sure that by using StackExchange, what ever you post is basically given over and is more or less their IP. If you don't want what you post to be under the terms of SE, simply don't post. afaik, nothing you put in your profile can override that, even if you put something right in question/answer/comment, it still doesn't change that you are handing over the content to SE. But hey, I could be totally wrong here.
    – thecoshman
    Jan 23, 2021 at 23:41

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