pokey@well.UUCP (Jef Poskanzer) (03/16/89)
On some systems, inews will append the "-- " and .signature; on other
systems, Pnews or the equivalent does it. And then there are the systems
where they both do it.
The correct solution is to do it yourself. In my case, I use my own
copy of Pnews that appends .newsignature -- no other software knows
about this file, so I am safe from the Dreaded Double Signature. In
addition, it appends it *before* I go into the editor, so I can change
it (see below) or remove it if I like. And since I don't give a fuck
about the "-- " idiocy, I didn't add that.
---
Jef
Jef Poskanzer jef@helios.ee.lbl.gov ...well!pokey
Oh well, what can you expect from software written by a high school student?Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey) (03/17/89)
In article <10986@well.UUCP> Jef Poskanzer <jef@helios.ee.lbl.gov> writes: >On some systems, inews will append the "-- " and .signature; on other >systems, Pnews or the equivalent does it. And then there are the systems >where they both do it. One of the local mods I made to inews (and Pnews) was to remove the automatic insertion of "-- " between the article and the signature. Another mod was to remove the 4-line signature limit. After all, this is my article and it's going to look the way I want it to. :: Jeff Makey Department of Tautological Pleonasms and Superfluous Redundancies Department Disclaimer: Logicon doesn't even know we're running news. Internet: Makey@LOGICON.ARPA UUCP: {nosc,ucsd}!logicon.arpa!Makey
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (03/17/89)
It may be your article and you want it to look the way you want it to, but it's also bad manners. Some people write software that looks for a standard "signature" for the signature, so to speak. After all, it's my header and I want it to look the way I want, so I will change "newsgroups" to "newsfroups" in the header, right? Clearly not. USENET is for the readers, not for the posters, or so I feel. News posting software should do everything possible to classify articles in recognizable ways so that readers can deal with them as they like. If my newsreader kills signature lines, and you delete the -- in order to get around it, that's just going to anger me and get your userid put in my kill file, instead of just writing code to not show me your signature. You may argue back and forth about whether news posting programs should enforce 4 line signatures or reject articles full of included text, but if the posting programs don't enforce such rules, then the information should still be there so the READING programs can enforce the rules. I suppose we should propose another header item. We have "lines" that gives the total lines in the article. How about another item called "text_lines" which indicates how many lines there are in the main text of the article? That way readers can always figure out the length of the article text, the signature and the whole body. And I can write a newsclip program to reject articles with signatures longer than I like. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) (03/20/89)
[Sorry if you see this twice - transient local problem.] > If my newsreader kills signature lines, and you delete the -- in order > to get around it, that's just going to anger me and get your userid > put in my kill file ... I don't delete the "-- " because there never was one there. To me, "-- " is the mark of *automatically inserted* signatures, which are almost always constant for at least weeks for the same writer, and all too often much too long. My signatures are manually inserted, and vary according to the subject of the mail message or news article I'm writing. If you agree with the point of view of the quoted article, do you think I should insert a "-- " before my signatures? Mark Brader, Toronto "Those who mourn for 'USENET like it was' should utzoo!sq!msb remember the original design estimates of maximum msb@sq.com traffic volume: 2 articles/day" -- Steven Bellovin
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (03/21/89)
Not all signatures are valueless and not all long signatures are from idiots, but the correlation is that way. So when my newsreader kills such articles, I will miss out a bit -- but that's net reading. After all, not all posters in talk.politics.misc post noise, but I can't afford to read it. If people deliberately misclassify their articles in the hope of getting more people to read them, I have little time for those articles. Oh, I might miss something. But you have to filter out a lot of news to read any of it. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne) (03/23/89)
In article <385@logicon.arpa> Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey) writes: >In article <10986@well.UUCP> Jef Poskanzer <jef@helios.ee.lbl.gov> writes: >One of the local mods I made to inews (and Pnews) was to remove the >automatic insertion of "-- " between the article and the signature. >Another mod was to remove the 4-line signature limit. After all, this >is my article and it's going to look the way I want it to. Well thats fine but it prevents some software from working properly. I have some scripts which start at the back of a news article and look for "-- " within the last 5 lines and give me the signature. I guess I'll never find yours. I can sympathize with your wanting your article to look nice but it would be nice if we could rely on signatures fitting into some known parameters so that we can write automated software to work with them. I suppose you muck around with the headers to make them look nice too :-) -- Stuart.Lynne@wimsey.bc.ca {ubc-cs,uunet}!van-bc!sl Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532
barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) (03/23/89)
In article <1989Mar19.183335.24928@sq.com>, msb@sq (Mark Brader) writes: >If you agree with the point of view of the quoted article, do you think >I should insert a "-- " before my signatures? Yes. Remember, a lot of people read news over a 1200 baud modem. I have a 2400 baud now, but seeing long signatures without '-- ' at 1200 baud was very irritating. Some newsreaders can do things like refresh the screen when the article length is too long. Long signatures or signatures without '-- ' can trigger this. And remember, people already know who you are and your return address from the header. Very rarely does someone write something so profound that I want to look at their signature. I typically use it when the automatic reply-to: address for someone doesn't work, or looks bizarre. -- Bruce G. Barnett <barnett@crdgw1.ge.com> a.k.a. <barnett@[192.35.44.4]> uunet!steinmetz!barnett, <barnett@steinmetz.ge.com>