bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (11/24/83)
These days I see signature files reaching up to 8 lines long, and I think it's rediculous. Asides from how annoying it is to see the same information transmitted again and again (costing other people money), what I can't figure is why people put their postal address in that file. Has anybody gotten a postal letter in response to a usenet posting without some sort of electronic mail followup first? I doubt it. The only case I can think of would involve an article that made a specific request for postal mail - and this very rare article could have the address manually inserted. So why does everybody tell me their postal address. I would be interested if anybody can give me a case where their postal address in their signature file got them mail. Your phone # is a different thing. People use that regularly. And until we get the net better organized, I suppose some people want multiple paths. But there is little reason for going beyond two lines. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304
dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (11/25/83)
Brad, there is indeed a place for postal addresses, although not
often. I have received a number of (physical) letters in response
to my announcement about the Law:Forum computer conference. Some
articles manage to find their way to far away from people on Usenet
or even the ARPAnet.
I agree that in general, postal addresses should not be used. Long
.signatures are generally unnecessary - I only post my address and/or
phone number if I am making an important announcement or request.
Wishlist: it would be nice if news provided a mechanism for easily
specifying "don't put my long .signature on the end of this article",
or even picking what signature to use. Articles which aren't going to
a gatewayed newsgroup, for example, shouldn't have any non-UUCP path
information. But presently the only way to customize signatures is to
have no .signature at all, or else to muck around with the file
every time you're doing something different.
Dave Sherman (no address, no phone this time :-)
--
{allegra,cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo}!utcsrgv!davespaf@gatech.UUCP (11/27/83)
This discussion is held about every 6 months.
One thing I have learned, both from correspondence and from the results
of the Usenet survey I conducted a few months ago, many people prefer a
long signature on articles. This includes addresses on networks other
than the Usenet.
First of all, replies can be sometimes be optimized if the set of
possible paths is given. It also allows for alternative routing in
case of mailer problems (like sites which forward news but not mail).
Second of all, there are a number of local nets which connect to Usenet
through gateways and which have a special internal addressing format
(Purdue and Carnegie-Mellon are examples). There have been many times
I have wished to reply to a news article posted by someone at one of
these sites, but the only path I have is the one the news came along,
and mail gets dropped at the gateway. I really wish people at those
sites would include an address which is valid from "outside."
Also, some people ask why we include addresses which are for networks
outside of Usenet, such as CSNet or Arpanet. That is also fairly
simple. If I send a mail message via CSNet, I have a very high degree
of confidence that: 1) it will get there with 24-36 hours, often within
6 or less; 2) it will arrive intact; 3) I will be informed if it is not
deliverable and thus I don't have to have important messages' reception
acknowledged; 4) it is pretty secure and the mail is not going to be
sitting around in readable directories on machines along the path.
US Mail addresses are probably going a bit beyond the necessary, but if
the person involved has access only to the Usenet, then perhaps it is
justified.
I am getting a bit tired of signatures with smiley faces, dragons in
flight, diagrams of the poster's aunt's heart bypass surgery, and maps
of the poster's home town, however. Could we try to keep the incidence
of that down a bit, please?
Once again, it's:
--
Off the Wall of Gene Spafford
School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ulysses,ut-sally}!gatech!spaf5113dd@hound.UUCP (D.DONOHOE) (11/29/83)
Gene Spaf has hit the nail on the head with his comments about addresses. There has been a flurry of items from parsec!smu!leff that has neither name or address. SMU cannot be reached via parsec from my computor. Also the received path does not seem to work as I have sent several replies to SMU without receiving an answer. I always put a path that should work in my signature, although I am not sure it does. It would be useful for netnews to automatically indicate the network address that will work. Doug Donohoe houxi!hound!5113dd
per@erix.UUCP (Per Hedeland XT/DU) (11/29/83)
Could someone tell an ignorant newcomer what this '.signature' stuff is?
I gather that it's a way to 'automatically' include your standard signature
in the article, but I can't find it in the doc's. How do you do it?
Per Hedeland
...{!mcvax}!enea!erix!perzemon@felix.UUCP (11/30/83)
This may sound really strange in our "modern" day and age
but I don't use the .signature feature of news. I manually
type my signature at the end of every article and letter that
I send. "Why?" you ask. Because when I used to use something
similar to .signature I found myself editing the signature
more often than not. This way, my signature is always thought
out and is what I consider appropriate to the message and the
kinds of replies that I expect.
Maybe the solution to the signature problem is a little less
automation and a little more old fashioned human intelligence.
Art Zemon
FileNet Corp.
...!{decvax, ucbvax}!trw-unix!felix!zemonspaf@gatech.UUCP (Gene Spafford) (12/02/83)
In the 2.10 version of inews (at least) if you have a file named
".signature" in your home directory, its contents will be appended
to the end of any news article you post. It will be separated from
the body of the news article by a line of three dashes:
---
I have yet to see this documented anywhere.
Also, under CSNet software, the first line of the .signature file
is taken as your "true name" when sending mail with the MMDF "send"
facility.
--
Off the Wall of Gene Spafford
School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf.GATech @ CSNet-Relay
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,rlgvax,sb1,unmvax,ulysses,ut-sally}!gatech!spafsilver@emory.UUCP (12/06/83)
And ~/.signature must have read permission for all. ( 2.10 inews )
--
Stuart Stirling
{akgua,sb1,sb6,msdc,gatech}!emory!silver silver.emory@rand-relay