[news.newusers.questions] Signature files

timl@maxwell.Concordia.CA ( TIM LAPIN ) (08/02/89)

I have asked this question before, and I thank all who have given me advice
on the matter.  Simply put, how do I get inews to automatically include my
.signature file.

I have tried:
	1) limiting it to 4 lines or less.
	2) removing a separator line of minus signs.
		result:  confused mail handler.
	3) changing protection bits on both the file and my directory to allow
read access.
	4) made sure .signature was in my home directory.

None of the above have worked.  So if any of you have any ideas, I'm open to
them.

Tim Lapin     internet: timl@maxwell.concordia.ca

jarvis@northstar.dartmouth.edu (Mark (Ninjabutler) Robinson) (08/16/89)

I hope I am not being obnoxious by asking this question.  Why are signature
files of line lengths greater than four bad 'news etiquette' ?

I have rewritten my signature at least three times.  The first was due to
complaints from various people, and the succeeding revisions were so I could
create a .signature file, rather than continue to include the signature in my
article as a prepared file.

I liked my old sig; I thought it was unique.  I also spent some time writing up
the design, thinking of a quote, etc.  (Motivation behind this letter is Bill 
Wisner's message concerning Lawrence Esker's 6-line signature -- two lines
above the 'maximum' length.)


===============================================================================
= UMBRELLASWORD throwingplatter PLATTERCOVERSHIELD coatstaff CUTLERYLOCKPICK  =
= HB 1407                                     jarvis@northstar.dartmouth.edu  =
= Hanover, New Hampshire 03755                  jarvis@eleazar.dartmouth.edu  =

rli@buster.UUCP (Buster Irby) (08/16/89)

jarvis@northstar.dartmouth.edu (Mark (Ninjabutler) Robinson) writes:

>I hope I am not being obnoxious by asking this question.  Why are signature
>files of line lengths greater than four bad 'news etiquette' ?

Lets backup a few steps here.  The purpose for the signature
files in the first place is to allow the user to attach his/her
REAL NAME and REAL ADDRESS to the bottom of the posting.  It was
not implemented as a place to show off artistic or literary
talents.  As such, 4 lines should be more than adequate.

Let me point out that the net standard on signatures has been 4
lines for a long time.  While there continues to be a few
abusers, most people on the network abide by this guideline.  The
reason that abuse of this guideline is so annoying to someone
like myself is that I actually pay money to get the news on my
system as do a lot of other people on this network.  I am
interested in the news, not in someones very artistic multiline
signature.  For this reason, even an artistic signature has no
particular appeal to me, especially after I have seen it once,
much less multiple times a week/month!  I am not connected to a
university or a large corporation and I do not pass my network
cost on to the taxpaying general public.  Instead, I support my
system out of my personal pocket as do a lot of other hard
working people on this net.  Those extra lines which you would
like abuse in your signature cost all of us time and money on an
already busy network.

Let me put this in real terms.  Assume that a signature contains
10 lines of 80 characters each (some artistic sigs contain more)
for a total of 800 characters.  Yes, spaces count as characters!
That signature will take 1 second to transmit between two TB+
modems, 5+ seconds between two 2400 baud modems and 10+ seconds
between two 1200 baud modems.  Assuming a long distance cost of
$0.13/min (late night) that means a single signature will cost
$0.0022 per TB+ site, $0.011 per 2400 baud site and $0.022 per
1200 baud site.  There are approximately 4200+ UUCP sites
according to the latest usenet maps.  If we assume that only 25%
of the network actually has to make a long distance connection
and if we also assume that all of those connections are of the
TB+ variety, that still means that one 10 line signature will
cost the network a total of $2.20 (1000 sites * $0.0022).  How
many of those do *you* think we should tolerate?

In the above example, I only speculated as to the domestic
telephone cost of the signature.  There are many sites outside of
the USA that also get usenet news.  DON'T FORGET, after the news
shows up on these 4200+ sites whether via long distance or not,
each and every one of them has to store that signature on a hard
disk.  The going rate for a hard disk is currently in the range
of $10-20 per megabyte depending on speed.  

     800 char * 4200 sites = 3,360,000 bytes 

This is the amount of storage space wasted in the network while
storing a single 10 line signature.  The cost of this storage is
approximately $30 to $60.  Granted, the disk space will exist
after the signature is gone, but there will always be a new user
with another wild signature come along to replace it.

The final cost is the hardest to nail down, but to me is the most
obnoxious cost of all.  The cost to me in time wasted waiting on
a large signature to go by on the tube.  Although I must admit
that NN has helped there.  I KILL all articles posted by anyone
who has a signature over 4 lines.  I FLAME anyone who has a
signature over 10 lines.  If these signature abusers want me to
read their postings, then they had better start abiding by the
net guidelines.

[ dismount soapbox ]

     Let the flames begin.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. SNAIL: Buster Irby                      usenet:   {buster,nuchat}!rli
            13019 Naples Lane
            Stafford, Texas 77477

tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) (08/17/89)

Signatures are 4 lines or less because we have to draw the line
somewhere (you should pardon the expression).  Repetitive noise is
expensive to transmit.  (I think this should also apply to these various
weirdo packages that stick stuff like "X-Favorite-Color:" in the header,
but that's another story.)

Not only should a .sig be short, it should NOT have a damn box around
it!  I'm amazed at some of the stuff I see.  We really, really *will*
recognize something as a signature even if it doesn't have 200 bytes
worth of asterisks and equal signs and DASHES (Buster) around it.

Last but not least, and I *wish* more people did this -- READ YOUR OWN
POSTINGS!  Many silly errors can be avoided this way -- like 50 lines of
extraneous text that you forgot to delete in the editor, or DOUBLED
SIGNATURES (some people think you have to yank them in manually, not
knowing the posting software is doing likewise), or EMPTY MESSAGES, or
other net.favorites.  It also doesn't hurt to see what you wrote as
others will be seeing it -- you might learn something. :-)

-- 
"We walked on the moon --	((	Tom Neff
	you be polite"		 )) 	tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET

arrom@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Ken Arromdee) (08/17/89)

>...  The going rate for a hard disk is currently in the range
>of $10-20 per megabyte depending on speed.  
>     800 char * 4200 sites = 3,360,000 bytes 
>This is the amount of storage space wasted in the network while
>storing a single 10 line signature.  The cost of this storage is
>approximately $30 to $60.  Granted, the disk space will exist
>after the signature is gone, but there will always be a new user
>with another wild signature come along to replace it.

Let's calculate it as per-site cost.  This comes out to a maximum of 1.43
_cents_ per machine per signature.  It's easy to make figures large when
multiplying by the number of sites; nobody somehow ever multiplies the _total_
disk space by the number of sites (thus getting another large number) and
says "look, when you multiply the cost by the number of sites it seems large,
but the total cost compared to the total space on all the sites is just as
small as the cost on one machine compared to the space on one machine.  In
fact, mathematically, it has to be that way since you are multiplying both
by the same number".

This is a common misuse of statistics: if you want to make a figure look large,
you compare it against as large a base as possible ("there is a murder/rape/
child abuse/drunk driving accident/etc... somewhere in the US every ___
seconds") and if you want to make the figure look small, you use as small a
base as possible ("The space program could be supported with 5 cents a day per
person").

For that matter, since you have admitted a 4 line signature is valid, you really
should be counting the costs for the excess above 4 (6 lines).  This reduces
the figure to 0.86 cents per machine per signature.

>...  I FLAME anyone who has a signature over 10 lines.  ...

Hint: calculate how much money your flame costs people around the world.  Use
the same method as you used to calculate the cost for signatures.
--
"The fact is self evident from the text and requires no supporting argument."
  --Tim Maroney

Kenneth Arromdee (UUCP: ....!jhunix!ins_akaa; BITNET: g49i0188@jhuvm;
     INTERNET: arromdee@crabcake.cs.jhu.edu) (please, no mail to arrom@aplcen)

jarvis@northstar.dartmouth.edu (Mark (Ninjabutler) Robinson) (08/17/89)

I have no wish to begin a flame war on what people consider to be an acceptable
signature file.  Although I myself have begun posting to News only recently, I
feel that each person has their own opinion on what the perfect size, shape,
length, contents, etc., of a signature file should be.

Out of respect for the other users of News, however, I personally will try to
keep my signature files down to four lines in the future!

Does this restriction apply to mail sent through Internet and Usenet as well?
I would imagine so, since the baud rates are the same.  Why, then, is there no
restriction built into the mailing system for .signatures?

(This question originates from a nasty letter I received six months ago
concerning my very-old-and-now-unused, far-greater-than-four-line,
artistically-inclined-signature!  This particular user suggested that I use my
large signature file for private mailings, and my small signature for public
postings to News.)

One particularly interesting response I received through email was the
following:   :-)

============================================================================

Dear Miss Postnews: How long should my signature be? -- verbose@portal

A: Dear Verbose: Please try and make your signature as long as you can.
It's much more important than your article, of course, so try and have
more lines of signature than actual text.

Try and include a large graphic made of ASCII characters, plus lots of
cute quotes and slogans.  People will never tire of reading these pearls
of wisdom again and again, and you will soon become personally associated
with the joy each reader feels at seeing yet another delightful repeat of
your signature.

                                ------

Dear Emily: Today I posted an article and forgot to include my signature.
What should I do?  -- forgetful@myvax

A: Dear Forgetful: Rush to your terminal right away and post an article
that says, "Oops, I forgot to post my signature with that last article.
Here it is."

Since most people will have forgotten your earlier article, (particularly
since it dared to be so boring as to not have a nice, juicy signature)
this will remind them of it.  Besides, people care much more about the
signature anyway.  See the previous letter for more important details.

Also, be sure to include your signature TWICE in each article.  That way
you're sure people will read it.

                                ------
===============================================================================
= UMBRELLASWORD throwingplatter PLATTERCOVERSHIELD coatstaff CUTLERYLOCKPICK  =
= HB 1407                                     jarvis@northstar.dartmouth.edu  =
= Hanover, New Hampshire 03755                  jarvis@eleazar.dartmouth.edu  =

rich@Rice.edu (Richard Murphey) (08/17/89)

At a minimum you might use an email address, so people can respond to
your postings, and an affiliation so people will have some idea of
your relationship to the institution you are posting from.  If you
leave off either you will eventually get queries about them.

Your postal address is probably more important if you are a vendor
than if you were a student.

IMHO, the rest can help people get an idea of what you are like, and a
creative .signature is a good way to express yourself.

Happy posting!
--
Richard-Murphey@Rice.edu       Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept.

charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) (08/17/89)

Just out of curiosity, is there any reason why I should have a .sig at all?
It would just be a repeat of the Reply-To line I suppose.

dalnews@ac.dal.ca (08/17/89)

In article <2182@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu>,
 charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes:
> 
> Just out of curiosity, is there any reason why I should have a .sig at all?
> It would just be a repeat of the Reply-To line I suppose.

In your case perhaps. In my case, no. I chose the DALNEWS name
because of its primrary function. I'm the only one that uses it,
but unless I put a signature in (by hand, by the way -- can't
get the .sig thing to work) no one knows who I am, or for
that matter, where I'm from.

Stuart Watson
Halifax, Nova Scotia
DALNEWS@AC.DAL.CA

dalnews@ac.dal.ca (08/17/89)

In article <691@ac.dal.ca>, dalnews@ac.dal.ca writes:
> In article <2182@uw-entropy.ms.washington.edu>,
>  charlie@mica.stat.washington.edu (Charlie Geyer) writes:
>> 
>> Just out of curiosity, is there any reason why I should have a .sig at all?
>> It would just be a repeat of the Reply-To line I suppose.
> 
> In your case perhaps. In my case, no. I chose the DALNEWS name
> because of its primrary function. I'm the only one that uses it,
                 ^^^^^^^

Nothing worse than finding a spelling mistake the second or two
after you transmit a message. Sorry folks. I've already flamed
myself for it.

Stuart Watson
Halifax, Nova Scotia
DALNEWS@AC.DAL.CA

richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (08/18/89)

In article <549@buster.UUCP> rli@buster.UUCP (Buster Irby) writes:

>     Let the flames begin.

Ok.

>-- 
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>U.S. SNAIL: Buster Irby                      usenet:   {buster,nuchat}!rli
>            13019 Naples Lane
>            Stafford, Texas 77477

Alright dipshit, why did you include that stupid row of hyphens when the
software automagically puts in a bandwidth conserving string of two
hyphens to tell the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD that your article (which was
very good, by the way) has ended and we are about to get the pleasure
of reading your creative .signature file?

Although, you *could* have made your .signature file a little 
smaller. To wit:

>Buster Irby  13019 Naples Lane  Stafford, Texas 77477  {buster,nuchat}!rli

Wait a minute, when you said ``Let the flames begin'' that wouldnt
happen to have been *SARCASM* would it ? I don't think we've
covered *SARCASM* yet. After all it didn't have one of those phallic
smiley things.

Gosh. How was I to know.

-- 

 You havn't lived until you've heard Oleg sing ``I'll take you home Kathleen''
richard@gryphon.COM  decwrl!gryphon!richard   gryphon!richard@elroy.jpl.NASA.GOV

rodney@taac.ipl.rpi.edu (Rodney Peck II) (08/18/89)

In article <549@buster.UUCP> rli@buster.UUCP (Buster Irby) writes:

BI> I am not connected to a university or a large corporation and I do
BI> not pass my network cost on to the taxpaying general public.
BI> Instead, I support my system out of my personal pocket as do a lot
BI> of other hard working people on this net.

My my, but I think that is rather insulting to those of us who happen
to receive news at a university. In fact, it is needlessly insulting.
(note the tactfully short signature from a university researcher who
is DESPARATELY trying not to waste any tax dollars)
--
Rodney

rodney@taac.ipl.rpi.edu (Rodney Peck II) (08/18/89)

hmmm.. What a complete bunch of statistical nonsense.

Why is it that each of these 1000+ sites requires a phone call?
Where does the number 4200 come from?  What about all these internet
sites which also store the file on disk?  Don't we count?

Ten dollars per megabyte??  Outrageous.  Is that per megabyte-month or
megabyte-hour or what?  Or are you just making this up?  Thirty
dollars to store a file on the entire usenet seems extremely cheap to
me.

If you are REALLY concerned with wasting other people's money
transfering excessive things, why not restructure your signature:

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. SNAIL: Buster Irby                      usenet:   {buster,nuchat}!rli
            13019 Naples Lane
            Stafford, Texas 77477

first off, why the 79 hyphens?  That's $3 to $6 dollars of disk space
and $0.22 worth of telephone charges to tell us that your signature is
starting.  The two hyphens that your posting program put in say that
and only cost eight cents to store and one half a cent to send.

Continuing, why would we want to know your home address everytime you
post something?  Couldn't you just put that in if you were actually
expecting mail?  You see, most people would mail you and ask for your
address if they wanted to send a package. But since you've mailed it,
I'll add it to my rolodex.  Thanks.  That only cost another 86
characters (not including NL's which would be there anyway).  So we
give AT&T another $0.22 cents or so and eat another $3 in disk space
every time you send out your address.  I won't count the 22 spaces to
put the mailing address over there on the right (to make the signature
less than 4 lines no doubt.  Humorously adding 21 additional
characters!)

Why not make your signature be something like this?

--
Buster Irby
{buster,nuchat}!rli

(of course the mailer or posting program puts in the two hyphens)
That's 33 chars which do the job just fine.


   If you are concerned with line charges and storage space, this
would be a rational thing to do.

  Personally, I don't like long signatures simply because they are
really annoying.  But then, they do let you pick out the personality
of the poster and that's probably a useful thing.
--
Rodney

tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) (08/18/89)

I really don't think we should post horrendous flames in this group.
It's not quite what we want to show neophytes eh?  Nor is crossposting
to alt.flame and stuff like that.  Nor is crossposting without filling
in the Followup-To: field!  We should know better.

This is a school.  Let's treat it like a good one.

On the subject matter, two or three lines is fine, as is a little
quote.  Flagrant space wasting is what rankles.
-- 
"We walked on the moon --	((	Tom Neff
	you be polite"		 )) 	tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET

rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (08/19/89)

In most cases, the news software automatically fills in most .signature
information, like the Organization and the E-mail address.  If it's
correct, why duplicate it?  As the world goes to Internet-style domains,
UUCP path examples become more and more pointless.  (They suffer their own
risks, too, in that they can get outdated -- I still see references to
ihnp4!)

Regardless of what the actual costs are, longer signatures cost more to
distribute and store.  The tend to be much more inane and useless, and the
folks who pay the bills would rather cut .signatures than newsgroups.

>I liked my old sig; I thought it was unique.
Yes, perhaps it was, the first time.  Maybe even the second time.  By the
third or fourth time -- and certainly by the twentieth time -- it is
annoying.  Don't you just hate it when you hear the same joke or anecdote
three or four times?  It's the same with .signatures.  And isn't it REALLY
bad when it happens several times in the same day?  That's EXACTLY what
happens when you read news once a day -- I see several articles by the
same person, with the same .signature; at least the article text is
different each time!

>                                              I also spent some time writing up
>the design, thinking of a quote, etc.
Some people feel a compelling need to make their signature be a statement
of who they are.  I never quite understood this:  your postings should
contain the content; how you sign your name is should be meaningless.  I
should admit, however, that this attitude did not come early; I added
patches to the NOTESFILE system to support .signatures, and I used to have
a silly song quote there.  To quote an ex-colleague:  "What can I say, I
grew up."

With few exceptions, the more experienced and respected posters on Usenet
have minimal (Henry Spencer, "trish") or no (Doug Gwyn, Rick Adams) signatures.
This is not coincidental.

>= UMBRELLASWORD throwingplatter PLATTERCOVERSHIELD coatstaff CUTLERYLOCKPICK  =
The first time I saw this I thought it was a cute mixture of words.  Now I
think it's just plain stupid.

	/r$
-- 
Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.
Use a domain-based address or give alternate paths, or you may lose out.

thomas@mvac23.UUCP (Thomas Lapp) (08/19/89)

> Just out of curiosity, is there any reason why I should have a .sig at all?
> It would just be a repeat of the Reply-To line I suppose.

Woah here.  I disagree!!!

1. On my software, if I want to reply to something it SOMETIMES picks up
   your reply-to (if it came across), and other times it picks up something
   different from what I want.  NEVER trust your e-mail package to ALWAYS
   get it right.  After all, your message might have gotten munged between
   you and me.

2. If I need to type in your e-mail address to reply to you (which is
   frequent in my system), most of the time all the addressing info has
   scrolled off the screen before I get to the TO: line on my answer.
   Putting your e-mail address on a .sig at the bottom of the file allows
   me to type it in right then and there.

3. Related to (1.) is the fact that A. A reply-to line is not always in-
   cluded (my system doesn't add it unless I specifically ask for it),
   and B. if it isn't, the FROM: tag may either not be a correct path
   back to you, or it is not the most efficient/effective path back to
   you.  My case in point again:  the From line is thomas@mvac23.uucp
   but the most efficient route back is via mvac23!thomas@udel.edu
   (not at all obvious).

Summary:  ADD a .sig with your e-mail addresses for as many networks as
          you know (within reason, of course ;-).
                         - tom
==============================================================================
Internet: mvac23!thomas@udel.edu                     | Notice:  System
          or                                         | will be going down
          mvac23%thomas@udel.edu                     | at 4:45pm today for
uucp: {ucbvax,mcvax,psuvax1,uunet}!udel!mvac23!thomas| a disk crash.
Location: Newark, DE, USA                            |
==============================================================================