Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.UUCP> (07/30/83)
Greetings. I've always been somewhat amused by the whole subject of network signatures. When I first became involved with Arpanet (that was, sigh, something like 13 years ago in its very infancy), I very early on got into the habit of ending each message with: --Lauren-- I have used that exact signature at the end of essentially every message I've sent via any computer network since that time. It seems to be pretty darn unique, and there just AREN'T very many "Lauren's" floating around the net (I've seen exactly one message from another person with the username "lauren" on Usenet, and that wasn't even their exact "real" name -- just the username). I like to think that with my comparatively high visibility in ARPA and Usenet-land, that most people by now know who to blame for messages ending with my signature. Of course, all of my mail has my full name plastered in the header somewhere, so there really shouldn't be any possibility of confusion. I will admit that the potential for confusion is greater with more frequently seen names (like "Jim", "Mark", "Bob", etc.), however, as long as the real name appears somewhere in the message header, I feel that users should be free to select whatever idiomatic signatures they feel best suit their varied and bizarre personalities. As usual, as I have for well over a decade, I sign myself off as: --Lauren--