Re: Message sign-offs

["Michael P. Kube-McDowell" K-Mac@xxxxxxxx]

Mr. Sam Martin said:

> Yes, I did mean you, in particular. Regardless of what your software
> offers, a "signature" is a name +/- address. If you can't figure out how
> to pare down what you put in (*that* quote didn't come with the software)
> I will just automatically delete your messages unread. Politics belong on
> other lists, not this.

Sam, I think you're going to find that if you don't adjust your
expectations, there won't be much of the Internet left (at least not
the newsgroups and listservs) where you feel comfortable. The
reigning netiquette specifies that signatures of up to four lines are
perfectly acceptable, no matter what the content. In fact, clever
sigs (those of us who visited Fidonet first know them as "taglines")
are as very much part of the Internet's cultural tradition. I
wouldn't call Rene's sig clever--s/he may have underestimated how
many of us find the _subject_ tiresome--but I think she's well within
her rights unless the mailing list moderator has an explicit policy
against sigs.

If you can, think of them as the net's equivalent of letterhead
paper; some people's correspondence is relentlessly formal, and
other people like to personalize theirs with naked bunnies and quotes
from wise and worldly men. I suggest you figure out how to live with
it, because you're not going to stop it.

Best,

   K-Mac


  ---] Michael Paul McDowell, writing as Michael P. Kube-McDowell
  ---] Author of THE QUIET POOLS and STAR WARS: THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS
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