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From: spaf@gatech.CSNET (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.misc,net.flame
Subject: Re: USENET frowning upon graphics in signatures
Message-ID: <1623@gatech.CSNET>
Date: Sun, 20-Oct-85 23:14:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: gatech.1623
Posted: Sun Oct 20 23:14:28 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 22-Oct-85 04:59:28 EDT
References: <491@scirtp.UUCP>
Reply-To: spaf@gatech.UUCP (Gene Spafford)
Distribution: net
Organization: The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech
Lines: 49
Xref: watmath net.news:4103 net.misc:8726 net.flame:12425

In article <491@scirtp.UUCP> todd@scirtp.UUCP (Todd Jones) writes:
>To my dismay, our site received a message regarding a change
>to the rules for posting to Usenet.
 Not a change in the rules, just the first time it has been explicitly
 stated as such in that article.  The text has always implied
 that graphics and extraneous characters in signatures are to be
 avoided.

>I fail to see the harm in including a (concise) graphic at the
>end of a posting. Sure, it costs a bit more (pretty minimal in
>most cases) to send it around....

Take any overly large signature (and some people contend mine borders
on the large), count the number of extra, noise characters and start
considering the amount of time it takes to ship that to all the Usenet
sites around the world.  Now multiply that times the volume of articles,
and you begin to see why we would like people to use their signature
files for short *signatures*.

The signature inclusion feature was added so that:
1) readers could find a return path for mail without having to figure
one out from the news path in the header, possibly even by different
networks.  The idea here is to present meaningful path information
in a compact way.  People who draw out 6-level trees representing the
connectivity of their state are abusing this idea.

2) Personalize your name a little bit, especially if your account name
if some weird letter/number combination imposed on you.  Individuals
presenting short stories and poetry are abusing the signature feature.

3) Provide a short disclaimer, should that be required by the company
providing the account.  People trying to come up with the most silly 
and/or universal disclaimer are abusing the signature feature.

Graphics, maps, poems, stories, knock-knock jokes, games of life,
manual entries, and so on are all innapproriate in .signature files
because of the extra space involved.  A one line quote or silly phrase
is probably all right, but those get boring after a while.

Next time you go to include something in a posting, imagine that you
(yes, YOU, the person reading this) had to pay the cost of transmitting
your article around the world, and you had to pay on a character-by-character
basis.  Maybe that will help you decide what *really* needs to be
in your .signature file.
-- 
Gene "sometime in 1986" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet:	Spaf @ GATech		ARPA:	Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
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