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From: stever@videovax.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: more on multiple .signatures
Message-ID: <4276@videovax.Tek.COM>
Date: Thu, 12-Mar-87 13:25:17 EST
Article-I.D.: videovax.4276
Posted: Thu Mar 12 13:25:17 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Mar-87 00:53:43 EST
References: <306@unisoft.UUCP>
Reply-To: stever@videovax.Tek.COM (Steven E. Rice, P.E.)
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix Television Systems, Beaverton, Oregon
Lines: 37
Summary: A manual solution

In article <306@unisoft.UUCP>, Jef Poskanzer (jef@unisoft.UUCP) writes:

> A couple of months ago, I posted an article here detailing my theory on
> why double signatures are so common (because of the inconsistancy between
> Pnews and Rnmail) . . .

> However, I've noticed a new syndrome on the net, and I'm not sure what's
> causing it: someone posts an article without a signature, and then
> immediately posts a content-free followup saying "oops, my .signature
> didn't appear, here it is in case you want to flame me or something".
> . . .

The first few times I tried posting articles and sending mail messages,
I was caught by the "sometimes yes, sometimes no" bug that seems to lurk
in the mail and news software.  It was not clear to me (and, for that
matter, still isn't!) when the .signature file would be appended and
when it would not.

There is a reliable solution that produces one (1) and only one (1) copy
of the .signature file at the end of each message:

  1. Rename ~/.signature to ~/.sig (Note: "~" indicates home directory
     on 4.2BSD -- I'm sure VMS and CP/M-86 [ 8^( ] do it differently!)

  2. When the message is composed, do ESC->^X^I~/.sig (Gosling Emacs
     version), or whatever it takes in your editor on your system, to
     go to the end of the message and append the file.

It only takes two or three postings for this to become routine.  That's
how this .signature (hidden from the news and mail software as ~/.sig)
was appended:

					Steve Rice

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