Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsz!davis From: davis@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Jim Davis) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: Citing .signatures (was Re: new Pink Floyd newsgroup) Message-ID: <4611@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> Date: 10 Jan 90 05:10:24 GMT References: <423@mirsa.UUCP> <475@sci34hub.UUCP> <89346.135842TAR@MAINE.BITNET> <631@grape3.UUCP> <514@sci34hub.UUCP> Reply-To: davis@hplabs.hp.com (Jim Davis) Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories Lines: 32 David C Lawrence asked: dcl> Why do people quote .signatures in followups when they are not dcl> making any comment regarding them? Steven King wrote: sk> You got me scratchin', Dave. I honestly think including someone sk> else's .signature file in your post is out of line. Then again, sk> I think that the quoting features of the various mail readers sk> are far overused in the first place. and Gary Heston wrote: gh> When quoting things, it might be appropriate to attribute the quote a gh> little better than the followed-up followed-up articles' id string. gh> ... Enough to identify the poster, which is easiest if everyone has gh> their name and email address on one line, somewhere in there (which gh> poses a slight problem in your case, if I want to attribute your gh> remarks without completely rewriting your .sig :-) ). I would like to add that there are far better quoting styles than the style used so far in this message chain. Personally I find the style shown above to be quite pleasant to read. The character (spaces if you prefer to avoid tabs) sets off the attribution from the text. The id field is chosen to be unique within a posting (by appending numbers is necessary). I would appreciate comments and suggestions on this style which I started using several years ago. Automatic quoting software can be a bane, or a boon. Some of the distinction is up to how it is used. -- Jim Davis (James W. Davis) Palo Alto, CA (415)857-4036 davis@hplabs.hp.com {any_of_the_biggies}!hplabs!davis