Re: signatures (was defontifying program)

[miller@GEM.cam.nist.gov (Bruce R. Miller)]

    Date: Sat, 4 Aug 90 19:33 EDT
    From: RWK@FUJI.ILA.Dialnet.Symbolics.COM (Robert W. Kerns)

	...
Thanks for the clarifications (I had just sorted it out empirically)

	BTW: Somebody posted a request for us to include Signatures in our mail... 

    I absolutely refuse to add those silly signature lines to the end
    of the messages, *AND I WISH EVERYONE ELSE WOULD STOP!*.  They waste
    space & time and aren't cute or funny any more.  ...

Not to load the system with a discussion about how not to load the
system, but ...

Well, I think signature LINES is OK, even helpful, but the signature
PAGES typical on UseNet are most definitely obnoxious.
I'ld like to see at MOST 3 things in sig lines:
  1) User's real name (unless in address)
  2) Users real (prefered, cleanest form ...) email address. Useful when
mailing but not replying to someone. Mail passes through a number of
machines so a Brain dead mailer (that you've never seen or heard of) can
still garble your headers.
  3) User's organization; I do know what ILA is but I dont many others
are and Dialnet addresses tend to be the most anonymous.  I dont
think a person's affiliation affects their credibility, but often helps
to understand the context.

How about:
bruce
miller@cam.nist.gov
National Institute of Standards and Technology

Is that really so bad?

    On the other hand, I usually *DO* refrain from using Symbolics text
    styles in mail messages to the Slug list, because I'm well aware that
    many Slug readers (not just a few) don't read their mail on a Lispm.

I agree, it does seem unnecessary for most purposes, although when
inserting code, I'm reluctant to strip it first.