On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:45:01 +1000, Franc Zabkar
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:25:12 -0400, mm put
finger to keyboard and composed:

On 20 Sep 2008 23:43:01 GMT, Allodoxaphobia
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:00:47 -0400, mm wrote:
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:44:11 -0700, "nospam" wrote:

http://www.comcast.net/newsgroups/

I'm gonna miss these two groups more than most.

Thanks for all the help over the last 15+ years.

Read my sig.

... if you had one.

The post you replied to had one. Does it have to have a blank line or
label that says sig for you to be able to tell?

I must confess that I didn't recognise your sig, either, until you
added the dash-dash-space.

- Franc Zabkar

I understand that. But you didn't think it so important that you
posted about it just to point out that I was wrong. You don't have
the troll-like nature the other two exhibited.

I only figured out on Tuesday that my service was cancelled; it took
until Thursday to pick an alternative, and until Saturday when I read
the start of this thread to decide to tell everyone how
Erols/RCN/Starpower had behaved. My post in this thread was the
first time I had used the sig, and so it had errors. Once I saw them,
I was able to correct them.
--
A tribute to Erols/RCN/Starpower which took away newsgroups,
without giving any notice, in advance or when they did it!!

And a real tribute to https://www.forteinc.com/apn/subscribe.php
which starts at 3 dollars for 12 gigs a month,
including alt, misc, the big 8 and everything else, 12 gigs is
far more than someone who dl's mostly text should ever need.

mm wrote:

On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:45:01 +1000, Franc Zabkar
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:25:12 -0400, mm put
finger to keyboard and composed:

On 20 Sep 2008 23:43:01 GMT, Allodoxaphobia
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:00:47 -0400, mm wrote:
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:44:11 -0700, "nospam" wrote:

http://www.comcast.net/newsgroups/

I'm gonna miss these two groups more than most.

Thanks for all the help over the last 15+ years.

Read my sig.

... if you had one.

The post you replied to had one. Does it have to have a blank line or
label that says sig for you to be able to tell?

I must confess that I didn't recognise your sig, either, until you
added the dash-dash-space.

- Franc Zabkar

I understand that. But you didn't think it so important that you
posted about it just to point out that I was wrong. You don't have
the troll-like nature the other two exhibited.


It isn't a sig file without the sig delimiter. That combination of
two dashes, a space and a return allow proper news readers to
automatically trim the signature when you reply to a message. ANything
else is just inline text, no matter why it is there. Your news reader
software should automatically add the delimiter, followed by a simple
text file you create as your signature.


You are using Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American) which is
about six years old. Even so, it should support a proper sig file.
What you are using right now is not a sig delimiter. It is missing the
space after the dashes.


I only figured out on Tuesday that my service was cancelled; it took
until Thursday to pick an alternative, and until Saturday when I read
the start of this thread to decide to tell everyone how
Erols/RCN/Starpower had behaved. My post in this thread was the
first time I had used the sig, and so it had errors. Once I saw them,
I was able to correct them.
--
A tribute to Erols/RCN/Starpower which took away newsgroups,
without giving any notice, in advance or when they did it!!

And a real tribute to https://www.forteinc.com/apn/subscribe.php
which starts at 3 dollars for 12 gigs a month,
including alt, misc, the big 8 and everything else, 12 gigs is
far more than someone who dl's mostly text should ever need.


--
http://improve-usenet.org/index.html

aioe.org, Goggle Groups, and Web TV users must request to be white
listed, or I will not see your messages.

If you have broadband, your ISP may have a NNTP news server included in
your account: http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm


There are two kinds of people on this earth:
The crazy, and the insane.
The first sign of insanity is denying that you're crazy.

On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 08:01:54 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

You are using Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American) which is
about six years old. Even so, it should support a proper sig file.
What you are using right now is not a sig delimiter. It is missing the
space after the dashes.

My version of agent has no problem seeing mm's dash-dash-space.
Something is wrong at your end. Maybe Mozilla strips trailing spaces?

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 08:01:54 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
put finger to keyboard and composed:

What you are using right now is not a sig delimiter. It is missing the
space after the dashes.

This is mm's post as seen by Google:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.e...2?dmode=source

There is definitely a dash-dash-space sig delimiter.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 08:01:54 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:


mm wrote:

On Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:45:01 +1000, Franc Zabkar
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:25:12 -0400, mm put
finger to keyboard and composed:

On 20 Sep 2008 23:43:01 GMT, Allodoxaphobia
wrote:

On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:00:47 -0400, mm wrote:
On Sat, 20 Sep 2008 13:44:11 -0700, "nospam" wrote:

http://www.comcast.net/newsgroups/

I'm gonna miss these two groups more than most.

Thanks for all the help over the last 15+ years.

Read my sig.

... if you had one.

The post you replied to had one. Does it have to have a blank line or
label that says sig for you to be able to tell?

I must confess that I didn't recognise your sig, either, until you
added the dash-dash-space.

- Franc Zabkar

I understand that. But you didn't think it so important that you
posted about it just to point out that I was wrong. You don't have
the troll-like nature the other two exhibited.


It isn't a sig file without the sig delimiter.

Now that's a real answer -- and I appreciate that you are forthright
enough to give one -- which could well account for the insistance of
allodox and uclan that it wasn't a sig. Maybe that's their reason
too.

But WADR I'm not convinced it's true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_block says nothing about any
required delimiter.

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com...212987,00.html
doesn't either.

http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/docs/Usenet.html says only:
"Avoid long rambling signatures. Keep your sig short and simple.
MT-NewsWatcher encourages the "McQuary limit" for signatures-at most
four lines of at most 80 characters each; if you enter a longer sig in
the Personalities dialog, it will warn you. You cannot enter a sig
longer than 8 lines."

I could keep looking, but I have other reasons to think a sig file
needs no delimiter.

1) When I started on Usenet, v. 0.99 was the current version of Agent.
I don't think it recognized --b as something special, and neither it
nor any version up to v 1.93, which I'm using now, inserted those
characters. The sig file is whatever one types in the sig field,
which later gets appended to an individual article's text, afaict.

In addition, IIRC, --b was an innovation a few years after I started
in Usenet. I don't think such a later innovation works to redefine
sig. retroactively.

That combination of
two dashes, a space and a return allow proper news readers to
automatically trim the signature when you reply to a message. ANything
else is just inline text, no matter why it is there. Your news reader
software should automatically add the delimiter, followed by a simple
text file you create as your signature.

AFAIK even later versions of Agent** don't add a delimiter, and there
are certainly times, not with a sig as long as mine is now, but with a
short one, when someone might not want his sig stripped, maybe if it
were a copyright notice or the disclaimer "I am not a lawyer".

**Now maybe some think that Agent is not "proper" for this reason
(although v1.93 and higher, and maybe some lower versions do strip the
--b delimited sigs) but I've looked at OE and Netscape and maybe one
or two other news readers, and even early versions of Agent have far
more commands and are far more versatile. There are a couple features
(like allowng a different email -from address for posts and emails)
that my version doesn't have that OE does have, but newer versions of
Agent have those now.

I think this might be a cultural difference, like in some cultures
it's polite to burp after the meal, or to leave food on the plate to
prove one has had enough. If one lives with a newsreader that auto
inserts the --b, it seems like the proper thing to do, but if one
lives in Agent world, it doesn't seem necessary.

BTW, FWIW, I think Agent is the only newsreader that has its own
newsgroup, two of them actually. One for modifying the code. OE etc.
has one or more NGs but most of the traffic is about email, I think.

You are using Forte Agent 1.93/32.576 English (American) which is
about six years old. Even so, it should support a proper sig file.
What you are using right now is not a sig delimiter. It is missing the
space after the dashes.

For one reason or another, you don't see it, but Franc and I do. All 3
characters. When I reply to my own posts on this group, the sig. gets
stripped.

I only figured out on Tuesday that my service was cancelled; it took
until Thursday to pick an alternative, and until Saturday when I read
the start of this thread to decide to tell everyone how
Erols/RCN/Starpower had behaved. My post in this thread was the
first time I had used the sig, and so it had errors. Once I saw them,
I was able to correct them.
--
A tribute to Erols/RCN/Starpower which took away newsgroups,
without giving any notice, in advance or when they did it!!

And a real tribute to https://www.forteinc.com/apn/subscribe.php
which starts at 3 dollars for 12 gigs a month,
including alt, misc, the big 8 and everything else, 12 gigs is
far more than someone who dl's mostly text should ever need.

The sig just above wasn't stripped when you replied, and watching the
insertion point, it surely appears that there is no space after the
--. But I put a space in the sig text, and when I reply to the same
post, the sig gets stripped. If you're using mozilla and it stripped
trailing spaces, no sig would get auto-trimmed for you, and I'm sure
that's not the situation. Another confusing computer moment.

Best regards,
--
A tribute to Erols/RCN/Starpower which took away newsgroups,
without giving any notice, in advance or when they did it!!

And a real tribute to https://www.forteinc.com/apn/subscribe.php
which starts at 3 dollars for 12 gigs a month,
including alt, misc, the big 8 and everything else, 12 gigs is
far more than someone who dl's mostly text should ever need.

In article ,
mm wrote:
snippage about signature delimiter
But WADR I'm not convinced it's true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_block says nothing about any
required delimiter.

Except it does--the last paragraph under "Email and Usenet" metions that
it "must be delimited from the body of the message by a single line
consisting of exactly two hyphens, followed by a space, followed by the
end of line...."

snip again

http://www.smfr.org/mtnw/docs/Usenet.html says only:
"Avoid long rambling signatures. Keep your sig short and simple.
MT-NewsWatcher encourages the "McQuary limit" for signatures-at most
four lines of at most 80 characters each; if you enter a longer sig in
the Personalities dialog, it will warn you. You cannot enter a sig
longer than 8 lines."

That's because MT-NewsWatcher automatically inserts the delimiter for
you. I know, as I use it and have it insert a signature. (It's a quite
nice newsreader program, by the way.)

I could keep looking, but I have other reasons to think a sig file
needs no delimiter.

It's a long-standing convention in Usenet that the signature should be
preceded by a dash-dash-space delimiter. I guess it's not "needed" in
the sense that you can send a message without one, but there are good
reasons to play along with the accepted rules, too. A great many
newsreaders will automatically trim off signatures thus demarked when
creating a followup message, for example.

--
Andrew Erickson

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot
lose." -- Jim Elliot