[Wolves] Nettiquette (was Re: BBC)

[James Turner]

On Thursday 01 April 2004 12:57, Peter Cannon wrote:

> 2. Signature. This morning was the first I've heard of it and as far as
> I'm concerned in a foulmouthed manner as well. I tried to comply but
> just got a sarcastic response but I suppose thats my fault too?

The message that I'm replying to had the correct signature seperator (hyphen, 
hyphen, space, newline, followed by the signature itself). Now, when I press 
"reply" in KMail, your message is automatically quoted, ready for me to reply 
to it, but the signature at the end is recognised and such and excluded.

Yes, those extra lines of quoted sig can be removed with a quick flick of the 
mouse (or keyboard) taking only a few moments, but please appreciate that 
there are people on the list that probably receive hundreds of messages per 
day. In fact, such people sometimes configure their mail software to hide 
signatures completely so that they get through their messages more quickly!

For such purposes, it has long been a recomendation (Internet-wide, not just 
on the LUG mailing list) that users place special seperator characters before 
their signatures, but unfortunately an increasing number of Internet users 
are not aware of this. We've all been "newbies" at one time or another, so 
I'm sure no-one blames you for not knowing about such things before now. But 
now you do.

If most people on the list missed off the seperator characters, that would add 
up to a large amount of time wasted needlessly and people who have limited 
time would soon become irritated. (ie: Thousands of posts multiplied by about 
60-80 people on the list). We may seem like pedants for harping on and on 
about it, but it *does* make a difference and makes you come across as 
inconsiderate should you persist. If nobody pointed such things out to 
people, they would just go on doing it. It's *not* meant as a personal 
insult, just letting you know how you can show consideration for others and 
come across better to other people on the list. A similar argument applies to 
trimming/quoting too.

For a light-hearted look at how to conduct yourself in Internet discussion 
groups, take a look at:

"Emily Postnews Answers Your Questions on Netiquette"
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/emily-postnews/part1/

Hopefully, now that Peter's modified his signature file, the requisite 
seperator characters will appear it in every single post he makes from now on 
and Sparkes will never have to complain about them again. :)

Anyway, we've all wasted far too much time moaning about Peter's sig and 
quoting habits so let's all be happy bunnies and return to talking about 
what's wrong with the BBC, going into geostationary orbit, guzzling curry, 
crap company web sites, and... what was that other thing... oh, and Linux.

James

(or should that be:

-- 
James