Subject: Re: signature at the bottom of reply/forward (fwd)

From: Hillary Gorman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 11:22:16 -0400 (EDT)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 09:21:15 +0100 (BST)
From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
To: Hillary Gorman <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: signature at the bottom of reply/forward

I believe the choice of positioning of the signature file's content is a
deliberate choice by the Pine Team....

The DEFAULT setting is to put the signature at the top of any
reply/forwarded message.  The idea is that your new text is the
"interesting" stuff, and hence should be easily readable without having to
wade through tons of old quoted text.  The signature follows your own
message text, which is in turn followed by the old text included for
context if need be.

In general this seems a good and courteous idea (albeit one most people
aren't (yet) familiar with, and who hence claim it is "wrong" :-)

[big snip]

--hi, hillary here! in response to the above, I just have to say that I
personally *hate* having my sig put at the top of a forwarded message, and
as postmaster/support for >2500 users, I think I can safely say that over
2000 people agree with me. You might consider changing it back, or at
least making it configurable.

thanks,

hillary
hillary [email-masked]
       For Net Access questions, write to: <[email-masked]>
"believe me, it's ON THE LIST of things to do. now, where IS that list?"

---

From: David L Miller <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1996 11:17:56 -0700 (PDT)

> "believe me, it's ON THE LIST of things to do. now, where IS that list?"

This would seem to prove Mike's point!  If you hadn't said "in
response to the above" and just read Mike's original, I wouldn't have
any idea where Mike's post left off and yours began!!!  This can lead
to some _very_ unwelcome mis-quotes..... 

|\ |  |\/|  David L. Miller    [email-masked]  (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ |  |  Software Engineer, Pine Development Team   (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing, JE-20
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA

---

From: Hillary Gorman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 25 Apr 1996 14:13:12 -0400 (EDT)

> to some _very_ unwelcome mis-quotes.....

Well, of course there do exist morons in the world, who cannot format text
or who are for some reason unable to correctly indicate who said what.
Nonetheless, I think it isn't fair to configure software to reach the
lowest common denominator....I mean, all I'm saying is I think that
putting the sig at the top or bottom should be a configurable option.
Obviously, it's your software, and you don't have to listen to little old
me, even if I do have a lot a people backing me up on this. I love PINE, I
appreciate that it is freely distributed, and I'm not trying to be bitchy
about this, I'm just telling you my preferences, and the preferences of
most of my users. If it bothered me THAT much, I'd just hack my version of
PINE so it didn't do that... :) anyway, just thought you'd like to have
some feedback.

---

From: [email-masked] (Jack Zupan)
Date: 26 Apr 1996 11:58:50 GMT

Hillary Gorman ([email-masked]) wrote:

: Well, of course there do exist morons in the world, who cannot format text
: or who are for some reason unable to correctly indicate who said what.
: Nonetheless, I think it isn't fair to configure software to reach the
: lowest common denominator....I mean, all I'm saying is I think that
: putting the sig at the top or bottom should be a configurable option.
  [snip]

I agree with Hillary.  Right now I do more editing to put my sig file at the
bottom of a forwarded message.  It would be preferable to just have another
option to configure it that way.

- Jack

~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~'~
       o/~     "Music is God's voice"              )Jack Zupan
                                                   )[email-masked]
                  - Brian Wilson -                 ) Keet  (^,^)

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 12:51:04 -0700 (PDT)

Jack,
Two points:

 o With 3 keystrokes (per msg) you can have your sig anywhere you want it:
   ^R s RET  --where "s" is the name of a sig file.

 o You should be aware that IN THE CASE OF *FORWARDED* MSGS a lot of
   people consider commentatry and sigs after the forwarded text to be
   very bad form; indeed, obnoxious.  It's sort of like putting a yellow
   sticky with an intro note on the *back* of a postal letter you forward
   to someone else.  (But I guess there's still no accounting for taste! :) 

Replies are different.  There I personally believe the correct answer is a
function of the length of the included reply.

-teg