Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 50.
Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures (96)
[2] From: Norman Gray <norman.gray@glasgow.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures (46)
[3] From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures (32)
[4] From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures (38)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-06-23 11:07:12+00:00
From: Tim Smithers <tim.smithers@cantab.net>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures
Dear Willard,
Might this dent your bold claim any? -:)
Best regards,
TS
--
Tim Smithers,
Designer Researcher Teacher:
Who firmly believes good research
needs lots of telling others, near
and far, what we are up to, why,
and how, with good explainings of
the outcomes of our efforts, and
that this all takes caring plenty
to tell the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, as we
know and understand it, which needs
not leaving stuff out because we
forgot it, or think it's not a
"positive result," or fear others
will think what we tried was silly,
or because we think making strong
unsupported claims about impact is
what's needed to get people to cite
our work, or because we think the
only point of publishing is to
increase our h-index, rather than
to seek to inform, excite, and
engage researchers, and others
beyond, and help them all know
something new about what they do.
> On 23 Jun 2024, at 08:13, Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
>
>
> Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 47.
> Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
> Hosted by DH-Cologne
> www.dhhumanist.org
> Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
>
>
>
>
> Date: 2024-06-23 06:09:34+00:00
> From: Willard McCarty <willard.mccarty@mccarty.org.uk>
> Subject: signatures (for general discussion)
>
> In the last few years adding a mini-CV to one's e-mail signature seems
> to have become a common practice. Sometimes such mini-CVs compete in
> length with the main body of the message. Especially when a number of
> messages are compiled into a single message, as a reader I find the
> result of lengthy signatures tedious to wade through, indeed distracting
> me from what I'd imagine is the whole point being made by the
> contributions.
>
> This is not to say that 'my latest book/article' announcements or
> 'here's what my research group is doing' messages are unwelcome. Indeed,
> more reports on what people here are doing and have done, with authors'
> commentary and reflections, would be most welcome. The whole point of
> Humanist, at least mine. There's far too little of this sort of thing.
> Academic articles in the usual style omit the struggle, the actual work,
> in the interest of presenting the appearance of bullet-proof results.
> Since computing is, to my mind at least, all about the process, the
> experimental history of getting somewhere worth the trouble, the
> seamless achievement seems especially odd here.
>
> Humanist began in no small measure out of frustration that messages were
> being sent out with little to no regard for genuine communication, which
> relies on the care taken in writing the message with the reader in mind.
> That's my justification for being fussy.
>
> I'm wondering if anyone here can talk me out of the request for
> economical, indeed laconic e-mail signatures? Please have a go.
>
> And with that in mind, let me leave you with this rather bold statement,
> meant as a provocation to argument: that in e-mail signatures the
> significance of what the author has to say is inversely proportional to
> the length of the signature. (I base this partly on the fact that the
> person to whose messages I pay most attention has no e-mail signature at
> all. Mathematicians present may find my verbal equation objectionable :-).
>
> All the best,
> WM
>
>
> --
> Willard McCarty,
> Professor emeritus, King's College London;
> Editor, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews; Humanist
> www.mccarty.org.uk
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-06-23 20:04:33+00:00
From: Norman Gray <norman.gray@glasgow.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures
Willard, hello.
On 23 Jun 2024, at 7:13, Humanist wrote:
> Humanist began in no small measure out of frustration that messages were
> being sent out with little to no regard for genuine communication, which
> relies on the care taken in writing the message with the reader in mind.
> That's my justification for being fussy.
I for one am with you all ways.
I can just about detect a drift in style now, in which work-communications media
are segmenting again, so that slightly more substantial communications,
betraying some thought, arrive by email, but the delete-before-reading messages
arrive by Teams (or Slack or whatever your corporate IT folk have chosen). To
be fair, I can see a role for the one-liner messages which are fairly natural to
Teams (etc), but if the above distinction is real and sustained (hooray!), then
it might open up -- or perhaps reopen -- a formal space for contentful emails.
An email signature is like clothes -- you've more-or-less got to have one (going
without is making a Statement), but you can't stop folk judging you on what you
drag on (or indeed how you drag up).
> I'm wondering if anyone here can talk me out of the request for
> economical, indeed laconic e-mail signatures? Please have a go.
I wouldn't begin to consider trying to contemplate talking you out of that.
> And with that in mind, let me leave you with this rather bold statement,
> meant as a provocation to argument: that in e-mail signatures the
> significance of what the author has to say is inversely proportional to
> the length of the signature.
If we're licensing provocations now, I shall indulge myself by acknowledging
that I may be the last person in the world rigorously deploring top-posting in
email. Though generally my desire not to appear like a curmudgeonly crank stops
me saying that out loud.
Best wishes,
Norman
--
Norman Gray : https://nxg.me.uk
SUPA School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, UK
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-06-23 17:46:06+00:00
From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures
You are the only person in the world, Willard, about whom I'd say that I
enjoyed your lengthy complaint about email signatures.
Jim R
PS It looks to me from your own signature that simple links now display as
links and not code?
On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 2:13 AM Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org> wrote:
> And with that in mind, let me leave you with this rather bold statement,
> meant as a provocation to argument: that in e-mail signatures the
> significance of what the author has to say is inversely proportional to
> the length of the signature. (I base this partly on the fact that the
> person to whose messages I pay most attention has no e-mail signature at
> all. Mathematicians present may find my verbal equation objectionable :-).
>
> All the best,
> WM
>
--
Dr. James Rovira <http://www.jamesrovira.com/>
- *David Bowie and Romanticism
<https://jamesrovira.com/2022/09/02/david-bowie-and-romanticism/>*,
Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
- *Women in Rock, Women in Romanticism
<https://www.routledge.com/Women-in-Rock-Women-in-Romanticism-The-
Emancipation-of-Female-Will/Rovira/p/book/9781032069845>*,
Routledge, 2023
--[4]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2024-06-23 14:46:16+00:00
From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana@uniupo.it>
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures
hi Willard
i completely agree. in fact as anyone can see i don't put anything about
my status, publications, life, in my signature. rather i put random
fragments of text i deem interesting to think about 'being in the
world'. among all of them there are two on this subject of
"autorepresentation".
one is from Leopardi, Zibaldone, CX:
è curioso a vedere che quasi tutti gli uomini che vagliono molto hanno
le maniere semplici; e che quasi sempre le maniere semplici sono prese
per indizio di poco valore (approximately: it is curious to see that
almost all men of great worth have simple manners; and that simple
manners are almost always taken as an indication of little worth)
the other one is an often cited phrase of Jon Bon Jovi
If people have to tell you how successful they are, they really aren't
that successful.
they are my quiet, non personal, invitation to those who read them to
adopt the line of an "economical, indeed laconic, signature"
best
Maurizio
------------------------------------------------------------------------
non credo a nessuna liberazione né individuale né collettiva
che si ottenga senza il costo di un’autodisciplina,
di un’autocostruzione, di uno sforzo
italo calvino
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Maurizio Lana
Università del Piemonte Orientale
Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici
Piazza Roma 36 - 13100 Vercelli
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