Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 38, No. 59.
        Department of Digital Humanities, University of Cologne
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        Date: 2024-06-28 17:17:47+00:00
        From: Robert Royar <robert@royar.org>
        Subject: Re: [Humanist] 38.47: lengthy e-mail signatures

Way Back® when netnews was king the great James "Kibo" Parry had what was
agreed to be the worlds largest signature. Netnews has declined, and reddit
has refused to replace it. But Mr. Kibo' signature is still out there:
http://archive.birdhouse.org/etc/kibosig.txt

-- My Kibo number is 1

On Sun, Jun 23, 2024 at 1:13 AM -500 UTC Humanist <humanist@dhhumanist.org>
wrote:

        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
>
>
--
               Robert Delius Royar
 Caught in the net since 1985


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