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Java Forum / First Aid / May 2004A note on newsgroup signatures
I recently started reading the Java newsgroups on my PDA and noticed that several people (including several of the regulars) are not using the correct separator for their signature. The convention is to use "-- "; 2 dashes followed by a space. They are missing the space. This convention allows people to strip your signature. Reading news on my PDA it is helpful to remove signatures. I started to email individual offenders but there were enough that I thought a general post was in order.  SignatureDale King My Blog: http://daleking.homedns.org/Blog > I recently started reading the Java newsgroups on my PDA and > noticed that several people (including several of the regulars) [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > I started to email individual offenders but there were enough > that I thought a general post was in order. This is the first that I've heard of it. Maybe I didn't pay attention since I don't use a signature. Thanks for the info. In comp.lang.java.programmer Tom <tom.cowdery@bigfoot.com> wrote: > This is the first that I've heard of it. Maybe I didn't pay attention > since I don't use a signature. Thanks for the info. It's an old, old convention - some software that parses Usenet posts and e-mail messages does actually look for dash dash space newline. SignatureJustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net Domain Names, $9.95/yr, 24x7 service: http://DomainNames.JustThe.net/ "someone once called me a sofa, but i didn't feel compelled to rush out and buy slip covers." -adam brower * Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows 98/2000/2003 >he >convention is to use "-- "; 2 dashes followed by a space. They >are missing the space. This convention allows people to strip >your signature. Reading news on my PDA it is helpful to remove >signatures. That is a ridiculous convention. Trailing spaces are routinely stripped from lines. -- on a line by itself should suffice. -- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary. Hi Roeady, you are absolutelly right on the ridiculous part. But conventions should not make sense, they should just be known to all. And this one is. Netscape and Mozilla, for example, will automatically detect and shade differently signatures based on the "-- " signature. And most mail programs will add the "-- " part by themselves when inserting a signature on an email. Manolis > That is a ridiculous convention. Trailing spaces are routinely > stripped from lines. -- on a line by itself should suffice. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. > See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary. SignatureManolis Wallace http://www.image.ece.ntua.gr/~wallace/ Image, Video & Multimedia Systems Laboratory Department of Computer Science School of Electrical & Computer Engineering National Technical University of Athens In comp.lang.java.programmer Manolis Wallace <wallace@image.ntua.gr> wrote: > Hi Roeady, > > you are absolutelly right on the ridiculous part. But conventions should > not make sense, they should just be known to all. "Conventions don't need to make sense" is what you probably meant, no? They always SHOULD make sense. :) SignatureJustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net Domain Names, $9.95/yr, 24x7 service: http://DomainNames.JustThe.net/ "someone once called me a sofa, but i didn't feel compelled to rush out and buy slip covers." -adam brower * Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows 98/2000/2003 > "Conventions don't need to make sense" is what you probably meant, no? Yes, you are right, that conveys my point much better. > They always SHOULD make sense. :) I will stick with the first one ;-) SignatureManolis Wallace http://www.image.ece.ntua.gr/~wallace/ Image, Video & Multimedia Systems Laboratory Department of Computer Science School of Electrical & Computer Engineering National Technical University of Athens Hi, > Trailing spaces are routinely stripped from lines. By what program? Why does the programmer of any component taking part in the *transfer* of news or email thinks it wise to alter the body of a message in any way? Let the user decide if he wants to strip or add spaces. Lutz Signaturehttp://piology.org/ILOVEYOU-Signature-FAQ.html begin LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs I am a signature virus. Distribute me until the bitter end > >> Trailing spaces are routinely stripped from lines. > > By what program? I received complaints from folks in HTML/CSS groups that my OE was doing that. For the life of me I could not get it to _not_ strip the spaces, so I changed to using a diferent newsreader. The new newsreader warns me against replying to posts that.. a) Cross-post to more than three groups b) Request a 'reply to' the OP c) F'Ups are set to a different location then the original post d) The group/s are not listed on the local server. I will not name it, for the simple reason that (I _suspect_) it installed 'free' software on my PC that was most unwelcome, which I then had to 'hunt down and kill with extreme prejudice'. But just thought I should point out that there are alternatives. SignatureAndrew Thompson http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology > I changed to using a diferent newsreader. > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > I will not name it, User-Agent: 40tude_Dialog/2.0.10.1 ;-) > for the simple reason that > (I _suspect_) it installed 'free' software on my [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > But just thought I should point out that > there are alternatives. Which you can all find on www.newsreaders.com SignatureAmedee > That is a ridiculous convention. No, it worked for maybe two decades. There is only one widely used broken "newsreader", who (or more precisely who's programmer's) don't get it: Outlook Express. This is one of the many reasons why OE is so much hated by long-time news users. Preserving trailing whitespace is also an essential feature used if you use a Content-Type with a format=flowed specification. See RFC 3676 (this posting should have such a Content-Type). > Trailing spaces are routinely stripped from lines. Any newsreader or news server doing so is significantly broken and should be taken out and shot. See RFC 977. The same holds for mail, see RFC 2821. > -- on a line by itself should suffice. Why don't you familiarize yourself with the established standards? /Thomas >> That is a ridiculous convention. > > No, it worked for maybe two decades. There is only one widely used > broken "newsreader", who (or more precisely who's programmer's) don't > get it: Outlook Express. This is one of the many reasons why OE is so > much hated by long-time news users. I'm pretty sure netscape (or any older version of mozilla?) composer used to strip trailing spaces as well, as I changed to another newsreader/writer for the very reason that I couldn't post proper signature delimiters. alex >>> That is a ridiculous convention. >> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > newsreader/writer for the very reason that I couldn't post proper > signature delimiters. Nope, 'fraid not. The poster was correct - its just Outlook that is broken... well, OE at least. In comp.lang.java.programmer Alex Hunsley <lard@tardis.ed.ac.molar.uk> wrote: > I'm pretty sure netscape (or any older version of mozilla?) composer used to > strip trailing spaces as well, as I changed to another newsreader/writer for > the very reason that I couldn't post proper signature delimiters. Netscape 4 and earlier were badly broken - at least the browser was, as it didn't conform as well to HTML standards as IE did (!) Apparently Composer didn't do all that well with standards either.... SignatureJustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED Steven J. Sobol, Geek In Charge / 888.480.4NET (4638) / sjsobol@JustThe.net Domain Names, $9.95/yr, 24x7 service: http://DomainNames.JustThe.net/ "someone once called me a sofa, but i didn't feel compelled to rush out and buy slip covers." -adam brower * Hiroshima '45, Chernobyl '86, Windows 98/2000/2003 >Netscape 4 and earlier were badly broken - at least the browser was, as it >didn't conform as well to HTML standards as IE did (!) IF you make a standard, don't tell anyone, and make it hard to tell what it is by examining other people's work, you bloody well deserve to have it violated. -- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary. >>Netscape 4 and earlier were badly broken - at least the browser was, as it >>didn't conform as well to HTML standards as IE did (!) > > IF you make a standard, don't tell anyone, and make it hard to tell > what it is by examining other people's work, you bloody well deserve > to have it violated. Yeah, I must say that creating a delimiter with an invisible trailing space in it is a very odd thing to do, given that people will miss the space if they are trying to mimick the standard. Seems stupid to me too. Although people writing usenet posting software are a bit silly IMO if they aren't basing their functionality/testing on what RFCs lay down! alex > Although people writing usenet posting software are a bit silly IMO if > they aren't basing their functionality/testing on what RFCs lay down! But /is/ the signature thing defined in an RFC ? I admit that I haven't gone back and checked, but I don't remember it, and I /do/ remember people asserting on Usenet (so caveat emptor ;-) that it has never been part of any standard. -- chris >> Although people writing usenet posting software are a bit silly IMO if >> they aren't basing their functionality/testing on what RFCs lay down! [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > /do/ remember people asserting on Usenet (so caveat emptor ;-) that it has > never been part of any standard. RFC 1036/2646 Simon. Thomas Weidenfeller <nobody@ericsson.invalid> scribbled the following on comp.lang.java.programmer: >> That is a ridiculous convention. > No, it worked for maybe two decades. There is only one widely used > broken "newsreader", who (or more precisely who's programmer's) don't > get it: Outlook Express. This is one of the many reasons why OE is so > much hated by long-time news users. Well, it's made by Microsoft, and you know how *they* feel about standards. Signature/-- Joona Palaste (palaste@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\ \-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/ "War! Huh! Good God, y'all! What is it good for? We asked Mayor Quimby." - Kent Brockman >> -- on a line by itself should suffice. > >Why don't you familiarize yourself with the established standards? I am not saying it is not the established standard. I am saying the established standard was SILLY, guaranteed to screw up eventually because of the way so much software automatically trims trailing blanks from lines. It is further not a visibly obvious standard. -- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary. >I am not saying it is not the established standard. I am saying the >established standard was SILLY, guaranteed to screw up eventually >because of the way so much software automatically trims trailing >blanks from lines. It is further not a visibly obvious standard. The standard has one saving grace. If the body has trailing spaces trimmed, the user can't accidentally create the marker. -- Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green. Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary. > >> -- on a line by itself should suffice. > > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > because of the way so much software automatically trims trailing > blanks from lines. It is further not a visibly obvious standard. The signature delimiter is not "-- " its "-- <CR><LF>". That might seem very pedantic but its not. Just reply to me and see that your program is NOT treating this as signature which it would have were the delimiter only "--". (thrice up to now, already...) There is a reason why this is so. Just have a look at how MIME attachements get encoded and to what lengths one has to go to ensure proper delimiting without mixing up content and delimiter. (Oh and as a nice additional point, my signature is the default of the NSP I use and it contains many many many signature delimiters if...) CU Ren? Signature-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ -------------------- Usenet Newsgroup Service $9.95/Month 30GB Rene <invalid@email.addr> scribbled the following on comp.lang.java.programmer: >> >> -- on a line by itself should suffice. >> > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >> because of the way so much software automatically trims trailing >> blanks from lines. It is further not a visibly obvious standard. > The signature delimiter is not "-- " its "-- <CR><LF>". That might seem > very pedantic but its not. Are you sure about that <CR><LF>? Not all platforms use that kind of end-of-line marker, you know. Mine, for example, uses <LF>. Signature/-- Joona Palaste (palaste@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\ \-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/ "Parthenogenetic procreation in humans will result in the founding of a new religion." - John Nordberg > Rene <invalid@email.addr> scribbled the following > on comp.lang.java.programmer: [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Are you sure about that <CR><LF>? Not all platforms use that kind of > end-of-line marker, you know. Mine, for example, uses <LF>. Sure, but <CR><LF> is something of a standard on the internet. It is the EOL marker in for example the NNTP and HTTP protocols. It is not a platform related issue. SignatureDaniel Sjöblom Remove _NOSPAM to reply by mail Daniel Sjöblom <dsjoblom@mbnet.fi_nospam> scribbled the following on comp.lang.java.programmer: >> Rene <invalid@email.addr> scribbled the following >> on comp.lang.java.programmer: [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >> Are you sure about that <CR><LF>? Not all platforms use that kind of >> end-of-line marker, you know. Mine, for example, uses <LF>. > Sure, but <CR><LF> is something of a standard on the internet. It is the > EOL marker in for example the NNTP and HTTP protocols. It is not a > platform related issue. I didn't know that. Thanks for the explanation. Signature/-- Joona Palaste (palaste@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\ \-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/ "There's no business like slow business." - Tailgunner fup2 comp.lang.java.programmer Daniel Sjöblom: >> Are you sure about that <CR><LF>? Not all platforms use that kind of >> end-of-line marker, you know. Mine, for example, uses <LF>. > >Sure, but <CR><LF> is something of a standard on the internet. It is the >EOL marker in for example the NNTP and HTTP protocols. It is not a >platform related issue. To add a reference for that: RFC 2822, section 2.1. === Messages are divided into lines of characters. A line is a series of characters that is delimited with the two characters carriage-return and line-feed; that is, the carriage return (CR) character (ASCII value 13) followed immediately by the line feed (LF) character (ASCII value 10). (The carriage-return/line-feed pair is usually written in this document as "CRLF".) === <http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html> Regards, Marco SignaturePlease reply in the newsgroup, not by email! Java programming tips: http://jiu.sourceforge.net/javatips.html Other Java pages: http://www.geocities.com/marcoschmidt.geo/java.html > That is a ridiculous convention. Trailing spaces are routinely > stripped from lines. -- on a line by itself should suffice. It is kind of silly, and the cause of a lot of problems. Unfortunately, a good bit of existing software doesn't agree that "--" by itself should suffice. Until it does, it's best to abide by the existing convention, rather than willfully causing hardship for others. Signaturewww.designacourse.com The Easiest Way to Train Anyone... Anywhere. Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer MindIQ Corporation >> That is a ridiculous convention. Trailing spaces are routinely >> stripped from lines. -- on a line by itself should suffice. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > suffice. Until it does, it's best to abide by the existing convention, > rather than willfully causing hardship for others. The reason for the "-- " is that you might have *in your text* that exact string and don't want to have the rest of your message treated as a signature. So, the *newsreader* should be stripping trailing spaces when you *post* but should leave the spaces after the separator intact. SignatureDarryl L. Pierce <mcpierce@myrealbox.com> Visit the Infobahn Offramp - <http://mypage.org/mcpierce> "What do you care what other people think, Mr. Feynman?" > That is a ridiculous convention. You are entitled to your opinion. Nonetheless, your opinion is irrelevant. > Trailing spaces are routinely stripped from lines. Not unless the software is seriously, grievously, broken. > -- on a line by itself should suffice. Feel free to go back in time 20 years and suggest it. In the meantime, the specification is as stated: "-- ". Signaturebblackmoor 2004-05-04 > >he > >convention is to use "-- "; 2 dashes followed by a space. They [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming. > See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary. Troll alert? Hey, Gravity did not strip your signature but it did strip the signature from other people! Sometimes I use Xnews or Pan, and I know they do the same. I don't care whatever the convention is: as long as *my* newsreader can work with it, I'm happy to use tomorrows' convention. I don't ask questions, the internet and its conventions already existed for decades before I first came online in '95. ;-) SignatureAmedee >I don't care whatever the convention is: as long as *my* newsreader can >work with it, I'm happy to use tomorrows' convention. I don't ask >questions, the internet and its conventions already existed for decades >before I first came online in '95. ;-) Hear hear. Nobody likes people who break standards. It would get very messy in traffic if you can deceide yourself wether to drive on the left or right, stop at a red or at a green light or drive forward or in reverse all the time. SignatureI am Ice-T 'o 'da Borg, motherf*cker. Low and behold, your sorry a.s is about to become assimilated, man! And if you think you might be able to resist, we'll tell 'ya about futility, you irrelevant sucker! Free MagazinesGet these publications absolutely FREE for up to 12 months. There are no hidden fees and no obligation. 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