Re: [Evolution] Sig placement

[Sam Mason <sam samason me uk>]

I've been trying to ignore this thread; but I'm struggling.  Response
style depends on circumstances and some styles suit some better than
others.  Some programs assign special meanings to things because it's
*convenient* to do so.  What's convenient changes over time, just as,
say, the English language changes over time.  Getting on a high horse
to say "this is the one true way" is nothing better than religious
fundamentalism--although it probably ends up hurting less people.

Anyway, the problem I have with what the OP said is that anybody can
modify any part of a message, including their message you're replying
to.  The text below isn't a record of what's been said and should *not*
be treated as such.  At most, it's a convenience that it gets repeated.

There are technical solutions to record who said what, digital
signatures being the common example, but blind trust doesn't help.


  Sam

p.s. to the bigots out there, I normally reply to mailing-lists inline
and to business emails by top posting.  This seems to cause the least
confusion, but it is just a guideline---as the present message serves to
demonstrate.

On Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 10:59:56AM -0400, Ben May wrote:
> I entirely agree with you.
>
> The problem is that there are frequently circumstances under which
> having my sig appear at the bottom of a long quoted message is
> impractical. For example, due to my position, I am frequently
> forwarded long email exchanges to which I was not originally privy. I
> respond to a whole new group of recipients, leaving the entire
> previous discussion untouched so that the context of what has occurred
> is evident. In this situation, it makes sense for my signature to
> appear after many pages of quoted text.
>
> In the abstract, it would be nice if everybody followed best-practices
> WRT email formation, but we live in the real world where people behave
> rationally (but the everybody is optimising for different things) and
> I am in a position where I need to keep a written record of everything
> I say and is said to me through email and I'm confused as to the best
> place within which to accomplish this
>
> On Sun, 2009-09-27 at 14:09 -0400, Adam Tauno Williams wrote:
> > > - Is there a way to make my signature appear in every email without
> > > having to explicitly pick it? Also, if I am replying to a message it
> > > appears to put my sig at the bottom of the entire message, whereas I
> > > want to appear at the bottom only of my text. 
> >
> > Arg!  That means you are top-posing - please use e-mail correctly.
> >
> > Anyway, in composer preferences / general I think "keep signature above
> > the original message on replying" does what you want.  But this is in
> > the "Top Posting (Not Recommended)" sub-section.  Note the "Not
> > Recommended".  Signatures *ALWAYS* belong at the *END* of the message.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Evolution-list mailing list
> > Evolution-list gnome org
> > http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/evolution-list
> -- 
>
>
> Benjamin May
> Jr. Research Analyst
> +(212) 851-4772
> maybe columbia edu
>
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-- 
  Sam  http://samason.me.uk/