[Emily Post was a U.S. etiquette expert] [echoes Digest Mon, 2 Nov 92 Volume 1 : Issue 328] Date: Mon, 2 Nov 92 10:08:58 PST From: "John M. Relph" Subject: "Dear Emily Postnews" To: echoes@tcsi.tcs.com **NOTE: this is intended to be satirical. If you do not recognize it as such, consult a doctor or professional comedian. The recommendations in this article should recognized for what they are -- admonitions about what NOT to do. "Dear Emily Postnews" Emily Postnews, foremost authority on proper net behaviour, gives her advice on how to act on the net. ============================================================================ Dear Miss Postnews: How long should my signature be? -- verbose@noisy A: Dear Verbose: Please try and make your signature as long as you can. It's much more important than your article, of course, so try to have more lines of signature than actual text. Try to include a large graphic made of ASCII characters, plus lots of cute quotes and slogans. People will never tire of reading these pearls of wisdom again and again, and you will soon become personally associated with the joy each reader feels at seeing yet another delightful repeat of your signature. Be sure as well to include a complete map of USENET with each signature, to show how anybody can get mail to you from any site in the world. Be sure to include Internet gateways as well. Also tell people on your own site how to mail to you. Give independent addresses for Internet, UUCP, and BITNET, even if they're all the same. Aside from your reply address, include your full name, company and organization. It's just common courtesy -- after all, in some newsreaders people have to type an *entire* keystroke to go back to the top of your article to see this information in the header. By all means include your phone number and street address in every single article. People are always responding to usenet articles with phone calls and letters. It would be silly to go to the extra trouble of including this information only in articles that need a response by conventional channels! [Quoted without permission.]