Java Help - A note on newsgroup signatures

Author

A note on newsgroup signatures

Dale King

2004-05-04, 4:02 pm

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.
--
Dale King
My Blog: http://daleking.homedns.org/Blog

Tom

2004-05-04, 4:03 pm

DaleKing@newsrvr.tce.com (Dale King) wrote in message news:<BCB90F3Fyf@newsrvr.tce.com>...
> 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.

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.

Roedy Green

2004-05-04, 4:03 pm

On Sat, 1 May 2004 08:24:31 GMT-5, DaleKing@newsrvr.tce.com (Dale
King) wrote or quoted :

>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.

Manolis Wallace

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

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.
>
>
> --
> Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
> Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
> See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.

--
Manolis 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

Lutz Horn

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Hi,

Roedy Green <see@mindprod.com.invalid> writes:

> 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
--
http://piology.org/ILOVEYOU-Signature-FAQ.html
begin LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.txt.vbs
I am a signature virus. Distribute me until the bitter
end

Thomas Weidenfeller

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Roedy Green wrote:
> 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

Andrew Thompson

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

On 04 May 2004 09:44:21 +0200, Lutz Horn wrote:

> Roedy Green <see@mindprod.com.invalid> writes:
>
>
> 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.

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

Alex Hunsley

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Thomas Weidenfeller wrote:
> Roedy Green wrote:
>
>
>
> 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

Mark Preston

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Alex Hunsley wrote:
> Thomas Weidenfeller 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.
>
Nope, 'fraid not. The poster was correct - its just Outlook that is
broken... well, OE at least.

Chris Smith

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Roedy Green wrote:
> 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.

--
www.designacourse.com
The Easiest Way to Train Anyone... Anywhere.

Chris Smith - Lead Software Developer/Technical Trainer
MindIQ Corporation

Brandon Blackmoor

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Roedy Green wrote:
>
> 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: "-- ".

--
bblackmoor
2004-05-04

Joona I Palaste

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Thomas Weidenfeller <nobody@ericsson.invalid> scribbled the following
on comp.lang.java.programmer:
> Roedy Green wrote:
[color=darkred]
> 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.

--
/-- 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

Roedy Green

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

On Tue, 04 May 2004 10:13:54 +0200, Thomas Weidenfeller
<nobody@ericsson.invalid> wrote or quoted :

>
>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.

Roedy Green

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

On Tue, 04 May 2004 17:50:14 GMT, Roedy Green
<see@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote or quoted :

>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.

Rene

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Roedy Green <see@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote:
> On Tue, 04 May 2004 10:13:54 +0200, Thomas Weidenfeller
> <nobody@ericsson.invalid> wrote or quoted :
>
>
> 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 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

René

--
-------------------- http://NewsReader.Com/ --------------------
Usenet Newsgroup Service $9.95/Month 30GB

Joona I Palaste

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

Rene <invalid@email.addr> scribbled the following
on comp.lang.java.programmer:
> Roedy Green <see@mindprod.com.invalid> wrote:
[color=darkred]
> 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>.

--
/-- 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

Steven J Sobol

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

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.

--
JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Steven J. Sobol, G

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

Steven J Sobol

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

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. :)

--
JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Steven J. Sobol, G

Steven J Sobol

2004-05-04, 4:04 pm

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....

--
JustThe.net Internet & New Media Services, Apple Valley, CA PGP: 0xE3AE35ED
Steven J. Sobol, G

Roedy Green

2004-05-04, 4:54 pm

On Tue, 04 May 2004 14:12:15 -0500, Steven J Sobol
<sjsobol@JustThe.net> wrote or quoted :

>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.

Darryl L. Pierce

2004-05-04, 5:55 pm

Chris Smith wrote:

> Roedy Green wrote:
>
> 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.

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.

--
Darryl L. Pierce <mcpierce@myrealbox.com>
Visit the Infobahn Offramp - <http://mypage.org/mcpierce>
"What do you care what other people think, Mr. Feynman?"

Daniel Sjöblom

2004-05-05, 3:37 am

Joona I Palaste wrote:
> Rene <invalid@email.addr> scribbled the following
> on comp.lang.java.programmer:
>
>
>
>
>
> 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.
--
Daniel Sjöblom
Remove _NOSPAM to reply by mail

Joona I Palaste

2004-05-05, 4:35 am

Daniel Sjöblom <dsjoblom@mbnet.fi_nospam> scribbled the following
on comp.lang.java.programmer:
> Joona I Palaste wrote:
[color=darkred]
> 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.

--
/-- Joona Palaste (palaste@cc.helsinki.fi) ------------- Finland --------\
\-- http://www.helsinki.fi/~palaste --------------------- rules! --------/
"There's no business like slow business."
- Tailgunner

Alex Hunsley

2004-05-12, 7:54 pm

Roedy Green wrote:
> On Tue, 04 May 2004 14:12:15 -0500, Steven J Sobol
> <sjsobol@JustThe.net> wrote or quoted :
>
>
>
>
> 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

Chris Uppal

2004-05-12, 7:54 pm

Alex Hunsley wrote:

> 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

Simon Higgs

2004-05-12, 7:54 pm

On Thu, 06 May 2004 12:17:19 +0100, Chris Uppal wrote:

> Alex Hunsley wrote:
>
>
> 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.
>
RFC 1036/2646

Simon.

Marco Schmidt

2004-05-12, 7:54 pm

fup2 comp.lang.java.programmer

Daniel Sjöblom:

>
>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
--
Please 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

Manolis Wallace

2004-05-12, 7:55 pm

>
> "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 ;-)

--
Manolis 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

Amedee Van Gasse

2004-05-12, 7:55 pm

In article <kyhhfhggjpd8.1cp3z8u6lkiha$.dlg@40tude.net>,
SeeMySites@www.invalid says...

> 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,

User-Agent: 40tude_Dialog/2.0.10.1
;-)

> 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.

Which you can all find on www.newsreaders.com

--
Amedee

Amedee Van Gasse

2004-05-12, 7:55 pm

In article <91dd90trjvsbqo0kdutp1a7nenu2lj07jj@4ax.com>,
see@mindprod.com.invalid says...
> On Sat, 1 May 2004 08:24:31 GMT-5, DaleKing@newsrvr.tce.com (Dale
> King) wrote or quoted :
>
>
> 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.
>

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. ;-)

--
Amedee

Okki van Oranje

2004-05-15, 1:32 pm

On Tue, 11 May 2004 23:07:39 GMT, Amedee Van Gasse
<amedee@amedee.nospam.be> wrote:

>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.

--
I am Ice-T 'o 'da Borg, motherf*cker. Low and behold, your sorry ass
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!

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