Re: "--" first in lines to indicate start of signature

On 1/4/2016 3:00 PM, Russ Allbery wrote:
> Hector Santos <[email protected]> writes:
>
>> I don't like the idea of trying to standardize a "-- " tag although this
>> character sequence seems to be popular among "some" IETF users, but not
>> outside.
>
> Use of "-- " for a signature delimiter is ubiquitous on Usenet and has
> been for decades, for whatever that's worth.  I suspect many of us who use
> this convention in email are either old Usenet users or are using software
> that understands both email and Usenet and treats them similarly (or both,
> as in my case).

Of course.  Software that used all formats, like fidonet/echomail and 
internet/newsgroups all supported various forms and some even have 
user-definable signature fields.

But do they use "-- " automatically or is it user-defined (added)?

> In email, it's also reasonably common as a delimiter for the footers added
> by mailing list software.  I believe Google Groups uses it, for instance.
>
> It's always been a wart, and it's certainly not the sort of thing that one
> would design today in an intentional standard for a whole host of reasons,
> but it has a *very* long established history.

I just did a quick sample of the last 10 people in the IETF list, 
counted at least 2 people with "-- " -- 20%, pareto's ratios.

Yes, the history is long there but also for other formats or even no 
"tag" formats at all, e.g.; just with a tab and name, perhaps.

	Hector


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