Re: Signature in forwarded messages

["M.N.Oakden" <oakden@hep.ph.liv.ac.uk>]

Hi there,

In article <ebupv95y9.fsf@steffi.accessone.com>
robert@steffi.accessone.com (Robert Nicholson) writes: 

> 
> How can you justify the signature appearing at the start of the
> message when forwarding?
> 
> re: I don't think this is broken.
> 

The signature appearing before a forwarded message seems like
reasonable behaviour to me, at least at first thought... Thinking
further about it, I worry about the effect of this on clever mail/news
readers in which it is possible for the user to automagically hide
signatures [mentioning no names, ... but how many clever mail/news
readers are there ;) ].  It would seem to me that this might result in
the entire forwarded message being hidden (apologies if The Cleverest
Mail/News Reader is clever enough to not do this even if its dumb user
asks it to hide signatures...)

I can think of one "justification" off-hand.  If I am replying to a
letter (a real paper one), and want to quote some of a previous letter
to me in my letter, I quote the material within the letter and sign at
the end. [compare email reply with original text] ... BUT ... If I am
sending an entire copy of a letter (again, a real paper one) I receive
to somebody else, and want to add an explanation of the forwarded
letter "Dear Bob,  Look at this gibberish Fred sent me.  Cheers, Mark"
or something of the sort,  I would probably scribble this across the
top of the forwarded letter (with my "signature" "Mark" there, above
the text of the forwarded letter) or if my explanatory note was
longer,  I would probably write my own letter, complete with my
signature "Mark", and staple it to the front of the forwarded
copy. [cf email forwarding].   In both these paper-mail forwarding
systems my signature appears before the forwarded letter.

Of course,  email isn't paper mail,  and it probably isn't a good idea
to take such paper mail analogies too seriously in an email context.

Cheers,
Mark.
-- 
oakden@hep.ph.liv.ac.uk - I'm not politically | Wearing straw cloaks,
incorrect,  I'm just differently articulate.  | with spring
<URL:http://hep.ph.liv.ac.uk/~oakden/www/>    | saints greet each other.