I think I see the source of the problem - signing my posts forces people into self-parody.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan
I have no views about how you do or don’t sign off. But I have a question. It’s quite clear that many people do object. You have the option to put it in the signature field, which, as it is possible to switch it off, would seem to please everyone. You get your sign off, those that want to see it can, and those who don’t, don’t.
Why don’t you do this? What are your objections?
Yes, that’s it.
Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]
Oh, cool! So does this mean I can use the only Latin I can easily remember from High School? I don’t often get to use it.
fidem meam obligō vexillō Civitātum Americae Foederatārum et Reī Publicae, prō quā stat, ūnī natiōnī, Deō ducente, nōn dividendae, cum lībertate iūstitiāque omnibus,
Lightnin’
You’ve nailed it!
Message board threads really all conversations - bull sessions, if you please, if somewhat more awkward than the face-to-face kind. That being the case, a formal close at the end of every contribution seems kinda weird. The only proper palace for a valedictory in a conversation is that point where your contribution actually ends and you exit stage left.
I never understood why this practice here was vaguely annoying to me. Now I understand.
Bugger off,
Bullwinkle
P.S.: Care to explain the “unprintable characters”, featherlou?
And if I thoght that that was the case, that the repetition of the name in a business letter was a way of reminding you of the author, then I would agree… down with the three name format! But as long as I see it very obviously as a way of making the lecture of the handwritten signature easier, I’m not considering them the same thing.
And the message board is designed for shorter messages than those that would require scrolling. The rest of us see that and never bother repeating our names.
um… No, I’m not? I would be if I said “I say that you shouldn’t post your name because I say so and I’m such a nice guy that you should obey me”.
Instead I say: *"I consider that signing off with “regards, Shodan” is structurally incorrect in two ways:
A) There’s no need to repeat a name we can already see. That’s redundancy and obscures the message.
B) Saying “regards” is a convention with meaning. And the meaning is “Goodbye”. Use it when you are quite sure that you are leaving the thread for a noticeable period of time, not every five minutes."*
See? I’m actually supporting what I’m saying, giving you points to debate. Ignore them or refute them if you want, but they are still there.
If a few words at the bottom of a post well away from the body text “obscures the message” then I might suggest that reading is not for you.
As a former conservative who enjoys your analysis and opinions on many issues, I want to tell you that your sig comes off as obnoxious and makes people discount what you say. You are hurting your “witness” so to speak.
Said Da Dumbass
Over and out
Actually, no. Here’s why (from your own link):
See the part I bolded? That’s the general rule and practice. Anecdotal, of course, but in my experience, that first block is always omitted and would very well be redundant were it not. It serves the same purpose as a letterhead therefore, on a letter formatted on letterhead, it is unnecessary and unconventional.
I believe what the cite is saying is that there is no need to type something already covered in the letterhead. FWIW, I have never seen a business letter that omits the sender info, whether it’s typed each time or it’s covered pre-printed in the stationery (in the olden days, before desktop applications made such things available to everyone, only our senior execs had pre-printed stationery with their personal info on it; everyone else had only the company logo in the letterhead, and everything else had to be typed).
Anyway, that’s how I was taught at school, that’s how virtually every business letter I’ve ever seen was composed, and it just makes common sense: you want the return info there, in case the recipient wants to respond.
It can certainly impact the message. It can, however unintentionally, add a tone to the content of the post above it. I can’t find a specific example because my sdmb search skills are poor, but the first time I noticed Steven his “Enjoy, Steven” appendage made his response to another poster sing with venomous sarcasm that seemed a totally over-the-top reaction in the context of the thread.
Further discussion demonstrated I took that post wrong – that he wasn’t being venomous and saying something to the effect of “suck on this” – but it sure made him seem like an asshole to me right from the get-go. I’m accustomed to seeing it now, but I still remember that everytime I see it and have to read some of his posts over again just to make sure I’m not injecting a tone that isn’t there.
Sorry, Steven. Just sayin’.
But it is here that your standard is inconsistent. “Reminding you of the author” and “making the lecture of the signature easier” is a distinction without a difference. The author (of record, anyway) and the signer are one and the same. I presume you’re reading your letters from top to bottom. If so, you already know who sent you the letter and to whom the smudged signature at the bottom belongs. The point is not that the last name isn’t intended to confirm the signature. It’s that it’s completely unnecessary.
Same as a post signature. If I’m reading quickly through a thread to catch up, I very often get to the end of a post that is interesting or provocative and the name didn’t register. If the post isn’t signed, I have to look back up, and if it’s a very long post (or if I happened to scroll the name off the screen already), I have to scroll back. But even if you don’t have to scroll, that’s completely analogous to a letter, where I need only raise my eyes to the top of the page.
In both instances, the last name serves a very minor purpose, one that avoids only the most trivial of effort. And in both instances, the elimination of the final name would not create any confusion or lose any real functionality that could not be found elsewhere in the same message. But one offends your sensibilities, and the other does not. Go figure.
Nearly right.
Moron
Shodan
Yes, the cite is saying this convention may be skipped in the case of the letterhead.
Doesn’t the company letterhead have the address/phone? Unless the contact information is different than what’s in the letterhead, there really is no reason to include and what I’m saying is that the convention you’re referring to is often omitted in the business world, as indicated by your cite.
Well, I learned to type on a typewriter in school and while there are many similarities to composing on a keyboard, some old typing conventions have been abandoned, such as double-spacing between sentences. Isn’t it wonderful that even convention changes over time?
It does seem as though you arguing over an exception to the general rule (or an out-dated convention) which would be hypocritical given that you have suggested that Sr Sieste is grasping at straws.
The simple fact is that message boards are nothing like formal business letters, so I’m not even sure why this is paraded about as an example of why it’s okay to sign your posts. Am I missing some obscure logic?
If you are going to be so pedantic as to insist that this hypothetical business letter has an author address block at the top of the letter in addition to a signature block at the bottom of the letter, the purposes for each, thusly:
[ul]
[li]The author address block identifies the author of the letter and provides contact information specific to that author. Alternately, the contact information may be provided as part of the signature block or omitted entirely in the case of letterhead.[/li][li]The signature block validates the letter as being authored by the signatory (which the address block cannot do). The typed name below the signature serves as a placeholder and identifier for the handwritten signature, which may very well be illegible. It basically says, “the scribble above this line says this”.[/li][/ul]
Does that help?
comparing a message board to a letter is silly, message boards are not formal in any sense. a reminder for who made the post? are you serious? if you are making posts that are so long people need to scroll back up to catch your name then you are making posts so long that many replies will read “tldnr”
You’re a Dumas
Whats a Dumas?
It’s French for Dumbass Dumbass
Crit
If this seems pedantic to you, why are you joining in? I find it a mildly amusing diversion, and Sr Siete seems to be playing along. My point was not to sing the praises of standard business letter formats, but to clarify a point he made that seemed a non sequitur. I come from a long line of endless and trivial debaters. Dinner time was a real laugh in my house when we were kids, since no one was ever, ever wrong. You think it’s pedantic? Ignore it, would be my advice. That’s what my mom did (my dad screamed at us to shut up).
And I do not at all concede that I’m grasping at some dying protocol. There are standard business letter formats, you can look 'em up yourself. But sender info in the header is not some crazy notion. Nothing hypothetical about what I’m describing. If you’d prefer, I’ll call this a “commonly accepted business format.” Feel free to maintain the affection you seem to have for your own protocols.
And your bullets do not clarify Sr Siete’s point, so I’d respond as I did to him. The point is that each section of the letter may have its own noble objectives, but that does not–sorry, it just doesn’t!–mean that there is any real need to repeat the name. It’s there at the top of the page, just as it is at the top of the post.
My point to Sr Siete is not that there’s anything wrong with objecting to its use in a post as a matter of taste or aesthetics–that’s completely subjective, of course. But if your argument is that there’s no need for it, no strong need, then you should feel the same way about business letters prepared in the “commonly accepted business format” I describe. If you do, good on ya for your consistency. If you don’t, then your objection is probably founded on something else, whether you thought so or not. One more volley of “But the second time it’s repeated on the same @#$%ing page it’s for a different reason!” without recognizing how this is analogous to Sr S’s objection to sigs in posts will tell me that this point is simply impossible to communicate. Because it seems self-evident, for Pete’s sake.
I don’t recall who made this point, but notice how posters react when things are badly spelled, or use L33tspeak, or are not broken up into paragraphs. Much more like a letter - not at all like a conversation.
I don’t want to.
That’s basically it.
Plus, in common with you, most posters don’t really care. There have been a couple or three threads about the subject, and consensus seems to be that those who get their panties in a bunch over it are people who need to get over themselves. Those who object tend also to be those who object to everything I post. This is just another excuse. I have developed a thick skin for those kinds of complaints, as mentioned.
Plus, don’t you find it a trifle ironic - a board which will snow you under with lectures about being tolerant of different points of view when people post about sado-masochism or wife-swapping is the same board that fills up five pages with variations on “but I don’t liiiiiike it!” when I add a two line sign off.
Regards,
Shodan