Not sure if you knew this or not, Shodan, Quasimodem, **Mean Mr. Mustard **and others, but the SDMB actually puts your username right there at the top of every single post you make! It’s awesome! It saves you from having to type a little signature at the end. It’s like its own little signature, really.
I get annoyed to an irrational degree every time I see this. Not nearly enough to put this in the Pit, but annoyed just the same. I know that I’ll never change the habits of the people that have been doing this for possibly thousands of posts (and I know this has been covered before, but I can’t find a thread like this. It’d probably be good and dead, anyway), but it’s mundane, utterly pointless, and something I needed to get off my chest. Thanks.
It’s a bit like emails. You know that your name and email address will display in most email readers, but you still sign it, “Regards, Giles”. (Or whatever your name is.)
Guess what? There’s also this brand new thing called a signature field! It’s absolutely fantastic. You can just type your signature in there once, and then the board will display it automatically at the bottom of your post every time! Best of all, users who don’t mind seeing signatures can keep this field visible, and those who are annoyed by them can turn if off! That way no one gets annoyed.
But nooo, you can’t put your signature into that, because that would make sense.
This is the thing that baffles me the most. We’ve already got a way to attach a “signature” to each post, and in a way which allows the reader to determine whether that signature adds to the noise level of the board or not… and yet some posters insist on circumventing that nice, clean system so that we are forced to read that they, in fact, posted that message.
I really don’t understand why the mods have never enforced using signatures instead of signing posts.
The inevitable result of every thread like this is that at least the second poster–probably the third and fourth too–will gratuitously insert a user sign-off. Whether it will still be amusing after all these years is another question.
We’re not writing letters. We’re having a conversation. I’m sorry, but if I was talking to someone and he had to sign off every sentence, I would punch him in the face.
-Joe, do you want coffee?
-Sure. Cheers, Joe.
-Want sugar in that?
-Just a hint of cream, please. Cheers, Joe. SMACK!