[Pan-users] Re: Turning off warning about long signature

[Duncan]

Jim Henderson posted <address@hidden>,
excerpted below,  on Tue, 01 Feb 2005 21:06:17 -0700:

> What I would do (and used to do) is put the FAQ information on a web page
> and then link to it from my signature; it doesn't get the same exposure,
> true, but it does get the message to the end user without hitting them
> with a signature that's longer than the message (not yours, but another of
> our colleague's signature does that quite frequently). :-)

Actually, I do something similar, with my regular news groups (not the
ones like this that are list2news gatewayed from gmane).  On regular
newsgroups, I follow the usual practice of munging my address, for
protection against spam and the like.  It's a real address, but munged. 
In addition, my top priority mail filter is an anti-HTML filter, for both
security and anti-spam reasons, and with the newsgroup posted address
specifically, I do specific keyword filtering on the subject line.  I want
folks to be able to get ahold of me if the need to, but I both want to
discourage unnecessary personal replies, and keep away any spam.

Obviously, with this sort of scheme, if I were to put all the instructions
in my sig, that's all that would fit.  I like having space for a real sig
quote as well as the instructions, but I didn't want to break the 4-line
limit.  However, custom headers are not only allowed, but encouraged and
automated by PAN.  Thus my solution:

The top line of my normal newsgroup sig looks like this (the rest being
the usual Franklin quote I use in this list/group as well):

Duncan - Newsgroup replies preferred.  See x-munging headers.

Thus, for replies, it refers to my custom headers, which are as follows
(the munged address is address@hidden):

x-munging1: Usenet replies preferred,  If replying by mail,
x-munging2: do ALL the following to avoid the spam traps:
x-munging3: 1) Use plain text.  HTML format auto-trashed.
x-munging4: 2) Kill address reply2group and please phrases.
x-munging5: 3) Put " -news" at the END of the subject
x-munging6: (no quotes, space, dash, news, END)

For my purposes, that is perfect.  Ordinary personal replies are
discouraged, but instructions are there for those that need them.  All the
while, the direct munging, HTML filtering and -news subject keyword
filtering mean that I've had exactly ZERO spams or
viruses-from-harvested-address-books or other such undesirables get thru,
and even the hits on the filters are manageable because the address has
never been published unmunged, and doesn't exist in people's address books
unmunged either, unless they specifically put it there.

Obviously, such a strict policy won't work so well for a support person.
However, the above illustrates one way to avoid long-sig issues.  There
are others, including the previously mentioned URL pointer, which I'd
probably use instead of the custom headers method, if I wanted AOLer types
to be able to reach me, given the number of such that don't even dream
such custom headers exist, let alone have any idea how to view them.

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." --
Benjamin Franklin