Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!sequent!ccssrv!perry From: perry@ccssrv.UUCP (Perry Hutchison) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: Signature files Summary: Postings use more net resources than mail Message-ID: <557@ccssrv.UUCP> Date: 19 Aug 89 06:22:24 GMT References: <15069@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> Reply-To: perry@ccssrv.UUCP (Perry Hutchison) Organization: Control-C Software, Inc., Beaverton, OR Lines: 27 In article <15069@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> jarvis@northstar.dartmouth.edu (Mark (Ninjabutler) Robinson) writes: >Does this restriction [to 4-line signatures] apply to mail sent through >Internet and Usenet as well? I would imagine so, since the baud rates >are the same. Why, then, is there no restriction built into the mailing >system ... > >[Someone] suggested that I use my large signature file for private mailings, >and my small signature for public postings to News. Consider: A *posted article* gets distributed to thousands of sites, each of which stores it for some period of time. (How long varies among sites.) It also gets read by many thousands of people. The shorter it is, the less burden it imposes on all those communication links, disks, and minds. A mail message passes through only a few sites, is stored for very long only at its destination, and is read only by the recipient. The burden is immensely less. It is still advisable to minimize net traffic, lest we overburden the intermediate sites. It does cost them something to provide the infrastructure, and we ought not abuse their hospitality. -- if domain address doesn't work, this path should: ... tektronix!sequent!ccssrv!perry