I got an email the other day that was 7 words long. Nothing too unusual in that. I scanned down to see who it was from and noted the sig file seemed to go on a bit. It was 323 words long and ran over 30 plus lines! I couldn’t tell you what it said I was losing the will to live after the 8th line.
So what’s the optimum length for a sig file? Apparently there is a internet standard for sig files. This was set down by a chap called McQuary who stated a sig file should be:
- no longer than 4 lines
- preceded by —
Of course nowadays people include lots of "legal" (butt covering) disclaimers in their sig’s. Stuff about the views contained in this email are my own and not my employer’s and if you get a virus from this email don’t blame us. For those interested in silly disclaimers visit http://goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/. However, I don’t want anyone suing me if they remove their disclaimers after reading this, so here’s a site in favour of them http://www.emaildisclaimers.com/.
Perhaps everyone ought to add an "email disclaimer" page onto their web site and just point at it. Bostock and Pollitt (has to be a law firm with a name like that) have one on their site: http://www.bostockandpollitt.com/email.html
If you are interested, my signature file is six lines long. I’m just about to add the –. That, at least, should please Mr McQuary!
