I was curious about where the "-- ' sig seperator was defined, so
knowing that the Panix.com userbase is quite knowledgeable on many
topics, I asked there.  Here is my query and response:

From: [log in to unmask] (Stephen Harris)
Newsgroups: panix.questions
Subject: Re: signature seperator
Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 17:39:17 -0400

Rich Greenberg <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Does anyone know where the "signature seperator" is defined.  I am
> referring to the line containing dash-dash-space-lineend which you can
> see below.  I would have expected to find it in RFC2821 or 2822 but
> don't see it there.

Son-of-1036

http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/usefor/other/son-of-1036

In section 4.3.2

  If  a  poster or posting agent does append a signature to an
  article, the signature SHOULD be preceded with  a  delimiter
  line  containing  (only)  two hyphens (ASCII 45) followed by
  one blank (ASCII  32).   Posting  agents  SHOULD  limit  the
  length  of  signatures,  since  verbose  excess bordering on
  abuse is common if no restraint is imposed;  4  lines  is  a
  common limit.

Did this ever make it to a true RFC?

--
Rgds,                                       Personal:
http://sweh.spuddy.org
Stephen
An Englishman in New York     Newsgroup search:
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Now available in New Jersey                  or
/usr/local/contrib/bin/snews


** end of quoted text. **


I looked at RFC1036 but didn't take enough time to locate a similar
section.  I have no idea if 1036 was superceeded.  son-of-1036 is from
1994.  RFC1036 is dated December 1987.

So now you know as much as I do on this topic.  :-)


--
Rgds,                                       Personal: http://sweh.spuddy.org
Stephen
An Englishman in New York     Newsgroup search: http://panix-news.spuddy.org
Now available in New Jersey                  or /usr/local/contrib/bin/snews



--
Rich Greenberg  N Ft Myers, FL, USA richgr atsign panix.com  + 1 239 543 1353
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