On 1/31/21 9:20 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
Richard Damon writes:
On 1/30/21 9:40 PM, Sam Kuper wrote:
All I am advocating is that:
- Footer separators should be distinguishable from likely body text, and should not be excessively long.
The problem is that the current Footer separator fails point 2 if 'likely' is interpreted as to by likely enough for a program to algorithmically trim a post based on it. In particular it looks like markdown code.
Really? I can't recall ever seeing a long line of underscores in the wild -- except in my (accidentally) rms-baiting .sig (see below).
It is one of the 'Markdown' codes for a horizontal rule (in fact, I would say it was used as the footer separator based on similar principles), and also not unheard of in 'ASCII Art' type applications. I will occasionally end up with a line like that when documenting an electrical signal that is always low (at least for a given example).
The 'two dashes' for a signature separator would have some similar issues, which is why the signature separator includes the space after. While it would be possible to define a footer separator as a string (of specified length) of underscores followed by a single space and then a new line, that would make the definition not match the existing practice, so list settings would need to be edited. Also, the question comes does the separator require and exact number of underscores (and the frustrations of having the wrong number) or just a course range, and the increased chance of false positives.
-- Richard Damon