Subject: The 4-line limit to E-mail Signature Blocks and Accessibility

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2011 14:48:11 +0200

Hi all,

The so-called "McQuary limit" for signatures says this:

http://www.answers.com/topic/mcquary-limit-computer-jargon

<quote>
[from the name of the founder of alt.fan.warlord; see warlording.] 4 lines of 
at most 80 characters each, sometimes still cited on Usenet as the maximum 
acceptable size of a sig block. Before the great bandwidth explosion of the 
early 1990s, long sigs actually cost people running Usenet servers significant 
amounts of money. Nowadays social pressure against long sigs is intended to 
avoid waste of human attention rather than machine bandwidth. Accordingly, the 
McQuary limit should be considered a rule of thumb rather than a hard limit; 
it's best to avoid sigs that are large, repetitive, and distracting. See also 
warlording. 
</quote>

Now some people have taken the rule to its letter and put signatures only 
under 4 lines. For example a typical signature (now quite old) by our Nadav 
is:

<qoute>
Nadav Har'El                        |         Monday, Sep 6 2004, 20 Elul 5764
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |May you live as long as you want - and
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |never want as long as you live.
</quote>

I've been thinking that maybe such two-column and ASCII-art-bases signature is 
not very accessible to people using screen-readers and/or Braille-devices 
(e.g: people who are blind or otherwise sight-disabled.) and possibly has 
other accessibility issues. And I've seen much worse signatures in the olden 
days of Usenet.

Now, the format of my signature block is:

<block>
[Name]    [Homepage URL]
[Self-interetst resource that may be of Interest one line - now randomised ]
[Empty Line]
[Amusing quote - usually by myself or a friend - now also randomised.]
[Empty Line]
Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .
</block>

I think this is the most accessible solution, and the signature is still not 
very long. I originally had the contact-me URL there as well, but figured out 
that people can always find it on my home site.

Omer (Zak), as our resident accessibility expert, what are your views on this?

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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---

From: Omer Zak <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Mar 2011 04:40:30 +0200

On Fri, 2011-03-04 at 14:48 +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> (e.g: people who are blind or otherwise sight-disabled.)

[... snipped ...]

> Omer (Zak), as our resident accessibility expert, what are your views on this?

On the face of it, your suggestion makes sense.  The drawback is that it
somewhat limits people's ability to express themselves artistically
(this is one of the excuses used by movie makers to avoid putting
captions in their movies - "visual clutter").

I think that people who read Braille can deal with .sigs (except for the
ASCII art part, which needs more "global view").

I suggest that you ask people with visual impairment for their
experiences with .sigs, and if they don't already have workarounds for
grokking .sigs.

--- Omer

-- 
In civilized societies, captions are as important in movies as
soundtracks, professional photography and expert editing.
My own blog is at http://www.zak.co.il/tddpirate/

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They do not represent the official policy of any organization with which
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---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2011 08:12:40 +0200

Hi Omer,

On Saturday 05 Mar 2011 04:40:30 Omer Zak wrote:
> > I've been thinking that maybe such two-column and ASCII-art-bases
> > signature is not very accessible to people using screen-readers and/or
> > Braille-devices (e.g: people who are blind or otherwise sight-disabled.)
> 
> [... snipped ...]
> 

Ah. :-(.

> experiences with .sigs, and if they don't already have workarounds for

OK, I'll see if I can do that. Ori told me there's a mailing list for blind 
(or otherwise visually disabled) Linux users (over at RedHat IIRC), but had a 
problem that they are asking many questions there that are mundane technical 
problems they run into with Linux. I'll see what I can do, though.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
"The Human Hacking Field Guide" - http://shlom.in/hhfg