VIN Signatures

["Gus Schlachter" <gus@xxxx>]

The use of the VIN in the signature apparently became common practice only
recently, and was evolutionary, not revolutionary.

The first occurrence of the VIN in the signature was in Digest #3 in August
of 1995:
"Marv Sterling vin #16000"

But this was not Marv's autosignature and he didn't use it on every post.
Most autosigs were tagged with email addresses, quotes, or URLs. Some, like
Knut, included their DOA chapter number. Other people just signed names (or
not at all), and the other end of the spectrum were signatures larger than
the message itself, decorated with ASCII art and containing more personal
information than I find in most resumes. (These were discouraged for
digest-readability purposes.)

On 1/22/96, "hansolo@xxxx" asked about vanity license plates, and the
resulting thread had a few people signing off with their vanity plates, such
as "Michael Pack
BK2FUTR" on 2/1/96. Two weeks later, "redrover@xxxx" with no vanity
plate apparently felt left out and signed with both his VIN and his DOA
chapter. But there are no further VIN signatures until June 1996 (and it's
Marv Sterling again).

There is about one instance per digest of VIN signatures in August 1996 from
3 or 4 different people. As of two years ago (May 1998) it was much more
common, and one year ago, most all regular posters included the VIN.

I remember there being a discussion about the proper way to display your VIN
(4 vs. 5 digits, etc) but I got tired of sifting through the archives before
I found it. Still, those archives are quite dandy!


Gus Schlachter
Austin, TX
VIN# 4695
No Vanity Plate
No DOA Chapter
No ASCII Art
No kidding!


> -----Original Message-----
> From: iznodmad@xxxx [mailto:iznodmad@xxxx]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 9:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [DML] Stainless Steel Letters.
>
>
> I would just like to comment on the significance of signing with
> the VIN. I suppose it was just one of those things that happened
> when the list was first generated by James Espey. I joined the
> list in August of 1996 and at that time people were signing with
> their VIN...