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Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2025: Week 8
A .sig (short for "signature block") is a personalized block of text set to be automatically added at the bottom of a fan's email messages, Usenet articles, or forum posts.
A .sig can contain the fan's name, their fannish affiliations, political and personal statements, in-jokes and shout-outs, keeper duties, and quotes.
In 1993, the president of SEFEB suggested: "What say we all just put it in our .sigs so we can identify ourselves?" <
.sigs sometimes included ASCII art, something that could lead to discord, as modems and dial-ups meant that space and time was money, and plumping one's messages with lengthy .sigs was poor etiquette. From rec.arts.drwho in the late 1980s: "Trim your sig. file."
.sigs were also a place to promote fan's own websites and other fanworks.