User:Another n00b/Nerd42
A .sig, or signature block (often abbreviated as signature, sig block, sig file, dotsig, or just sig) is a block of text automatically appended at the bottom of an e-mail message, Usenet article, or BBS post. This has the effect of "signing off" the message and in a reply message of indicating that no more response follows. It is common practice for a signature block to consist of one or more lines containing some brief information on the author of the message. .
Information usually contained in a signature block includes the poster's name, phone number and email address, along with other contact details if required, such as a handle or alias, as well as computer specifications. A quotation is often included (occasionally automatically generated by such tools as fortune), or an ASCII art picture. Strict rules of capitalization are not followed. Among some groups of people it has been common to include self-classification codes, though the practice is waning.
On FidoNet
With FidoNet, echomail and netmail software would often add an origin line at the end of a message. This would indicate the FidoNet address and name of the originating system (not the user). The user posting the message would generally not have any control over the origin line. However, single-line taglines, added under user control, would often contain a humorous or witty saying. Multi-line user signature blocks were rare. However, a tearline standard for FidoNet was included in FTS-0004 and clarified in FSC-0068 as three dashes optionally followed by a space optionally followed by text.
.Sig as a Name
In late 2003, many Democrats starting naming their children DotSig as a homage to Al Gore. This trend was much like the trend in the 1960s for people to name their children after causes they believed in, as Cher and Sony Bono did with their child Chastity. This trend culminated with the movie "Finding Nemo", where one of the central characters was named Dot, a turn of events that greatly infuriated many Republicans. This even caused the Deans of many Conservative American colleges to ban the watching of any movies at all.