Internet signatures in mail and news should begin with the character sequence
DASH DASH SPACE EOL
For example
--
James Hacker <jrh@ge.com>,
Electron Polisher, General Eclectic Corporation
Context:
The signature is part of the message, but also less important than the content itself. It's often the same from one message to another, and deeply-nested messages look ugly when repeated signatures are redundantly quoted.
The solution must work in plain text, and feel natural to people new to email.
Solution:
Mark the start of the signature as described above, and follow with whatever you like within the SixLineSigLimit.
Resulting Context:
Smart user agents (e.g. mutt) can do nice things such as showing signatures in a different color, and more importantly truncating them when replying.
The solution is so small and discreet that many people don't realize there is a convention here at all.
References:
RequestForComments 1855 (http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html)