No. For me it's an artifact from an online community called The Well which didn't allow for blank subject lines or posts. When sad news happened, we'd just put a . as an acknowledgement of hearing the news. I always thought it echoed the tradition of leaving tones at graves and I've kept it in use.
Ah. It's the mark people use in obituary threads on Metafilter as well. Seemingly no one can quite trace it on Metafilter (http://mssv.net/wiki/index.php/Dot), but it may have come from the Well in some roundabout way (except doesn't get standardised on Metafilter until sometime in 2001 or 2002).
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-06 01:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-06 02:28 pm (UTC)